Obama Victory!

Obama Victory!
I was wandering through morning dream land before 7am when I rolled over and heard clapping and cheering coming from the TV. I leaped out of bed and ran to the living room. Streaming live to the world--the BBC's coverage of the American election. Obama had won. Already. I was so excited I hopped around the living room (Kenyans were hopping around their towns, too, in celebration--it's a global party!).

Then I sat on the couch and was enraptured by Obama's live acceptance speech to Chicago. I laughed when he made a shout-out to "all of you overseas, huddled around radios." Not quite... But I was ever so huddled, ever so stunned, ever, ever, ever so proud. My two favorite parts: 1) Obama telling his daughters that he loved them and that they had really earned the new puppy that was going with them to the White House; 2) when Biden's family came out and 90-year old Mama Biden stood on the stage with the "Oh my God, I can't fucking believe I'm here" look.

It is surreal to me, too, but for different reasons--this world is becoming smaller than it has been. Technology is so incredible. I've been following it for weeks on satellite TV and I watched the acceptance speech live thousands of miles from home. I logged onto Facebook soon after I found out the election results and probably 50 or 60 of my friends had updated their current status to say something about the fact that Obama had just won the presidency. The Internet and the youth vote are going to change the way politics happen in this country--they already have.

A lot of people are euphoric, perhaps too euphoric given the limitations of the wars, the global financial crisis, our own national debt, the climate crisis, and on and on. But... We'll see. We've got eight years.

Manifesting the Law
My students were better behaved last night than they have been. A few strategies:

• not being as friendly towards them at the beginning of the lesson;
  
• hovering in their space rather than towards the front of the classroom and standing closer to them when I told them not to speak Turkish whilst giving long, reprimanding stares;
• determining which students would work with each other to break up the perpetrators;
• hanging out with them during the 10 minute break (when they are allowed to speak Turkish) and allowing them to translate for each other as they asked me questions about America and my time in Turkey; upon returning to the classroom I said Turkish on break was fine but now it's back to English.

So we'll see how it goes. The chatty and flirtatious girl was out last night, so it's possible that my success was due to her absence... *sigh* Friday will be another battle.