Rat Kidneys, Science, and the Promethean

I recently finished a semester at our local community college where I took prerequisites for their nursing program. I was 33 taking 13 hours of classes in this bastion of hopium, wishful thinking, and just plan reality distorting dysplagia that is American higher education...or whatever the hell it's called these days. My classes were Anatomy and Physiology 2, Medical Terminology, Probability and Statistics, and Compter Science 101, and each class had it's own brand of incompetence, egomegaly superhero professors, and creative academic bullshit as required reading. I'll be taking you on a quick tour of what economically accessible higher education looks like in America in 2013 in the following expose.

I'll start with CPT 101 (computer science) since it represented the absolute pinnacle of what a pointless waste of brain cells college has become. The first class our instructor told us that she was only going to be our instructor for a couple of classes. Apparently she was going to be teaching at the community college in the next town and couldn't be bothered with us. The first three classes involved a pre-digital literacy test followed by me spending time online at the doomsteaddiner due to the fact that there was nothing for me to pay attention to. When our next instructor arrived it got interesting. She had the worse case of ADD I've ever seen, and we got to be subjected to it on the overhead whenever she could be bothered with actually showing up to class. 10 minutes late was early for this magnificent specimen of a 21st century college professor. A month goes by and there hasn't been so much as one powerpoint presentation about what the internet is, or what a computer is, or what Microsoft is...nothing. Just more doomsteaddiner surfing.

One day, the entire class and I were still sitting on the floor in the hall, 15 minutes after class had started, with no instructor. Usually this wasn't a problem because we'd all just go in the room and get online to do what we no doubt would all probably be doing anyways if we were at home...only not getting college credit for it, except this day the class room door was locked. At any rate, I decided, all at once, that I didn't go to war and drop bombs on Afghanistan so that I could sit on the floor in a hallway waiting on some incompetent twit to get her drunk ass out of bed to come spread her ADD around in an academic setting. I got up, walked to the next classroom, opened the door, and grabbed a random professor by the neck and said "hey bub, how bout opening our classroom door so that we can get up off the damn hallway floor?" That set a chain of events in motion that I was sure would get the ball rolling in our classroom. The head of the department ended up in our classroom that day. Our instructor rolled in 20 minutes late and then disappeared with the head of the department. The next class...there our Miss Incompetent was, on time and in class ready to spread her ADD around on the overhead in the name of computer science. I was thrilled that the head of the department apparently found it reasonable to put her back into position as the professor seeing as how she had taught nothing and been on time once all semester.

She was on time for the next two classes before she got back to her usual ways. One day, 18 minutes after class had started, still instructorless, I decided to check my school email. That's when I noticed that she had just sent us an email stating that she was still in court and class had been canceled for the day. WTF I thought to myself. A couple of weeks later and she decides to assign us a project for Microsoft Access after we had already taken the Access chapter exam (having not been taught anything about it in class mind you). I got pissed off about the fact, as did others, and we began making a general consensus ruckus about what an outrage it all was. This resulted in the head of the department getting involved again.

This time she decided to shit can Miss Incompetent. We had three classes left of the semester at this point. Our replacement professor, and apparently second in command of the department, took over at this point. The first class was a powerpoint presentation on how awesome her 21 year old son was. He was a black homosexual who had moved from the Upstate of SC to Hollywood where he was pursuing a career as an actor. We got to see his facebook page and a bunch of head shots of him. Apparently he is a great and sweet man who bagged a roll as the local retard who throws rocks at Van Diesel who's babysitting the neighbors kids or some stupid shit. He got about a minute on screen and shouted some retard slogan. Captain second in command of the computer department assured us that her son was destined for great things on the silver screen and then dismissed us from class. This was the best the school could cough up for the last couple of classes.

