The Nexus of My Universe

I need a change of scenery. I need to live somewhere that has lots of palm trees and warm weather virtually year-round. 26 years of living in the same place has taken its toll on me, and I think it's time to leave the Land of Entrapment. Leaving, however, is easier said than done.

Last Time, on Life...

In the time since I last wrote in here, many life-altering events have occurred...

To start, I became engaged to the woman I hope to spend the rest of my life with. I have been busy helping her plan our (her) special day. So far, so good.

I still dislike my job, although not as much as I used to. It has gone from disdain to hate back to a general disdain. I am getting better at my job and I am being recognized for it, but there are still aspects about it that I could do without. I am still looking into other employment opportunities.

I find myself at some sort of future-life nexus. We (my better half and myself) had, in essence, planned our lives out for the next couple of years, however a series of events occurred that basically freed up the next year or so of our lives. We took a trip to Phoenix and some plans we had made fell through. So we are now in love with another city and have nothing tying us down in Albuquerque, and I have started looking for opportunities that will take us away from here. Whether or not my plans pan out, however, remains to be seen.

So, here we stand. We are (I am) kind of disappointed with life in Albuquerque. Our plans for the future kind of fell through, and we are planning a wedding. If it weren't for this wedding and the fact that we've already sunk a lot of money into this, I seriously think we would have left by now.

What happens from here, we will have to wait and see....

If I had only known then

If I had only known three months ago what was in store for me when I decided to pursue a career in EMS maybe I would feel a little differently.

The last couple of weeks in my young career have been interesting to say the least. For the most part, they have been great due to having an awesome partner that I just get along with great. We are usually on the same page when it comes to things and our partnership blossomed to a point where facial expressions were all that was needed to convey commands/orders/what have you. Unfortunately since I am a rookie, I was only blessed with his partnership for one month.

Our partnership was supposed to end on Saturday, however he called in sick that night. So, I ended up with someone else that lacked a partner. Being the new enthusiastic guy, I was happy to see what this person was like. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm quickly waned. Right out of the gate, he decided he was going to be "that partner". By this, I mean he is the guy that lives by the mantra of "what I say goes" and "you're wrong even if you are right" and "I don't give two shits about anything you have to say or do". I tried to be apathetic about it, but he really struck a nerve when we were on our first call of the night. It just so happened to be a place I had been to the night before to visit the same patient for the same problem. When I was with my original partner, things clicked and he even praised me for "taking the role of the Paramedic and leading on the call" (primarily because the patient and the family were Spanish speaking only). I thought I would be the good partner and attempt to translate for everyone there only to have my translational efforts interrupted by my partner and his broken Spanish. I also did not appreciate having him and the Fire Department crew there mocking the situation and the patient. Even moreso, I did not appreciate him chewing me out because, according to him, I did not step in when needed. Dude, fuck you. You're a crap medic, you treat your patients like crap and the sad thing is that you are younger than me, yet you walk around with this glory, privileged "holier than thou" complex and get mad because I won't kiss your ass. I hope I NEVER end up working with you again. It is enough for me to quit on the spot.

Luckily, my experience with this guy was limited and I ended up getting a better (and better looking) partner for about three hours. Our night was pretty quiet until we went to this sketchy motel (most of the crappy calls are at sketchy hotels.....funny how that works out). Here, we encountered a patient who was diagnosed with end-stage liver cancer and was having trouble breathing. The patient was having difficulty breathing because their body was failing and they were just retaining fluid all over. When the patient would lie back in their bed, the fluid would back up further into their lungs. What made this call crappy is that the patient was practically homeless and had been released from Presbyterian Hospital with little more than their hospital bracelet, a blood pressure cuff and Tylenol with Codeine. They also were given some prescriptions but they could not be filled because not only was the patient's wallet stolen, but the pharmacies refused to look up this patient's health insurance information to get his medications filled. What really disgusted me about this is that, based on what the patient and their loved ones told me, Presbyterian pretty much said "tough shit buddy" and threw the patient out in order to free the bed. And here we are, with our Presbyterian name tags and the Presbyterian name proudly displayed on the back of our ambulance, attempting to provide some sort of care to this patient to help them breathe a little easier, regardless of their terminal disease. It really pissed me off that Presbyterian portrays this mantra of "Pres Cares" and how they provide high quality patient care, yet refused to continue to treat this patient. I understand he is terminal and does not have much time left, but people, it's called Palliative Care. They could be in an inpatient hospice unit instead of in a crappy motel room because they have nowhere to go at the moment and the manager might kick them out onto the street on the coldest night of the year because they called 911. They could have given the patient a supply of oxygen, or some nebulizer treatments, or at least a damn Albuterol inhaler.

