Footprints

Seriously people, McCain's speach was amazing. His speach was eloquent and well presented. He graciously conceded the Presidency and applauded Barak Obama for his victory. I am appauled at the reactions of citizens of this country. I hear (and read) many of them saying that they no longer have a President. "I urge all Americans ... I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited. Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that. It is natural. It's natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again." (Senator McCain) Christians especially are causing a huge uproar. Christians more than anybody should be at peace with the decision of this country because we know that God has everything in control. He ordained who was going to be America's next President. He will work everything for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). We should be in prayer for Obama and his family as well as other leaders of this country. After all, they have the most impact on our lives and our future. We should not curse them or slander their character, we should pray for them and ask that God grant them wisdom as they make the difficult decisions in this country. "I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here." (Senator McCain) So let's suck it up people! If McCain can give a speach like this, we can certainly attempt to respect our newest President as he takes up a huge responsibility.

Yup, I voted today after school. I always end up voting at a very convenient time when I don't have to wait in any lines. I just sign my name and fill out my ballot and go. I voted for McCain to win but honestly, I'm at peace with whoever wins. I just hope Americans realize that everything that was said throughout this entire campaign isn't necessarily going to happen. I think people listen to what the candidates say and thoroughly expect change and reform to happen as soon as they get into office. I'm sorry to inform you people but candidates purposely avoid answering questions in the debate so they don't have to tell you what they're NOT going to do. They just tell you plans and proposals that may or may not happen or even make an immediate difference.

Anyway, this year I had a new voting place. At my old elementary school--Glen Avon Christian School. In my second grade classroom. Mrs. Metler was my teacher. This is me from second grade. Wasn't I cute? I always wore dresses. Anywayz, Here is a photo of some of the kids in my second grade class. The wall behind them to the left is where my voting booth was. It doesn't have all the desks or wall decorations or green trim anymore and it actually seemed way way smaller than I remember, but it still kinda looked the same, in a way. It brought back alot of memories. What's really funny is that the three people (excluding the LITTLE child) in this photo, I've actually seen/talked to within the last year or so. The one in front is Eric Gordon. He works at In n Out. He also took my brother's girlfriend to prom or something a couple years ago. He's kind of a wierdo now. It's kinda sad. Then there's Stevie Ross. She was my first friend at Glen Avon. She showed me where to put my lunch pail the first day of kindergarten. I think I wrote about her recently. The funny looking kid in the back is Ryan Ciampoli. I also wrote about him and his family last year after visiting them during our trip to Georgia to bring my sis to school. I think it's kinda wierd that I still kinda know some people from soooooo long ago. There are a couple other folks from this class that I've seen or talked to recently too but let's not go there.

So did you know that Starbucks is giving free coffee to those who vote!? Crispy Cream apparently is doing something too but I'm much more into coffee. So after voting, my mom and I went to Starbucks to claim our free cups of coffee. We tasted the new Thanksgiving Blend. It's delicious! We got a pound which also got me another free drink! Whatever I wanted! I got a triple grande extra hot non-fat caramel macchiado. I love Starbucks. They also are starting a new thing. People with a Gold card get special benefits such as 10% off almost all instore purchases, special treats such as free drink on your birthday, a free drink for signing up, 2 hour incriments of free wi-fi, and maybe one or two more great benefits. That's on top of other benefits you get if you have a registered Starbucks reward card--like free syrups and such. Yeah for Starbucks!

Silly as it may sound, my biggest laugh this week came from a piece of literature we read in my English class. What makes it even funnier I think is that we read it after reading A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. If you haven't read this, you should. It's kind of disgusting and immoral (about eating babies), but it's also interesting and logical. And it's full of irony and sarcasm, which I love! This piece which I will relate in full is also full of sarcasm. I hope you appreciate it as much as I did.

"Let Women Kill Their Own Spiders" by Dave Barry

"From time to time I receive letters from a certain group of individuals that I will describe, for want of a better term, as 'women.' I have such a letter here, from a Susie Walker of North Augusta, S.S., who asks the following question: 'Why do men open a drawer and say, 'Where is the spatula?' instead of, you know, looking for it?'

"This question expresses a commonly held (by women) negative stereotype about guys of the male gender, which is that they cannot find things around the house, especially things in the kitchen. Many women believe that if you want to hide something from a man, all you have to do is put it in plain sight in the refrigerator, and he will never, ever find it, as evidenced by the fact that a man can open a refrigerator containing 463 pounds of assorted meats, poultry, cold cuts, condiments, vegetables, frozen dinners, snack foods, desserts, etc., and ask, with no irony whatsoever, 'Do we have anything to eat?'

"Now I could respond to this stereotype in a snide manner by making generalizations about women. I could ask, for example, how come your average woman prepares for virtually every upcoming event in her life, including dental appointment, by buying new shoes, even if she already owns as many pairs as the entire Riverdance troupe. I could point out that, if there were no women, there would be no such thing as Leonardo DiCaprio. I could ask why a woman would walk up to a perfectly innocent man who is minding his own business watching basketball and demand to know if a certain pair of pants makes her butt look too big, and then, no matter what he answers, get mad at him. I could ask why, according to the best scientific estimates, 93 percent of the nation's severly limited bathroom-storage space is taken up by decades-old, mostly empty tubes labeled "moisturizer." I could point out that, to judge from the covers of countless women's magazines, the two topics most interesting to women are (1) Why men are all disgusting pigs, and (2) How to attract men.

