President Obama

I am overjoyed that Barack Obama is our new President. As a Japanese female who was born and raised in Hawaii, my expectations regarding my future were changed Tuesday night. I mean, it isn't as though I thought I would never amount to anything. It's just that seeing Barack Obama make it all the way to the white house has convinced me that I can be anything I want to be.

Unfortunately, when I was in high school, I slacked on applying for scholarships. I watched as all of my friends went off to college and I moved to California to take an 8 week film course. Now that my career goal has changed from being a filmmaker to being an author/screenwriter, I find myself wishing I had attended a college like Sarah Lawrence. In high school, I was an officer of a community service club. If President Obama's plans for education had been in order back in 2004, I'd be a college graduate today. My immediate future plans include moving back to Hawaii and working as a bartender so that I can save up enough to maybe enroll in a writer's workshop at Sarah Lawrence.

But this year's election ended up being bittersweet for me when I learned that Prop 8 had passed in California. It amazes and angers me greatly that such a high sum of money had been put into the proposition of hate when that money could have gone to people in Bangladesh or to higher pay for teachers or the many other issues in this world worthy of support. It saddens me that even in 2008, human beings are still having their rights stripped away. Even worse, our GLBT brothers, sisters, friends, and family members had their right to marry stripped away after it had finally been granted to them. I am ashamed of the state of California as I should be and as everyone living in California should be. Florida also passed "amendment 2" which also takes the right to marry away from human beings! For the love of Buddha! It makes me want to cry and I have! I cannot fully celebrate this election until everyone has the right to marry the person they love.