Settling in

I'm getting into the swing of things now, I think. After floundering a bit the first couple days in class, today went really well, and afterwards, I went to dinner with Michael P (the other Michael moved out of our class) and Aki, a Japanese guy in our class who has been in Taiwan for over a year now. Tomorrow Michael and I are going to go over to Zhongxiao Xinsheng to see if we can find me a new cellphone, since the one Jessie gave me died on me rather suddenly last night. When I wrote her to tell her about it, she wrote back, "Hahaha, phone going crazy?" so I think she kind of figured this might happen.

Stormed like crazy today. The thunder and lightning were super intense, and they lasted for nearly an hour, much longer than any storms at home. It didn't rain that much, but even with the small rain, we were told to take umbrellas, because apparently the rain here is really acidic and not something you want soaking through your bare skin.

Took the bus back from Gongguan MRT station, which turned out to be a mistake. First of all, the 311 bus didn't arrive for at least half an hour. I think maybe it missed a cycle or something, because it's supposed to come every 15 minutes. But because it didn't arrive on time, there were a ton of people who got on the bus with me, and it was super crowded and uncomfortable on the bus. Plus it was rush hour so there was lots of stopping and going and jostling and bumping in to people and maybe it was just because I was tired and sweaty, but man, it was really uncomfortable in there.

Liverpool play Manchester United next weekend. Without Fernando Torres and without Steven Gerrard. Shit. If the Reds can escape with a tie, I will consider it a major victory, especially considering the way they've been playing as of late. I'm kind of sad that Steve Finnan left, but I guess that was kind of expected.