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Tonight, Well tonight has made me have true hope for America again.

At 8pm pacific time on November 4th, as they announced OBAMA was going to be the the 44th President of the United States. The first ever African-American president. I cried. I cried for everything I've ever wanted to see happen in the US but never thought would. To finally see someone of color hold the number one government spot in the United States just made me feel true HOPE.

The first time I ever heard Obama speak, was when he was running for Senate in Illinois. I was watching C-SPAN with my granny, and I told her "wow he would make a good president one day". But I never thought that could happen. With how racist America can be, I never thought that the first year I can vote for a President I would be voting for Barack Hussein Obama!

I am honestly surprised and frustrated with myself. I haven't said a word about the election, which is TODAY! The polls close here in Ohio in about half an hour, and I'm itching to see which way this historically red state will vote.

Voting.

Show me the justice in this scenario: a teenager who has been active in a wide variety of political organizations since the age of 12, and has volunteered many hours for various campaigns, and is, honestly, better informed on many of the issues being voted on today in Ohio than many of her peers with whom she has discussed politics with, cannot vote because she is 17.

Is McCain-speak for overturning Roe V. Wade.

Culture of life? Is it a culture of life to continue a war that was started on false intelligence?

Or to cut funding for a center that helped teenage moms like his VP did?

Or make women pay for their own rape kits?

Or follow the direction that other countries without abortion have and make it so difficult for women to get abortions that even when medically needed doctors refuse to perform abortions for fear they will be fined or jailed?

What is so scary about McCain is that he could care less about human life. He admitted in a 1997 interview with 60 minutes to killing innocent women and children in Vietnam, to being a war criminal. More then a decade later he is now calling himself a war-hero to win an election.

It's funny how a perfectly normal day can suddenly become a nightmare, but even more strange is that it wasn't even my nightmare. Although I felt it should be, it usually is, but this time it wasn't me.

Friday was a normal day, I dragged myself up in the morning, to the gym, to work, to my next work, and then to the next one. Just the usual, painful working three jobs in 24 hours kinda crappy weekday. Untill late friday evening when I was just starting to wind down and relax at work. As people were starting to leave, and I was thinking about closing up shop, when in about 10 seconds everything changed. A young Woman walked in and rang the bell at reception, as soon as I walked through the door I stopped in my tracks recognising the (oh so painfully familiar) shaking, confused, and pretty much terrified look about her. She started trying to tell me something, but couldn't get the words out, she was shaking uncontrollably and eventually she managed to tell me that she was raped by one of the other guest's. A friend of a gal she works with, who she offered to give a lift out to our hostel as he was a bit lost in our city.

Due to my upcoming trip to Asia, I have had to have a few visits to the Doctor, for my shots etc, which I really don't enjoy doing at all, but more than that, I am totally sick of them talking about how I need to do this and that if I want to have children, because of my endometriosis etc. I patiently explain to them each time I go that it really is not a concern I have as I am not planning on having any anyway. This is apparently not the right answer.

Most of the time they think it's because I am young, and that I will change my mind in a few years, and order tests and things anyway. I am not concerned about whether or not I can get pregnant, now or in the future. I believe that if I can't for whatever reason then maybe I should look after one of the many kids in this country who are in desperate need of a good home, or just not have any at all. And I am happy with this.

So my ex left for the Air Force on Tuesday. Hard enough in and of itself, to see someone who holds such an important part of my life and heart, leave, knowing that I will probably never see him again. But, try adding on that for the past eight months he has been dating someone who was my friend for fifteen years.

Needless to say, she has decided that it is too uncomfortable to talk to me. I think she hates the fact that I was there first. I was his first for so many things, and she can never replace replace me in that regard. I think it makes her jealous. So she has said a handful of words to me on twice as many occasions, which has effectively ruined the friendship that endured most of our lives. I have tried to talk to her, I really have. I've sent emails, tried to get her alone at school. She just turns red and leaves or ignores me.

Stumbling never felt so dangerous

I have recently become addicted (in a good way) to this website/ search engine-type web page called StumbleUpon. I don’t know how many of you have been Stumbling, but I guarantee that it is worth a look. You never know what kind of site will be sent your way for you to Stumble across. Which brings me to the purpose of this blog. I tried posting it once already, but my laptop decided it was going to overreact to a momentary lapse of wi-fi action and kick me offline completely, taking my blog along with it. And of course, as I was writing it in between Ethics and Anthropology, I didn’t think it would be a big deal if I typed directly into the blog-posting page rather than on a word document.

So this summer, rather than pulling my shoulder length hair into a ponytail and getting on with my life, I decided to try a little experiment. I cut off all but two inches of my hair, which I styled into the common men's hairstyle of a faux-hawk, you know, that fake mohawk that it seems like every guy in my neighborhood is sporting?

It was the shortest my hair has ever been. I mean, I've had short hair before, but I've always had it longer in the front to frame my face and make it look distinctly feminine. So why the extremely short, extremely male 'do? I wanted to see how many people I could fool into looking twice to see if I was male or female.

