TaPout136
06-23-2005, 07:54 PM
This is my first time here so I’ll try to make this coherent if possible. I have been dealing with a QLC for the better part of a year right now. Recently I graduated from college after 6 horrendous years. Probably as early as last summer I started to have serious concerns about the virtue and utility of my degree, the $150,000 that it cost, and the negative impact that the totality of this experience has left upon me.
More than anything I really resent the level of esteem college degree have ascendedin to in modern society. These worthless pieces of papers have become a referendum on a person and their ability (or lack there of) to complete simple directions, not unlike a farm animal. Routines and classes dull the mind and kill a person's ability for seminal progressive thought.
Now for my crisis, I finished school about a month ago and reclutantly moved back home with my parents. The reason I was reclutant to move back here (Littleton, Colorado - perhaps some of you have heard of it) is that this is in my opinion one of worst places on Earth. This is the middle of suburbian, the hollow American Dream twitching on its side rotting from the inside out. The terms Anomie and normlessness were probably created to describe this place. No one is from here, no one actually lives here, we all just happen to endure the misfortune of moving here.
The real reason I'm back is because I was unable to complete the process of going to graduate school. I do however have a good reason for this: In July of last year, in the process of restraining a drunk friend of mine (trying to prevent him from throwing a FULL bottle of lighter fluid onto a roaring BBQ grill with about a dozen or so people standing just inches away) the labrum in my right shoulder torn and caused several nasty bone chips. Not knowing this at the time I though I just workouted to hard or something. Well when I finally when to a doctor 2 months later, he said that I would need surgery to stitch the labrum back together and secure it with a couple of staples (btw the bone chips/spurs ended up being the worst part werent found until the surgery started, lucky me. Well surgery couldnt wait untill december without risking serious long-term damage to my shoulder, so we planned it for October during fall break. To make a long story short, the surgery was much worse than anyone planned. It wasnt until late Feb. that I was able to write and feed myself again. School is not that important that you have to be that condition just because its not worth missing. No only did my grades suffer, I didnt do any of the follow up I need to get to my GRE stuff taken care of and I was in such a bad all the time that I finally gave up on picking a grad program.
Other fun stuff happening during or after my shoulder including: surgery in August to remove a second tumor that had come back after it was first cut off in April. Also my grandfather died about 10 days after I had my shoulder surgery in October. So just to pile on, after I was pretty sick of school because of everything that was going on, the director or residence life (the person who runs the dorms) made threats regarding my class attendance. He said that he would begin a process to get me kicked out of the dorms and maybe school unless I started to going to class. He also began to spy on me and send people to "check" my room just as I was suppose to be going to class. One of the more egregious things this director or residence life did was call my father at work and tell him I wasnt going to class. Im a grown man, im 24 years old and I dont need someone to call my parents acting an elementary school principle. Nothing beats feeling under siege in your own place of residence. No real resolution happened here other than I picked up my dipolma and walked by him and told him I would give him the beating of his life. Which I firmly plan on doing once my shoulder heals fully.
Back to the present where I'm so depressed and angry and I cant even imagin a circumstance where I could work and actually begin to construct a life. Even if I could I wont ever make enough money to play my medical bills (my parents combined dont make enough to pay my bills now and thats with insurance). My body hurts all the time and my pain tolerance is frighteningly high. I hate my degree in communications, I hate writing, movies, television and just the media in general. But you know what, its ok because I have a degree. I have a degree and a finite interest in life. There are only so many things that interest me, and now that im not interested in anything that im good at. Im certainly glad to have this meaningful eduction!
I wont even start in on my parents, but I will say that nothing looks good. I cant even get any of the dozen pychologists I’ve seen to agree what is wrong with me, or how exactly to treat it. It’s an interesting plight considering once you reject a pychologists' offer of medication he/she almost becomes offended and hostile. Which is fun because im smart and I love to fight and go-rounds with anyone, especially those with letters behind their names.
The best part, better than any of this, I have to deal with people telling me that things could always be worse, and that I should thankful. I guess they are right. I did survive cancer as child. My left eye was removed, my right eye has a significant cateract, there is major uncorrectable structural damage to my face/skull as a result of massive doses of radiation I received, and I have considerable learning and developmental difficulties that also resulted from the radiation. The reason im not happy is because im still alive. That fact only compounds my failure and inability to make those who have hazed me suffer as I have.
