The Issue

Well, I'm back.

No, I did not voluntarily take a month long break from blogging.  I was blocked for several different reasons.

[China Political Lesson]
I'm going to assume that very few of you know this: China has presidential elections.  Every 5 years, they elect a new president.  That president can only be male, must be at least 45, and must be a member of the communist party I think.  They can only serve 2 terms.  They are elected by the representatives from each province.

This election began right around the beginning of the month.  China got REALLY strict w/ internet access.  They blocked numerous VPNs and filtered almost everything so things streamed at an incredibly slow rate.  BUT the good news was that the election would be over about a week or so after the problems started.  Middle of the month, I was able to get on my VPN for one day.  That's all.  I had to install something new to fix the issue, but I was back... and too tired to blog.  Next morning *BAM* no VPN again.  I found out I could get it on my phone (that's why I was still somewhat alive on facebook) but not blogging.  Then I found out there was going to be some other political ordeal in my town for 4 days so I decided I'd be patient and maybe after that my VPN would be unblocked and I'd be free.... NOPE!  My company issued a brief statement basically saying that they are lame and decided they don't want to play internet war with China and actually fix the issue.  SO, all that to say, I switched companies and now I'm freer than ever and I am SOOOOOO happy.

Did you know that Target's website is blocked over here.  Yup.  Depressing!  Now I get to watch my TV shows, go on facebook, watch awesome cat videos from my sister on youtube, blog, and browse Target's site all I want.

I need to be good and finish one more stack of papers and then I can let the real frenzy begin.  I've been behind all week because I'm pretty sure I had food poisoning Sunday night.  That was a fun 48 hours.  Apparently I don't do well with doing nothing.  Laying in bed watching movies and staring at the ceiling all day was really annoying.  And I didn't have real internet then so I was pretty limited with that I could watch or do online.  The 100+ papers I grade over a process of 3 days got pushed back 2 days and on a day that's busy enough, I'm stuck w/ another 28 papers to grade.  I've been good at buckling down and not letting myself do the things I enjoy until I get it done, but I'm just ready to be paper free for even one day. Too bad tomorrow morning I get another stack of them though.  (Only 16 though, so it's not bad).

28 more papers.  Small group.  Tutoring.  Lesson Plans.  BLOG.  Those are my priorities for today.  And eating.  Once I stop eating for a day or 2, I have to train myself to make it a normal part of my existence again.  Strange and scary, I know.  I'm sorry.