2025 and 2026: What was and what will be.

white man puts hands on head as he watches magma explode in the distance — Photo by Erik Chistov on Pexels.com

As the last day of 2025 ticks by…

I am glad that this year is over.

While I have accomplished a lot by following through in my plan to get a college degree, life outside of college, living in this awful country, has been difficult. Every day it seems some new nightmare, I learn something new about how America has always been this way. The whole thing has been a facade for rich people to do anything they want, while everyone else suffers at their selfishness. That the two party system is one of abusers (the right), and enablers (the left), where occasionally things change better for everyone, but rarely.

In a way, this administration has caused this country to go into a national Ego Death.

ego death, in psychoanalysis, mysticism, and some religions, the disappearance of an individual’s sense of self, or the removal of one’s perception of oneself as an entity separate from one’s social or physical environment.

https://www.britannica.com/science/ego-death

I feel as if I’ve been lied to what America is my entire life, and throughout this year, I’ve shifted from being devastated and shocked, to numb, to not caring at all and not worrying about it because we’ve become so far apart in goals and values that its like watching a stranger hurt themselves over and over.

As much as I have enjoyed college and overcoming the unique challenges of each class,

It’s hard to really feel a sense of accomplishment because it feels like all this could be taken away any day now. I could be whisked away by ICE like so many have been just because I am against what is happening and disgusted by the every day state of things. I feel all I can do is just focus on doing the best I can every day to do the work because the future is empty. I am mostly certain that my choice of degree and future field of work is what I truly want to do. Doing it here in this joke of a country is another thing entirely. I don’t want to constantly look over my should from here until I die because 30% of people are stupid, selfish, and complete assholes who could come into power again if we somehow make it through this nightmare. I don’t want to work with or associate with anyone who voted for this. Or people who choose to look away because it hasn’t affected them personally yet. I’m so angry and I don’t have a way to channel it into something that may make things better or merely allow me a method to work through my feelings until I can escape.

Between social media and the news, it feels like we aren’t seeing what is actually happening to real people in real time. It’s a curated version limited to whatever the algorithm wants.

It’s like the big media companies don’t give a shit about the flooding and massive disaster area that has been inflicted thanks to climate change that has destroyed large parts of Washington state. More and more it feels like this area of the world is its own unique country and place than being part of the U.S.

It feels like there is no future in the U.S. Things will never change as long as billionaires and multimillionaires exist. (This needs to be made into a crime and never allowed to exist again).

Anyway, College.

Here is what I learned this fall quarter of college. Chemistry had a challenging beginning because it happened at the same time as the Mariners playoff run after making the playoffs for the first time in three years, and over twenty years as the winner of the American League West Division. That was a thrilling and long playoff series which left me, and my mother often stressed out and emotionally spent after each game as the Mariners went back and forth with the Tigers, then the Blue Jays before ultimately, falling short in game seven of the ALCS, one at bat, one game short of reaching the World Series for the first time in their history. Thus, the Mariners remain the only baseball team to never appear in baseballs title series. As much as this was fulfilling as a fan, as a Mariners fan, its frustrating. It may not happen again in my lifetime. Yes, most of the team will return this year in 2026, but after a lifetime of mostly disappointment and occasional hope, along with maturity, you don’t know until it happens.

So, all this time watching or thinking about playoff baseball took away from important study time. Part of it was the fact that this may be a once in a lifetime event, and the other was having confidence in myself to be able to recover. It came at a price.

I started off chemistry’s first test with a 53 score. An awful score, not close to passing because I wasn’t able to learn and review everything in time despite putting my all into studying. This put me in a bad spot because 30% of the total score was from two mid-term tests. So, doing poorly on the first test made passing the class and getting a decent grade so much harder. Thankfully i was able to focus more time on studying for chemistry as the course load in Anthropology 100 was a style I was well practiced and used to at this point in this college journey. It didn’t mean something could and would go wrong tat I couldn’t account for, but I could not fail a Chemistry class again. I already did in the winter quarter earlier in 2025, because it was a 160 class, and I did not want to fail and retake another class without giving it my all despite the horrifying state of the world. After all, sometimes college is about learning the material, other times, its life lessons and overcoming challenges while living and working. This would be the latter.

So, I organized my studying schedule to find sources that would help me get high scores on the upcoming tests and quizzes, and when stuck or burned out, I would switch to the homework in Anthropology because it was different. This worked out, as I managed to get a C grade on the next quiz, which was a win. Chemistry is a hard subject because there is so much material to learn, every week is something new that may or may not connect until later on, and it is math heavy.