Next I'll cover the only online class I took, Medical Terminology. This was the only class that I took that wasn't a requirement. Of course, I was taking it because I was told by my guidance counselor that it was a mandatory prereq. As an aside, my overly competent guidance counselor had a degree in business administration. Apparently the days of guidance counselors having some psychology back ground are over. Let there be no mistake about it, this is a business and nothing more. My Medical Terminology proctor was a successful black lady in her late 30's. She was a doctor, of chiropractics, and had an ego that was full of dead air, but full of itself nonetheless. I found myself in her office, for a scheduled meet and greet, to help me figure out the schools online class software. There were glitches that I couldn't figure out. She hemmed and hawed and ultimately produced no help for me because she simply did not know the answer to my questions. She didn't have time to deal with an "online" student. She also had no idea that her head was full of hot air that had just been blown up her ass by some other academic credential dispensing goon.

At one point I had a project due that involved reading a professional medical journal entry of my choosing, writing a 250 word synopsis of it, and defining ten medical terms. The instructions on how to submit this intolerably difficult academic exercise set a new precedence in vaguery. We were supposed to submit a "copy of the professional journal entry used," and it couldn't be the same article that any of the other students used in the class. How we were to know what articles the other students were using was never disclosed. At any rate, I sent her a copy of the url to the article as well as documented it in the appropriate MLA format in the bibliography and called it good. A couple of weeks later I noticed that I had been given a zero on the project because I did not submit a copy of the article, only a link as well as MLA citation (which tells you everything you could possibly want to know about the god damned article's location and point of origin). I emailed her a kind WTF, and how do I submit a copy of the article so that I can get credit for the work that I did? She emailed me back with a one liner that said "go to the schools tech department to get help" if I couldn't figure it out. She didn't have time to deal with it, and at any rate she didn't give two shits about my grade.

This was the only class where an "A" was a 94, and so it was the only class that was keeping my GPA below a 4.0. The one class that wasn't mandatory for me to take. The other three classes an "A" was a 90 or above. The other gripe I had with the class is that we were required to pay 50 bucks for online software that we never used. The good and learn-ed doctor explained to me that the company responsible for the online material stated that we would be required to enter an access code for the class at some point. Doctor Learn-ed couldn't tell me when that day would be, but she assured me that one day I would log onto the site and be required to insert that 50 dollar line of random numbers. I never had to insert that magic number.

Anatomy and Physiology 2 was ruled over by another Doctor who believed that the schools standard for Anatomy should be the same as Harvards, or any other Ivy league school for that matter. He liked pointing out how our required text book was wrong on every occasion where it was wrong. I learned quickly that studying the required text book was a waste of my time. After the first test I threw my 300 dollar text book aside and never opened it again (of course I'm not a sucker, so I bought it for 120 off ebay rather than at the schools usury store). Doctor Anatomy was at least competent and very knowledgeable, albeit under the delusion that we were here to learn. His class was the most difficult college class I've had in my life. I had to study about 20 hours to make an "A" on any of his exams and even then it wasn't guaranteed that I would make an "A". His anatomy exams were over 100 questions of him pointing to various foramens, notches, orifices, and meatuses while we recalled the overly descriptive Latin and Greek words. I made five "A's" two "B's" and one "F" and made an "A" on the final. My final letter grade was a "B." The only "B" I made for the semester. I thought it was bullshit that one bad test, weighted the same as all the rest, brought my grade down to a "B."

After class one day I got into a conversation with Dr. Ivy League about the foundations of science. Back in the 70's and 80's he was involved in doing research on kidney function for a large study that was being done at a large university. His particular study was about a specific symporter in the loop of Henle, which is a feature of the kidney that allows us to make concentrated urine. It's impossible to see the loop of Henle under a slide because it's too long. You can only see sections of it. However, there is a specific rat who's Loop of Henle can be seen microscopically, and this rat is responsible for the majority of what we know about the Loop of Henle (as well as other kidney physiology). Dr. Ivy League was actually studying human kidney tissue in the lab, and he discovered a reaction that was different from the rat's in the human kidney tissue. It was repeatable, and he could prove that the function was different. The dude responsible for the research at the university told Dr. Ivy league, when presented with this new information that had come to light, that it mattered not what the microscope was repeatedly saying about human kidney physiology. What mattered was what the official line said.

