It’s been a long time since I’ve updated (so sorry), and I promise a better recap of the last month or so soon(Teaching! Christmas! Dublin! Visit from the brother! The flu! More teaching! Italians!).
At the moment, I just finished watching Obama’s speech; I am going to share it with some classes this week, but I almost hesitate to do so because it felt like he was talking to me- it’s personal. Have you ever been scolded by someone you look up to? When they tell you that they’re disappointed in you, and that you’ve dropped the ball, that they know you can do better… isn’t that pretty much the worst thing in the world? At first I was a little disappointed (where are my goosebumps?!)… but then the warm fuzzies came- things HAVE been bad in the past, worse even than today. Say what you will about stereotypes, but as a people, I think we Americans do have some special blend of something… be it naive optimism or simply the drive to pick ourselves up and tell others “SEE! I told you I could do it!” Whether it’s our grounding ideals or our need to win that do it, for the first time in a while, I feel some comfort- we can get ourselves out of this mess, not because Obama is going to do it for us, but because we can do it ourselves. In the end, the speech wasn’t the warm embrace of his victory address, but it was just what I, and I think the rest of us, didn’t even realize we needed to hear.
Here we go, and yes we can!
