This being my first post I thought it would be fitting to post on election night, only one of the most exciting nights for Americans. I thought I would give a recap of my election day, as a way to capture this experience in written form.
BEGIN
My election day started as most normal, college days do. The minute my alarm started buzzing, I immediately shut it off, looked at the time, decided my bed was still too warm and comfortable to get out of and decided to sleep another hour. While in that half-awake, half-asleep limbo land I was vaguely aware that today would be a historic day, no matter what the outcome was.
I got up earlier than needed in order to make it to the polls before things got too crazy. Long lines and a college schedule rarely mesh well together, especially when your polling place is on the other side of campus. The line was quiet, most likely because it was the morning and I had time to look over what information I had on the candidates in order to make a decision on who to vote for.
Of course, I don't mean who to vote for in the presidential race but in the Missouri races, being as I am from out of state and this was my first election in Missouri. But I digress.
As I was filling in the bubbles on my ballot I realized that even though I could feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things today, my vote still mattered. There aren't many opportunities to show the government what you really think about their actions in our society, but voting is one of them and I was ready to take that opportunity for what it was worth. After this grand epiphany that occurred within 15 seconds, I fed my ballot to the counter and exited my polling place to get some caffeine for the long day ahead.
Sitting in the RJI (Reynolds Journalism Institute) I began to browse through the tumblr-sphere and other social media websites. One interesting observation was that many people on social media sites were enthusiastic about voting. Since this was coming from my generation, I was pleased to see so many of my peers take an interest in trying to "change" the country (I put change in quotations because there are many parts of political races that we know are not going to change, no matter how many of my generation gets out the vote).
ANYWAY
The day was filled with a mix of apprehension over what was to come, and boredom in classes as I ached to be watching the news coverage on several websites without having to mute them. Classes that allowed the use of computers were set on the back burners as I poured over the most recent polling information and versed myself in the different scenarios that could potentially play out later in the evening. To say I was excited about watching the coverage would have barely scratched the surface.
After class my work schedule offered a somewhat needed distraction from the electronic buzz of election news. The distraction was, of course, short lived as I attempted to immerse myself in the projects my coordinator gave me. My co-worker probably had to take a nap from exhaustion after listening to me talk non-stop about the election for 3 hours.
It was getting close to zero hour.
My night began with Fox News Radio, as I listened to projections that Romney had already won Kentucky and Indiana while Obama had won Vermont. I raced home so that I could get my "Election Coverage Network," (or ECN) as I called it, set up and ready for the night ahead. Upon getting home, CNN was turned on the TV, and my computer desktop was flooded with polling information from news outlet websites including: KOMU, BBC, ABC, NPR, Huffington Post, and The New York Times. Not to mention I was live-blogging via tumblr with other people keeping the race as relevant as possible.
I probably took the amount of coverage in my ECN a little overboard.
This was what I loved about the election though. Seeing the coverage, getting the information, following the ups and downs, and being able to watch these changes take place in our government. Sure, we may only be one vote in a sea of millions but we still have something in this country that allows us to be that one vote that people in other countries would kill for.
At around 8:30 p.m. I had to make my way to my second job (college kids have to eat) which was thankfully a desk job at the student rec center checking out equipment and doing laundry (towels) for the guests. My co-worker for the night was also vehemently invested in the election and so we were able to construct a miniature version of my ECN on the computers at our work station. We talked politics the entire shift and discussed who we thought were the best candidates (we had many of the same views) and occasionally checked for updates while in between checking laundry and helping guests.
As guests began to hear what we were talking about, they began to chime in. They asked for updates on the race, leaning over the computers to watch the coverage with us and giving their opinions to the mixture of information we were all looking to absorb. We were all sitting on edge, wanting to know what would be decided for our country and everyone was together no matter who they had voted for. At that moment, we all cared about something important.
At one point I left the work station to go and check the locker room and on the TV, CNN coverage had just announced that they were calling the race for President Obama to be re-elected. I immediately ran back to the desk and the two of us began fact checking, getting as much information as we could. At this point in the night, Ohio and Florida were still too close to call and we were having a field day with figuring out what had happened to get Obama to the magical number of 270.
After that, we attempted to focus on laundry, each one of us standing at the counter, folding towels, in our own world as to what the election had meant. We talked, but only when we needed to. The election had affected us, moved us so deeply that there was a mix of emotions swirling around our desk alone.
As the night began to wind down and we started the closing procedures, the coordinator for our desk walked by, smiled, laughed and said "Folding towels is a little sweeter tonight, yeah?" And proceeded to walk away.
I laughed, thinking of the crazy day and the end result that had come from it, and continued to fold the towel, smiling the entire time.
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