Now, Dr. Ivy League could prove that what the official line was saying was now wrong. He was told that he would remove this from his report and replace it with the rat physiology. He refused. This put an end to his research in histology and therefore an end to his membership in academia. No research, no books, no tenure for you. 20 year's later, after billing pharmaceutical companies 500 dollars an hour to look at shit under a microscope as an independent contractor, and he was teaching at a local community college to pay the bills. Academia chewed him up and spit him out because he was concerned about what the microscope had to say about reality. He was concerned about the stated goals of science that feature illuminating mankind about reality. Science on the other hand, is not really concerned with reality, it's concerned with the same thing the rest of BAU is concerned with...money. So the official line is that rat kidneys are mamallian, just like ours, and so they are close enough. And since they are close enough we can assume that they are indeed the same, and so base our allopathic treatment of human kidneys on the physiology of rats. Pharmaceuticals anyone?

Finally there was Probability and Statistics. I was actually impressed with this classes professor. She was an astute, competent, and beautiful teacher of math. She made the concepts accessible and easy to manage. The class featured a Promethean, which is a huge screen on the wall that she could write on. I didn't have to take notes because her notes were saved and made available to us online. This allowed me to pay complete attention to her as she taught. I found it interesting to learn how the man manipulates numbers to make reality say whatever he wants it to. That is essentially what "Probability and Statistics" is about. I had questions about the theoretical aspects of the class because they seemed to be a bit presumptuous at times. I smelled bull shit with the official theories that we were to take for granted were true. However, I'm not mathematically inclined, and being 33 I no longer give a shit. I understand that it's not about learning, or higher education, it's about jumping through hoops to arrive as a Registered Nurse so that I can make money. 

The Promethean

 

Now I have Microbiology left to take during the summer session. After Microbiology I'll have met all of the requirements and will be applying to nursing school this fall. I fully expect nursing school to be about the same bullshit that I just spent the last semester sifting through. Just a bunch of shit that I'm to commit to memory so that I can promptly forget it once I'm in the clinical setting. After all, how much shit do I need to know to do what a doctor tells me to do? I've already been a medic for eight years. I've been in tough medical situations with lives depending on my actions and no doctor to tell me what to do. You can't teach competence. All that I'm doing in college is plugging a hole that's in place to help with the business of college. I'm required to learn about how science doesn't give a shit about reality, and how to sit in a computer class surfing the net, and how to manipulate reality with numbers; and all of this is somehow going to make me a better murse. I'm pretty sure I can do what a doctor tells me to do now...without all of the required bullshit and time wasted. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's what I did in high school, when the doctor cradled my balls in his hand and asked me to turn my head and cough.

Have A Meaningless Holiday Cheap Plastic Shit On Me.

 

There was a time, not so long ago, where it seemed the only limiting factor for what you could accomplish was your own laziness. Maybe this idea has always been an illusion, but I don't think so. A four year college degree doesn't get you employment now. The only thing you can expect from a four year degree now is a monthly bill that has to be paid. My wife got a four year degree in communications and all it has done has been to generate a $117.63 bill every month which is comparatively low. That's mostly because she worked and paid $800 a month towards college while she was attending. We have another 10 years to go before her student loan is paid in full. What are we to do now to better our financial situation? What kind of meaningful work is there in our meaningless society? If you were to argue that our civilization has meaning, what kind of meaning would you argue for?

Our lifestyle is dependent on a wealth pump with the intake end rooted by coercive trickery in the third world. It's come down to a cheap plastic lifestyle assembled in China and imported to America. All of this cheap plastic shit is designed to make it's way to a landfill where it will outlive the human race as cheap plastic shit. My house is awash in this holiday plastic shit that was generated through a perverse celebration which requires everybody to perpetuate this cheap plastic shit paradigm. The fact that it's meant to be a celebration of the birth of our salvation is just too ironic for further comment. What does the Winter Solstice have anything to do with cheap plastic shit made in China and Jeebus? Apparently there is a link, or I wouldn't be literally tripping over it now. To make matters worse half of these gifts just end up going straight back to Wally World where they are exchanged for store credit because trailer park America can't even abide the cheapness. They'd rather have store credit to buy cheap American beer and cheese puffs so that they can anesthetize their minds from the onslaught of how cheap their lives have become.