Youtube videos about chemistry saved my ass. There are so many fantastic creators such as Tyler Dewitt, The organic chemistry tutor, and dozens of others on specific topics which makes learning expedient and walks you through the steps of each subject, which can be abstract and precise. Miss a small part and the whole thing doesn’t work.

The course felt like a long marathon where I had to keep up, even if it meant walking or crawling, or recognizing when I could not learn anymore for the day because my brain was spent and needed rest.

Anthropology hummed along, and was a interesting class that covered a lot of subjects which I will later want to learn more about. There’s only so much and so deep an intro class can cover. What went wrong in that class was the big project for the course. A reasearch paper project where we had to choose a group of people to study like an anthropologist, then write a short paper on about it. A four to seven page paper. Challenging but doable. What I did not forsee was that my first two project choices, one studying the lawsuit and accident that my father caused 23 years ago would be too ambitious and time consuming to do in the time period of three months, and two, researching multi generational college students at my college, both would not work out, and I would have had to research and write the paper in 10 DAYS. The final 10 DAYS of the quarter. As I had to study for and get one more decent grade on the cumulative final exam for Chemistry, which was 20% of that grade.

Somehow, I made it happen. I chose to research the World of Warcraft private server of Turtle WoW, which is (possibly was, depending on when you read this in the future) a fan made expansion and version of World of Warcraft that deviates from that games story, gameplay, included races, and other things different from that era of WoW. It was a fascinating project as when I was doing it, this community was under threat of legal annihilation as the company that produces and made WoW was suing these fan creators. Blizzard rightfully asserted IP infringement and damages, alongside redicilous demands sucha s RICO charges.

Under RICO, a person who has committed “at least two acts of racketeering activity” drawn from a list of 35 crimes (27 federal crimes and eight state crimes) within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specified ways to an enterprise.^[2]

Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count.^[3]

In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of racketeering activity.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act

Charges which are absurd, and a clear abuse of power by Blizzard. Therefore, I wanted to understand what the community felt about this situation, why they left playing the official servers, to ask what a community is, and what appeals to them about this specific fan server.

All in all, it was a success, as the paper bloated to about 20 pages with and index and pictures. I got a low B grade because it could have used another phase of editing for big picture things, and I could have summarized parts better to cut the page count. A fair grade.

So, I got a high C for Chemistry, and an A for Anthropology.

But, on the last day as I took the final exam, I began to feel sick, as my mother had recently had a bad cold, and I was sick during the quarterly break.

I was able to spend more time playing Turtle Wow, and reach level 60 on my high elf paladin, which was another goal I had for playing this game, and went on a couple of dungeon raids with my guild and a pickup group of random people. Both went well as a learning experience.

Conclusion

I have one more quarter to go until this two year, AA transfer degree is complete.

While chemistry was disappointing because it was so math heavy and put me off possibly doing more science classes in the future, passing this class with the grade I did was satisfying. My hard work paid off. Anthropology was an interesting class which I want to learn more about. It felt like an official confirmation of being skilled at and interested in the subject. It showed me that I have been interested in learning about this subject on my own for years. It showed me that I can do good work in a short time period. It showed me that I still have more to learn and practices with editing.

I am glad to be done with studying stuff outside my degree. Its been over a year since I last took a psychology class, and I will be taking two 200 level courses to complete this degree. I hope that these two classes are more fulfilling than the last one, and re-spark my interest in the subject.

I feel like I haven’t reached my potential or accomplished what I want from life.

Overall, in my own life, this year was good and had lots of growth in college, and outside of it. While living through the fall of the US as nobody fights back.

I am worried about the future in the US, and a little anxious about the next decision of where to go to college next. It doesn’t feel safe in the US. Not with so many stupid and violent people who vote for scum of the earth as president. It makes me angry and frustrated to live through this as this country flirts openly with fascism and authoritarianism.

3 responses to “2025 and 2026: What was and what will be.”

wondrousinquisitivelyafaa210395

January 5, 2026 at 9:51 am

Dear Reilly: I read all your blogs and I

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1. TheUnknownReilly
  
  January 6, 2026 at 11:59 pm
  
  Thank you for reading! Part of your comment was cut off, and I would like to read it! If you can, please respond again!
  
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thereseclear

January 5, 2026 at 4:59 pm

Reading this was a high point in an otherwise lousy day. Bravo!

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