It's not as if I wasn't aware that this could (and mostly likely would) happen - but experiencing it is still a shock.

The oil is running out, and a potential catastrophe has begun.

And yet...
I'm sitting in my room, the windows open to catch the breeze while I  watch the news - just like any other night.  My neighbor's baby is crying and my dog won't stop barking. Really, it's not until I see the reports from the rest of the nation that I realize how bad this really is. Things are already pretty chaotic - the lack of oil is already beginning to effect other parts of the country. Everyone is panicking. I feel lucky to be in a region where the chaos is relatively low for the moment, but I'm apprehensive as to how much longer we can maintain this facade of normalcy.

I was downstairs watching TV with my family earlier. When the reports about the "sudden" lack of oil began to filter in, I noticed my dad's hands begin to shake. I heard he and my mom talking - my dad told my mom this would change our way of life forever.


I'm so confused... on one hand, I'm glad that I have the option to pretend that things are normal. On the other hand, I just want everyone to recognize the crisis before us and begin to prepare for the worst.


I'm taking a final in Philosophy on Wednesday. Carrying on life as usual, I suppose.

But while I watch the news and see the misery already befalling my fellow citizens, I know that this marks a turning point in history. I'm submerged in calm, but I feel the storm threaten to shake my core.

I live in the Midwest (Indiana) in a medium sized town... today we had a major power outage that left most of the city without power. All of the downtown was closed (including major businesses), streetlights were out, radio stations off the air... chaos reigned.

While things are now (mostly) under control, the events of the day left me with several questions to ponder: What would happen if power in the city were out for any substantial time period? Why did it take an entire day to react to the outage, and why did life as we know it just stop? People were honestly just sitting around like the world was over, simply because they had no power...

I would like to think that, while technology has progressed, basic survival skills would still be present. Among the other distresses heading our way, I shudder to think about what my community will do if we happen to experience long-term or widespread power outage. I guess the only thing to do is learn how to survive on my own as well as how to educate others.

I know I haven't updated in a bit - I apologize. I'm in the middle of finals and swimming in work. Luckily for me, this upcoming week is the last in the semester *yay* - I'll be able to devote much more time to my journals once finals are out of the way.

Although I haven't been writing a lot lately, I have been reading quite a bit. I learned something about a bell curve. Apparently oil production runs on a bell curve (or something like that) and productive can "peak". After production peaks, it obviously begins to decline - and production has, indeed, already peaked. If the oil becomes sparse and we (as a nation/society/people) cannot depend on it anymore, we are in major trouble. Technology will halt and move in reverse. Society will halt and move in reverse..

So what do we do? When everything that my generation has known ends, how do we cope? No one is teaching us the skills we need to survive.

Come on everyone - if we learn how to live independent of oil/fossil fuels, &ct, we won't be in as much trouble when the future becomes the present.

/rant

What to say, what to say...
Well, I suppose I could just say some random things about me. Boring and hideously normal, I know, but forgive me - I'm running low on creativity at the moment.

I am 19 years old, and I live in Indiana. I am almost finished with my very first year of college *yay!* and I am an English major. I have no idea what I'll do with my education... I would teach, but kids annoy me - my choices are therefore drastically narrowed :( An editor, perhaps...

Moving on :)

Spiders terrify me. If I see one on my ceiling, I freeze and pray for it to disappear. I'm scared to kill them, too - I'm afraid they'll jump on my hand while I'm trying to squash them. *shudder*

I'm terrified of driving... not to mention I suck at it - but that's a good thing, I suppose, since I don't have a fortune to spend on oil, the supply of which seems to be dwindling.
I love singing and laughing, reading and writing short stories and poetry. I've been told that I'm odd, but I'm very nice - I have to be, it offsets the oddness :)

My name is Alycia.

<3