I suppose it's a good thing that all of this worthless crap is so cheap because minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. That's $290.00 a week gross at 40 hours a week. That's in the neighborhood of $230 a week take home which is $920 a month. Are they fucking serious with that shit? What the hell are you supposed to do with $920 a month? About the only thing you can do is buy some cheap American beer and cheese puffs at Wally World to go with your kid's cheap plastic made in China gifts. It's no wonder America stares at the teevee at night, after working for jack shit at a job that doesn't matter. All so that we can live in a place that's not worth caring about and is destined to rot as soon as climate control goes away. That cheap plastic shit is going to outlive our residences.

The only thing the world cares about is money. Have you ever really let that sink in? I remember making the decision, right about the time I dropped out of college with a 4.0 gpa, that I wasn't going to live my life being concerned about money. I didn't want to make decisions that had to do with the acquisition of money because it felt so cheap and trivial a thing to be concerned with. I thought there were ideas and causes that needed my attention more than money. I was wrong. Those ideas and causes require money. It's strange how if you have enough money, than you don't have to worry about making money because the bankers just give you money. I wish I could live off of the interest from all of the money that I have. But when your bank account looks like it was made in China, all the bankers do is nickel and dime you $5 dollars a month for the privilege of keeping your money there. I had a negative balance in my savings account a couple of months ago from those charges growing more than my "savings." This is just the way it is. It's sad.

How is it that I've made it to 33 years old and I am just now figuring all of this out? I got married. Somehow that meant buying a house and being concerned with something called a "career." I wasn't very good at the career bit. I had one, it lasted about six years until I had to chose between being medicated with a career or not medicated with no career. I chose the later. Now I'm going back to college for the eighth time in my life. Hopefully with my new found knowledge about the way the world works, I'll be able to actually acquire a degree and a career after said acquisition. It's not a career that I want. I never once said "self, I think we should be a nurse." It's a practical decision that revolves around what the world requires from me. I'm doing it for the money. I've never done that before in my life. I've never done something so blatantly about money. When I'm studying medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, probability and statistics, and intro to computers this semester it's all going to be motivated by the end goal of a job that will pay me well for my time. It has nothing to do with my ideals, or about the change I want to see in the world, or about helping people...just money. Just the root of all evil. That's what I have to concern myself with at 33 years old. Why? Best I can tell it's because I was so brazen as to want to reproduce and have a family. Apparently that means I have to be concerned first and foremost with money. Because without it...well that doesn't make me a very responsible family man now does it.

Now here I am, studying to be a nurse. In this case I like the euphemism of RN. RN sounds less gender specific (or how about a murse), which is a quality I like since I don't have tits that can feed a baby. Where else does the term "nurse" come from? If you think about it I will be nursing my family with money. So my tits will feed them money instead of milk. I wish I could nurse my family by building soil, keeping livestock, and growing food...or farming, but that's not in the cards. Not for me at least. How foolish of me, all these years thinking that the unexamined life was not worth living. When you examine it, if your going to be honest, what other conclusion can you come to other than that your examination better come up with the rent and utilities. For 750,000 years paleolithic man didn't have to worry about rent and utilities. Money wasn't even a concept. Life was a somatic experience with meaning all around. Now the only thing that matters is money, and the only meaning is cheap plastic Chinese pointlessness that lies about waiting to be tripped over. I can hear it now, "yeah, but he had to worry about getting eaten by saber tooth tigers, killing Woolly mammoths, and not freezing to death." Sounds like a meaningful existence to me. What do we have to worry about now? Taxes, terrorists and football? Inconsequential drivel and cheap plastic Chinese made crap.

