Election 2008

Last night was a night to remember. I watched the electoral polls on TV. At 7:05 pm the votes were Obama with 174, less than 100 votes to go until he won, and McCain with 76 votes. It was so exciting. They were talking about all the states that had previously mostly voted for a republican president, that Obama now carried. That was really cool to see how much Obama changed the numbers.
I've never followed an election before this one. I mean I remember seeing a similar map on tv in 2000 and 2004, but I didn't really care. But this election was different. It was important even though I can't vote yet. Whatever happens in this country affects me no matter what.
I was a little nervous because Colorado wasn't called until the end. I hoped that it would be for Obama.
Unfortunately I decided to go to the bathroom when it was announced who our new president was going to be. So as I was walking down the hall, I heard my brother cheering and almost ran into the room. When I walked in, I was confused. How had he won in those few minutes I was gone? When I left his vote count was close to 200 I believe, maybe more, maybe less. It happened so quickly. The western states' votes came in and it was obvious Obama had won. I was really glad. I wanted to go upstairs and tell my mom that Obama had won. But my brother went ahead of me.
Now, my mom was upstairs in our church, doing choir rehearsal, in our Catholic church. Obviously in a Catholic church most people would be considered conservative. So I went up passing a friend of mine.
"You've been here the whole time?" she asked me.
"Yeah, I was watching the election." I told her. "Obama won by the way."
"Alas... Bye."
"Bye." I forgot that she would be pretty unhappy about him winning. I walked in the church while texting my sister about the win. There wasn't really anyone there, just my mom, dad and a choir member. I asked my parents if they happy and my mom said she wasn't allowed to be happy while in a place where all the people were probably sad about it.
Later on the way home we got ice cream and my mom fully pronounced how happy she was about the win. I was happy too. But mostly amazed about how for the first time ever the USA will have an African-American President. It's so cool how far African-American people have come. I studied civil rights and about color segregation, and how it was unimaginable that we would have a black president. But it happened. It just shows that we're a changing country and we've come so far.
I find it interesting how closely people from other countries were watching the election. I saw a video of a news station in Japan called News Zero and Sakurai Sho, the news caster talked about the voting ballot and he also went around and asked US students who they would vote for. Then today, seeing pictures of people celebrating Obama's win in various countries. It was so weird seeing people with Obama signs and buttons when they don't even live here. But it makes sense, our country affects the whole world. It's weird to think that I live in the most powerful country in the world. I feel very blessed to have so much.
I hope that our new president will help lead our country into better times. We've had many problems in the last eight years and I just hope that even if it will take a long time, we will eventually renew our country. Watching his speech gave me that hope. But I know he knows it will be hard. He looked very serious and at the same time he seemed to be confident in what he is going to do. He inspired many people this year. He inspired people to vote and act. My parents said that at least four people came to our door for Obama, making sure we were going to vote.
Right now though, I'm a little scared that racism will come out more, after it's been hidden for a long time. But I don't know. I also wonder how it will be having Obama as the president and how it will differ from Bush. Will we see the differences right away? Will I be able to notice differences?
Overall I feel pretty good. I think and hope Obama will be a good president. All that's left right now is to wait for the future and what it will bring.