I took this photo a few months ago when Obama made his acceptance speech as the Presidential Democratic Nominee.That's all I will say about the election, because at the moment I am all inagurationed-out. Perhaps I will return to the subject on a later date.
Okay I just lied - I have a couple things to say about it. Today all of the Minneapolis Public schools played the inauguration ceremony live, and so I went to my Mom's 7th grade math class to watch it. Most of the kids didn't seem to care too much about it (in 7th grade I don't think I even knew who the president was...I was preoccupied with making myself look as unattractive as possible, which is what I have gathered from old photographs because I have successfully erased those awful awkward years from my memory). But there were a few students who knew the importance of today, and watched attentively as Aretha Franklin sang "Our Country Tis Of Thee", and as Barack Obama delivered his speech in front of millions of people in Washington DC.
Despite having taken a government class my senior year of high school, I must admit that I don't know much about politics. But I do know a lot about feeling unimportant, unmotivated, and insignificant, and although I never intend to run for President (and I'm assuming neither do the 7th graders of Anderson Middle School, possibly because most of them are illegal immigrants and therefor ineligible) I now know that I have no excuses for not living up to my full potential (and upon hearing so many of my past teachers give me that speech, you know, the "You have so much potential...you just don't apply yourself" one, I am starting to believe that I really do have lots of it).
Maybe these kids don't realize it now, but I hope that when they are my age, they will remember this day. I hope that they will grow up with confidence in themselves and that they will apply themselves to their full "potential" to do everything and anything that they want to do. Besides drugs, prostitution...I mean, needless to say that's not what I'm talking about but let's be honest here, it's not an uncommon path, and boy does it just suck you in!
Well that attempt at a profound work of literary art took a turn for the worst...I think I'll just move on.
So today on my way to Midtown, I stopped at starbucks where I am proud to say that they know me by name, which is nice because I have had very little human contact this week (and as we all know, everyone's name is also their favorite word). I wonder if anyone else in the world considers their local starbucks staff to be their sole source of human companionship. I'm kidding...maybe.
But upon entering, I was outraged to see that while I had been away at my first semester of college, they had hired an entirely new staff. I thought about leaving because I was so upset that my "friends" had up and left me without saying goodbye, but I decided to give this new staff a chance. There was one lady infront of me in line chatting up the slightly attractive new barista. (she was wearing shorts by the way, and it was 9 degrees farenheight at the time) He offered her a free cupcake and she declined, claiming that she had just completed her daily workout. (Which some may think explains the shorts, but I still find them ridiculous). This is where the story takes a an upsetting turn -- After shorts lady declined the cupcake, slightly attractive barista scoped out the rest of the line, looked at me and said "I bet you would love a free cupcake". But what I heard was "You are fat, and by the the looks of it would eat any pastry you can get your sausage-like fingers on" And although my response was something along the lines of "Hell yeah I would!!", as I left the store I couldn't help but feel nostalgic for the days when I could go to Starbucks with the expectations of being greeted by name, having the choice to buy a cupcake or perhaps a scone if I so desired, and to leave without being verbally abused by some fancy pants barista who thinks he's all that.
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