I feel that a big congratulations is owed to Barack Obama for his achievement and his passion for helping people. The historical context of this election makes me proud to be an American, right now.

On another note, Barack said in his celebratory speech that those who doubt that anything is possible have seen otherwise tonight. In my not-so-humble opinion, I beg to differ. As a child growing up in a middle class home, I have for 18 years been preached to by teachers, family members, and the like about American Democracy and the power that the people hold in this country.

If you’re a believer in this idea, I will tell you right now that my opinions made absolutely no difference in this election and I don’t feel like anything I want done in our government is possible. As a constitutionalist, classical liberal, and pure democratic-republican, I feel more walked on today than I have before as far as politics go. I was not very excited last night or this morning when I voted. After hearing and seeing the celebration, I am feeling completely ignored. I really hope I never feel like this in an election again. I feel like I’ve definitely lost a chunk of my passion for politics tonight and it’s really sad. (NOTE: this doesn’t have to do with Barack necessarily, but election day in general.)

The next few months will probably be annoying from hearing the press, hearing people that are mad about the win, and others that believe their savior is now in office, but the last stomp on my dignity will be to see the president be inaugurated on January 20, 2008. Barack is going to say to the world, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Based on what he has been campaigning on and why people follow him so passionately, it follows closely that he has not said ANYTHING about any of this during whole campaign. (Not that John McCain was any different in that respect!)

The last thing that is a little bit scary to me is the fact that our whole Federal Government is (as of next year) going to be dominated by a pretty angry group of Democrats. I guess we’ll see how much they’ll get done together, and whether it will be for better or for worse. I also feel that although I like Barack Obama as a person, I don’t think I can trust the kind of choices he would make in picking Supreme court justices.

Overall, I still feel like government is going to be in my way, and that it is going to continue to discourage individuality, continue to waste billions of dollars on lazy bureaucracy, and continue to take my rights as a joke.

Also, I hope is was worth the hundreds of millions of dollars put into these presidential campaigns.

I am officially finished with my summer classes! Physics is over, and I’m fairly happy about it. My professor was great for physics! His name is John Newport, and he’s a teacher at Carmel High School. What luck I had: he obtained his Ph.D. in theoretical/mathematical physics! I’m confident that I ended up with an A in the course, and I’m ready to move on.

This fall, I’m taking a lot of great subjects. I feel that I am going to start growing a lot academically. I’m officially going to be a year ahead in physics, starting my 300 level intermediate physics courses at the start of my sophomore year. I’m also going to be taking 2 math classes: linear algebra (matrix math for the non-math nerd), and differential equations (kind of like physical modeling with equations… it’s hard to explain). Aside from my math and physics courses, I will be taking an introductory course in philosophy, and a speech course.

Outside of courses, I have started a research project with one of the professors/physicists at IUPUI. His name is Yogesh Joglekar, and he’s been awesome to work under so far!

I’m still waiting to hear back about the Dean of Science scholarship. They’ve had a lot of trouble with organization and administration this summer, because they’re doing everything very differently this year. I don’t know when I’m supposed to expect to hear about that, but so far I’ve got $1500 dollars in scholarships for this fall. If I do get the Dean of Science scholarship, that will bring it up to $2750 in scholarships for the fall, bringing me to about 67% payed for this fall. Cross your fingers for me!

Sorry it’s been so long! I uploaded the demo that I recorded for my friend Mike’s band. We recorded them in the Spring. They turned out pretty nice.

We recorded the drums in a studio and then recorded the rest at Mike’s house. Lots of pretty guitar riffs and the music is quite relaxing! I hope you enjoy!

This summer has been going really well. School hasn’t been too bad, and I’m getting way ahead for this fall. My plans are getting really exciting. As of this fall, I will be about a year ahead as far as physics goes. I’m going to be in some fun math classes, as well, and I have been talking to a professor in the physics department about research.

I’m still waiting/hoping to hear back about the Dean of Science scholarship. It’s $2500 a year, so that’d be really nice! That would be $2000 a semester in scholarships I have so far which is a little over half of my tuition. Keep your fingers crossed!

Other exciting news… I’ll have been with Olivia for a year and a half on Saturday! Yay!

I hope everyone is having a great summer.