A Year at St Andrews...

  • Home
  • My Thoughts
  • My Pictures
    • London 1
    • London 2
    • Edinburgh
    • Freshers' Week
    • Wardlaw
    • Plastic Fantastic
    • Halloween
    • Snow
    • Raisin Weekend
    • St Andrews Castle
    • My 21st Birthday
    • Christmas Dinner
    • Christmas Ball
    • Nottingham
    • February Snow
    • Chain Walk
    • May Dip
    • Kate Kennedy Procession
    • Scotland Trip 1 (Stonehaven, Dunottar Castle and Aberdeen)
    • Scotland Trip 2 (Inverness)
    • Scotland Trip 3 (Loch Ness & Urquhart Castle)
  • Contact me
  • Links
  • Games!
 

Election Fever

11/5/2008

0 Comments

 

I'm away from the US, but somehow I don't think I can ever truly be away. The US is everywhere in the world, on TV and in the newspapers.  Sadly, when you're actually in the US the existence of this outside world is barely noticed or acknowledged.  

 The US Presidential election took place yesterday and well, if you have an internet connection you knew about it. St Andrews has a lot of American students, so yesterday there were all night parties at various places to watch the election unfold.  Even outside of St Andrews, there was a lot of talk and hype around the US election. Newspapers had large articles about the race in the weeks leading up to it, and television coverage was widespread.

One of my friends here had her birthday yesterday, so we went out to a pub for a while and then came back to hall and turned on the TV to watch the election. The BBC was covering it here. It was a little past midnight here before the first states had counted their votes and there were cheers when Obama won a state.

I didn't stay up all night. I was too tired for that, so I went to bed at two. I was not feeling too well however, and woke up at half four because I couldn't sleep. A  friend of mine sent me a text saying "Obama won" at about 4:35. Since I was still too ill to go back to sleep I made myself a cup of tea and turned on my computer to watch a few clips of the speeches from Obama and McCain. It was quite moving to see it all. Most people over here are happy because they wanted Obama to win. This goes for both the US citizens as well as the non-US citizens out here. 

I was never truly interested in American politics, largely because I am not an American citizen as yet. But I have been reading about the presidential race while I've been in St Andrews. Maybe it's the fact that I'm here and the people here are interested in politics or maybe it's the very nature of this election, which going by the numbers, seems to have brought a lot more people out to vote and seems to have reached a lot of people.

It somehow feels like America has won back a bit of respect from the rest of the world, by electing Barack Obama as President,  the first African-American to hold that high office. It truly is a momentous time in history. It is hard to imagine that just half a century ago, blacks in America did not have the same rights as whites, and now today, Barack Obama is President. The American people have proved that they can see beyond colour and race, and the face of America has changed. The world will see a new America and one in which, as Obama said "all things are possible."

Maybe it won't be so bad to be a US citizen after all.

EDIT: The UK papers a day later.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Search this site:

    Clarissa D

    I'm a college student from UC Davis. I spent my junior year   studying abroad at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. These are my adventures.




    The time in St Andrews is:


    Like reading my blog? Subscribe to it!

    RSS Feed


    Archives

    August 2010
    November 2009
    October 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    August 2008
    July 2008


    Categories 
    (find exactly what you want)

    All
    Aberdeen
    Academic Family
    Airport
    Back
    Before
    Bop
    California
    Cardiff
    Castles
    Cavities
    Celebrities
    Christmas
    Class
    Coats
    Cricketers
    Dancing
    Davis
    Dentist
    Dorm
    Easter
    Edinburgh
    Exams
    Family
    Food
    Freshers Week
    Friends
    Fun
    Garden Party
    Golf
    Halloween
    High Table
    Ill
    Inverness
    Kate Kennedy
    Lab
    Last Week
    Life
    Loch Ness
    London
    Los Gatos
    May Dip
    Mumbai Terrorist Attacks
    My Birthday
    New Year
    Nottingham
    Orientation
    Packing
    Parties
    Party
    Peace
    Plane
    Pluscarden
    Poem
    Pubs
    Raisin Weekend
    Reading Week
    Shopping
    Sightseeing
    Snow
    Spring
    St Andrews
    Stonehaven
    Studies
    Train
    Travel
    Trip
    Uni Hall
    Urquhart Castle
    Us Election
    Valedictory Dinner
    Wardlaw
    Weather



    blog search directory
    blogarama - the blog directory
    Blog Directory
    EatonWeb Blog Directory





Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.