Back in China

I left the USA 5:30 AM on Friday and arrived at the apartment 8:03 PM (8:03 AM EST) on Sunday.

Why so long a journey?

Fly to Atlanta. Five hours wait for a flight to Tokyo. At Tokyo, three or four hours wait for a flight to Hong Kong. Land in Hong Kong around 10:30 PM on Saturday, HKT. EST is 10:30 AM. No flight to where I want to go until 4:35 PM Sunday from Hong Kong.

Next morning, I try for an earlier departure. A 7:00 bus to Shenzhen with the usual exit and entry delays at the border, and another delay finding the SUV to take me to the Shenzhen airport. By the time I get there, it’s too late to make the 10:10 AM flight, and, contrary to what the Chinese airfare websites say, there are no hourly flights from Shenzhen to my destination. So, I sit and wait in Shenzhen’s no-free-wifi, moldy-smelling, fast-moving-roaches roach-infested airport, which looks like its ceilings need cleaning, until boarding time at 3:35 PM.

The plane lifts off somewhere around 4:35 PM and lands around 6:00 PM. There’s a short wait for luggage, then a 20 RMB ride on the airport bus into the city. Upon disembarkation, there is a long wait for a 15 minute taxi ride to the apartment. When I enter the front door, it is Sunday, 8:03 PM. I know because my iPhone was in my hand and lit up.

My body can’t and doesn’t want to do this anymore. This is my last year in China.

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Away!

I’ve been away for almost a year and had no time to work on my new site even. God willing, this last quarter of the year will yield no surprises, and I will be able to work on the site on the new domain name.

This post is getting through here because right now and for the next couple of days, I’m in the great US of A.

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Definitely fits!

So I started building my site over at http://simplywarped.com, backed it up and canceled my new Arvixe.com account cuz they had this great weekend special, a lifetime account at 50% off. So, I thought I’d restore the site from backup. That didn’t happen, so now I have to rebuild it from scratch. After a weekend of no Internet because the account password was somehow mysteriously changed, there’s ‘net again, so last night I brought the site back up.

This blog is supposed to be about weaving and such, but the only weaving I’ve done is box weaving. It’s nice, but tedious. I’m weaving this bag for my friend and she doesn’t want any pictures. No tapestry, and I don’t have time to do any lazies to create a pattern, so I’m bored to death by the bag.

Anyway, I’ve yet to add the blog to the website, and once I do that (it may get done before the store is completed and populated), links here will direct there. The irony of it is now that I spent the cash on getting my own domain, I’m going back home!

So, lots of packing during the day, after teaching, of course, and website building at night. Box weaving between the breaks.

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Giving Myself Fits!

It’s been many a year since I quit website building, and now I’m paying the price for not keeping my hands in.

At first, I was going to stick with WordPress, but, then, I decided I wanted the site to be a store, a weaving blog, an English research paper writing class, and a place for continuing novel writing. Therefore, I looked to Drupal, and that’s where the fits have come in.

Drupal has changed much since I ran a blog on it years ago. While it’s still an exciting CMS, it comes with a learning curve, or, in this case, a re-learning curve. So, I’ve installed, deleted, re-installed and so on a whole lot over the past few days. Finally, today, the store site was fully installed.

Over the next few days, configuring and modifying will be the order of things. Then I will move the blog over post by post … unless I can find a way to download all the posts and reload them in Drupal.

The point of it all is to avoid the whole can’t-access-the-site nightmare, and to expand.

Why do I want to have an online English writing classroom? Frankly, a lot of people can’t write, and it’s tiring reading poor prose chockfull of grammatical, spelling, and sentence construction errors. Besides, I want to do this. There’s somebody out there who wants to and has to write a paper and doesn’t know how, and wants to learn how. The is somebody out there who won’t mind brutal criticism–eh, sorry, I don’t sugar-coat. If you want to learn, take it bark and all. There’s somebody out there who won’t mind being told to re-do from the ground up, who won’t mind learning how to think in a logical and very structured manner. That person would be quite welcome at Didaskale, the name of the new site, when it goes up, of course.

So, when I can get on here, I will post here. When I can’t, I won’t hurt my heart over it. What I want to retain is the marvelous WP community of people with like interests. So, this site will remain active.

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Moving on up!

Staying on WordPress software, but moving to Grapson.

I will cross post when I have access.

Update: the site at the link is not set up yet, and it will run on Drupal, one big site to rule them all.

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Packing

Everyone going on a journey packs clothing. My priority is yarn, so the yarn will travel with me, as will the various hand looms I brought, while the clothing will be mailed, except for the winter stuff, mom course.

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On again…

Today, I am able to access the site. I am stunned, shocked, and amazed that I got access on the first try.

Anyway, my connection blues will be over soon because I must return to the USA shortly. I will return to China for a visit and for business, but not to work and live. I won’t miss the traffic, but I will miss seeing the social and other physical changes occurring right before my eyes.

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Fun and Adventures in Setting up a Website

So far, I’ve tried two website providers, one is Webhostingpad.com. No doubt, they are a nice company, but the setting up of the site was hanging up on them noticing that I was in China whilst the address I gave is in the USA. That’s my billing address for my credit card, I said. Since I couldn’t call them, you can’t call international direct without a calling card, they sent me a PDF form for me to fill out and fax my card number with signature.

I’m in the land of copiers, people who can duplicate anything, and I’m supposed to fax credit card and signature info? I told Webhostingpad to make my day and cancel the order. They were asking for the same info I’d already given them, and they wanted me to out it at risk via fax. Genius.

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Moving….

