I am Over Anarchy

I came from Sano Elementary to Hakuchi Elementary. I asked the secretary to put on the news and I saw that Obama had over 100 electoral votes while McCain only had 40 some and Obama had taken Pennsylvania. I walked into the 6th grade class everyone was observing and, like so many America's did that day, I cried. I looked around the room realizing, like I often do, that I look so different than everyone else in that room. But I am the citizen of a country where these differences are embraced and President Obama understands the importance of cultural differences. For a moment, I felt like I was doing something that made sense.

I woke up this morning and I felt like I had spent the night with a new love. I walked around school with a smile and a glow. It was that feeling you get when you first meet someone amazing. You cannot imagine that there will be challenges or you could ever be angry again. You never really understood this feeling before. It is a feeling that has always existed deep inside you but only certain things could bring it out.
Today it was a feeling of actually loving the country I come from. I am not angry at it. Despite the Walmarts, fast food, ignorance, intolerance, nonsensical drug wars, really bad high school teachers, corrupt cops, high cost of prescription medication, abstinence sex education, and the many other things I have spent the last 24 years despising, I can look past it. The majority of my country just might get it. These things that made me want to move may be seen as retro in the years to come. Or, at least, that is what I rolled over to this morning.

Yesterday I drove for an hour and spent a lot of money on tolls to get to Tokushima city so I could hang out with other Americans to celebrate.
We ate Mexican food.
I toasted to not recontacting to another year in Japan.
Then we drove around shouting things like "Obama gozaimashta" and "OtsukareBama " which is really funny to people who speak the amount of Japanese that we do.
I have also realized that chills often begin in my knees and fingers. Then move to the rest of my body.