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So What's My Story?

After 3 years of being a poor social worker (the work I loved, the pay I didn't), I decided it was time to go back to school and get my Master's! After weighing my options (school far away from home, or school in a different country that is only an 8-hour drive from home) I decided to try my luck in British Columbia, Canada.

For a year I lived in
Surrey, BC while attending Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC. However, as the final component of my work toward my Masters degree in Criminology I have moved back to the states to complete an internship at an Independent Living Program for youth leaving the foster care system.

Here is the story of my adventures as a graduate student in a "foreign" country as well as my current work back in the states.

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Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Obama Would Have Won in Canada, Too

I know this because, when I met someone new and they found out I was from the states, they would generally ask "Are you going to vote for Obama?" (right before the ask me if I own a gun). I heard SOO much on the bus and skytrain about the U.S. presidential election. Information on the movements and progress of the campaign were in the papers up here almost daily. The Canadian people appeared to be HUGE Obama fans. In fact, many of them actually watched the election coverage as well... even went to dinner parties that night to watch the race with friends.

Here is the funny thing though... Canada had their own election about a month or so prior to ours, I did not hear nearly as much buzz. In fact, I can't even tell you who all the different parties were who ran (they have about 5 primary political parties up here, I think). I mentioned to a classmate of mine how odd I thought this was that Canadians seemed to be more interested in the U.S. election than their own. He told me that it was due to the fact that the election in the states was more interesting; stances on issues were different and more extreme between candidates than they are for those in Canadian elections. He explained to me that even the conservatives in Canada were generally more liberal than the democrats in the states.

Oh... and they are definitely not Bush fans either! This became quite apparent to me in one of my courses last term as the professor was quite to use Bush as an illustrative example of a buffoon... not to mention the popularity of the movie "W".

3 comments:

  1. It's the same over here in Britain! Also, I had to laugh out loud when I read the thing about guns because we get asked about them all the time. Of course, then the room goes all quiet when we said we owned one back home!

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  2. I am not sure that Obama would have won here. I think that there is just such a dislike for Bush, and all that he stands for - that they would have supported a Leper, as long as it was not a Replubican. Sarah Palin didn't help either!

    Canada's current government is actually a Conservative governement, which is equivalent to a Republican USA government.

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  3. Our Canadian friends here in Taiwan were trying to figure what exactly was happening with the Canadian elections and seemed much more knowledgeable about American elections as well.

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