where was my sticker
Most everyone knows that while I don’t avoid political discussion, I still find it disturbingly divisive and thus I try to eschew joining such talks. In some instances, I am the one sitting silently in a group of friends that have suddenly decided to bring up foreign policy in our dinner conversation. I tend to take the Marxist economic view, even when political forces appear prominent - apart from militaristic situations. But that’s away from my point.
Thus, in my eyes, voting is a pain. I do not even view it entirely as a civic duty. It is a horrible frustration that somehow democracies put up with - entertaining incumbents with delusions of grandeur, as if we actually respect them, and then handing them exorbitant pots of money with which they decide many fates. So, I don’t like politics, I think I made that clear.
In the summer, I met up with my friend Erin while she was in town for a wedding. Best friends usually try to catch up with what’s going on, but Erin and I typically start an intense conversation and just carry it through until we’re tired and then say goodnight. I brought up how I hate politics, she retaliated on the importance of voting and the democratic process, I rebutted, and so on. In the end, I was only more upset at how incompetent and inefficient the American government is, but I had a potential glimmer for democracy.
Anyways, I happen to have decided to take the GREs today, voting day, and happen to have decided to take them in my hometown, where I am registered to vote, and the conveniences offered demanded I take the final step. And I voted. In part to appease my many super-political friends and also in part just because I had the extra time. And in part to get one of those “I Voted!” stickers. Which I never received. That doesn’t make a shake of sense - grant me a grandfather-clause-free opportunity to vote and then deny me the basic human right of a mass produced sticker.
But I voted. And I actually read each word of each resolution or amendment or whatever the extra non-candidate proposals were. One I needed to read twice because I thought it was poorly worded, or rather too verbose for the typical person to grasp with one quick fly-by. So I voted.
Really. I have a lot of super-political friends who will be shocked to hear this news. Might as well thrust it in their faces.
And the GREs weren’t that bad. But my standardized test-taking skills are not stellar. However, my free response essays could make a death row inmate weep in rapture. Though 730 of 800 was good for my math, I was expecting better, knowing my own potential as well as I think I do. Or so I thought.
Coming back to VT, I brought along some bananas and a hoodie that I have missed for months. It’s worth mentioning.
November 8th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
What a close race in VA! Glad you participated.