I was sick.  The whole time.  In the time I didn’t spend on the couch watching copious amounts of TV, here’s what I did (in bullet form–I know, bullets get old, but I have medicine head):

Jamie took me to Victoria for belated Valentine’s Day!  We went to the wax museum (photos to come later–digital camera plus wax figures equals fun), the underwater gardens (less interesting than you think), tea at the Empress (I forgot to put my pinky up), a yarn shop (he REALLY loves me!), and the Royal Museum.  It was a very fun day.

On Wednesday I went to school to work for a bit, then had dinner with Caitlin.  I sure do like time with friends (and burritos, but friends trump burritos)!

Creative impulses took over on Friday.  I made two placemat tote bags for my cousins (who hopefully don’t read this blog).  They are very cute (I meant the tote bags, but my cousins are too) and I want to keep them.  Sigh.

Saturday was monumentous–I finished grading all the papers I have!  I was so proud of myself I almost skipped out of Starbucks.  Probably would have if it weren’t for this darned cold/flu/plague I have.  Anyway, it’s a great feeling to be TOTALLY CAUGHT UP!  Now I can stay that way (hopefully), and I will be a much happier person. 

The balance of the break was spent on the couch knitting (or not, when I lost the energy for it) and watching Gilmore Girls, Friends, and the West Wing.  And nursing Jamie back to health, since he got sicker than me on Saturday.  Sure is fun here at Casa Panadera (our last name in Spanish :)).  Now, off to microwaved tiny pies for dinner–I heart comfort food.

Why do I stay up late for no reason?  I keep waiting for my adult sleep cycle to kick in…

Our district is in a budget crisis and we knew they were going to close a school.  We also knew we were one of the options, but assumed it would not be us because of the dual language program (where would they put all 12 classrooms?).  On Tuesday night the board announced it would be us after all.  It was a bit of a shock, since pretty much everyone seemed sure it would be another school.

Wednesday morning we started the day with a staff meeting to process the decision.  Not a fun way to start the day.  I’m mostly fine, but thinking of the impact on other teachers and the kids is draining.  Our school is definitely a community center, especially for the Spanish speaking families.  Most of my kids had heard the news, and at least they will stay together no matter where they go.  The combination of this news, plus Valentine’s Day, plus a break starting Monday has really done a number on their behavior, however.  It’s been an exhausting week.  I’m glad for the aforementioned break!

Here’s an article about the closure.

I’m not sure how to feel about that.

There were nearly a thousand people crammed into a local elementary school, representing 8 separate precincts holding caucuses at the same location. Our group split off into the library – 101 of us, well above any attendance records in recent memory. Becky was excited that there’s such a nice-looking local school 5 blocks from our house. :)

Our precinct had 6 (local level) “delegates” to allocate. After listening to dreary ill-formed liberal party plank propositions for a long 15 minutes while the sign-in votes were tabulated, the first results were 71 Obama, 23 Clinton, 7 undecided. That broke down into 4.2 delegates, 1.37 delegates, and 0.41 delegates. What’s the largest remainder? The .41 delegates of the uncommitted bloc – thus they got the last delegate: 4 Obama, 1 Clinton, 1 Uncommitted. Let this be a lesson in why the caucus system is a terrible, undemocratic idea: representation is skewed every which way by the early aggregation of totals.

So then commenced phase two: short speeches in turn for each candidate. These were made by random people who spoke up, and were pretty much as expected. The Clinton supporter roughly said “She’s experienced, did good things for health care for kids, and I forgive her for her Iraq vote.” The Obama supporter roughly said, “There are 50 extra people in this room because of him. He’s inspiring, nobody hates him, and he’ll do better against McCain.”

After some of that, we had a break for people to switch their votes if they wanted to. Now, rooting for Obama, we were in a precarious mathematical position. If one person switched from uncommitted to Clinton, she’d get an extra delegate. If one person switched from uncommitted to Obama, Clinton would still get an extra delegate! (They’d have the largest remainder – the .41 versus .37 would go the other direction.) Good news for our side, four people and one of the Clinton voters switched to Obama, leaving the final raw vote totals as 76, 22, 3. That’s 4.53, 1.21, and .30 (to the nearest tenth, at least) delegates respectively. Can you see the biggest remainder? Final delegate count: Obama 5, Clinton 1.

Most of the room cheered the change in the final delegate allocation, of course. I’m now the 5th alternate delegate for our precinct to the congressional-district level caucus. Ew, more policy bickering! Anyway, I’ll let you know what that’s like on the off-chance that I have to go. Cheers.

Get out there if you can. Although it doesn’t matter so much if you’re backing a Republican. (Purely in terms of state rules, and the current races.) 1pm on Saturday. You can find your caucus site here or here.

A few more details on my (and I guess a long of young peoples’) gravitation towards Obama. It’s not about the issues – it’s about character and about tone. I don’t know that we’d fix the healthcare system in the next 4/8 years with either Democrat. I don’t think McCain would secure the border before integrating currently illegal immigrants. Neither affects me much personally.

My (if you’ll allow me) hope has leapt up against the background of growing up with the last two presidents. I thought we wouldn’t see another president as shameful as Clinton, after watching him lie under oath about his oval-office affair – not to mention whitewater, travelgate, memogate, etc etc. But then Bush came along and inconceivably did even more damage to America’s relationship with the rest of the world. His insular stubbornness and foolishness has been utterly flabbergasting at times.

I took a while to warm up to Obama. Watching him in while we were in Illinois, Becky hearing him at a teachers conference – I still thought he was fluff in 2004. His words have little power without the backing of millions.  But the prospect of having him as President, just who he is alone, has pierced through my depressing political cynicism. I don’t know what the next 4 years would look like. The built-up cruft and negative-feedback loops in government won’t be magically changed by the words hope, unity, or dream. But all I can do as a voter is say, that’s what I want. That’s what I care about. See that guy that wants to be ‘post-partisan’? I want more like him.