"Yes, I could raise these issues in response to the question asked by Susie Walker of North Augusta, S.C., regarding the man who was asking where the spatula was. I could even ask WHY this particular man might be looking for the spatula. Could it be that he needs a spatula to kill a spider, because, while he was innocently watching basketball and minding his own business, a member of another major gender--a gender that refuses to personally kill spiders but wants them all dead--DEMANDED that he kill the spider, which nine times out of ten turns out to be a male spider that was minding its own business? Do you realize how many men arrive in hospital emergency rooms every year, sometimes still gripping their spactulas, suffering from painful spider-inflicted injuries? I don't have the exact statistics right here, but I bet they are chilling.

"As I say, I could raise these issues and resort to the kind of negativity indulged in by Susie Walker of North Augusta, S.C. But I choose not to. I choose, instead, to address her question seriously, in hopes that, by improving the communication between the genders, all human beings--both men and women, together--will come to a better understanding of how dense women can be sometimes.

"I say this because there is an excellent reason why a man would open the spatula drawer and, without looking for the spatula, ask where the spatula is: Tha man does not have TIME to look for the spatula. Why? Because he is busy thinking. Men are almost always thinking. When you look at a man who appears to be merely scratching himself, rest assured that inside his head, his brain is humming like a high-powered computer, processing millions of pieces of information and producing important insights such as, 'This feels good!'

"We should be grateful that men think so much, because over the years they have thought up countless inventions that have made life better for all people, everywhere. The shot clock in basketball is one example. Another one is underwear-eating bacteria. I found out about this thanks to many alert readers who sent me an article fron New Scientist magazine stating that Russian scientists--and you KNOW these are guy scientists--are trying to solve the problem of waste disposal aboard spacecraft, by 'designing a cocktail of bacteria to digest astronauts' cotton and paper underpants.' Is that great, or what? I am picturing a Utopian future wherein, when a man's briefs get dirty, they will simply dissolve from his body, thereby freeing him from the chore of dealing with his soiled underwear via the labor-intensive, time-consuming method he now uses, namely, dropping them on the floor.

"I'm not saying that guys have solved all the world's problems. I'm just saying that there ARE solutions out there, and if, instead of harping endlessly about spatulas, we allow guys to use their mental talents to look for these solutions, in time, they will find them. Unless they are in the refrigerator."

...Emotional Creatures! The last couple of days I've been near tears for the littlest things that happen! I've been grumpy and non-socialable even with a ton of people around me. Even people at work, people I actually don't see every day, have noticed and asked me what's wrong. I just answer telling them I'm really tired. Which is true. I am. And that's probably a big part of it, school is another part of it, people are a BIG part of it, but it just sucks. I hate feeling this way and taking every little thing so personally. I hate being ticked at people because they have lives and other things that are more important than hanging out with me. I do wish sometimes though that these people were open and honest about things. That ticks me off too. And I feel like crying ALL THE TIME! And no, folks, I'm not pmsing. Anywayz, I'm not the only one who's been feeling this way lately apparently. And if I was I sure wouldn't blog about it! My sister's been feeling like this too. She was pmsing, but still. She cried when she wrote me a letter! Why? Because she wished she could tell me face to face. That's good reason to be sad and miss home, but crying? really? Also, I went with my mom to one of her friend's volleyball games because she couldn't be there and she started crying again! She asked my mom to go! I was talking to a friend about my feelings last night and she said she's been the exact same way. Getting mad and overexagerating over little things that shouldn't even be paid attention to. She said there's gotta be something in the water messing with women's emotions. Ha Ha. Is anyone else feeling this way lately? Or at least have felt like this before?

     So it feels like this election has been going on for years now! Can we all just vote already?! I feel like this election is everywhere I go: school, work, church, home, coffee places. Can it just please end soon?

     I do have a few things to say about this election though. I feel like McCain is getting a raw deal because he's not a good public speaker. It's definitely a huge disadvantage to him that he's not a people/camera person and that his opponent is exactly the opposite as very charismatic and "eloquent" (as McCain put it during last week's final debate). I even see the effects in my Critical Thinking class. The point of the class is to be careful of logical fallacies in arguments. We've been discussing the debates and the behavior of the candidates during class and sometimes I feel like even my professor has been duped by the Barak Obama's charisma. When asked straight up who he felt won the last debate, my professor's response was similar to the following: "I think that John McCain came off as an attacker and was really rattled while Barak Obama seemed very calm and collected throughout the whole thing." The students accepted that response! That's a diversion people! He didn't answer the question! All he did was explain their demeanor during the debate. I don't think that necessarily reflects anybody's ability to lead a country and make wise decisions.

     I'm not gonna lie. I think McCain's a total lop when it comes to the public. He gets defensive and when he's upset, he shows it. He also says stupid things when he's rattled like, "he's pro-abortion"...that was idiotic! Obama also gets upset, but his demeanor hides most of it but if you pay attention to his words and not just his attitude, they're very powerful. He also avoids answering certain things (more than McCain) because it'd make him look bad. Like that question about how much the fine is for his healthcare plan. I also think people make a big deal over little things and keep referring to them because they run out of ammunition for the candidate they oppose. Like, "remember how McCain wouldn't even look at Obama during the first debate?" and "Obama associates with terrorists." Please people, let's get over that stuff, k.

     The other day someone tried to tell me not to vote for McCain because he was old and has cancer and he's probably gonna die in the next four years and "do you really want inexperienced Sarah Palin as your President?" Seriously? But this guy also had no idea that Barak Obama's economic plan will most likely cost our nation more jobs that provide more jobs.

     I don't see why we can't all step back and take an honest look at the two candidates and their platforms and make a wise informed decision about who will be the better leader of our country.

Andrew Foster. Here's your video, Andrew. It's really long but I thought it would be awkward to just cut it off in the middle of the song. Good looking band behind you by the way. This night was pretty much heaven for me.