All of this, compounded with the crappy schedules, allows me to fully understand why EMS has a ridiculously high turnover rate.

Fear and......more fear

I am finding myself at a crossroads of a sort. Quite a bit has happened since my previous post...

I started a new job at an ambulance service recently. I am currently in orientation. Orientation consists of two weeks of in-class time, followed by two weeks of street experience, followed by two more weeks in the classroom then back out on the streets.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't totally terrified about this. Day in and day out, people come into our class and talk to us about the things we should and should not do, namely emphasizing the what we should not do. Normally this would be a non-issue for me but I don't really appreciate having people that are beyond burned out on their jobs coming in telling me how to do my job because that is the way they do it. I'm sorry sirs, but with all due respect, bullshit. I am calling you sirs out on it. Granted this does not speak of everyone within the organization, but if you are going to tell me how to do my job because that is how you do it, at least make sure you are true to your word. For example, it's one thing to have someone tell you to treat your patients with the utmost respect and dignity regardless of who they are, what they did, etc. I have it on pretty good word that these people do not treat all of their patients with the best of dignity and that they have even been physically aggressive with their patients. In fact, I also have it on pretty good word that one of these people hasn't even seen the inside of an ambulance in quite some time.

When I say that I am terrified, I really mean that I am fucking terrified. What I do or do not do has an extreme set of consequences. The idea of driving an ambulance is scary when you hear horror stories about ambulance vs. private vehicle collisions and how you can lose your job, especially when you are an at-will employee and are not protected by the formal grievance process. It's also scary to hear that if you don't do certain things properly you can be sued...not the ambulance company, the provider. The provider can also face jail time for certain things as well.

Basically, long story short, all I have been hearing is about how you can hurt yourself, how you can die, how you can ruin someones life or your own life, how you can go to jail or lose your job or your livelihood. I am excited but nervous and scared out of my mind!

One month out

One month out from my previous post, quite a bit has happened in my "professional" life. Here's a little rundown on what's up.

I not only graduated from the University, but they also sent me my second degree in the mail. It's pretty rad, except that I need a diploma frame for that one as well, so it is still sitting in its original envelope.

I also began Phase II of Intermediate training. This phase consists of going out to clinical sites (local ER's) and performing patient assessments, starting IV's and administering medications (at certain places). So far, so good I think. I did have one patient try to fight me when he was forcefully awoken from his drug-induced self-coma. There are set minimums of what needs to be accomplished in Phase II and I am worried I might not be able to. Yeah, so one student already has met the minimum requirements, but this student also works at one of the clinical sites as part of his day job, so I wonder how much they have really completed. I didn't want to bring this up to the instructor, but I really wanted to. For all I know, they could be pencil-whipping paperwork. They have the means and the motivation to do so.

Aside from my pining about Phase II, it seems I have a lead on a new job. This is at an ambulance service, and it the ideal ambulance service of the two services locally based. This service is nationally recognized as a leader and innovator in EMS. Employment standards at this service are really high, as they expect the best people to give their absolute best to ensure the service continues to be one of the best around. My new job is conditional on passing background checks and a physical examination. I am worried about the physical examination because I do have a heart condition that may be detected during the cardiac stress test portion of the exam.

