the brothers crow

It seems my dance card might be getting more full in the next coming month.

Right now, my job description is as follows: Assist teachers in ESL instruction in middle school classrooms, and lead ESL instruction in elementary school classrooms. They’re different in expectations, curriculum and techniques required, but still fairly similar. That could change, though, come February.

I’ve been asked to take over an adult English conversation class in town. It would meet three times a month for two hours, which would consist of a beginner and intermediate class. I still have about a week and a half to decide.

It’s not without benefits. I would receive extra pay, which is a definite plus. It would offer me a different environment in which I could teach and gain experience. On the other hand, it would be the most demanding of my three responsibilities. Even the elementary schools provide me with a rudimentary curriculum to follow throughout a year–the content of this class would be completely at my discretion. Complete freedom… a deceptive cage, I fear.

There’s also the fact that the previous ALT took issue with the class and claimed it as a major reason in their decision to not recontract. But that’s a whole other story.

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So it seems Hillary won New Hampshire in spite of all manner of polls indicating the contrary. I want to believe this isn’t the end of the Obama surge, that he can still secure the nomination, but I read an interesting perspective on this recently.

There are those that think Obama needed to ride a wave of popularity through victories to maintain the youth vote, and that a loss in New Hampshire kills his momentum with them. Without the college crowd believing change is still possible, Hillary would win through strength of women and older democrats.

I hope to God this isn’t true. I really do. Obama strikes me as potential for real change and unity, and it would be a damn shame if we were to fall back into the traditional 50%+1 system of governance through Hillary. Plus, she’s just so polarizing that I still think a Republican candidate could beat her.

But more than that, if Obama were to lose, it would mean another four years of the youth vote being ignored. It would anger and frustrate me. We’re brushed aside and judged as lazy, ignorant and disinterested. And unfortunately, to an extent, we are. It’s a vicious cycle of apathy when our efforts are consistently trounced by organized, veteran voting blocks. I can’t blame people for giving up in the face of predictable defeat. But Obama… if he wins, that could change. It would be a watershed moment in which the youth finally realizes they can have an impact on the process.

It’s less than a month until Super Tuesday. Less than a month to see if the youth vote will be worth a damn in 2008. 時代が変わっている。 Whatever you do, don’t look away.

Addendum: Does anyone else find it really depressing that Microsoft Word wants to change “Obama” to “Osama” whenever you run spellcheck?