台灣 | Taiwaneers

A Little Over Two Weeks

Oct 042009

It’s amazing but we’ve already been back for a little over two weeks. Many things have happened in that amount of time but it seems like we’re less busy than back in Michigan. It’s like we’ve come back to our normal life and it’s a vacation.

Last Saturday we took advantage of the hot weather and went with some friends to Fulong Beach. We rented a surfboard and had a great day! You know that question people ask you about weather you’re a beach person or a mountain person? I think I’m a beach person.

Last Sunday was a big day as well. Our first Sunday back we were asked if we’d like to lead worship sometime and we said sure. Later that week, Thursday to be precise, we got a call asking if we wanted to lead the coming Sunday. After a 15 second hesitation I said sure why not. I’m from a big Irish family so embarrassment is just another part of life anyways. It actually turned out great too! I played guitar and our pastor’s wife played piano. Emily and I sang together on the English parts and she sang alone on the Chinese parts with me getting in a word here and there. We sang “Create In Me A Clean Heart,” “This Is My Father’s World,” “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” and “Because He Lives.” I really enjoyed it to be honest. They have put us on the rotation too so if you’re ever in Taiwan and you want to see me stumble my way through a song in Chinese make sure you are here on a Sunday.

There really has been quite a lot going on. Thanks to Emily I picked up another tutoring gig. Emily’s student’s boyfriend is now my student and he’s a pretty cool guy! I’m also excited to be doing some Chinese classes as well a few evenings a week in addition to my normal classes.

A few days ago on the stairs at school I ran into my Calculus professor from freshman year, Jennifer Hu. I hadn’t seen her since then but she has been my favorite teacher thus far and we had a nice little chat. She told me that she’s taught over a 1000 students and that I’ve been the most consistent in coming to office hours…thank goodness she offered them because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a prayer in that class!

(SIDE NOTE: Just this second there was a pretty good sized earthquake shaking our house. Don’t worry mom, it didn’t do anything. By good sized I mean it was noticeable.)

Just yesterday I came out of the school gate and ran into a group of Taiwanese Gideons handing out New Testaments. They were bilingual Chinese and English Bibles and they gave me two of them. After walking away a little I decided to see if they’d let me help them hand out the Bibles. At first they weren’t sure if that would be okay but they ended up letting me so for about 20 minutes or so I gave out Bibles to classmates and students who go to MCU. The ones that were most interesting to me were the ones that were interested in whatever was being given out but when they found out what it was they gave a little wide-eyed look and a little ‘no thank-you’ wave of the hand. It was like what I’d expect if a group of people tried to hand out Korans outside an American high school except without the cops being called, the newspaper writing a story about it, and a bunch of angry parents feeling like their children had just been violated. Gets you thinking about your own religion doesn’t it? It does me whenever I remember that my religion isn’t the mainstream or dominant one here. It’s the weird, avant garde (in some people’s eyes) religion. The religion that when someone is converted their family and neighbors wonder what happened to them and why they got so strange.

This semester I think every, single one (or maybe it’s just almost every, single one) of my classes have group project assignments. What is with these group projects? They cannot be as valuable as all that? Enough with the group projects already!!!

Air Raid Drill

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, Taiwanese Culture No Responses »

Jun 302009

One second I was walking down the street on the way to the post office and the next second I was part of an air raid drill. Thats exactly what happened to me today.

Emily and I were puttering around our house getting everything ready for our summer-break departure tomorrow. All of a sudden we heard an extremely loud and extremely long alarm from outside. It was the same kind of noise I remember hearing as a kid that signaled tornadoes.

We opened the window to see if people were rushing away from buildings or anything giving us an indication of real danger from an earthquake or something but seeing no one we just continued what we were doing and finally the alarm stopped.

A few minutes later I left for the post office and walked down the street to the first intersection. I was about to cross the street when a Cop standing there told me that I had to stay. Looking around I noticed several people just hanging out at the corner and then I realized how eerie it was that there were no cars or scooters or pedestrians or bicycles or anything moving along the streets. One of the other guys standing there spoke a little English and he explained to me that this was a 15 minute air-raid drill that is done across Taipei city once a year.

After the obligatory 15 minutes were up the deafening alarm sounded long and loud again and as quickly as you can snap your fingers the streets were full with cars and pedestrians.

In a country where I feel less in danger than when I’m in America this was a surreal experience.

Brain Bust

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, University 1 Response »

Jun 152009

This spring and last spring I have suffered from it. My brain just doesn’t want to follow the academic calendar here and shuts down about 3 weeks before school does. So far I’ve had my Web Programming, Environmental Issues, & International Trade Regulations finals and the only one I studied for was the last one but only for about 25 minutes. Tomorrow morning begins with a Marketing Management final followed by an International Economics final in the afternoon and again I cannot bring myself to study. I’ll bring my econ textbook with me and study in between…maybe. Tuesday I’ve got a Global Industry Analysis final and finally I’ll finish Wednesday morning with a Statistics final. Its hard to find motivation to study when: (a) I don’t want to, (b) blogging is even more appealing, and (c) there is almost no chance that I can fail any of my classes regardless of the final. I know I know these statements aren’t the mark of a good student…maybe I’ll try that next year.

I am excited to be finishing up. On Thursday we’re having an End Of Semester Party at our house for a bunch of friends. It should be really, really fun. Emily will still have another week before she finishes so my plans are to finish painting our room (which we started during Chinese New Year aka beginning of February), read in my book (Freakonomics), and take a two-day bicycle ride on the East coast of Taiwan from Hualien to Taitung. Its supposed to be a beautiful ride as well as easy enough for the less astute cyclist. I’ve been reading up on this particular ride on some of the other blogs’ of foreigners here in Taiwan who have taken the ride. Here’s one account with pics if you want to take a look. I’m excited to give it a go. You know what I mean; put a tent & sleeping bag on my bike’s little holder thing and ride off into the land of real men. Hopefully I’ll remember to take video footage and put together something cool.

Speaking of which I haven’t put up any new videos for a while. This is due mostly to my computer (thanks again Dick) going on the fritz with Windows and not coming back until I nixed Microsoft and am now using ubuntu 8.04 hardy heron as my OS. I really do need to figure out how to get my video editing software to run on this OS because I’ve still got footage from Korea I want to get up not to mention our upcoming party and then the bike ride.

On Friday my Environmental Issues professor, a very interesting Canadian women (I mean interesting in a good way), gave me two tickets to a show at Taiwan’s National Concert Hall for tonight that she couldn’t use. Emily and I had never been to a concert there before and it was really fun. We got all duded up and scootered over….we turned out to be among the better dressed for this particular event but I didn’t mind because I got to see Emily all beautiful. It turned out to be a concert of Taiwan’s performing arts school. I’m assuming its somewhat akin to Juilliard. They were very good. It made me want to play my violin more and get a little ensemble or something going.