Election

Today is Election Day! Today is Election Day!! Today is Election Day!!! And I got the chance to vote in my first election! I’m really excited because this is the first election that I’ve been old enough to vote in. It would’ve been really cool to vote in the presidential election in November so I could’ve voted for Obama. But luckily, my vote wouldn’t have mattered too much because he won by a landslide. But in this election, I feel that my vote is more important. Even though the republican candidate is up by double digits, I still want to get my vote out there for the democrat. Maybe the polls are wrong & he can pull out a win. I really feel that he is just the better person for the state of VA. McDonnell honestly just seems like a complete slime ball to me. He has passed, tried to pass, or said things that are completely ridiculous. For one, he said that working women were detrimental to the home. So basically he wants women to stay at home where they can be barefoot & pregnant. That is just completely ridiculous to me. Women can work just as well as men. Another thing that bothers me about him is that he wanted to define marriage as between a man & a woman. He wanted to change the VA constitution so that it would be defined like that. That is just taking it a step too far. Something about him just bothers me & it’s unsettling that this person could be running the state that I live in for the next 4 years. I would hope that I could trust the person running the state but with McDonnell, I definitely cannot! He represents the old Virginia, not the progressive Virginia that I would hope we would be moving closer to. And after the November election, I was convinced that Virginia was finally moving forward. But a McDonnell victory tonight shows that Virginia is not ready for change (a cliché I know, but it’s the only way I could think to phrase it). I’m looking at the political map of Virginia on CNN & it looks similar to the way the map looked in November. The bigger cities & metropolitan areas such as Northern Virginia, Richmond, & Hampton Roads are predicted to go towards deeds. While the more rural areas, Southern & Western Virginia, are expected to go towards McDonnell.
Why is it that cities always seem to be more liberal while rural areas seem to be more conservative? My guess is that cities are filled with more diverse groups of people who come from all over the country & the world. Sometimes at Virginia Tech, I feel like one of the few democrats within like a 20 mile radius. And it may be because Virginia Tech is in a more rural part of the state. But that doesn’t make sense because people come from all over the state, country, & world just to come to school here. Which is why it’s so surprising that people here are so conservative. I thought that because there are so many different types of people here that there would be varying political views, but that is not true at all. Virginia Tech is not very racially diverse but it is socio-economically (not really sure that’s a word but I’ll roll with it) diverse. People at VT come from all different economic backgrounds. So it just doesn’t make sense that VT is so conservative. Especially since people our age (college students) are supposed to be pretty liberal. If any of you 4 guys are republicans, I would love for you to explain your position on issues. Because frankly, I don’t understand it in the least (kind of like biology). I think it is an incredibly selfish position that republicans have on most of their issues. Side note: I’d like to apologize if this blog is a little boring because of all the political stuff. So I’ll blog about something else now because it’s starting to bore me.
So for the next 300 words I’ll talk about my exciting weekend. Well, by anybody else’s standards, it wouldn’t have been a lot of fun. It didn’t involve alcohol or a slutty costume. I went home & simply hung out with my friends until 5 am every morning. We played games like Apples to Apples & Monopoly. And I discovered that I am probably the worst monopoly player on the planet. Literally every time I rolled the dice, my partner & I had to pay the other team money. My partner got really frustrated but it was all in good fun. But it made me miss home a lot more then I have this whole semester. I wish I could be home again before thanksgiving but luckily that holiday is only a few weeks away. I’m really looking to forward to spending a whole week with the people that I spent this last weekend with. It showed me that I can definitely go out & have fun dressed in jeans & a t shirt & not be drunk. And that I can just chill out with cool people & do fun things for a weekend. It was so relaxing! I got a good night’s sleep in my own bed. There weren’t loud people until all hours of the night & it was just great. I wish I lived close enough to go home every weekend. But I don’t. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love the college atmosphere & lifestyle. The way people choose to live their lives is their business but I’m just not the big partying type so going to a more relaxed atmosphere was really nice for me. Hopefully my apartment next year (with Melissa ) will be a place for me to relax here in Blacksburg. Since Pritchard, is most definitely NOT that place. Hopefully I can squeeze one more trip home in before Thanksgiving.
P.S.-that is a picture of my friend & I campaigning for Deeds (unfortunately he did not win & I would like to express my displeasure. BOOOOOOO. That definitely ruined my night.)