As the month drags on, the end of the semester inevitably draws near. The moans of the shackled students in the cold, dark chemistry labs will slowly die out. The mindless ravings of the sociology teacher will fade away as the communist-loving fallacy, masquerading as a social “science”, is cut short by summer break. And once and for all, the country tunes wafting slowly in the pollen-ridden breeze of this primitive, backward city shall become a dark memory of the past as I move to a civilized area and forever leave Redding.

 You see, it’s not that I hate Redding; obviously the city itself has done nothing to me. It’s merely the fact that the people who live here are ignorant, stupid, racist hillbillies who have no idea what science or intelligence are. If you happened to like Beethoven’s symphonies, and commented on such feelings, you would be greeted with a blank stare as the hillbilly wonders what on earth “classical music” or “Beethoven” means since their world is constricted to Budweiser and the occasional rodeo. Perhaps you enjoy reading and fine literature. The extent of the reading for the average citizen in Redding consists of a rodeo or country (imagine that?) magazine which is perused while the citizen takes an unhealthy shit as a result of a poor diet which consists of beans and fast food. Maybe Redding isn’t as bad as I make it out to be; I offer you to be the judge. Redding, California is right in the middle of Northern California. Feel free to take a drive through here sometime. Preferably, you should only drive through on your way to somewhere else so you don’t feel like your time is completely wasted if you do not find love in any of the numerous fat women here who will give you a cheerful smile to display their heroic effort to preserve the remaining teeth they do have.

I digress. The patient; everything I have been taught is about the patient. You see, they don’t tell you this in class but as my best friend Paul so eloquently put it, your job as an EMT is to keep the patient alive. Forget those altruistic and noble desires of saving people, because as an EMT, you don’t count. I do not mean to play down the importance of the EMT. Despite the fact that the majority of the time that an ambulance spends on calls consists of taking care of the freeloaders and oxygen thieves of society (that would be the people who want a free taxi ride they don’t plan on paying for, etc.), in instances such as trauma, the EMT is in his/her domain. If you have a medical problem of any significance, rest assured, as an EMT I will still be able to help you…as the driver of the ambulance while the paramedic (who is far more well-trained in the dark and mystical arts of pharmacology) works on you in the back. Apparently, some people feel the need to degrade EMTs for their lack of knowledge, despite the fact that the average EMT still knows more about medicine than the majority of America due to our society’s incestuous obsession with ignorance. Perhaps some people would consider our massive ignorance an advantage, because if there is any alien species out there, they will probably determine humanity to be too god damn stupid to bother conquering. I do pity the people who would stoop to such a level as to degrade the person who is taking care of them in their emergency, but since pity has no place in the real world beyond sociology and other ultra-liberal attempts to brainwash the masses, I’ll lose no sleep over that person’s misfortune. Usually the kind of person who degrades others is an idiot who causes their own injuries anyway so it is hard to pity such an imbecile to begin with.

 Ironically, it’s not even the low pay that will cause me to pursue paramedic school as soon as possible. Well, that’s part of it. Primarily, I figure since I plan to become a doctor anyway, I would rather know as much about medicine as possible. Sure, medical school admissions does not care what training you already have or what degree you possess (part of why I am majoring in music, but we’ll get into that in a second), but I am a firm believer of “knowing your shit” so I cannot follow this philosophy of “be diverse!” that adcoms so religiously adheres to. Plus if I’m not accepted the first time I apply, I’d rather make $22-27 an hour instead of $13 while I start paying off college loans. For some strange, crazy reason I feel the compelling urge to eat once in awhile and I fear that wouldn’t be possible while making loan payments on EMT pay.

Now then, majoring in music. Let me ask you something. If someone walked up to you, and said you have to go to college to enter the profession you have your eyes on, yet said what degree you obtained in college didn’t matter, what would you say to him? Most likely, you would tell him that’s fucking stupid that you need to get a degree in the first place if you won’t be using it anyway. Well, I agree. I figure that if the degree I get will be utterly useless anyway, then three instances should happen. 1) the degree should not involve any classes that contain lab portions outside what I must take for med school pre-reqs due to the fact that labs are horrendously boring unless they involve explosions or fire. 2) the degree should be a BA instead of a BS since that requires me to learn a foreign language, and I want to learn German anyway. 3) the degree should also be a BA for the simple fact it requires less units. Why kill yourself getting a degree that again is useless to you?

I wouldn’t say I’m killing myself taking science classes anyway, seeing as I crippled my chem exam so severely today that I’ll be surprised (and annoyed) if I scored less than a 95% on it, but there is a significant difference between lower division science classes at a shitty community college and upper division science classes at UC Davis. It’s not that I’m afraid of taking science classes at Davis; it’s just that I’ll be learning upper division science crap like biochemistry, immunology, etc. in medical school anyway and I hate learning the same thing repeatedly. Fortunately, in 15 days I will move to Roseville and I can start taking classes at Sierra College, and try to remove the mental scar of Shasta College from my brain. My only hope is that I will be able to take national registry (http://www.nremt.org because I’m too lazy to explain what it is) test fairly soon after my course ends on the 22nd. Well, no, I also hope that I get my EMT card fairly quickly so I can start applying for jobs after I move. I mean clearly, NREMT has a history of speedy and painless service, right? (hahaha…)