Inauguration Day

Today America has a new President.

Contrary to the cynicism espoused by Tim, I am cautiously hopeful that something good will come of this change. It has been pointed out that Obama is by no means superhuman. He is not a savior, or the single solution to our problems. He is, however, a tool – a means by which America can, given a fierce desire to learn from the lessons of our past, and an unwavering resolve to fix a system that is most assuredly broken, return to the principles and ideals which defined our past and helped make us great.

I’m under no illusions about my level of oratory skill, but when, after I went to submit my e-mail address for “updates” on the new WhiteHouse.gov, I was prompted (yes – it’s required) to enter a comment I was forced to think for a moment about what I would say to President Obama if I could (and to put my thoughts in writing…).

In the end, I sent him this note:

Congratulations President Obama! You have helped a nation begin once more to hope. That’s a lot of pressure to live up to, but as long as you strive to be open and straightforward with us I think you will find that we will strive in kind to remember that you are a man, not a figure of history. As a man, all you can do is your best; that is all we have any right to ask of you. For my part, I hope that you will remember the same of us, and that you will ask the same too.

We are each of us human, and no one of us is ever going to be able to solve the problems of the rest. It is that realization, I have found, which forms the root of President Obama’s appeal to me. I tend to be centrist in my political leanings; I’m very conservative on some issues, and very liberal on others. Naturally, parts of President Obama’s agenda are at odds with my personal beliefs. I do believe, however, that the greatest gift of man lies in our capacity for ingenuity. I believe that America is great because, at the time of its founding, it attracted settlers possessed of a certain unbreakable spirit. It called to the adventurous, the entrepreneurial – those who firmly believed that all they needed was the right opportunity. America is built on the sweat of these men and women who refused to give in, refused to give up, and refused to accept the notion that something “could not be done”.

If America has fallen from the place we formerly occupied in the world, it is because we have become complacent. We have lost our reverence and respect for the spirit that forged colonists into citizens, and colonies into the United States. President Obama’s strongest appeal is not his disdain for Guantanamo Bay. It’s not his promise to spend billions of dollars to “fix” the economy. It’s not even his promise to end the “failed policies” of George W. Bush (a good many of which, I will admit, rub me the wrong way). It’s his willingness to admit to the American people that his kind of change is going to take hard work from all of us, and his ability to inspire faith and hope despite that harsh dose of realism.

No matter what any of us may think of his policies, we have to admire his politics. No one, no matter how naive, can claim that the American democratic system is what it should be; rather, it exists as an ideal which we move closer to and further from. If for nothing else than the chance for long-overdue change, the audacity to believe in the possibility that one man could be unwavering in his commitment to that ideal, I support President Obama and wish him all the best. For the first time since I can remember, I believe there is a chance for America to heal its divisions, cast off the shackles of a system that has failed to adapt to a new global and cultural reality, and to truly move forward into a new era built on the spirit that helped turn it from a rebellious colony into a shining beacon of hope and opportunity.

Wave of… Nostalgia?

Loath as I am to quite the bible at you, even I have to recognize the significant impact it’s had on the culture that raised me. There’s a quote in I Corinthians 13.11:

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

I found this quote echoing in my mind today as I sifted through the years of accumulated files, papers, and odds and ends in my closet. I’ve probably cleaned parts of my room dozens of times over the years, but the last two crusades against clutter have been particularly effective. These last two times, I found myself realizing that many things that used to be quite important to me are now either forgotten or not worth hanging onto. This growing cynicism acts as a sort of filter for the clutter that is retained, and with every subsequent tightening of the standards my past seems to condense a little bit more. Those of you who know me know that my memory is pretty bad; well, the more I get rid of the less I inevitably remember about life before the present.

In some ways, I welcome this outcome.  The effect it has is oddly appropriate for my personal journey in the past couple of years, and far too obvious an analogy to the tidying and organizing I’ve been doing. I can’t say I disapprove – we all know I love things to be nice and orderly. A part of me, however, really misses the old class notes I’m getting rid of, and truly mourns the loss not only of the opportunities High School and College presented to me but also the old me that failed to take advantage of those opportunities.

It doesn’t take much reading through my old notes and musings to get a pretty frightening picture of where I’ve come from. Doing so in the past few weeks, I’ve begun to feel that, as a kid, I engaged in a lot of rather Williams-esque escapism in the form of toys, comics, and video games long past the time when my friends had dropped those hobbies. Of course, I still haven’t really kicked the habit, so clearly part of me still loves the shelter those outlets provide. Not to mention that it’s hard to turn down a good story, no matter what form it takes.

