Election Day Jitters
I voted! President, other elected officials, and a total of 42 state, county, and city ballot measures (curious? have a peek at 'em here). That was an insane number of measures to research.
And now in the aftermath of finding myself full of adrenaline and suddenly without a purpose to which to direct all my nervous energy, I find myself all jittery at work, unable to focus.
I should probably stop sipping my latte.
We're having a "no meeting day" at work in order to allow people to go out and vote, and there's a sense of foreboding, a stifled silence all around. Seriously, we have an open floor setup, one big room with 50 engineers sitting desk to desk, in rows. I can hear no discussion, no random chitchat, and all the conference rooms are eerily empty and without people talking on speakerphone or giving tech talks. It's...weird.
I know I'm going to be up late tonight, refreshing my browser every 5 seconds as the election results come in. The latest poll closure in the country, in the western islands of Alaska, will take place at 10pm PST, and then the counting shall commence there. And I'm not going to be able to go to bed not knowing.
Aside from the heated presidential race, I'm also awaiting the results on a few state/local measures: Repealing the California state's racist and xenophobic ban on bilingual education, for example, would allow publicly-funded schools to offer language-immersive education without breaking the law, and actually cater to the state's population (46.6% white non-Hispanic, 32.3% Latino, 11.1% Asian American or Pacific Islander, etc.) and offer more educational possibilities.
I'm hoping the measure to end the death penalty in California passes as well, not that there haven't been a few criminals, over the years, that deserve it, but rather that our broken criminal system is so biased, that it's much more likely to execute an innocent, poor, person of colour (well, mostly Black, according to statistics), than a guilty, wealthy, white man. It's literally a proposition to save a life. Many lives.
Anyway, if you're a US citizen, go out and vote today! And if you're not...pray for us to whatever Higher Power will listen and bestow mercy on us, or keep us in your thoughts.
And now in the aftermath of finding myself full of adrenaline and suddenly without a purpose to which to direct all my nervous energy, I find myself all jittery at work, unable to focus.
I should probably stop sipping my latte.
We're having a "no meeting day" at work in order to allow people to go out and vote, and there's a sense of foreboding, a stifled silence all around. Seriously, we have an open floor setup, one big room with 50 engineers sitting desk to desk, in rows. I can hear no discussion, no random chitchat, and all the conference rooms are eerily empty and without people talking on speakerphone or giving tech talks. It's...weird.
I know I'm going to be up late tonight, refreshing my browser every 5 seconds as the election results come in. The latest poll closure in the country, in the western islands of Alaska, will take place at 10pm PST, and then the counting shall commence there. And I'm not going to be able to go to bed not knowing.
Aside from the heated presidential race, I'm also awaiting the results on a few state/local measures: Repealing the California state's racist and xenophobic ban on bilingual education, for example, would allow publicly-funded schools to offer language-immersive education without breaking the law, and actually cater to the state's population (46.6% white non-Hispanic, 32.3% Latino, 11.1% Asian American or Pacific Islander, etc.) and offer more educational possibilities.
I'm hoping the measure to end the death penalty in California passes as well, not that there haven't been a few criminals, over the years, that deserve it, but rather that our broken criminal system is so biased, that it's much more likely to execute an innocent, poor, person of colour (well, mostly Black, according to statistics), than a guilty, wealthy, white man. It's literally a proposition to save a life. Many lives.
Anyway, if you're a US citizen, go out and vote today! And if you're not...pray for us to whatever Higher Power will listen and bestow mercy on us, or keep us in your thoughts.