Political Elections, Silly Ducks, and Free Time

Yesterday being Election Day, and my school being a polling place, my boss took the opportunity to declare a Headmaster's Holiday and canceled classes for the day.

I used my day off to accomplish the following:
-vote (and actually take the time to walk to the polling place and stop for coffee on the way back)
-do laundry
-clean my room
-clean my apartment
-read for fun
-watch the election returns with friends
-NOT do any schoolwork

It was the first day in a VERY long time that I did not do anything work related. It felt wonderful.

Because my school is urban and very racially and socio-economically diverse, the election was a bit of a hot topic as of late. Several students were very vocal and passionate supporters of John McCain, many more were very vocal and passionate supporters of Barack Obama (this is Massachusetts and all). Throughout the day today, countless students rushed up to me asking who I voted for. I responded that I don't divulge my specific political preference, but that the decision was very hard for me (and it was). When a fairly heated debate over candidates broke out today in my 9th grade boys' history class, I took the opportunity wax briefly on the beauty of a democratic government. As citizens of a democratic nation, it is both our right and responsibility to make decisions that are in the best interest of our nation. Therefore, we can vote in opposition to one another while still working, in principle, for the same thing. Hopefully the gloating of the Obama supporters and the defensiveness of the McCain supporters (in this school) will soon die down.

We also discussed the purpose of the period of time between the election and the inauguration... ("Actually, Obama is not president yet. Bush is what we call a lame duck... here's what that means...") On of my 9th grade boys got the facts a little backward and later referred to Barack Obama as a silly duck. I laughed.

Thank you, Mr. Gawkowski, for teaching me US History. It was the last course on the subject I took, and somehow, I remember a vast majority of it.