It seems I have no choice but to move the blog since the VPN I use is blocked more often than it opens a tunnel. Some days, nothing happens, no matter how many retries.

So, I’m going to set up my own domain at Grapson!. I will try to maintain this blog. The new site will also be a WordPress site.

Note, the URL for the site will be simplywarped.com, since I’m combining the two. The store stays at Etsy, but it would be nice for folks to find me should they forget the Etsy address.

I should be set up on the new site by next Monday or Tuesday, and I will blog about it if I can get through.

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Teaching and Weaving

As the term continues, as usual, my weaving time is slowed to little or not much, to weaving on the bus or in the classroom during the breaks. Dissatisfying. Also eating my time if the business, but that’s good because it will liberate me from the classroom so I can weave full time.

Liberation Day draws nigh. Run over to Simply Warped, buy something, and hasten the Day.

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Getting Organized

Yesterday, because I intend to sell yarn by weight, I bought a mechanical scale and a manual yarn winder. This is what they look like:

The yarn winder is relatively easy to use, but it has to be set up right to ensure smooth yarn winding, otherwise you’ll have stops in the process.

The scale can be adjusted to ensure accuracy by fiddling with a little knob under the weight tray.

Now, all I need is for someone to order yarn by weight. In the meantime, I’m amusing myself by weighing the yarn I have for my own use.

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Carpe Diem

I’m supposed to be heading to the shower to go out, to beat the construction traffic tie up, but I couldn’t resist the chance to blog because I got connected after experiencing lots of connection failures. Whoo hoo!

Yet, I don’t have much to say, and that is sad. Still, I have to say this, I am seriously considering moving the blog to livejournal.com because of problems connecting. I do like this WordPress community, and I don’t want the hassle of reposting all the stuff. Nevertheless, I do have to think about a move, or maybe cross-posting, while I am in China.

Ah, I went to yarn vendors on Tuesday, and one woman in particular will never be a supplier for Simply Warped. Why? She, again, tried to take advantage of my substandard Chinese. She has yarn she said is 100% lamb’s wool, and the price was decent. Then, I did the burn test, or my friend who was with me did it. There was a little hard ball at the end of the burn. I don’t know what other yarn is in there, but it’s not 100% lamb’s wool. It could be rayon, nylon, some other ‘on’ but not 100% lamb’s wool.

The thing is, the yarn is nice, and I will sell some, but I won’t buy it from her. That’s all. The difficulty of buying yarn here is that a lot of the vendors cannot really tell you yarn content of some of the yarn. Some can. Those are the ones I prefer to buy from. Some yarn labels I can read, and some are vague.

Whatever, in true American fashion, I am up front with my customers and want vendors to be up front with me. So, some of my yarns will have ‘other content unknown’ as part of their specs.

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Change

I’m tired of being locked out of the blog because WordPress is banned in China, so I paid for an .me domain. The new site address will be http://grapson.me. I’m waiting to see if it shows up without a proxy. If it doesn’t, well, I’ll cancel it and keep my money.

Eh, no change. http://grapson.me defaults to https://grapson.wordpress.com and I’m back where I started. Waste of time and money.

Update: So I didn’t switch to grapson.me as the primary domain. I just did that and can see the blog on the iMac without a proxy. However, the admin setting of the blog is still set to WordPress.com, and that means I can look at the blog but cannot post since WordPress.com is inaccessible in China. So, i have to use the iPad and its very iffy proxy if i want to post because none of those on th iMac work. Bummer!

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Whoo-hoo!

I’m back! I finally was able to get a connection that would take me past the bamboo curtain!

Don’t ask me what the Chinese government has with WordPress. All I know is that it’s hell to pay to get through, as it has been these past couple of weeks.

So, I’ve found something that maybe, perhaps, might possibly, I don’t know, could be might help me to keep blogging. Sigh.

Now I have to go out to meet a student and to help a friend’s kid. Perhaps I’ll be able to breathe free air later today.

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It’s Been a While

It’s been a week and change since I’ve last blogged, a violation of my policy to post at least once a day. Bad me! Bad me!

Classes started, and I think it is time for me to get out of the classroom because I’m just tired of it. That’s a clear sign. So, I will complete my contract and walk away from the teacher’s desk, the text books, the grade books without a single regret. You have to know when to fold … unless, somehow, I mysteriously discover a renewed enthusiasm for teaching.

Complicating blogging, too, is that WordPress is inaccessible in China without a VPN or some kind of tunnel. Some tunnels don’t allow you to log in. HotSpotShield, which I use, sometimes is spotty. Fortunately, their support staff is very responsive and helpful.

So, what’s new? New yarn. I’ve bought some to list for sale at Simply Warped. I’m also going to buy yarn winders. Think of it like this, if I can use it to weave tapestry, I will buy it to sell. Also, I’ve been weaving on a box, when I’m not wasted sleeping, that is.

My friend Xiao Ning, unmoved by and uninterested in tapestry, unless they are really big–the Chinese love big–was fascinated by a small bag loom I made out of a piece of styrofoam. She then asked if I would make a bag for her, bigger, of course. Since Xiao Ning is a good friend, I agreed. We got the boxes which I duct taped together; she chose and bought the yarns she wanted, and I started. I think that calls for a post on box weaving.

In the course of showing Xiao Ning the small bag loom, her friend with the felting wool, I still can’t get her name, dropped by Xiao Ning’s shop, took an interest, wanted to know how to do it. Robert artists! So, I showed her and told her she could use the small box loom to practice. She’s not returned it to me yet. I’m not holding my breath, but I will hound her like a dog for my flat tapestry needle.

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