One of the Best Days of My Life!

I've been singing all day long... "Ding, Dong, the DOUCHE is GONE!"

Now, that may show my political view, but it's also something that makes me happier than I've been in a very long time. I will never forget this day.

While in my spring intercession class today, everything was postponed a day with our assignments so that we all could watch the inauguration of Barack Obama. I sat in class, tears of joy in my eyes, as I watched Barack take the oath of office. The things he said in his speech resonated in the minds of my classmates and myself. We found ourselves nodding along with many of the comments made in Obama's speech, and also focused on what we all considered to be a gaffe. However, there wasn't a dry eye in the classroom as we watched the inauguration unfold.

As to the gaffe, Obama spoke in his speech about how America is made up of patchwork, referring to people of all shapes, colors, and sizes. From there, though, he also mentioned several religious as such: "Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers..." THAT caused issue in the class. While we all understood what Obama meant by what he said (that people of every faith make up America and can all work together), we all agreed that that comment could have been set up SOOOO much better than that. It was the only issue most of the class had with his speech.

On the other hand, the class listed things that Obama talked about in his speech that made us feel that we were veering off the path of fear that President Bush had put us on, and that we were being put back on the path of hope and faith. Obama discussed health care, education, following the rule of law, and living with a living constitution, among many other things. He reaffirmed to America that it takes work to get anything accomplished, and with the help of the country, many wonderful new things will be fixed and set up anew. All we have to do is work with him, and let him know what we want.

No one yet knows how Barack Obama will do as president, but all I can do is hope for the best, work hard, and let Obama know what causes are important to me to get the issues I care about taken care of, be it ending the genocide in Darfur, pulling our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, or just making sure that there is more funding available for education.

Obama as our new president not only represents a new chance to be better than we currently are, it also gives our country a chance to open its arms to other countries in peace and find new ways to solve global conflicts.

Good luck, President Obama. You're going to need it, but I have faith it will be there for you, and that you and Michelle will help make the world a better place.