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This is the time of the super somatic.  This is the time of testing the very nature of reality.  This is the time of, sometimes almost excessive, introspection because for the first time it feels like I am the one who is shaping my future.  I am the one at the helm and I am calling the shots; to the extent of course that the idea of "in control" is completely subjective and analyzing it usually ends in an existential nightmare.  I am a college student.

To say that I am living the typical college experience is probably a stretch.  Bakersfield College doesn't really scream "campus life" to anyone.  To my knowledge, BC can boast of no operating fraternities.  Many of its students barely even consider it a college.  Asking random students how many colleges they've applied to resulted in a frequent response of "0 colleges".  Now, I know that you're probably thinking "But if they are attending BC wouldn't that count as at least one college?"  The answer is apparently no, it is not; at least not to many people. 

Attending BC often means muttering the schools name under your breath when being questioned as to what your educational position is at the moment.  Coughing out that particular pair of consonants almost sends a discontented voice into your temporal lobe saying "You should have applied yourself in high school!"  But you ultimately justify your presence there by explaining "It really isn't that bad of a school (right?)" and "It's a hell of a lot cheaper than any place else."  Which, coming up on the completion of my AA, has proven to me that those justifications are actually pretty good ones.

The truth is that BC is pretty damn good.  And based off of conversations I've had with friends who have gone away to other, more prestigious schools, it rivals some of the "best" institutions as far as lower division courses are concerned.  Many of the courses I've taken there have challenged me and forced me to step up my game and my respect for those teaching them extends greatly.  Finding professors who are actually concerned with your academic performance is becoming increasingly rare today and I can safely say that I will always remember what many of them taught me.  Yes, that includes Geology at the unholy hour of eight o'clock in the morning, and that especially includes the euphemisms exercise in Human Sexuality.

Even on a practical level, not jumping straight into a four-year institution has had its benefits, saving me about thirty grand to date.  Which, by the way, if anyone can point me to where I can pick up my white male privilege right about now, I would be very grateful.  It's at these moments that I wish the Native American in me wasn't just shy of the required blood percentage.  I'm opting for a "mutt scholarship".  Maybe even a "genetic diversifying" scholarship to celebrate the diversity in my ancestor's mating habits.  I know that the final two years of my undergraduate education are going to put me so far in the hole that I will be able to tunnel out a trade route to India. 

The stories of those who have returned sorely after being unable to continue financing their education in other cities has provided a medicinal effect in my early, languishing contentment with first attending BC. 

When all is said and done, once you get past the fear of one of the ceiling tiles in a particular humanities building falling on you, or past the fact that many of the lecture halls look as though they were designed with a Safeway Select version of a Star-Trek set in mind, or even past the fact that one of the landmark rocks you use as reference to your position on campus looks curiously phallic (although I argue it actually adds to the charm), you begin to realize that it is a good place to be.  It is a good college.  It is a very real college.

Being a college student, however, does not mean that your learning is limited to the school setting.  You begin to learn things outside of class.  Valuable things, like the fact that there is a very specific relationship between alcohol and academic performance.  More specifically I have learned that, when combining time spent drinking and time spent studying properly, you can achieve your highest potential. However, if you overstep that delicate equilibrium, it will leave you sprawled across the cold bathroom tile, cursing the gods of Anheuser-Busch for forsaking you; leaving you repenting into the porcelain alter.  

My first collegiate semester lacked any "partying" by conventional means (and by conventional means I do mean cake, noisemakers and piñatas). Playing shows downtown was the height of my party participation at that time and usually meant that I was slamming down at least three water bottles each night - for those of you keeping track that is a whopping 24 ounces of a two-hydrogen-and-one-oxygen punch to the face every night I went out.  That type of lifestyle took its toll though.  I sauntered away from that first semester with a gentleman's 1.98 GPA.  

The second semester changed a bit.  Spring was in the air and I was feeling like flirting with danger so I began to partake in the occasional drink of the Devil's water.  With the help of a philanthropic Russian by the name of Smirnoff, and often times his American equivalent, Mr. Jack Daniels, condensing a couple weeks worth of frustration into a few hours of mangled attempts at dancing and high spirited camaraderie allowed the moment's stresses to filter their way out of my mind and through my liver.

Finally managing to understand the benefit of maintaining ones sanity through not-overly-frequent encounters with the sauce (when the only other options in town required the possession of such luxuries as "money" and other elitist accouterments) probably saved me from a repeat of the previous semester, and as a result I procured a rebel's semester GPA of 3.5.

