Very quiet here. Fuel prices stayed the same again, as people settled down into a rhythm of the new way of life: more expensive to get around, more expensive to buy things from further away, but otherwise life goes on.

School has subtly changed since I went back. College is advising people not to take a fourth A-level (you need at least three for most unis) - instead they're offering 'life' skills. It's part of a new initiative by the local council and the transition towns project - teach us practical skills now that it's harder to produce stuff industrially, I guess.

Feeling like primary school kids, we went blackberry picking with our chemistry class, and our teacher taught us how to make jam. What a far cry from burettes and sodium hydroxide! In a few weeks he said we can take a pot home. It felt good to be using something that was just lying around waiting to be utilised. We've also got some DIY lessons on keeping things working, keeping water clean and even a little cooking! It's nice to have an hour or two doing less book-related stuff, that's for sure.

Uncle Andy's much better since he broke down last week. He's a little bit more like his old self, buzzing around the house doing odd jobs, converting parts that don't work, even making a Cantenna for wifi! The oil company gave him a little money to be getting on with and he said that he wants to use it to make his life (and ours) self-sufficient.

I bugged him to give me links to the things he was building: Solar Still and Cantenna instructions!

Things seem to be calmer around the world too, which makes me happy. It was hard listening to so many Netizens talk about violence and suffering - I hope the worst is over. It's like they say about poverty - it takes three months to get used to it. Well, we're it's been 5 months now. Maybe we can settle into a rhythm and survive as we are. I hope so.

But I'll still be looking over my shoulder for trouble after all that's happened.

-Mia


[author note: week 21. Just a small one today as I'm revising particle physics for my tuesday exam.

thanks to will without oil for taking up my congress-reporting challenge. From the wwotexts, here's another great example of netizens coming up with realistic pictures of how life (and politics) still goes on.

Again, via Daily Kos, here's a diary from today that details what americans today can do to help the way agriculture works in your country. People not having enough food has been seen frequently in the story of wwo and this farm bill essentially decides what American farmers grow - at the moment the tax and subsidy section of the farm bill is heavily weighted towards corn and other staples for ethanol and cheap foodstuffs. However, if enough people get involved at a grassroots level and encourage politicians to change the bill, these subsidies could be much changed to favour smaller, organic and local food producers instead of the huge national companies and giant mechanised farms producing factory-chickens and the like. Not only will this mean better quality food, it will also make it far more profitable to be a small farmer - reducing the dependence on massive corporations that ship food for thousand of miles to be sold - and producing more small farm jobs in the process. Not liking some of the horror stories about food in wwo? This daily kos diary details what is perhaps the most important way to change things before a real crisis comes along.

This video series about a group of youngsters studying in Iraq is a great example of what life after a crisis would be like - sure, things will be bad, but life goes on. You can do all you can to try and escape the worst of it, but in the end you have to settle with it and move on, even with the problems all around you.]