dream out loud

Lately a few people are wondering why I seem to be missing in action. I’ve just returned from week and a half of travel in Southern Yunnan Province. (beautiful) But that aside, my main communication with people from the other side of the world (Facebook, blog and photos) are not easily accessible at the moment from China. I cannot get on Facebook but luckily, while I still could, I linked this blog to post to Facebook. So if you are reading this as a note from there, please come over to visit me at my new blog http://www.elvinatong.com/blog (Just realized how strange this is to people who are simply reading the blog) I will keep attempting to post photos. More soon.

Hi friends.  This is the maiden post of the new home of my blog.  The Great Firewall of China has frustrated me enough to break up with Blogger.  I’m still testing the waters with Facebook and Flickr.  For now, we’ve agreed to remain friends.  Please stayed tuned and watch this space…

Finally, I’ve been pushed to the limits and am not going to take it any more. The level of internet censorship in China is getting a bit ridiculous. A few of us were just joking around this morning… will blocking Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging sites really prevent an uprising or a revolution? Probably not but it makes it extremely difficult for people like us – people living far from family and friends – from keeping in touch through stories, photos and updates. It’s frustrating.

So last week, I took the plunge and registered two domain names: elvinatong.com and wanderlustful.org and bought some web space. The former name will be for some personal things, like a blog and my professional portfolio. The latter will be stories and photos from my travels.

I may regret sharing this information since there’s nothing there yet and will take me some time to get around to it. But all of it is a good motivator for me to keep in touch with home better.

I saw this very Sessions performance in 1997. I was so surprised to come across it on YouTube!

So my month of daily blogging turned out to be a big failure. There are reasons (excuses) for it though. During the second week of July, Glen came to visit NY and we were always out from morning to night exploring the city and meeting up with my friends or parents. It was exhausting but a lot of fun. Immediately after, I went with him to Ontario and we didn’t have any internet, not to mention were busy morning to night anyway.

Now I’m back in NY. It was beautiful out today. I spent the morning with Jan and Simone in Union Square. I really miss all the buzz that happens in and around Union Square – the farmer’s market and various random things that are sold on the street. Then I went to lunch at one of my favorite spots, Alice’s Tea Cup. After lunch, I took a long walk home via Broadway and just soaked up the sights, sounds and smells. NY is such a special place. I hate be so gooey, but I just love it. It has everything for everyone and the people are so strange and beautiful.

I’m starting to feel terribly sad about leaving. I felt this last summer and didn’t realize it would feel the same way again. What’s worse is that when I left China, I said goodbye to lots of people I won’t see for a long time or maybe never again. Now I say goodbye to my friends and places here again. There isn’t really another way to describe it, except that I feel homesick. It’s a really nagging, painful type of homesick. But I don’t even know which I am really homesick for: US or China or both.

I don’t feel ready to go back to China. I’d like to be in NY for longer but I guess that’s not going to happen. At least when I return, I’ll be in a better position and know what to expect, have friends and be more settled. We were just talking about teachers going by school years as their life year, fiscal year, social year, etc, etc. If that’s the case, these are my “new year’s” resolutions for 09-10.

1. Be less negative.
2. Get to the gym.
3. Save money / spend less.
4. Cook more / eat more heathily.
5. Learn more Chinese (character recognition)
6. Keep in better touch with friends and family back home.

How’s that for lofty goals? We’ll see how it works out.

Well so much for daily blogging. I will not promise daily blogging in August as I return to China and will be traveling first with my family for two weeks, then Glen for one week before we need to be back at work on August 17th. I’ll update when I can. ’til then.