Chapter 21: Everything depends on the choice

Elections for president here in America took me a little by surprise. The truth is I was so busy with demonstrations and declarations of independence from the other side of the Atlantic, that suddenly found myself in the week of the election. As immigrants could not vote so I did not pay much attention, but some things I did noticed.

I do not know when the campain started really. There are no advertisements on television about the president. The ads were to vote for or against what they call "Prop" is shortened Proposition and it’s vote the same day. Basically it consists of a long list of props and must vote for or against. These are proposals for new laws that affect the state or province. Because they are laws people generally do not give them much importance because they are difficult to understand and does not change many things in general. However, this year there were some important matters:

• Nearly 30 collected money form of a sales tax and people earning more than $ 250,000 for the public education system, that would mean that not only would stop a significant rise in tuition but also would lower the tuitions.
• Almost 32 was formulated as foundations to stop campaigns by groups interested in that at first glance may look good but it was written so as to exempt private foundations and corporate, so only apply to unions and middle class.
• Nearly 37 asked to see all products labeled if they contain no pesticides or if they had, whether they were transgenic etc.
• Nearly 38 collected money for the school system but did not include primary and preschool. This would nullify 30.

Teachers in classrooms were forbidden to say what the students had to vote but they do a good job making them aware of how important it was to vote.

As for the president there was not that big of a talk, people in California are mostly Democratic so there was discussion about whether Romney was a good candidate or not. Some of my friends voted for the minority groups, even someone vote for a woman. The problem is that the democratic system here is not so direct as the Europeans and I do not know exactly how it works. It is very complex and there are several candidates but only Democrats and Republicans ... Last year my history teacher tried to tell us when there was a Mormon candidate, but did not go into much detail and there is also the Senate and the House and who knows how many more institutions.

Well that was intense few days before the elections, especially noticeble in the classrooms, both teachers and students seemed interested in what would happen the upcoming day.

Finally it was Election Day came and as I had class like every Tuesday from 9 to 5 without stop and then work. We put a projector  Depot to project folow the eleciton. Finally at about 9 when the polls had closed in the East we had the ultimate result that Obama had won, even with missing votes he had won.

The reelected president made a speech that I  didn’t heard but read in the catalan papers summarized. And the next day there was an air of relief and satisfaction in the classrooms, a lot of talking about 30 which was the one I was most concerned about so it seems that now we save some money. 32 did not pass.

And they did not need to make pacts and two days after the election everyone returned to their routines as if nothing had happened.

TBC

NA We received an email from the university we get tuition money back because the prices will be like the past year. The next chapter part2 Thanksgiving! and please check my ther blog: http://fif7.blogspot.com