Obama

Remember a couple of months ago when I wanted to go to the Barack Obama rally on campus but by the time I was able to get out of the class I teach and head over there the line was already stretched halfway across campus and the rally wasn't even going to start for two hours and it was only fifteen degrees outside and I was sort of under the weather and there was no guarantee that if I stood outside in the icy weather sniffling for two hours that I would even actually get into the building before it reached capacity, so I just went home instead?
Actually, maybe I never told that story here, but that's what happened. And I was a little bummed because I thought it would be cool to see a presidential candidate speak, but I just figured it wasn't meant to be.
Well, last night I finally got to see Obama speak! The guy I'm dating* lives in a city where Obama happened to be having a rally last night. We'd already planned for me to go there for the evening so we could go to a baseball game, but instead we altered our plans somewhat. We still watched the first half of the game (which was a lot of fun) and then we walked over to the rally. It was really convenient, actually, because he lives just a few blocks from where Obama was speaking so we didn't have to deal with traffic and parking.
There were a ton of people there so it's not like I was mere feet from the senator, but we still managed to get within about half a block and had a pretty good view of him as he spoke. And we could hear his speech very clearly. There was this woman standing near us who was really rowdy at first and kept shouting things like, "I love you, Obama!" and leaping around like he was a rockstar or something. Finally the rest of the crowd around me managed to give her enough dirty looks that she shut up (although not before yelling, "YOU shhhhhh!" to everyone who was hushing her). He spoke for about half an hour and didn't really say anything new. Anyone who has been following the election pretty much knows his spiel by now, and of course the convenient thing about a rally is that you can just say, "Our country needs THIS, and I can DO IT!" but you don't have to explain how you would do it. Still, I'm glad I got to see him speak. It was exciting to be there. He's definitely a charismatic guy, telling jokes and getting the crowd excited. I looked around the crowd and there were a lot of older people there but also a ton of people my age, and I think it's great that, for whatever reason, college students have been able to get interested in politics because of him. And I just hope that he wins the nomination because I am betting at this point that whoever gets the Democratic nomination will win the general election, and I seriously don't think I can handle Hillary Clinton in the White House for four years. I've tried to give her a chance, but I just can't handle her insincerity. And the crazy thing is that I think she knows that she comes across as insincere and she's trying to change that, but it's just not working. Not for me, anyway.

I'd write more but I really need to get some work done tonight. I have two papers to write this week and I need to get on it.

*He may just stick around long enough to get an official pseudonym. He's going to Europe for most of the month of May, which is one of the reasons why I'm being tentative about getting too attached at this point. But if we're still talking when he comes back to the states, well, I figure that means something (what it means I have no idea, but something).