Elections from across the ocean

I gotta say, this election has been an interesting ride, particularly seeing the last couple months unfold while in a foreign country. It is no surprise that a large majority of French people supported Obama. I happen to be living with one of the few families that didn't. I don't really like to talk very much about my political beliefs. It's interesting to debate theories but when it comes right down to it, I don't like sharing what I believe, especially if I am a minority. My roommate, Callie, however was not afraid to do so. She was a McCain supporter and she wasn't afraid to share it. She got ridiculed for it in our politics class (by other students) but she didn't care. Today, while discussing the election in politics class (for those of you who don't know, the class concerned relations between France and the United States), she wasn't going to say anything. But she surprised me in saying that although she supported McCain, she accepted his loss and would now support Obama and do her part to help the country move forward in the difficult times ahead. What she said didn't surprise me, but the fact that she had the courage to say it. She's pretty awesome.
As for the rest, many many students at IES went out last night to wait for the results. I didn't. I felt it would be too late for me and I didn't think I could get up for class if I did. So, I decided to stay home and watch the results roll in on CNN.com. Not really a good plan, seeing as I was up until 2 am, but that's what the time difference will do to you. At around 5 am or so, I got a call from Mom saying that it looked like Obama was going to win California and the presidency. I hung up, rolled over and went back to sleep. It was funny going to class today because there was a lot of celebrating on the metro and in the streets. There was a lot of joy and laughter in the classrooms, celebrating Obama's victory (although I'm convinced that it also had to do with the fact that half of the class hadn't gone to sleep yet and were just plain tired). Even our theater teacher was more pleasant and understanding of our lack of French skills (and consciousness for that matter). She's usually pretty harsh.
Politics class was a lot of fun today though. Marc, our prof, was in very good spirits. We all got an e-mail from him at 5 am this morning announcing Obama's victory...as if we didn't already know. First of all, Marc was late for class (about 20 mins) because he was downstairs in the student lounge discussing the elections with everybody. Then he arrived and made some jokes about the professor being allowed to be late. At the start of each class someone in the class gives a presentation on a trans-Atlantic news event. Can you guess what today's concerned? The projected outcome of the election!!! Hahaha! We have to provide actual newspaper articles to discuss it, thus we started by discussing the projected outcome of an election that we already knew the outcome for. That was incredibly silly. It kind of just got sillier from there. Marc asked us what our initial reactions were and there was some dancing going on and some singing. At one point, the whole class sang the national anthem, while Marc just laughed at our horrible singing skills. I shared that Mom had called me and my initial reaction was somewhere along the lines of "That's nice, Mom. Good night". Although the election didn't go the way I wished it would have, I enjoyed the atmosphere as well as the anticipation for the future. We discussed a lot of the difficult things that Obama is going to have to face as soon as he gets inaugurated. It's not going to be easy.
After the celebration at the beginning of class, we got down to the business of returning to the regularly scheduled program for class, which was the Suez Canal incident in the late 40s. We were almost done with this topic and Marc was about to let us go early when Bertrand (one of the guys that works at IES) popped his head in and asked if he could bring a French film crew into class because they wanted to film American students in a politics class. So we reluctantly agreed because we were all just about to go home and nap. They came in and told Marc to just continue with his lecture. This was hilarious because it didn't even have to do with the election!! Crazy but I'm pretty sure that they got some good shots of me....I did my best to look interested and not too tired. I like to think I did a good job! It was really funny because Marc asked us questions about what he had just finished lecturing us on so we looked really intelligent. It was great! After about 10 minutes they said that they had gotten enough and Marc let us go. Before we left, the film crew asked for a young lady and a young man to talk about their reactions to the election. We pretty much booked it out of the room so that we wouldn't have to talk. Neither of us had showered this morning, nor had we slept very much. This would not have been a good camera day. Plus I am one of the least opinionated people in that class. Best for someone else to do it.
I think the most random thing that happened today was when Callie and I were walking back from class. We were way to tired to communicate in French so we were speaking English and an American couple heard us and turned around and said "We won today, didn't we?" Too tired to actually argue and not really caring enough, we just smiled, said yes, and kept on walking. It was pretty funny though.
The one thing that really worries me about this election is the Democratic dominance in the federal government now. With both the House and the Senate being democratically dominant and having a Democratic president, there is a lack of balance and that might not be very good for us...we'll see I guess. So here's to the future. Let's hope that we can do some good!

Love you all,
French Amy