This last weekend marked the end (finally) of the Rugby season in my village. I look forward to that every year, as I work in the local bar, and do get tired of the drunken idiots from the rugby club pinching my butt as I work and urinating on our door. On Saturday night the local rugby club had their annual prize giving at our bar as we sponsor their club. I had to work, much to my disgrace, but cash is not exactly flying into my wallet these days, so of course I agreed.

About half way through the evening, most of the wives/girlfriends of the guys at the event had drifted away from the drunken crowd of men and were leaning on the bar chatting to the four of us who were working. We were all pretty unenthusiastic about the event and it was when one of the women mentioned that it might be nice if the women who attended the damn thing were actually included and spoken to, that I asked why we don’t actually have any Women’s sports teams in our village, other than one Netball team, and why don’t we have a women’s rugby team, soccer team, cricket team, when there were so many men’s sports teams playing for our village each week. Most of the Women sitting at the bar laughed loudly and wished me good luck with that one, as most of the time we are barely allowed to stand on the sidelines let alone participate and actually play. But a few of the younger gals expressed interest in being able to play some sort of sport.

I'm not the type of person to read the paper. I prefer my media to come filtered through the liberal lens of feministing, NPR or google. However I got into the habit of reading the local paper after one of my co-workers kept leaving it on the breakroom table. Of course I was drawn to the opinion section.

If negative stuff about Obama written by locals did not bother me enough I just had to read the opinion of a conservative nut job Cal Thomas. The first article I read was how Democrats are pushing away "faith voters". Voters of course who are of the Catholic faith and are also pro-life.

I don't know about you, but I am getting sick of the media. Television in particular. But not just television. Commercials.

I recently saw two commercials in a row that deeply disturbed me. True, I was watching reruns of CSI on a channel that is geared towards older men, but still. Businesses and television stations alike need to learn when to draw the line.

Commercial One: It's advertising a summer sale at a local matress store. Rather than images of beds and lots of graphics and emphasis on prices and things like that, every time the commercial mentions the summer's "HOT" deal, the commercial flashes to a woman with huge breasts getting out of a pool, dripping wet, in a red one-piece. I was just happy she wasn't naked.

After I graduated from college and left my dorm room, I moved back in with my parents for a while. At the end of next week, I'll finally get to move into an apartment of my very own. Well, almost my very own: I'll be sharing it with a good friend. This good friend happens to be male, and ever since we have shared our plans to move in together with our friends and family, we have been subjected to a never-ending stream of jokes and assumptions regarding our gender roles.

My parents have expressed happiness at my having a 'man in the house': Apparently, thanks to my roommate, there'll be no need for me to carry water bottles up to our 7th floor apartment, fix things that break around the house, put up pictures, put together my furniture after I move in, talk to the landlord about anything, ever, or worry about my safety.

This post comes after day of hell being super Nanny to a family, a new one, who, while I do love these kids, think their parents are great and enjoy my job, I also just cant help but shake my head at how much these kids have, how little they know about the world outside of their very nice four walls. Sometimes I have to catch myself while doing this and question whether my feelings are fair or if this is how we should all have been as children, but because my life was such a contrast to theirs I just cant seem to work out my feelings on this.

I was raised very aware of what goes on the world, the good, the bad and the ugly. Some of it unfortunatly I learnt the hard way, being abused etc. But the rest was because my parents were very open with us about such things. My dad especially took us to protests, friends houses who were going through crisis and it was always explained to us what was going on, sometimes I must admit this was overwhelming and probably a bit inappropriate for the age I was at the time. But most of the time, I think it was okay, good in fact, as by the time I went to high school I was very aware of the issues in not only my community, but in many parts of the world. I guess though, that my Dad being so relaxed about me interacting with people, trusting people and trusting that I knew dangerous from safe situations a little more than I did at age 11 was really how I got hurt in the first place.

Today is the first day of my new course. I have decided to study to be a nurse; I have decided that New Zealand really is not the place for me. I have family here, friends here, but I miss the brand new life which I carefully sculpted, spent a year doing so, a brand new family full of people who I adore as though we all have the same blood running through our veins, a happy life in Canada. I miss my life there, so much that at times since I have been back in New Zealand, I feel as though maybe I left my voice at Vancouver airport and I don’t know how to get it back without returning.

Upon returning I also discovered something about myself which I don’t think I ever would have if I had not escaped my life here for that whole year, if I had not had that year of safety. And that is that I am capable of changing my own life no matter what or who is standing right in the middle of my path. I was a feminist before I left New Zealand, I have read the books, I had very strong feelings and thoughts and opinions on such things, but I feel that now that I have really used my own strength as a woman to stand up and say enough. Walk out on everything I had ever known because I am better than that, I really truly understand what Feminism means to me, what it is.

"At the time, it was better to be a man than to be a woman, because women were on the same level as animals" explains Pashe Keqi in a recent article in La Stampa about an old Albanian custom (original article on page 17 of La Stampa from June 29th, 2008). What Pashe means is the history of the "sworn virgins", woman who vowed to essentially become men. The tradition first started about 500 years ago, and today there are still 40 women living who went through their whole lives with all the rights and duties of a man.

In a country rife with conflicts and wars, families were often left without a male to fend for them. But since the women had no rights and thus could not take on the jobs needed to sustain a family, a man was needed as the head of family.