Well we made history. Obama won the election handily, and it's the first time in a long while that I've felt this proud to be an American. My mom was mentioning to me in an e-mail that, even now, she keeps having sort of spontaneous moments of joy about the election and the future of the country, and I have to say that that's been happening to me too. I didn't get to watch Obama's speech live because I was in class, but I watched it later on YouTube, and I'll be perfectly honest, I got quite emotional listening to what he had to say and also seeing the reactions of the (mostly young) people in the crowd. I think I was moved both by how inspirational Obama's speech was and also by how involved and how deeply other people felt about this election.
I have a cold, which is absolutely no fun at all, and to make matters worse, it's taking its sweet time actually developing into a full blown cold, so I'm sort of coughing and headachey, but it's not a particularly productive cough, and I just feel tired and lethargic and completely averse to doing anything except sitting at home and resting.
As some of you may know, Lauren and I have run into some problems with our landlord. In a nutshell, he basically moved back into the apartment, and while he said it was temporary, it seems for all intents and purposes that he's planning to stay for a long time, and we're getting a bit irritated with the whole situation. The fact of the matter is, we probably could have said something about it earlier, but we both felt like we were walking on really uneven ground, not being in our own culture or our own language, and I guess we didn't want to make waves when we didn't really know if there was anything to make waves about. However, we've since gotten the opinions of several Taiwanese (teachers, friends, etc) and are now in the process of trying to discuss the problems with the landlord and work it out. I can tell you I'm not looking forward to the conversation at all, and I'll probably need a really strong drink afterward, but I also know I'll feel much better after I've said what I needed to say and it's all out on the table.
I find myself wishing for cold weather these days. It has yet to get really cold here, and I don't know that it will ever get as cold as I would like it. Winter here is pretty pathetic, to be honest, at least compared to Minnesota. I think it's probably pretty comparable to L.A., rain and all. I have to say, I rather miss the snow and all, it never really seems like Christmas without the snow and ice and the twinkling lights.
In terms of current events, Taiwan recently received an official delegation from China, and it sent the country into a state of minor uproar. People protested in Zhongzheng District, the seat of the national government, and a couple nights ago there were clashes between protesters and riot police. The issue of cross-strait relations has, of course, always been an issue since the Communists took control of the mainland and the Nationalists fled here. We were told, though, that a lot of the protesters were actually from the south of the country and weren't Taipei residents at all. The implication was that Taipei is a lot less radical and a lot more diplomatic about the whole issue than people in the south. I got the sense that it was also a subtle commentary on socioeconomic and ethnic divides, as the southern parts of Taiwan are generally more rural and home to more of the indigenous culture than Taipei.
The end of the term is coming up super fast, and I can hardly believe that I've been here three months already. It feels like yesterday I was arriving here and just trying to figure out the subway system.
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