Repeating this process allowed for a semester GPA of 4.0 in six classes (so having learned the benefit of the occasional party, I've decided the next natural step in this progression is for me to take up LSD Saturdays and heroin hump days).  Because when it comes down to it, self-preservation can only take you so far, and sometimes you need to step out into the rain to soak your roots.

These are the moments where we try like hell to balance the visceral impulses with the ability to forge ahead with the counter-intuitive.  The points where we begin to see ourselves in more solidified forms and where we make the choices that are either going to set us up to be upwardly mobile in society, or unbearably stagnate (or blissfully insane for a select few).  These times are when the term "adult" begins to weigh more in your relationships with not only those around you, but yourself as well.  Where the consequences of our decisions are no longer confined to a high school campus where, then the most significant events, now have dissolved into a sort of vague anamnesis.  I know what I have planned for myself, but I also know that life comes at you quickly sometimes, and I'm fortunate enough to have this time set aside to learn how to move with it.  You have to be prepared to roll with the punches, and with each successive punch, I am welcomed to reality.  If life is a play and we are all merely actors in it, then college is the matinée pre-screening.

*Originally printed in Bakotopia Magazine, Issue 14, 11 - 2 - 07

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LIFE: God's theater of the absurd

A new take on the classic evolution vs creationism debate

What's the difference between your appendix and Britney Spears?  Your appendix probably served a good purpose at one point.  Which brings me to my next point: evolution.  There are two things at play when I consider the topic of creationism versus evolution.  One is that there is so much evidence for evolution that I assume people are just trying to look cool by denying it.  Secondly, however, is that when you get down into the fundamental processes of living and non-living organisms, it seems almost insane that it could all happen just by sheer chance.  So based off of the second statement, you have probably guessed correctly. I do not support teaching creationism as an alternative to evolution.

I do believe that there probably is, or was, something behind this absurdist comedy we're living through.  My theory is that God became so tired after repeatedly having to kill off the people he kept creating that he finally decided to let them go at it alone.  Probably retired to a celestial Florida.  My second theory is that God created a Myspace, nobody commented on his pics, and he decided to smite us something fierce. 

But the idea of teaching creationism is overstepping that whole "church and state" thing.  It is an obvious attempt at trying to reinstate God into schools as an integral part of the educational foundation.  My problem with this is that it completely disregards the diverse religious population we have present.  When considering the Muslims, the Sikhs, the Whigs, the Know Nothings, etc., there is blatant discrimination going on there.  I have heard a number of arguments in the likes of "Notice how things have gotten worse since they removed God from schools!" or more specifically "Look at how bad things have gotten since they've banned prayer in schools!"  But you see, God (the Christian God which is implicit in those arguments) has not been banned from school whatsoever.  When I was in junior high I was permitted to read my bible freely.  I was allowed to pray as I wished, never having any evil Atheistic liberal Democrat try and smolder my spiritual development while I was on school grounds. 

So then where is this banning of God from schools?  Ever since prayer in schools was banned (teacher lead prayer only, not prayer by individuals as they wish) we have seen a sharp stab at the throat to all those who wish to practice their religion in the meekest of attempts and subsequently a sharp decline in religious affiliation, right?  InterVarsity at Bakersfield College is a shining example of this.  So was the bible fellowship club that was active when I was in high school.  They are certainly not allowed to exist anymore. And although it clearly looks like they do in fact exist and are highly active, I can assure that they do not. I believe they are mass hallucinations trying to stave of the spiritual starvation that Engel v. Vitale has evoked upon us.  So when Creationism is not considered a true science, it is surely because of the aforementioned banning of God. 

However, when it comes to teaching evolution, it should be considered that, although there are hoards of evidence backing up the theory, there is nothing that can possibly be done to disprove the existence of a god, and any language that is used to suggest otherwise should be greeted with the same resistance as that which says there is only one God.  Because I do have grievances against many religious groups, and the Scientific Atheists are one of them.  God cannot be proven or disproven.  That is the very nature of what God represents; God is beyond the observable world.  The observable world and science are inextricably linked; it is the only way which science can exist.  Therefore, to be able to say that the world evolved from nothing other than an explosion billions of years ago is still not proof that God does not exist.  But not only is it scientifically unsound to say so, it is scientifically unethical. Even if science were to prove beyond any doubt exactly what happened in the beginning of the universe, it would still not prove the non-existence of God.  Science may be able to explain what ever nerve signals in your brain, or what every beat of your heart does to you physiologically, or that there may even be a God gene.  But all that can be said is that it explains the physical manifestations of such things.  It is how they exist not why.  As far as the "why" is concerned, I'm ok with not knowing for now and will let the unfolding explain itself.

Printed in Bakotopia Magazine, Issue 18, 12-27-07