Reflection - Admay style!

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've posted how I've been doing. It's been a little less than a month that I've been working in the Family and Social Services Admin. and I realized I should probably evaluate my experience, and see how I'm enjoying it and see what I've made of the experience so far. For those of you who don't know what (nope, it's who, haha) an Admay is, Catherine Admay is a professor of International Law and Global Health at Duke. She has been an awesome prof., probably my favorite so far. She cares about teaching us so much, it's awesome. She's really cool too. For the last like 10 years, she taught classes blind and just regained her vision this past year. Talk about an amazing feat. She's really strong and awesome and I can't think of enough amazing things to say about her!

So, all the posts I've made have probably made my experience sound really awesome and it is. But I also realized that I usually post something when I have something really big or cool to say. A lot of the other days, I attend meetings, learn cool information, and do some busy work. I assume there's some busy work in all jobs, so it's not too big of a deal. And usually when I'm doing busy work, I end up meeting new people who have different and interesting stories to tell, so I don't usually mind it too much. Also, especially on one week when Shawna was out, I spent a lot of time just reading a book (Freakonomics, which is btw an awesome book!) because there wasn't much for me to do.

Today, though, was a really intense day. It felt more and more like what you would see on TV or how you might imagine President Obama and his team passed the health care law last year. There was boisterous and harsh diatribe going back and forth between different parties. We (the Policy Team) feel like the Business meetings are moving too fast and we're not sure that we're getting as much out of our Business team (who's on contract) as we could or should be. They're doing a good job, but we're just not ready for them to be moving that fast. I can't wait till we start having meetings with the stakeholders, like the insurance companies (carriers), and businesses, and providers... because all of them are bound to be upset about something in our version of the Exchange or another. It should be quite interesting.

So today was a great day. But overall, I have gotten what I wanted to out of this internship. The internship was supposed to clarify and narrow down what I want do with my next three years at Duke and my life beyond that. I came in believing I'd love what I was going to do, but it wasn't all I expected it to be, which is fine. It has been a great learning experience so far because it crossed something (being a policy expert?) off my list. Why don't I like it? First of all, I HATE working in a cubicle. I feel SO constrained... and there's no one to talk to. I always feel like I'm intruding when I talk to people. Problem number one. Second problem is that nothing gets done in the short term. I like to see results and right now, there are no day-to-day results, only long-term results, which are hard to visualize. It's not that it's a bad job or would be a bad career; it's just not the right choice for me.

So, I need constant personal contact, can't work in a cubicle for sure, and I like to see results right away. I learned something and I'm really happy about it. Also, knowing that I can't do what I'm doing right now for the rest of my life is going to make my next month even more exciting. Wait a minute. Is that right? Yup. Because I'm thinking that I'm not going to be doing this sort of thing again, I want to enjoy my last month as much as can. Obviously, I'm going to keep an open mind about it, as I'm still less than half way through my summer, but that's what I've learned so far.

What's on my plate for the rest of the summer? A lot of meetings about how the Exchange will be set up. Today, I sat through a financial meeting about how and where certain costs will be allocated and I was totally lost. It was a really boring meeting for me just cause I didn't have any idea what was going on. So tonight I read a little bit about premium aggregation and cost-sharing subsidies and other interesting health care info. Hopefully, it'll help me understand things a bit better.

Also, Shawna set up a few meetings with other people in Government offices. I'm going to be meeting with an Actuary in a week or so. Actuaries do all the math and calculate how much everything will cost all parties involved. It sounds really interesting, but also sounds like WAY too much math. Another person I know I'm going to be talking to is a guy who went to med school, dropped out, became the State Director Of Medicaid in Indiana and just recently started his own business in the State. I'm not sure, but I think somewhere in there, he went back and finished med school. He seems like he's had an awesome experience and I'm really looking forward to talking with him.

Also, have you noticed how mean people seem to be getting? I've noticed a large number of people that seem to flick me off on my drive from Chicago to Indy and back. It's quite surprising since I'm actually a good driver I think. Between Friday's drive back to Chicago and Sunday's drive back to Indy, I was flicked off four times. I try to think of it as people are just really mean. Idk if I should start checking my driving or what. Also, the first time I saw it on Friday, I originally thought the guy was waving and waved back excitedly, which was just a little bit awkward.

See ya guys!