Election!

Taiwan had an election today for president. The campaigning for it has been pretty fierce for the past couple weeks. The most recent week I've seen many cars driving around playing drums and waving flags for certain candidates.

For those of you unfamiliar with Taiwanese politics, there were two candidates up for election: Ma Ying-jeou (for the Kuomintang) and Frank Hsieh (for the Democratic Progressive Party). Ma ended up winning the election by a 15 point margin. Here's an article that outlines the situation in a little more detail.

It was nice having a ground-level look at what people thought about the election. It was hard to get some people to speak; politics here can be even more impassioned than American elections. I was able to coax a few opinions out of some friends and cab drivers. Supporters of Ma were most admiring of his anti-corruption credentials (a problem that has plagued Taiwan in recent years) while Hsieh supporters point to his harsher stance towards Beijing.

Seeing this election definitely made me glad that I chose to come to Taiwan. All the fanfare and passion of the election was something that I wouldn't be able to see first hand if I went to the Mainland. I think many Taiwanese people are glad that Chen's time as president are over (marred by economic troubles, corruption, and strained Cross-Strait relations) and to get a new face to represent them for years to come.

My new class and other things

So I'm currently a little more than a week into my third (and final) semester or class at Shida. The course I'm taking is E-Commerce Digest. On the plus side, it's challenging, and on the minus side, it's hard. The teacher assigns a lot of homework as well; it's taking a bit of getting used-to going from writing 8-10 sentences/week to 40 or so including a weekly 5 minute speech. I was stressing out a lot about the class after the first two or three days but I think I'm starting to get used to the teacher more and learning a lot of the basic business vocab that I didn't know before going into the class. I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to keep on top of things...for now, anyway.

I tried out that martial arts class and ended up going again this week. I think it's pretty cool; the teacher (Fox, an American) is very knowledgeable and good at presenting the material. The style has a very different focus than the school I went to in the States, so I think if I keep going for the rest of my time here I'll still learn quite a bit. (I'm not turning my back on SKK though!)

One of our roommates moved out so I'm helping her find a place. Two people stopped by today. Both of them were pretty alright, but I found out in the ad she posted that she didn't put up the utility fee (which is rather high). Thus both people who came were somewhat in a shock. I've gotten calls from four different people in the past two days about the place. So, I've been busy with that recently.

Anyways, kickboxing tonight and who-knows-what-else the rest of the week. Talk atcha later!

Quick!

My long weekend off from school was a good one. I didn't end up going anywhere but I spent a lot of quality time with my Taipei friends. Friday night I stayed in. Saturday night I had a rather crazy night, starting at the Beer Factory and continuing to a club. (Note to self: That's not something you should do every weekend, Ted.) Sunday night I hung out at my friend Jon's apartment, where we played some video games (he as a Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl) and ate.

Today I had a productive day on campus. I ate lunch, posted some kickboxing flyers, found which room my class was in, bought my book, and worked out. This evening I went to a Bagua practice. Bagua is a martial arts based on Taoist trigrams. It's a lot different from the martial arts I studied at home, and it isn't easy going from being a black belt in one form to being a neophyte in another, but I had fun. They've got a good group going there. I think I'll check it out next week as well.

Tomorrow I start my new semester. The class I'm taking is E-Commerce Digest, so we'll be reading newspaper-style articles on E-Commerce. It's at a lot higher level than my previous class was (level 5 to level 8), but I've studied newspaper articles in the US and I'm familiar with how the language works; I just need to get my character count up, and I think it will be advantageous doing such in a field I'm interested in.

I'll tell you guys how the class goes. That's all for now. Cya!