A short hiatus

I have decided to kill this blog. Or at least pause it until something about the current situation changes.

One of the key reasos is that in Beijing, connection times are so slow it sucks the joy out of blogging. You now need a VPN to blog at home, and so I access it sometimes through my work computer, which goes through a UK proxy. But then I don't like blogging through my lunch breaks because I try to keep some distance between my personal and professional life, and also because uploading photos are not allowed on my office computer.

So my choices are (1) wait for internet policy in China to change (haha!); (2) upgrade to a faster home computer and VPN at home; (3) move out of China to somewhere slightly less restrictive. As sad as it sounds option (3) is more likely than (1) !!

However, I don't think that I want to make this disconnect permananent. This blog has put me in touch with some very special people, whom I may not have otherwise met. I am grateful for that.

It also helps me to stay in touch with my friends, record my contemporaneous thoughts on parenting, work/life balance and all the other struggles and minor triumphs in my daily life, and I suppose so that I hope my kids can get to know during the part of their lives quite likely before clear memories are formed. This record is for them as much as for myself.

So until the situation changes, I think we'll call a short time-out for now. It's been wonderful thus far, and I hope the people who enjoy reading this blog will come back once in a while to see which one of the options I'd gone for. Fabien is likely to ask me what I want for my birthday this December, and it's quite likely a new computer !!

we are in taipei!

the typhoon didn't get us, and our kids loved the art museum. it's rainy though and i am back to typing with one hand. marvellous seeing scott for the weekend. it's been 15 years since we last had coffee together (he still had hair!!)