There isn't much more for me to say. I am still pretty damn confused on life and where to go from here. I am perpetually dissatisfied with life and I have no idea where I should go from here. I know a change needs to be made, but I am not sure what type of change needs to be made. Do I relocate? Do I change jobs (working on it)? Do I do something else? The answers are hard to come by and they likely always will be. It's like driving down the highway late at night when it's difficult to see to begin with, and you suddenly hit a patch of thick fog. You aren't sure where you are going but you keep moving forward because you have to.

Only time will tell what changes, if any, will occur and if they are the right ones to make.

A Confession of Sorts

I've been doing some reading lately and I feel that there is something I need to confess about myself. Personally, I don't think it's good or bad, but the fact that I have not told a single person about this in the four years it has gone on leads me to finally come out of the woodwork, so to speak.

Four years ago, I agreed to become a Research Assistant (RA) in the Psychology Department at UNM. I agreed to, as the title states, assist in the research activities of Masters, Doctoral, Post-Doc students, and Professors in the Department. While I technically "belonged" to a consortium of three professors and their affiliated students, I was primarily assigned to one female Doctoral student the vast majority of the time.

The reason why I decided to become an RA was not just because of the "easy" upper-level course credit, but also because at that time I was beginning to fall out of love with Psychology, my chosen field of study at the time. I wanted to be more actively involved in the Department with the intent of using the experience as a career exploration opportunity, the intent of learning more about my field, and ultimately deciding whether or not this was a field worth pursuing graduate coursework in, and if so, to what degree and in what concentration.

As I met with this very attractive female student, she explained to me that she was an aspiring Evolutionary Psychologist. For those of you that may not be familiar with what that means, it means (in a nutshell) that she was interested in how our evolutionary processes have shaped our behaviors and whether or not these behaviors are acquired externally (like, say, the way we learn how to ride a bike or how to swim), or if they are innate (meaning that we are born with them and they come to us automatically, possibly of genetic origin). Her research focused primarily on dating habits. She wanted to know what processes are at play when we scope out potential dates and, to that extent, mating partners. She wanted to know if some of the same mechanisms that are present in other mammals and other animals as a whole exist in humans and, if so, to what degree.

The bulk of her research (and her doctoral thesis) centered on kin recognition. Most other animals have systems built in that allows them to recognize their own siblings. This apparently works best if all offspring share the same set of parents and are reared together for a long enough period of time. Recognition occurs via, of all things, smell. Whether or not this mechanism exists in humans has been contentious for quite some time. Some studies suggest it does while others suggest no such system exists in humans. It's crazy to think that I worked on this study for an entire year and I have yet to actually read the write up I worked on. I know it's listed in a book now, but have yet to actually pick it up.

The other big concentration of her research focused on mate selection. A facet of basic evolutionary theory tells us that certain genetic traits indicate mate fitness, which can translate into successful reproduction as well as healthy offspring. Genes that have higher fitness indicators are likely to be passed on to future generations in comparison to traits that indicate non-ideal fitness, which eventually should be removed from the gene pool. Specifically, we examined schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is typically considered to be more of a recessive gene and a recessive trait, however that is technically not entirely true. Schizophrenia genes and the trait itself is not considered to be entirely recessive, nor is it dominate as well. It kind of is in limbo. This itself is a point of contention in neuroscience today (I would lean towards it being more recessive than dominant). So, if schizophrenia were more of a recessive gene, why is it still so prevalent in society? One explanation is that some of the traits associated with schizophrenic behavior can be manifested as being creative or having unique intellectual potential (think of the movie "A Beautiful Mind"). Potential partners may find this to be attractive, which would result in increased dating and mating opportunities.

Lastly, we also examined overall mate selection trends. We were interested in determining what people consider to be "attractive". To get a better idea of what types of people in the area were looking for a partner, my GA and I both signed up for accounts on a dating site, and we browsed profiles to see what our potential sample would look like prior to recruiting subjects for our study. We ended up abandoning this project because of an assortment of problems in recruiting subjects and defining what variables we were hoping to measure, as well as not having as clear of a definition of desired outcomes as we desired to have.