More than anything I really resent the level of esteem college degree have ascendedin to in modern society. These worthless pieces of papers have become a referendum on a person and their ability (or lack there of) to complete simple directions, not unlike a farm animal. Routines and classes dull the mind and kill a person's ability for seminal progressive thought.
Now for my crisis, I finished school about a month ago and reclutantly moved back home with my parents. The reason I was reclutant to move back here (Littleton, Colorado - perhaps some of you have heard of it) is that this is in my opinion one of worst places on Earth. This is the middle of suburbian, the hollow American Dream twitching on its side rotting from the inside out. The terms Anomie and normlessness were probably created to describe this place. No one is from here, no one actually lives here, we all just happen to endure the misfortune of moving here.
The real reason I'm back is because I was unable to complete the process of going to graduate school. I do however have a good reason for this: In July of last year, in the process of restraining a drunk friend of mine (trying to prevent him from throwing a FULL bottle of lighter fluid onto a roaring BBQ grill with about a dozen or so people standing just inches away) the labrum in my right shoulder torn and caused several nasty bone chips. Not knowing this at the time I though I just workouted to hard or something. Well when I finally when to a doctor 2 months later, he said that I would need surgery to stitch the labrum back together and secure it with a couple of staples (btw the bone chips/spurs ended up being the worst part werent found until the surgery started, lucky me. Well surgery couldnt wait untill december without risking serious long-term damage to my shoulder, so we planned it for October during fall break. To make a long story short, the surgery was much worse than anyone planned. It wasnt until late Feb. that I was able to write and feed myself again. School is not that important that you have to be that condition just because its not worth missing. No only did my grades suffer, I didnt do any of the follow up I need to get to my GRE stuff taken care of and I was in such a bad all the time that I finally gave up on picking a grad program.
Other fun stuff happening during or after my shoulder including: surgery in August to remove a second tumor that had come back after it was first cut off in April. Also my grandfather died about 10 days after I had my shoulder surgery in October. So just to pile on, after I was pretty sick of school because of everything that was going on, the director or residence life (the person who runs the dorms) made threats regarding my class attendance. He said that he would begin a process to get me kicked out of the dorms and maybe school unless I started to going to class. He also began to spy on me and send people to "check" my room just as I was suppose to be going to class. One of the more egregious things this director or residence life did was call my father at work and tell him I wasnt going to class. Im a grown man, im 24 years old and I dont need someone to call my parents acting an elementary school principle. Nothing beats feeling under siege in your own place of residence. No real resolution happened here other than I picked up my dipolma and walked by him and told him I would give him the beating of his life. Which I firmly plan on doing once my shoulder heals fully.
Back to the present where I'm so depressed and angry and I cant even imagin a circumstance where I could work and actually begin to construct a life. Even if I could I wont ever make enough money to play my medical bills (my parents combined dont make enough to pay my bills now and thats with insurance). My body hurts all the time and my pain tolerance is frighteningly high. I hate my degree in communications, I hate writing, movies, television and just the media in general. But you know what, its ok because I have a degree. I have a degree and a finite interest in life. There are only so many things that interest me, and now that im not interested in anything that im good at. Im certainly glad to have this meaningful eduction!
I wont even start in on my parents, but I will say that nothing looks good. I cant even get any of the dozen pychologists I’ve seen to agree what is wrong with me, or how exactly to treat it. It’s an interesting plight considering once you reject a pychologists' offer of medication he/she almost becomes offended and hostile. Which is fun because im smart and I love to fight and go-rounds with anyone, especially those with letters behind their names.
The best part, better than any of this, I have to deal with people telling me that things could always be worse, and that I should thankful. I guess they are right. I did survive cancer as child. My left eye was removed, my right eye has a significant cateract, there is major uncorrectable structural damage to my face/skull as a result of massive doses of radiation I received, and I have considerable learning and developmental difficulties that also resulted from the radiation. The reason im not happy is because im still alive. That fact only compounds my failure and inability to make those who have hazed me suffer as I have.