I've got an announcement to make (you must be pretty bored if you've made it this far)...cheap plastic Chinese made crap (for good measure, and to help drive my point home). I managed to get diagnosed by a psychiatrists with Aspergers syndrome. That's right, I'm officially an Aspie. Just barely mind you. It wasn't an easy case, but at the end of the day I met all of the criteria as outlined by the DSM5- 299.80. Presence of: A2,3, 4. B 1 and C,and absence of: D, E and F. I was right. At least I'm justifiably different from the rest. I have a reason for this shittier than usual attitude. I have just enough Aspie to make me intolerably in the world, but not enough to make it a disability to get me off of the hook that's attached to the rent. Finally I have a psychological reason for not liking my own species much. Still, I have to buckle down, and go out into the pointlessness to extract money so that I can have a family. The only way to extract that money is to participate in yet more pointlessness. When society is soulless can there ever be any hope of meaningful activity? How fucked is it that the last thing I want to do is to deal with people (here again explained by Aspergers) and yet just about any work I could get will require me to deal with people. Our society is a service one. All we do is make up a bunch of needs and then service them. I've been thinking that maybe I'll try to get a job at a grocery store since at least eating is a need that has to be met. A nuclear engineer turned medic turned grocery store clerk. You don't really have to deal with people. Just ring up their shit and say "have a nice day." Maybe I could get a job stocking shelves. That would be even better. Talk about wasted talent. Yet I never found a job that was worth any talent. Eventually I'll be nursing, which will occasionally provide me with the opportunity to do something worth while, granted only occasionally. At least I'll be paid well for my effort. I'll just have to learn to become impervious to the rude patients who view the hospital more like a hotel than a hospital. I was thinking I might like to be a hospice nurse. At least then people will be dying and less prone to acting like ass holes. It should help keep my life in perspective as well. Plus, being an Aspie, I don't suffer much from empathy, which is a positive attribute when seen from this angle. I'm just trying to focus on my strengths.

That's gonna be some time from now, given I reach that point in time. Our society isn't exactly healthy. What do I have to bitch about really? I've got a roof over my head and food in my belly. So what if I have to go out and spend my priceless time on this Earth cultivating and fostering a lifestyle that's not worth caring about. The least I could be is grateful for the opportunity to line the man's pockets. After all, it's not as if I'm entitled to anything other than taxes. I'm just bitter that my ideas about right living don't matter at the end of the day. What matters is the acquisition of money. After that, if I'm left with any, I can use it to be the change. That's the point. Without money, you can't be the change...not if your me, and definitely not if you have kids depending on you to keep them safe and healthy.

This Monday I'll be off to fill out applications for a job that will hopefully be more than minimum wage. Grocery stores and restaurants. I could go back to granny snatchin' but it will only pay $11 an hour, and I'll have to put up with the smell of lotion and doodoo that's so ubiquitous in those geezer freezers where we stuff our elderly for big pharma to profit off of until they stop breathing.  Granny snatchin' is too depressing for me to go back to. I'd rather flip burgers at McDonalds where I'll at least not have to deal with the public. I can just stand there and do a menial task over and over again while not dealing with what it is that I'm actually doing there. Besides, those burgers are no more poisonous than allopathic medicine is (and I won't be tempted to eat them either). I'll just go from poisoning people for minimum wage to poisoning people for 60 grand a year right out of school. I think I can deal with people for that amount of money. The most I've ever made in my life is $28,000 a year, so I'll be more than doubling that. That's 60 grand? $4000 a month take home thereabouts? I'll be fuckin' rich, and I get to wear scrubs as a work uniform. My wife will be able to stay home and raise our children, and I'm going to have a lot. If I'm gonna be out there participating in the meaninglessness of a society not worth caring about than I'm going to at least come home to meaning. I'll have time, and money left over after the bills are paid. That will enable me to afford to be the change I want to see in the world. Great advice Ghandi, but some of us have kids to feed. Granted, I chose to have kids, but isn't that a large part of the human experience? Aren't you glad your parents had you? And if you have any siblings, aren't you glad your parents had them?

So what is the meaning of life? It seems the answer to that question only matters if you can afford to ask it in the first place.