Jan

And it’s done – Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States!!!

He swore to uphold the Constitution which once would’ve labeled him only 3/5 of a human being, on the steps of a building built by slaves. The images of the crowd were amazing – two solid miles of people packed in, feeling the hope and promise of what this man has accomplished, and hopefully will continue to accomplish. They’re saying more than 2 million people were there in person, and more people watched this on TV than have EVER watched ANYTHING else.

His speech was, of course, awe-inspiring. I like his message of picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off, and re-building. I think he has very good plans for public works projects that will both create jobs in the short term and provide us with technological and other improvements in the medium- and long-term. I LOVE that he talked, right in this address, about restoring science to its rightful place! My whole field, will hopefully benefit from that, after 8 years of painful neglect. I think it is awesome that he sent the message to the world that we are ready to lead again. But I also like that he says we won’t apologize for our way of life, and the message of building not destroying is an excellent message on terrorism. The quote from George Washington’s speech at Valley Forge was incredibly powerful, and his translation of that into what we are facing today was masterful, and very apt. Yes, some of it was strongly worded, but it needed to be – it IS a big split with the last 8 years. That’s what we all voted for and have been wanting and waiting for.

Other key moments of the day –

1. Aretha Franklin singing My Country ‘Tis of Thee – anyone who didn’t get chills wasn’t listening!

2. Yitzak Perlman & YoYo Ma playing together – how often does that happen? They were truly remarkable. You could see the joy on YoYo Ma’s face. And the John WIlliams composition did an excellent job of capturing the feelings of hope that abound today.

3. Obama hugged W at the end. I almost felt sorry for W in that moment – but not quite. He did bring it on himself, and that 22% final approval rating speaks for itself. Even with the classy handling of W, Obama barely even acknowledged Cheney – as it should be. And speaking of Cheney…

4. Dick Cheney in a wheelchair. I know, it’s only temporary (he had an accident moving into his new mansion), but it was a fitting way for him to go out of office. More fitting would be crawling like the snake he is, but at least there is some justice sometimes, however small. The newscasters talked at length about how that was NOT how he wanted to go out. How that guy sleeps at night is still beyond me, but … he’s gone. I’m (gleefully) moving on.

5. The ultra-right-wing Chief Justice had one job today … how do you mess up the Presidential Oath of Office?!!

6. Obama’s demeanor throughout it all – very calm, very confident, very reassuring. I think he gave us the very strong message that it won’t be easy, and it won’t be instant, but that we can get through this.

7. W getting on the helicopter – I felt more relief than anything, but it was still a nice moment. And, again, very classy of Obama to escort him out.

  

Jan

Wow, what a day this will be – not only will W be gone in less than 12 hours (which would’ve been good enough by itself), OBAMA will be our new president!!! I’m excited beyond belief about Obama taking over – there’s so much that’s wrong, I know he will have an amazingly difficult job, but I do feel like he is up to the challenge. Here’s hoping…

Several of my students asked about watching it live – the swearing in will be during my morning class. I decided, even if they weren’t Obama supporters, it is an historic occasion and a single class shouldn’t stand in the way of them seeing it live. I am tempted to keep the kids home from school, but I think the teachers will have it on at school, so they can experience it with their friends. And we are TiVo-ing it for posterity…

  

Jan

Jodie Meeks rocks!!! Too bad UK is a two-man show this year. Oh, and having a coach who … can’t … also doesn’t help. Sigh.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recap?gid=200901130580&prov=ap

  

Jan

Less than 10 more days of W, less than 10 more days of W, less than 10 more days of W. It’s like a mantra for me now.

As expected, he has been devoutly working to destroy as much of the country as possible since the election – literally, in the case of letting their greedy cronies develop federal lands.

Less than 10 more days of W …

  

Jan

This week’s topic is things I want to do in 2009. I like this better than the New Year’s Resolutions … ’cause they’re more specific, and they can just be for fun (which most of mine are).

1. Be a good coach – I got conned into coaching BOTH kids’ basketball teams this year! I have pretty low expectations performance-wise – only one kid on each team has ever played basketball before. My goal is to teach them to love the game, and hopefully make sure they know which goal is theirs! In all seriousness, my kids have played enough sports that I’ve seen a lot of coaches – some great, some absolutely awful. Even if I can’t be great, I hope I always am able to find something positive to say to each kid after the game, and to make sure they have fun, regardless of outcome.

2. Cosmo challenge – this one is for Craig, he knows what it means!

3. Watch either Kentucky or Vanderbilt win the NCAA championship – based on pre-conference play, this one doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but you gotta dream! In the case of Kentucky, a follow-up to this one is that I’d like to watch a press conference where the UK athletics director fires Billy Gillespie.

4. Go on another sisters weekend with my sisters – girls, we’ve been talking about this for TWO YEARS, we gotta get our acts together and just do it!

5. Enjoy celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary

6. Join (or start) a book club – again, this is something I’ve talked to several people about, and just need to get my act together and do!

7. Be better about keeping the web page/blog updated – Facebook is great, and I have been doing more of that, but I know some of you want more details!

8. Go somewhere I’ve never been – that’s on my list every year!

9. Submit at least 5 papers for publication, and two grant proposals – need to kick my work up into a higher gear, and now’s the time.

10. Have a Passover seder or Rosh Hashanah dinner at my house – we have gotten out of the habit of entertaining, but I really like having people over, and holidays are an easy way to get back into that groove.

Will try to check back in over the course of the year to see how well I do!