As more and more of that past disappears, though, I’m realizing that it’s getting easier to let go of. I carted several years’ worth of Wizard Magazine out to the recycling bins today; you should have seen how hard I fought to keep those just a few years ago. That’s not the worst of it: last time I was here, I sold half my books.

Am I putting away childish things and finally growing up? Or am I simply moving to new, equally-childish pursuits? What if I don’t like who I’m becoming?

One more thing…

Oh, and can we talk about women for a second?

Totally apart from the sheer mess that is one of my best friends’ relationship with his “ex” who’s currently abroad (who he talks to for HOURS a day – and don’t deny it, you know it’s true!), which stresses me out by proxy, it seems I spend all my time these days trying to figure out just what the hell is up with the woman and I. You know the one – the one I debated talking to about a month ago. Things are coming to an end, and we’re on the same see-saw we’ve been on since day one. You know, the one she probably doesn’t realize we’re on.

I might have sort of told her off last week.

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Oops, I seem to have disappeared!

I guess I’ll never really get used to blogging. Short list of changes since my last post:

1. My computer is better than fine. Turns out the wireless card driver was glitching.
2. I’m a year older.
3. I’m out like $800 on the geekiest (and best) weekend ever. No questions, please – even *I* have secrets. I’m debating reviewing some of my new acquisitions on the blog
4. I’ve been through the last class of my college career. I’m now struggling to muster the energy to care about finals…
5. Both my best friends are back on the horse. I’m not yet… Guess that’s what senior week is for!

I always kinda thought there’d be some great fanfare when college ended. Like some sort of marching band, or crack in the sky or something. I guess I should have expected that Georgetown would have a little bit too much dignity to make a big deal out of it. Of course, my last class WAS Advanced International Business, and it’s not like I haven’t spent the whole semester in that class checking my e-mail, updating my blog, and generally doing anything but paying attention to the professor. He gave a speech… And not one that really made sense. Oh well – that’s Georgetown for you.

My friends took me out for dinner/drinking on Friday to celebrate my birthday a little late. I had a fever going in, but I couldn’t tell by a few hours in and I had a lot of fun. Found a great place in Adams Morgan called The Blaguard. They have, I shit you not, shuffleboard. Which we suck at… But the Guinness was $6 a pint, and that more than made up for it. There’s also the close proximity of Amsterdam Falafel Shop for convenient drunk-munchies. We also managed to hit Wingos on the way back. I’d feel bad, except I’m up to running three miles a day these days.

I also got my grilling in for the weekend. Found around 4 and a half pounds of ground beef in the freezer that made for an excellent few hours of grilling (which I did instead of working on my paper on Organizational Change and Mountain Carvings). I think I’m declaring open-season on all food in the house on Wednesday. Maybe then my house-mates will finally eat some of the shit that’s been sitting around since September. Oh – and I saw Iron Man. God DAMN that movie was awesome.

I can’t believe it’s all over in a week.

Thoughts on Beginnings and Ends

When I first created this blog (a year ago this week!), I was facing a pretty hefty beginning. I was leaving my native country for the first time to live abroad in a (not so) strange land and, lured by the apparent fame of travel and personal bloggers whose every spare thought is deemed credible by their legions of readers, I had high hopes for chronicling every detail of it.

As much as my time abroad was definitely a beginning, it was also an end. While the actual experience of studying abroad was far from the life-changing experience it’s touted to be (hence the lack of deep, insightful posts while there?), the time I spent there and the time I spent building up to that experience did change me. I began to spend slightly less time online, preferring to talk to people in “real life” instead; I began focusing more on “getting out there” and “experiencing my environment”; and most important of all, I made the decision to be more honest and open with the people around me.

I thought about that decision tonight as I waved goodbye and yelled after her, “Call me if you’re back early on Sunday!” She yelled back that she would as she crossed the street and entered campus proper. The girl in question and I have been friends since day one – the first day of freshman year. There was a time when we saw each other almost every day. Lately, though, with a plethora of excuses like “increased workload”, “job hunting” and “hectic schedules”, we’ve found it harder and harder to make the time. This sort of dodging defines our relationship – or at least my side of it. There have been times when I hoped we might become more than just friends, and times when I knew things would never work out if we were.

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