I drank some coffee around 11 pm tonight to help me stay up to finish writing an essay for my law class. I finished the essay around 12:20 am, but now I can’t sleep so I decided to blog. My thoughts today revolved around the presidential election.
Countless times while here in Poitiers, I’ve been asked have I voted, how do I vote abroad, and who I’m voting for. Whenever I answer the last of these questions, there’s always a sigh of relief: “Thank God you’re voting for Obama!” It’s amazing how many people at my school support Obama–a whopping 100% of the people I know. My school demographic is quite varied, but made up of students mostly from Latin America. The rest come from Portugal and Spain with a handful of people from Africa, non-hispanophonic Caribbean islands, and other European countries. There are only two Americans (including myself), one Canadian, and perhaps twenty or so French people. It’s so surprising though, that with such a diverse group of people, everyone who has come up to me asking who I’m going to vote for has implied (in an insistent tone) that I should vote for Obama. I’m always proud to say that he is my one and only choice for president, but sometimes I wonder about the students who are studying abroad who aren’t pro-Obama, and who sent in absentee ballots in favor of McCain. How do they feel when asked–or demanded–to vote for Obama? Do they feel, in a sense, alienated because of their political leanings?
My Canadian friend, Violet*, thinks that it’s so rude that people so directly interrogate me about who I’m voting for. “That’s none of their business!” She insists. “You don’t ask them who they voted for in their country’s elections!” I think it’s so strange how everything that happens in America—be it in the world of politics, economy, or society—is so transparent to the rest of the world. It’s so odd that non-Americans feel entitled to tell me—along with other Americans—how I should vote, what’s wrong with my country, and how their country compares. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the role of my country in the world. One minute the US is some sort of hegemonic superpower, and the next, it’s like a little child, with countries monitoring its every step and advising it on what it should and shouldn’t do.
I feel so torn all the time. Half the time I find myself defending the United States, and the other half listening in shame as someone (or a professor) recounts what atrocities America has committed solely because it had the power to do so–and no one to stop it. Once, a professor actually stopped halfway through a lecture to apologize to me for having to listen to all the misdeeds America had committed throughout Latin American history, in case I was getting offended. “It’s okay,” I told her. “It’s like this in a lot of my classes.” Nearly all the class burst into laughter.
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This Saturday was my birthday, and I turned 20!! I feel so old. It’s so weird not being able to append “teen” to the end of my age anymore. I almost feel like continuing to tell people that I’m nineteen, because I just don’t feel mature enough to tell people that I’m twenty. Twenty-year-olds know what they want out of life and have at least an idea of what they want their careers to be. Me, I still have problems choosing classes every semester, I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with my Chinese, which I’ve been learning for 2 and a half years now, and I’m clueless as to what I want to do in life after Georgetown chucks me into the real world. I even had problems deciding what I wanted to do for my birthday! I ended up going to a bar with friends the night before, and partying the night of; but let me tell you, it took some serious deliberation and reflection before I could finally make up my mind to do even that!
Well, it’s nearly 3 am here, and I suppose I should get to sleep so I can wake up in time for my 8 am Spanish class. Living 15 minutes away from school is killing me. I’m so used to living on campus like at Georgetown, where my class is in the building next door. Here, I always wake up at 7 am, sleepily think to myself “I have time…”, and doze off. Then, around 7:25 am, when my alarm starts blaring again, I always jolt out of bed in a panic and leap to the bathroom so I can grab my toothbrush, brush my teeth while tossing books into my bookbag, pick out my outfit of the day with my free hand, put down the toothbrush, throw on my slippers so I can rush to the kitchen and get a quick breakfast, fix my hair…*Sigh*. Running to school has become the norm with me….At least I can leave France knowing with satisfaction that I have lean thighs.
‘Night.
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*name changed to protect privacy
