So at around 11:05 pm last night we were all informed that the country finally made a good decision. Upon hearing the projection while sitting on my sofa I immediately took to the door and walked outside to make celebratory calls to my fellow Obama friends. What I was confronted with when I walked out the door was something that I will never forget. I could hear all over campus screams of rejoice, cheering from all around me, not the result of large gatherings but of individuals who believed that there was something to cheer about. It was ridiculous and amazing.
With a spontaneous idea everyone in my apartment (excluding the saddened Derrick) ran to the Diag (central location of our Campus) in hopes of celebrating with our fellow student brethren. As we ran, we felt pretty silly, all 5 of us wearing jeans, sweatshirts and none of us in really great shape, but when we arrived in the Diag what we saw was amazing. Students from all over were running to join in on the celebration, we were among the first hundred students to gather. The "Yes we Can!" chants followed by "O-Bama" chants rang through the night air for about a half hour before the we all began to march. We marched for about 2 hrs taking up the full street, every house we passed would add a few more members to our cause. At one point one could not see the end of the crowd, we estimated that about 5-8 thousand students accompanied us on our screaming celebration through the streets of Ann Arbor. It really was quite the experience, to see so many people truly excited about an election and our country's future (finally).
The Michigan Daily has a video on its front page (the same one as below) that you can watch, which really shows the magnitude of the event. My friends and I got to lead a few chants as well, including the singing of the national anthem ( Don't worry, I screamed RED at the correct time for you CU people) as we stood on the Michigan steps looking out at the hundreds of gathered students. It was quite the experience and one can only hope that the outcome of this election is one that really mirrors the excitement that it has riled up in a lot of us!
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