Column: Hot off the Press

01/22/09 - On Jan. 20, I sleepily glanced up at the Washington Monument from beneath four layers of clothes, a hat, a scarf, a blanket and two pairs of socks. It was 6:30 a.m. and the image of my lifeless body, white from hypothermia, was a recurring thought. The temperature was well below freezing and while I had a hand-warmer and a blanket to wrap around me, it was only an hour before my body was numb.But once I passed the monument and entered the National Mall, a scene that I had never been able to fathom appeared before me, and suddenly my stiff limbs weren't as important anymore. There were at least 500,000 people standing in front of me, forming a side of Obama Nation that I'd never quite grasped. Even when the election results were announced and everyone around me celebrated, I never thought I would experience something like this.

My friends and I set up camp right in the middle of the mall where we could get a decent view of the Capitol. By 10 a.m., the strangers that had filtered in around us were no longer random people in a crowd. We were all here for the same reason, and while one might think it's easy to feel small in a crowd of one million, that day we all felt we were fully meant to be a part of the profound textbook moment when Obama took the oath.

Someone who I'd just met the day before the inauguration said something to me then that I thought I could relate to. He said he wished he could just find an adult who lived through key points in history and ask him or her how the inauguration of Barack Obama seemed to fit into it all. Was it really the experience that everyone was building it up to be?

"I am fully jealous of the people who were college students during the Vietnam War," he said. In a way, I was, too. It was the age of protest, when the citizens of this country took life by the horns and utilized their freedoms to their ultimate potential.

Vietnam veterans might not agree-the war was a time of turmoil, confusion and frustration with the United States government. Some turn away in disgust at the thought and explain that it should never have happened in the first place.

But to know that this country really is about the people and to have that much of an effect is an overwhelming feeling that seldom comes along in politics.

And as I looked up at the Jumbotron with more than a million people chanting "Obama!" I couldn't help but be moved by the fact that we were all experiencing that feeling. Even if you didn't vote for Obama, the fervor that has spread in response to the country's need for change is undeniable.

I stood for more than eight hours, battling against an icy wind chill, an hour of sleep and the irresistible urge to curl up in a ball with 16 blankets inside a Smithsonian Museum to experience my first presidential inauguration and I wouldn't take back a second of it.

I think people easily give in to exciting fervor without looking deeper into the reason behind it sometimes. But this event, without a doubt, held more meaning to such a variety of different people and cultures, that I think it's safe to say Obama has truly "Ba-rocked" this nation.