She deleted her account but I ended up keeping mine. I was interested in finding out what the dating population was like outside of the typical "realm" of dating (being bars, gyms, coffee shops....places you can think of where you would go to pick up a man or a woman). The general consensus is that people find the internet to be a safer place for finding a date. Because there is no face-to-face component present when you initiate contact with someone, people are much more at ease and more willing to open up about themselves. However, this clearly has its setbacks. Because the initial face-to-face component is missing, people are at greater liberty to misrepresent themselves. They can misrepresent what they look like, their gender, their interests, etc. We are forced to take these people for their word (however, the same is true in a face-to-face interaction). Internet dating also allows people to be more selective. Whereas in a face-to-face encounter, someone must initiate contact and the other person can either engage you in a conversation or flat out reject you, online dating gives you the option of choosing whether or not to even engage someone in a conversation. In summary, internet dating has less of a risk for participants, thereby possibly sparing their feelings.

I was more interested in what people that choose to engage in internet dating are like. What personality traits do they possess? What about them drives them to use internet dating sites? So, I ended up doing an unofficial study of sorts. I kept my profile on this dating site but I rewrote it. I was as honest as I felt I could possibly be. I did disclose that I had started the profile as part of a research experience, but I did not state that I was still doing research.

Considering the fact that there was no official protocol drawn up, nor was there a clear definition of what parameters I was looking for nor how I would classify what I found, there was no real way of officially stating what I found. What I did end up with, aside from an ex-girlfriend, a fling, and a few friends, are the following:
-People are drawn to internet dating largely because it is considered to be safe from an emotional point; however since the potential for misrepresentation is much greater there than in a face-to-face encounter, there is a considerable risk, especially for personal safety.
-The other big reason why people are drawn to internet dating is due to convenience. Some people may have children or careers that prevent them from going out much and meeting people via traditional avenues, such as at a bar or other social setting.
-Because of the lack of an initial face-to-face interaction, people are more willing to be open about themselves, their interests, etc. This tends to lend itself towards some interesting conversations.
-Looks do indeed matter, even in cyber dating. No one will readily admit to this, however the number of contacts and profile views can speak for themselves.
-In my interactions, the majority of the people that choose to engage in internet dating do so because of some major insecurity about themselves. They may feel unattractive due to a poor self image or from previous experiences. This ties into the "safety" factor. This isn't always readily apparent, however, and only manifests itself after substantial conversation with a person.
-Perfectly normal people also engage in internet dating.
-People with a high self-esteem tend to be more choosy with who they choose to talk to, which likely translates into being selective about who they end up meeting and dating.


All in all, this has been an interesting four year long experience. Who knows what I will end up doing with that profile. Maybe I'll keep it, in case I decide to do a legitimate study on this someday.

The light-bulb moment

It's been over a month since I last wrote in here. Unfortunately, not much has happened since then.

I still basically hate my job, but I am working on hating it less and less each day. I think I make this job as miserable as I want to, but there are obviously days where shit just hits the fan and it's totally out of my hands. These days are becoming increasingly frequent as of late.

It's hard because I would like a job in the Healthcare sector, which is my eventual career goal. However, the economy sucks and the jobs I would like are pretty sparse to begin with, and are almost impossible to get because everyone else I know applies for them thereby increasing my competition, or they are out of my reach because I do not yet have the appropriate licensing and credentials.

I just hate feeling like my job doesn't matter, which I have recently discovered it does not. I hate the fact that I do a ridiculous amount of work for what amounts to next to nothing. There are days where I go home and am literally too physically tired to even eat. All I want to do is go home and pass out on the bed and not wake up for several days. I hate the fact that I am basically a peon and people just piss on me because they know they can, and because I can't do anything about it. I hate the fact that I work really hard to get things to an acceptable level only to see it all get destroyed hours later.

While I am annoyed by this and have started looking for a job, I ask myself a scary question: what happens if I hate my new job? What do I do then? Do I just deal with that job or do I contemplate walking away? I wish there was a way I could just give things a "trial run" without committing to them 100%. Unfortunately, life does not really work that way, and I must face the repercussions of my decisions whatever they may be.