A new life begins...

Before I say anything else, it's impossible to write anything without mentioning the inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20th. I've had goosebumps numerous times during the long campaign, usually during major speeches such as his acceptance speech and of course the inauguration speech. While I know that it's a major event that we have elected the first black person to the Office of President (and more importantly the first non-white male person, as there was also a female and an Hispanic running), it didn't play a large role in my voting for him. I voted for him because it seems that there is an extraordinary opportunity for many things in the country to be changed. We have an antiquated healthcare system, dilapidated schools, a foreign policy that can't be trusted by any nation in the world and we were at the center of a global financial meltdown. While I'm not saying I'm happy with the situation we are in, it does provide an opportunity along the lines of the New Deal era. With a massive investment of funds to modernize infrastructure as well as schools and hospitals and invest in the next future of energies, we can renew the United States as a global force for good, instead of a global force that other countries see as reckless and impulsive.

I spent inauguration day (evening here) at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Brussels where the Belgium chapter of Democrats Abroad was hosting an inauguration party. Expats from the US as well as many other countries filed in to watch this historic event. I spent the entire time glued to the giant screen, absorbing everything about this day that will forever be remembered. Millions of people crammed onto the mall (and many more of you with Purple tickets stuck in tunnels and on streets), and who knows how many hundreds of millions, if not a billion, people watching it on TV across the world. We don't really notice it as much in the US, but the President of the United States is someone who is known worldwide, and is watched very carefully. You'd be hard pressed to find a person that can name the head of many other highly developed, industrialized nations like Russia, UK, France, Germany or Italy; yet the large majority of citizens in those countries would have no trouble naming our leader. It really gives me a striking idea of what kind of influence the United States has and that we can't afford to waste that influence, like we have for the past eight years, on policies that only lead to further conflict and suffering worldwide. But one only needs to look at the financial crisis to see that our influence is not just limited to military power, it is financial and cultural as well. What we do with the opportunity that our founders afforded to us over 200 years ago well and truly affects the rest of the world. It is our duty and moral obligation to not cause situations that threaten the rest of the world.

President Obama (so weird to say that) has the potential and capability to do this, but as he specifically pointed out in his inaugural address, he is only one person, but there are 300 million people in the US that need to get involved on their own. We can't keep living a live of handouts and expect that everything will be handed to us. It's time to take responsibility, as he said, and do our part to once more make this country a symbol of freedom and democracy, one that other countries seek to emulate, rather than of secrecy and executive hubris.

I've been thinking about all that for a while, so I finally took the time to write it out. I've been dragging my on writing this second installment, as every time I get started, I never finish and then I go back and delete everything that I had written before. Here in Brussels, we have finished the first week of classes, which really just consisted of overviews of what would be discussed. I had originally made a list of eight classes that I was interested in, although we only have room to take three of them. I also had the internal debate on whether to stick with my original plan of getting an MA in International Relations or to move onto a different track and take an LLM in International Law with International Relations. After discussions with several people, including former professors, I decided to stick with International Relations, and should I have an inkling to subject myself to the horrors of law later in life, I can still do that.

So, after attending five different classes, I settled on a class on Political Strategy, which includes military as well as electoral strategy; Foreign Policy Analysis, which is a must for any student of International Relations; and a course on Security and Liberties. I find this course perhaps the most interesting, as it considers the delicate balance that countries, specifically liberal democracies, must find between protecting their citizens and preserving their liberties. Obviously the last eight years have heavily tilted to the side of security (though if we're actually more secure now or if it's just a major inconvenience is difficult to tell) at the expense of seriously compromising our civil liberties, as well as those from around the world (Geneva Conventions anyone?).

I've also had the opportunity to meet many of my classmates, who hail from all over the world. Thinking of just a few people, we have Canada, Australia, Azerbaijan, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Norway and Kenya represented. And those are only the people that I've spent time with. As we spend more time together studying, partying and traveling, the ideals that I have become accustomed to in the US will come in to sharper focus as they contrast with those of people from other countries and cultures. It should make for an interesting time.

As I've begun to think about the summer, next fall, next year, ideas of travel destinations have popped up. Possibly Brugge this weekend, Greece in February, Switzerland/France for the summer and Israel/Palestine to do research on my dissertation next January. It's a long list and depends on many factors for them to work, but with my mind having been firmly set on succeeding here for a long time, I'm not going to let the opportunity slip by.

As a closing note, a good friend of mine from High School, Mia, is getting married next June in Cancun, so not only will it be a great wedding for her, I'll be celebrating having finished my MA and finally moving into the "real world." 

That's it for now, until next time...