Ryerson University students crowded anywhere there was a television, including the Ram In the Rye (pictured) to watch Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20.Ryerson University students anywhere there was a television, including the Ram In the Rye, to watch Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20.

As we come down from our collective high after watching Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States yesterday, we can’t help but believe the world is changed for the better somehow.

It’s difficult to say exactly what the change is, how it happened or why it’s good, but Obama represents the kind of change we’ve been waiting for.

After all, only two days ago it seemed like George W. Bush had always been the president of the United States — or at least since before most current university students were conscious of American politics.

Eight years ago, when Bush was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2001, Canada’s current undergraduate student population was somewhere between playing outside during recess at elementary school and working their first part-time job during high school.

Our generation’s fascination with the characters and decisions of the American government undoubtedly began Sept. 11, 2001.

The pictures and videos from that morning have been etched onto our memories forever and it seems as though the constant barrage of media hasn’t stopped since.

Thanks to Bush, we’ve known how terrifying, dramatic and sometimes hilarious American politics can become.

None of us will ever forget the “War on Terror,” “Shock and Awe,” or Bush’s frequent slips of the tongue.

For the past eight years we’ve felt superior to our American neighbours because although Canada’s political leaders weren’t perfect, at least they never uttered the word “misunderestimation” in public.

But that doesn’t mean we liked or were actually interested in any of Canada’s most recent prime ministers.

None of them have captured the attention of Canada’s youth because they didn’t speak to our issues or use the same tools of communication we use.

But when Obama came into the picture Canadians, young Canadians especially, developed a serious case of Obama envy.

Obama’s was the first campaign that took advantage of the power of the Internet.

It included aggressive mini-campaigns on social networks such as MySpace, YouTube and Facebook, and hundreds of thousands of mostly young people “tweeted” about Obama on Twitter every day.

Combined with the mainstream news updates in newspapers and on television and radio, it was a campaign without borders and Obama won Canadians over as much as he did Americans.

The fourth floor of the Ryerson library as also packed with students, staff and faculty watching the inauguration on flatscreen TVs.

As we cast our ballots in the latest federal election on Oct. 14 (if we cast them at all), many of us probably would have gladly swapped our vote for one in the American election a few weeks later just to help Obama reach the White House.

It turned out he didn’t need our help, so we continued to watch from across the border with growing admiration.

And although Canadians are worried Obama will throw out the North American Free Trade Agreement, fail to support Canadian troops in Afghanistan and, most importantly, be unable to fix the United States’ failed economy, it’s no secret that we love and trust Obama.

In a recent survey done for the CBC, more than 80 per cent of Canadians said they approve of Obama’s performance so far and almost half the country feels disappointed with our leadership options in comparison with Obama’s style and charisma.

Young Canadians are even more dissatisfied with our leaders than the general population. It’s no surprise, considering we’ve never had a youthful, charming celebrity leader of our own.

The closest Canada has come was Pierre Trudeau, when he captured the attention of our parents’ generation in the late 1960s and early ’70s with Trudeaumania.

While there are rumours of Justin Trudeau following in his father’s footsteps one day, it’s probably still a long way away.

So until we get a young, magnetic leader of our own – no matter what the colour of his or her skin is – Canada’s youth will continue to idolize Obama and be hopeful for the change he represents in our society.

We don’t know what those changes will be yet, but so far he’s done a fine job getting North American youth interested in politics again and that bodes very well for our future.

Okay, so my dishes aren’t done, my laundry has been sitting in the dryer downstairs since last night and the boyfriend has complained that I’m not around enough. But what else is new? I’m not very good at those things anyway.

But I helped put together and put out a 12-page newspaper that came out on Wednesday. As I mentioned in my last entry, I wrote the editorial. I also came up with the idea for the editorial cartoon, edited more than half the news stories and designed all six pages of the news layout. I also took advantage of the opportunity to take some great photos at some really memorable events.

I was stressed and I found myself getting impatient with my colleagues as we neared the 5 p.m. deadline on Tuesday, but it felt so good to do that much in so little time.

And the new issue of McClung’s Magazine came out yesterday (go to the website to find out where you can pick up a copy, or I can get a copy for you if you’d like), for which I was a handling editor on three stories.

Plus I had lunch with Lauren and I’m reading the book she gave me, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden. It’s terrible for me to admit, but it’s the first book I’m actually reading in a long time. To be honest, though, the fonts are quite big and it’s more of a quick, artsy book than an in-depth reading book. But still thought-provoking and motivating.

So even though I’m still stressing about finding a job upon graduation, I’m keeping insanely busy and feeling accomplished while doing it — and that’s probably what’s keeping me sane at this point.

Especially since I realized I put the wrong date on my cover letter in application to The Windsor Star summer internship: I dated it “Jan. 5, 2008” instead of “Jan. 5, 2009.” And I had a really good feeling about that one! I hope they’ll still consider me.

An editorial I wrote for The Ryersonian about CUPE Ontario’s proposed ban on Israeli academics at Ontario universities was also published today. It’s not attributed to me because it’s an editorial representing the opinions of the entire masthead, but I came up with the idea and wrote it.

Things have been so crazy for the past seven days! Hopefully this week I can start blogging more now that I know what’s expected of me at the paper. I’ve gone into school every day (including Saturday and Sunday) and most days I was there for at least a full day, if not 12 or 15 hours. Phew!

When I got out of bed this afternoon (yes, as in after noon), I checked my Facebook and found that one of my friends from high school, whom I respect and miss her sarcastic sense of humour dearly, had this to say about Twitter in her Facebook status:

twitter is the product of a narcissistic self-indulgent generation. it only promotes this idea of self importance.

I don’t know many people in real life who actually use Twitter, and there are definitely no mutual acquaintences of ours that I know of who use Twitter, so her comment surprised and offended me a little.

After we had commented back and forth a few times, I really took it personally when she said,

I think it just says a lot about yourself that you’re willing to sign up to a program that is used solely to tell people about the mundane things you do during your day.

So far, I’ve tweeted 177 times since the beginning of August. It’s not a lot, but I’m still trying to figure out how to best use Twitter.

I don’t go tweet crazy like someone I added recently, who updated more than 50 times in one day! Needless to say I stopped following her not only because of the sheer number of tweets, but also because I had no idea what she was going on about half the time.

I hope to one day use Twitter to promote my “brand,” or to spam thousands of followers with my latest blog update, or to even find a job, but, for now, everyone is stuck with boring old me.

I take issue with the idea that Twitter is only used as a means to broadcast minute-by-minute updates of my life. I get much more value out of Twitter than I put into it, and I think that’s probably true of most Twitter-ers. For example:

• I get notifications from @ttcupdates about the status of the TTC (assuming the TTC puts the information out there)
• I can ask questions about the stories I’m working on and probably get an answer right away
• People I follow post links or re-tweets to interesting content I wouldn’t have found on my own
• Huge (global) news stories hit Twitter before I see them anywhere else

One only has to look at how Twitter affected the information flow coming out of the Mumbai attacks to see the larger value of it. People were tweeting first-hand experience as it happened and the whole world was reading in disbelief.

It may not be better than a traditional media account of the events, but it’s something totally different and captures a moment in time in a way that a newspaper article or a two-minute news broadcast never could.

Although there are apparently only six million users on Twitter right now, that number is likely to grow. As it does, the opportunity to crowdsource events big and small are going to become even more evident. Why refresh a news organization’s homepage for the latest news when it will inevitably pop up on your desktop or cell phone at the same time, or even before? I guess newspapers are catching on to a certain extent, but it’s not the same as hearing it in a tweet from someone you know.

Why do you tweet? If you don’t, why don’t you?