Speeding

I get speeding tickets not warnings.

August 1999. The summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school I coached a junior league water polo team. I was on my way to practice when I was pulled over for going 53 miles per hour in a 40 zone. I was in high school. I had no money. "Daddy, um, I got, um, a speeding ticket, um, this afternoon. I don't know what to do." He came to my rescue. "You need to take this check to the city then sign up for this traffic school so it doesn't go on your record and so it doesn't make my insurance payment go up." I did just that.

July 2000. The summer between my junior and senior years in high school I was on my way to my mother's place of employment. I was pulled over for going 48 in a 35. Same drill, asked Daddy for money and went to traffic school.

September 2003. I was pulled over for going 55 in a 40. Sent the money in, signed up for traffic school but didn't attend. This is acutally a violation of a court order called a Plea in Abayance which, as I found out about two years later, results in a bench warrent for my arrest...post to come.

May 2005. I was going down to the Dunes to give a gift to my First Sergeant. I was pulled over for going 83 in a 65. Payed the ticket and went to traffic school...in Lehi.

August 2007. I was going home. In an annoyed state because of Utah drivers I reached speeds upto and including 95 miles per hour. I see the Utah Highway Partol car and slow down. To no avail the flashing red and blue lights make their way over. License, insurance and registration are handed to the nice officer and she asked me why I was pulled over. "I was speeding," came my quick reply because it's never anything else. "Yes," she said. "I'll be right back. Which one of these addresses is home, I have three here." I tell her my address and she walks away. My license was issued when I was living with my mom. My registration for some ungodly reason goes to my father's address and my insurance goes to my address. We've tried squaring the state away on the registration but they won't listen. Stairway to Heaven is playing on the radio during the duration of her background search on me. She makes her way back to my car and gives me my information back and says, "I'm going to give you a warning. Please slow it down so you're not passing cars so it looks like they are standing still."

I was elated! A warning. I've never received a warning for speeding. Probably because she didn't have a good radar on me. I was going 95 at one point and she only wrote it for 80 in a 65. Maybe I skirted the system. It's nice just to get a warning because rent needs to come out of this check.

The Ten-Year Plan

The last week of May marked the first time in my post-Afghanistan life I had direction. When something flattens you like a piano falling from the 18th floor of an apartment building, you listen. I was sitting at work doing my normal team assistant/secretary thing that I have grown to be very good at and, in turn, to be very bored with. I turned to talk to my co-worker and the baby grand came out of nowhere. I needed to go back to school. Okay...now? Now's as good a time as any.

What should I study? The golden question. A trip to Washington D.C. confirmed the fate that I would never be a Senator or a Congressperson or President or a Supreme Court Justice. Watching my sister and my mother struggle in the public school system with absolutely no support from the State Legislature didn't blow my skirt up. Manual labor or trades in mechanics was completely out the window. A professional personal or adminstrative assistant would become dull.

I was a student at the University of Utah after basic training when I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I fell into the social aspect of college rather than the full-time student. I played pool rather than read my Political Science book. I flirted rather than wrote the paper that was due the next day. Thankfully I did well enough in my science, math and writing courses to transfer 23 hours to Salt Lake Community College. It just so happens that those 23 hours became the hours I needed to fulfill most of my general education requirements. It really couldn't have turned out more perfect.

The piano hit me again. This one was an upright. I always wondered why I came home from Afghanistan having nightmares and never wanting to sleep. I would be up until two, three, four sometimes five in the morning. After proper therapy I was able to sleep again but it got me thinking. Why did I go half way around the world, see no combat, sing songs, smile a lot, run paperwork and come back with alcoholism and an acute case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? That's it, Allison. That's what you need to do. What happens inside a person's mind that makes that happen?

I've always been fascinated with how things work. I learned how a car worked. When I was 12 I took apart a VCR, a rotery telephone and a hair drier to see the gears and the boards. What could be more exciting to study than the human mind? What could me more fulfilling than watching and helping someone become a functional member of society? I want to help people do that. Psychiatry.

Now what? I know what I want to do. How do I get there? The only to get there: Associate's Degree in Psychology, Bachelor's Degree in Biology, medical school, Psychiatry residency, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship while doing volunteer work at the Department of Veteran's Affairs and extensive study in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder.

This usually brings up the question: Will you be my shrink?

We'll see.