Dread of the Future I

Looks like I'm all set to start summer classes at Portland Community College, beginning June 20: I even successfully appealed my disqualification for financial aid, and am reluctantly taking out yet another Perkins loan. It's insurance, of a sort, in the event I tire sufficiently of pumping gas that I quit or get fired, I will have enough money to tide me over until I find another unrewarding and irksome bottom-feeder job. I just have to be sure not to spend it all on various home improvement projects. I'm only taking two classes, Calculus and Speech Communication, primarily because I want to ease my way back in to school, but also because I want to take time to independently catch up on my math and physics knowledge, and to leave time open for much-needed counseling. I'm rather scared, honestly; though I have decided to major in nuclear engineering, my resolve is tinged with doubt, and I still struggle with my insecurities and self-destructive tendencies — just being intelligent isn't enough.

I so wither under the baleful gaze of the sun: my beloved Northwest is being buffeted by yet another heat wave, the temperatures having risen above 90° F these past couple days. I am reluctant to call it "unseasonably" warm, as it seems to have become the new norm. I so dislike this kind of weather: give me a nice drizzle at 60° F, interspersed with the occasional cloud break. That is the weather I knew as a child, but it seems our foolish ruining of the environment is exacting its toll, and even the scientists (who aren't on the destroyers' payroll) aren't certain how it will play out. Indeed, there looms much terror on the horizon: a multilateral nuclear arms race seems to be in the offing, the American economy may very well collapse under its artificially valued bloatage, water and food shortages may starve millions, and whoever may be left will assuredly fall prey to the new resistant viral and bacterial strains lurking in the no-longer hidden corners of the world and even our own very noses.