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It’s hard for me to imagine that just three years ago, I was worrying about driving. My biggest concern at the time was killing innocent pedestrians. I remember thinking, CARS ARE SO FAST! I’m going to kill someone! That’s it: I’m not going to go past 30. Ever.

Then I got a speeding ticket in December of 2003. It was six months exactly since I’d gotten my license. (Had I gotten the ticket any sooner, I could’ve had my license suspended.) I was doing 50 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. I checked the box that said “Guilty” on the back of my ticket and mailed in a check for $140 (= $90 fine + $50 surcharge). Later, I found out that I probably could’ve fought the ticket since it was my first offense ever. Oh, well, I figured. What’s done is done. I can’t retroactively plead “Not Guilty” now.

It’s been two years since that incident. Today… was the second incident.

Speeding Ticket
Thursday, March 23, 2006

I’ve always loved driving home from school on Thursdays. The highways are always deserted: it’s 11:30 AM and no one’s out on the roads. It gives me the chance to go over 60 MPH… and arrive home within 30-45 minutes of leaving school. I think that’s about to change, though. I was clocked doing 77 MPH in a 50 MPH area. When the officer handed back my license and registration (with an added yellow ticket), he said, “I’ve only got you down for going 77 MPH by the Victory Boulevard exit. You were also tailgating back there… and going well past 80 just now. If I’d recorded you going over 80 MPH, the fee would be higher and you’d have to appear in court.” (Why do police officers feel the need to act as if they’re doing you a favor?)

Consequently, 6 demerit points were added to my record. (The first ticket, since I was exactly 20 miles over the limit, cost me 4 points. This time, since I’m in the 21-30 MPH over zone, it’s up to 6 points.) Luckily, I’m not listed under my parents’ insurance so their premium doesn’t increase. However, I’m going to be in quite the sticky situation when I try to open up my own policy.

…Ironically enough, I just received this email:

New York Police Department invites you to apply for the following position. They found your resume on eRecruiting and think your qualifications may be a good match.

Employer Name: New York Police Department
Job Title: Police Officers

Learn more about this position:
…

Ever since that fateful day in August, Alex has been in and out of court. The first time he went, the felony charge was dropped. (After all, you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Only I fail to see how asking a security guard if bombs are OK is in any way similar to that.)

From Alex’s blog on December 3, 2005:

In court, the prosecutor dropped the felony charge and offered 10 days of community service for the misdemeanors. Lawyer “respectfully denied the offer” with intentions to keep my record clean. I have court again on February 8th.

The second time he was in court, he ended up waiting three hours for his lawyer to show up o_O However, when he finally got there, he told Alex that “the misdemeanors were now just disorderly conduct (violation, not a crime), which means that [Alex's] record stays clean, no matter what.” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. When my sister’s boyfriend (who was arrested, too, but for a very different reason) was charged with “disorderly conduct,” all he had to do was pay a fine. We were all hoping that Alex would be faced with a similar offer. The ideal situation, of course, would be to come off clean and not do anything… but that wasn’t realistic.

A couple of weeks ago, my house phone rang. I found this to be odd because that phone hardly rings anymore (not since we all got cellphones) but decided to pick it up anyway:

Guy: “Hello. May I speak with [struggling with pronunciation] Alevtina V————?”
Me: “That would be me.”
Guy: “Hi. My name is [didn't catch his name] and I’m calling from the District Attorney’s office.”
Me: “…”
Guy: “Several months ago, you were witness to some guy yelling ‘BOMB!’ in a museum?”
Me: [cringes] “That’s not what happened… but yes.”
Guy: “No, okay! That’s why I’m calling. I want you to tell me what happened.”

So I told him o_O When I hung up the phone, I realized that perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything. After all, the DA was the enemy: he’s the one trying to punish Alex for something so ridiculous. It was not until Thursday that I found out why the DA’s office needed my side of the story.

Alex’s third and, hopefully, final court appearance was this past Thursday. His lawyer informed him that, while all the charges were dropped and his record is clean, Alex is faced with 10 days of community service. (The actual name for this is Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal.) He told Alex that the DA wouldn’t settle for anything else. That’s why I was called that time: the DA was trying to figure out what kind of punishment to dole out. The lawyer also told Alex that he’s had clients who were students at NYU who had to do 20 days of community service for just misdemeanors — so doing 10 days for a felony was really a good deal.

Tompkins Square Park
New York, NY

So, now, Alex has to find his way to Tompkins Square Park every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday until April 9th. He’s to work there from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. Needless to say, Alex is bummed. First of all, he feels he should not be punished. His belief is that he didn’t do anything wrong — after all, all of his charges were dropped — so why is he being punished? Secondly, he lives on Staten Island and must find his way to Manhattan three days a week before 8 AM. That means he has to be out of the house by 6 AM. He asked if he could do service on Staten Island and was informed that, since the crime was committed in Manhattan, he has to work off the hours in Manhttan. And, lastly, they took all of his free days for the next four weeks. This leaves him with little time for anything besides school.

A week later and, finally, I am finished with my first assignment in my C/C++ programming class. So, now, it’s 3½ weeks late being handed in. However, I am not sure how the professor treats tardiness with handing in homeworks: there’s nothing written about it in the syllabus. All I know is that the second assignment (which was due this past Thursday) relies on your having done the first assignment… so he told the class to make sure they’ve completed homework #1, not to stop working on it if it’s late.

I did, indeed, speak with him last week. However, it wasn’t on Monday after class. I didn’t attend any of my classes on Monday. Why? Because the previous night, I had an adverse reaction to a medicine I was taking (Septra) for my UTI which left me weak and shaking. (In fact, I had almost fainted.) When I woke up Monday morning, I was still feeling nauseous and the pain related to my UTI had not subsided. So I stayed home. I was able to get the notes from my programming class from a fellow classmate, found the notes for my music class on the course’s Blackboard site, and read the chapter we’re covering in Computer Organization (since the professor teaches right out of the textbook).

Anyway. I ended up meeting with my C/C++ professor after class on Thursday. At first, it was a group session. He asked the four students about the course: were they finding it okay, how was the first assignment, what their experience with programming has been, what kinds of jobs they had, etc. Then, when the other three girls left and I was left alone with him, I whipped out my incorrect code and asked him to look at it. The first thing he asked me if I had the program with me on a disk. I eagerly reached into my pocket and removed my flash drive.

…My enthusiasm quickly faded when I realized that his machine was so outdated it couldn’t recognize my USB 2.0 flash drive. So he ended up looking through the hard copy of my code and was able to quickly point out a flaw in my logic.

Logic has always been a weak spot for me. If you’ve ever seen my C code in its preliminary stages, you know exactly what I’m talking about: nothing makes sense. I have to repeatedly edit and revise the program before it finally does what’s expected of it. It doesn’t usually take me five weeks to write a single program… but that’s how it worked out this time. I blame it on the fact that I hadn’t touched C in over 7 months before taking on this assignment.

Now I’m working on the protocol for my Existentialism class. I have to review Wednesday’s notes on [a section of] Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit,” type up a one-page summary, and read it to the class on Monday afternoon. Oh, how I dread public speaking…