Legal advice for a traffic ticket! please help me! I know this is long, but I desperately need help!!?

In December of 2008 I received a ticket for running a stop sign near the University of Southern California, where I attend school. I stopped at the sign and was thus extremely confused as to why the cop wrote me a ticket. When I was driving away I realized what had happened- the car in the turning lane next to me, which stopped at the same time I did, pulled out in front of me instead of turning like he was supposed to- at the time I was just annoyed and honked, but then i realized it had made it seem like I ran the stop sign. Additionally, I don’t own a car and was actually just moving my friend’s car down the block, and didn’t have my license on me- the cop told me I could go to court instead of paying and show them my valid license and that charge would be dropped- so, I decided I wanted to contest the ticket in court as I had not actually run the stop-sign, and didn’t want the additional fine for not having my license. Unfortunately, I lost the ticket, and went home to florida for winter break a couple days later. My court date turned out to be while I was gone, and I eventually received a failure to appear/warrant for arrest, etc. I was able to reschedule another court date, which I attended yesterday. (arraignment hearing actually) Because I now had the failure to appear, I could not plead “not guilty” to running the stop sign- I had to plead one answer for the charge of failure to appear, running the stop-sign, and not having a valid license, so I had to please guilty. However I showed the judge my Florida license expecting to get that charge dropped, and he said because I listed a California address (my school address) I needed to have a valid CA license and my Florida was not acceptable (despite the fact that I do not own a car and do not have CA registration or anything like that) So, I received a 100$ fine for running the stop-sign, a 100$ fine for my license, and a 35$ fine for Failure to appear. I guess because the failure to appear is initially misdemeanor (which they drop to an infraction in court?) or whatever, they increase your fine by 236% when you get to the cashier (they explained it all before but i can’t remember exactly why they do this)- thus, i was ordered to pay 900 and something dollars. Being a college student I have nowhere near this kind of money and asked for comm service, but then found out I now have 117 hours to do in about 2 months. This is simply not a possibility for me- i am currently in summer school, have a part time job, and will begin my fall classes in a couple weeks. Does anyone know if there is ANYTHING I can possibly do at this point to either get the fine reduced to a reasonable amount that I could afford to pay, or an amount of hours that I might be able to do? Am I able to write an appeal, or is it too late? Any advice would help me, I am a communications and film major and am not familiar with the legal system at all! Anything would help! thank you!