presidential election
So the week before last, when all my midterns were finished, I decided to take a personal ‘post-midterms vacation,” and went down south for about a week, skipping class last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I thought I wouldn’t miss anything important. I thought wrong. So wrong.
When I came back on Wednesday night, I discovered there had been a meeting to choose candidates for next year’s student association president and vice-president. I looked at the list in horror. There were three groups. In my absence, someone had nominated me to run with Xu Qiuxuan (a girl from a-ban) as vice-president. I guess this was my punishment for skipping class and playing on sunny beaches for a couple days.
Class elections are all about buying votes. I put the word out as soon as possible that I didn’t want to win. The only problem was the other two groups didn’t want to win either. So the competition was like this: which group could persude the most people to not vote for them? There are certain groups I can rely on, like all my classmates from c-ban or all the Japanese kids from b-ban. The tough demographic would be the second year students. I didn’t have a chance to see most of them before the election.
Today a first year student meeting was held to cast ballots. When we arrived the second year students had already met and voted. Oh no. I didn’t like this. This election was looking too fair. Fair means bad.
This was the first time I saw Qiuxuan since we had been picked to run. I asked her, “Do you want to win?” She quickly said, “No!” I said, “Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
Before voting, we made a couple short speeches. Qiuxuan said, “The student association president and vice-president are two very important positions. They help govern the entire student body, often communicating with teachers and faculty and organizing events. Please think very hard and clearly about who you really want to vote for!”
“Yes, please think good and hard about if you really want me to win!” I added.
“What kind of promises can you make?” Teacher Huaixuan said.
“We often receive a lot of emails from school and the student association. Students often complain that they receive too many emails, right?” I said, and the students agreed. “Well, if Qiuxuan and I win the election, we promise to send emails everyday!”
“Oh no!” everyone yelled.
“Yes, and also, do you remember at the Christmas party the student association made every class perform? Well, if we win the election, Qiuxuan and I will make every class do two performances at next year’s Christmas party!”
Then Qiuxuan added, “Also, if we win, instead of meeting once a month, we will have a class meeting once a week!”
“Thank you! Thank you!” we said.
Anyway, skip to the end of the story, after counting the ballots Qiuxuan and I won anyway. Fuck! I have to serve as the vice-fucking-president all next year.
However, it’s not all bad. I was actually kind of hoping to win. I won’t have very many responsibilities, and now people can’t ask me to volunteer for other positions.
