Yes We Can!

So the results are in. Perhaps not all, but enough to know the victor. Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America! I just pulled an all-nighter following the elections but it was worth it in the end. It made me smile, cry, laugh... all at the same time. This also means I'll save a few hundred (perhaps even thousands) of dollars for visa extensions, rent, and flight changes and just go home on my originally scheduled flight. In response to Cathy's comment - if I do get the semi-permanent position with the UNDP, actually they might not station me in Mali. I might be stationed elsewhere. Still, I need to go back home first before they assign my "official" post =) So I'll be going home for at least a couple months either way - at least long enough to celebrate New Year with you!!! ;)

I was following the election online and I was amazed how easily Obama won, compared to the 2004 elections,it's almost a landslide, though the margin between the popular votes isn't as great.
There may still be hope for my home country yet! It's good to see that a majority of the people were smart enough not to elect another couple of idiots into office and that they were even able to put a sensitive issue like "race" aside. In a country where the Civil Rights Movement took place less than 50 years ago, it's amazing to see them elect a "Black" presidential candidate. It's kind of funny how people make things more... dramatic by saying he's a black president when in fact, he's only half black (his mother was a white American from Kansas, his father an African from Kenya). It's just in our American culture to identify people of mixed races with the minority race parent. Obama is the classic example, though he's half white and half black, they say he's "black." I'd be identified as "Asian" and hm... actually, my siblings could pass as "white". You never know what you're going to get when you blend people from very different backgrounds!

Ah, I'm getting side-tracked. Yes, I'm glad Obama won. He has his flaws and I don't agree with all his politics (especially his antagonistic views towards Cuba and Russia... and he approved the FISA, which I'm still pissed off about) but still, I'm glad he won. I guess I'll be going back home at the end of December now. I imagine that my mom is happy too =) She sounded happy when I talked to her a few hours ago. I couldn't believe she was awake at midnight when she usually goes to sleep at 9p.m.!

I even listened to his victory speech... and there was one part of the speech that really reached me.... it was when he said, "And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand." It made me feel at home, though I'm thousands and thousands of miles away in Africa, I felt I was there listening to him in Chicago. I really don't know what to expect from our new president-elect. What I do know is, he sure can give a damn good speech and he's much more articulate than George W. Bush.

Today's Random Quiz:

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?