Much has transpired since last I wrote an entry. The most crucial of which was the election of now president elect Barack Obama. Watching the election results and being part of the aftermath here was good and bad. I enjoyed seeing the international perspective but part of me wished to be home and in the excitement with my fellow citizens electing this historic president. My flat mates and I stayed up till 2 or 3 Tuesday night watching the results on the BBC even though they had been projecting Obama to be the winner for what seemed like a week already. Then at 5 in the morning I got a text message telling me that Obama would be our next president and that he was about to give his acceptance speech. I sat alone in the dark at 5 in the morning with tears in my eyes watching my next president give his beautiful speech.
I am genuinely excited about what change Mr. Obama will bring to our country and the world and so are the British people. I don’t think I met one person who has not been excited about Obama coming to office. I even had a co-worker explain to me that to them the American elections are more important because whatever happens in their elections the fundamental social liberalism of Britain will remain but the US political climate is a lot more volatile. In fact, there was a mid-term election here a couple days ago but it got severly less press leading up to, during, and after the election than the US election got.
As a result of all the excitement from the elections and from Guy Fawkes night, Wednesday night was a crazy night. As soon as it got dark, which is like right at 4 now, fireworks started going off to beat shock and awe. A couple of my mates and I went to a park in an outer borough of London, Canada Water, to see some fireworks. It was a really exciting atmosphere out there. We followed a mass of singing, glow-jeweller adorned people from the Canada Water’s underground stop to the park. All of Canada Water must have been crammed in that park. There were carnival attractions and fireworks but sadly no effigies. I guess it was too family friendly for that.
There were more celebrations this weekend but unfortunately I had to lay low this weekend in order to get some work done. I finished up my essay for my British literature class and started seriously working on my independent study. I finally decided to research the development of modern citizenship education in this country and try to find out what education for the development of active citizenry existed prior to modern citizenship education. And then do some kind of comparison between the two.
So I’ll keep gathering research for that and working on my various projects at work this week. But this Friday I am going to BERLIN for the weekend!
Oh and by the way the picture is of a statue that I thought was very interesting and unique. It is on top of a monument dedicated to the Common Wealth’s camel brigade that fought in various campaigns in the Middle East. It is in Victoria Embankment Park. I noticed it on a long walk I took down to and along the Thames this weekend.
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