voting, being American in China and GOBAMA!

Although it wasn't as big of a priority as it normally would have been, I was able to get my overseas ballot in on time! I felt very out of the loop when my FB newsfeed would be filled with silly comments and jokes about the debates. I mean, I've always been pretty horrible with popular culture, and here I am missing out on an election year's worth of popular culture? Great.

When I realized the results of the election would likely come out while I was at work, I pretty much gave up on doing any sort of actual work in my free time during the school day. Lucky for me, my students have a daily half hour recess, then a 45 minute Chinese lesson that isn't supervised by me, as well as three day's worth of one hour specials in addition to all of that. It was Wednesday in China already, and that just so happens to be one of my days with the added hour away from the kids.

I spent all of this non-kid time trying to get election information. The Internet was extremely slow, which I can only blame on high monitoring (people say these things, I usually ignore them but election results time had the Internet at an incredibly ridiculously slow snail speed). Lucky for me, two of my close friends (shot out to Kevin and Ashelee) gave me regular updates as they had information. When both friends announced to me that Barack had won it, I was skeptical. I mean, the polls in California just closed... how is it possible? While I patiently waited for the map to load, I saw that mathematically, they were correct. I was thrilled. A few teachers had come in and asked me if I knew what was going on, and I had given them the updates that I had. 

I wanted to jump around and get really goofy drunk but then I remembered I was at work. I decided I would run around campus and tell everyone that I saw that Obama had won, instead.

Before I could do this, another teacher came in and sat down. Her and I have chatted before, I enjoy her strange fashion sense and I know she goes to church a lot. I also know that I have become close with several people despite our religious differences and I don't cast people off because of that difference alone (because that's just ridiculous). I genuinely like this girl and appreciate our conversations on the Metro. 

That being said, I could tell she was either having a rough day or upset about something. She didn't have anything in her hands to work on (as most people at work usually do), was just sitting there looking sad. I quickly asked her how she was, and she had a sad, monotone response. After a few moments of silence, most of which I wanted to run out of there, I said, "I don't know if you know, but Obama won." and she replied that she did in fact know that. Then she went on to say that the outcome was not what she had hoped for. I said I understood, and then I said something about how great it is that we live (haha, not live, but are citizens of) a country that we have choices and are able to make an informed decision that reflects our values. She went on to say that she was concerned about violence because of the outcome, "on one side you have angry white men and on the other, well, you know..."

This is where she lost me, and I had to work to be patient. I let her go on for awhile, because I know that is what she needed me to do, and then as our conversation was ending, another co-worker popped in. This co-worker is a fellow Michigander, someone that I talk to often and had a strong sense is a Democrat. She comes in, asks me what the outcome was and goes "suck it, Romney!" which I had to stop from laughing at. It was awkward but hilarious (to me). I left quickly after that, ran across the campus and high-fived a few of the other American teachers on the way to my roommate's classroom where I shared the news with my closest friend here. We celebrated with a beer later that evening.

The win made me happy, but also very homesick. I wanted to be celebrating with friends back home. Sure, I'm surrounded by Americans at my school, but we were working while all of the fun election stuff was happening. On top of that, living in China is just a little bit alienating when it comes to feeling American. At the end of the day, however, my man won and I have to say I'm pretty proud of my fellow Americans for making it happen. GOBAMA!