Excited

So, its been a big week. A destination wedding of a life long friend and the actual start of MBA school. Solid gold. Solid gold.

Sara von Lake's Hawaii Wedding. I mean anytime anyone has a wedding please make it multiple days and in a beautiful place. This one was like getting a hug. (very much like the majority of my summer.) All of Vermont was transfered to the Big Island. And suddenly skits and Hawaiian shirts were the norm as were giblets before 5pm. Old and new came together to celebrate and that is what happened. I want to list here the moments and food and levels of intoxication but that would minimize the goodness. The entire deal was real and true and a long g-damn time coming. As I flew to Hawaii, a mere 6 hours from Portland. I kept thinking this (Sara getting married) is one of the few things I know and have known for many years is going to happen. And it did. And obviously it was amazing. Solid. Gold.

MBA School.

I guess I wish you all knew how funny it is. It is what many of us would think. This evening while reading Principals of Corporate Finance I came across this gem, "The business and financial sections of most United States dailies are, except for local news, nearly worthless for the financial manager." (Brealy Meyers Allen, 10) And this is after it said the Times was fine. Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal. I love when things are exactly how we make fun of them.

Additional Observations:

• A lot of soda is consumed, even in the mornings.
• Amount of sport references is, almost, excessive.
• People love Nike.
• People love Starbucks. And they take it in disposable containers. And it is adjacent to a local coffee shop.
• Lots of talk of Walmart.

Now, I think what is most amazing, is a total lack of judgement on my part. I have been near to, mostly in planning school, a group of people who do not have any of the above preferences with the exception of Walmart talk the majority of which is negative. It is amazing. And what I am going to learn is so useful. My father made the point earlier today that this is what any sort of professional school is like coming from a liberal arts school. Sure. But seriously, this stuff is the everyday in America.

Somemore on Our New President

Frank Rich:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/opinion/18rich.html?_r=1&em

And:

"Next to much of our history, this is small stuff. And yet: Of all the coverage of Obama’s victory, the most accurate take may still be the piquant morning-after summation of the satirical newspaper The Onion. Under the headline “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job,” it reported that our new president will have “to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind.”

Those messes are enormous, bigger than Washington, bigger than race, bigger than anything most of us have ever seen. Nearly three months after Election Day, it remains astonishing that the American people have entrusted the job to a young black man who seemed to come out of nowhere looking for that kind of work just as we most needed him.

“In no other country on earth is my story even possible,” Obama is fond of saying. That is true, and that is what the country celebrates this week. But it is all the tragic American stories that came before him, some of them still playing out in chilly streets just blocks from the White House, that throw both his remarkable triumph and the huge challenge ahead of him into such heart-stopping relief."

Barack Obama

So tomorrow is the day. Our favorite president elect will become our 44th president. He will also be the first African American president. I don't usually write about politics (unless of course you believe all writing and/or expression is political) and want to apologize in advance if this is annoying.

There is something so emotionally overwhelming about Barack. I don't know but I am taken aback by it. In the January 19th New Yorker, there is this amazing photo and interview exerts from 1996 of and with Michelle and Barack. It is incredibly intimate and honest and real. And that is what gets me. I can't believe he is going to be at the helm of our great nation.

I recently had been sort of over him. Like when he chose all those experienced, ivy-leaugers to fill his cabinate and realizing that the kind of change I am imagining in no way could come from within our system. And I was thinking the problems he is inherting are so large that anything he does is will be judged as failure. And that he was too well marketed. (Naomi Klien...) And being annoyed at the emails I still get asking for money.

This morning I talked to both of my grandpas. And the republican one started a conversation about tomorrow. And he said, "Well at least we all know he is smart." Yeah. He is smart. And he is fucked and our country is fucked.

I am remembering back now to November 4. I did not think he could win. And when he did. When they called the election at just after 8pm pacific time, not only did he win, he dominated. Totally killed it. I was surprised. I was setting myself up for disappointment. And here I am now doing the same thing. So, I am taking an active of role in no expectations. Nothing. Just Bush leaving is amazing. Anything President Obama does on top will be even better. So I guess I will end it with god bless america. Here we go, another moment we will test this thing called democracy.

And also I love how the US is pulling a 3rd world by having Obama heads all over tshirts, posters, buildings, buttons, flags...