No Place Like Home?
Just to say that I'm back, and had a fantastic experience all round, albeit with a slight sense of never having enough time to do everything that I wanted to do. This was compounded by the fact that I started having some computer problems before I left, which I thought were virus related, but upon receiving tech support in Tokyo, discovered that I'd basically suffered hard disk failure due to power failure. Not as much of a problem as all that, as I have good backups, and the laptop is 5+ years old. But, due to the incompatibility of US/Japan hardware, I wasn't able to get a replacement hard disk while travelling, and thus missed out on lots of downloading and net time, as well as carrying around what was essentially a brick.
I'm now hoping to get some local assistance in acquiring an new hard disk, and get the laptop limping again if it can be done for a nominal cost. If not, I'll just have to wait three months until I finish here, and buy a new laptop once in the developed world. The upshot is that I might be online even less than before, as I can't access from anywhere but work and VSO, and these are always subject to limitations and issues.
Of course (perhaps ill-advisedly) this hasn't stopped me from signing up for Yuletide, although my requests from last year are mostly unchanged, and my number of offered fandoms is much smaller this year due to past and present lack of access to content. But at least I have time to write - so I hope to give myself a big (think weeks long) window of trying to post when I'm finished. Hope everyone is well.
I'm now hoping to get some local assistance in acquiring an new hard disk, and get the laptop limping again if it can be done for a nominal cost. If not, I'll just have to wait three months until I finish here, and buy a new laptop once in the developed world. The upshot is that I might be online even less than before, as I can't access from anywhere but work and VSO, and these are always subject to limitations and issues.
Of course (perhaps ill-advisedly) this hasn't stopped me from signing up for Yuletide, although my requests from last year are mostly unchanged, and my number of offered fandoms is much smaller this year due to past and present lack of access to content. But at least I have time to write - so I hope to give myself a big (think weeks long) window of trying to post when I'm finished. Hope everyone is well.