So, CHINA!
I barely know where to start. I've been in China for five days now - two days of travel, a day of work and two days of weekend - and the most challenging thing in all that time has been dealing with the internet connection.
i'm incredibly hopeful I've gotten it mostly resolved, at least at the apartment, because it has been so hard not being able to access the internet normally, due to the domains blocked by the Chinese government and the tortuously slow internet speed when connected to a VPN circumventing that, not that my VPN worked most of the time. And not having internet meant both practical difficulties - difficulty translating, trying to work with the local map app which is only in Chinese, difficulty getting any information about where to go or what to do or even how to find my office, difficulty trying to find a place to stream my shows, which god knows I didn't, and the internet speed just didn't support that - but also was frustrating because I wanted to be in touch with people from back home, post photos, update folks in bulk instead of answering a lot of phone messages, and I could barely do that, or had to pray the connection would last long enough to post whatever I wanted to post. And also because all of a sudden I felt so out of touch with whatever was going on, both IRL and in fandom - it's so hard to be up to speed with no Facebook, no Twitter, Youtube, Google, with Tumblr barely loading anything but text.
Basically, 90% of my updates on all form of social media have been about my internet woes, which anyone reading this on multiple platforms will already know, so uh, sorry for that.
And speaking of social media - god, this is way too late to write about this, so I'll try to make myself make it short - I really want to get back to posting more, both to share my experiences but also to document it for myself, and - well, we're all on LJ/DW, I don't need to explain that. But while once upon a time the only place I felt comfortable doing that was on LJ, under a pseud, to strangers, then friends on the internet - this time Facebook exists, and writing about your life is so common and acceptable, and while the way I'd write about my experiences to Facebook and LJ/DW aren't exactly the same, they're also... not that different.
I also at this point have quite a few - not HUGE amounts, but also more than a handful - shared friends on both facebook and here, and... I guess for a lot of content, at this point I kind of wish everything was consolidated in one place sometimes, which it is not. I'm not even mentioning twitter/tumblr here, where I also have friends I want to update; there are some people I am basically spamming on three or four platforms.
Anyway. My current solution to this - which we will see if it works - is to, haha, open another account on an entirely different platform - Medium, because I like the formatting, and I can link to it from both Facebook and here without entirely... crossing the streams. I have no idea how well this will work and how long I'll keep it up, but we'll see. I might eventually decide to just delete that whole thing and do actual posting here, with other forms of photo-based posting to Facebook, or just post similar things in both places, who knows.
If you have any tips for/your own experience you want to share about navigating posting both here and on Facebook these days, please do share :-)
In the meantime, here is the post about my day today. it was my first day just walking around the streets by my apartment in Beijing and figuring out where exactly I am. (Still don't know the name of the street I am actually living on. I should remedy that.) Please don't link my fannish name to it (and similarly don't start calling me by my real name here :-))
IN FANDOM NEWS, I have started watching the TV show Heartbeat, which premiered last week. Is anyone else watching it? :D :D LET ME TELL YOU WHAT IT HAS:
-Melissa George, who played Merilyn the Ethics Whatever on the Good Wife
-Dave Annable from Brothers & Sisters, who has salt-and-pepper hair now that apparently I am so into
-A Grey's Anatomy vibe in most everything (they could do better with diversity, though they're not terrible)
-A total House vibe, in a brilliant-doctor-who-allows-herself-to-break-rules/hospital-administrator-who-tries-to-control-her kind of way
-a completely useless older doctor the protagonist is into (...as far as I but not necessarily the show are concerned), a completely hot awesome doctor she is dating (HI DAVE ANNABLE HI), and her rock star now-dating-a-dude BFF ex-husband who tells her she can be in love with two guys.
Let me tell you what it doesn't have:
-OT3/OT4 fic between her, Dave Annable, her husband, and possibly her husband's boyfriend.
-possibly enough ratings to keep going.
BUT I REALLY HOPE THE SECOND OF THOSE THINGS WILL HAPPEN SO THAT THE FIRST WILL TOO.
I mean, look. This show isn't a masterpiece, by any account. But... I am really hoping for that OT3 fic okay.
comments on Dreamwidth.
i'm incredibly hopeful I've gotten it mostly resolved, at least at the apartment, because it has been so hard not being able to access the internet normally, due to the domains blocked by the Chinese government and the tortuously slow internet speed when connected to a VPN circumventing that, not that my VPN worked most of the time. And not having internet meant both practical difficulties - difficulty translating, trying to work with the local map app which is only in Chinese, difficulty getting any information about where to go or what to do or even how to find my office, difficulty trying to find a place to stream my shows, which god knows I didn't, and the internet speed just didn't support that - but also was frustrating because I wanted to be in touch with people from back home, post photos, update folks in bulk instead of answering a lot of phone messages, and I could barely do that, or had to pray the connection would last long enough to post whatever I wanted to post. And also because all of a sudden I felt so out of touch with whatever was going on, both IRL and in fandom - it's so hard to be up to speed with no Facebook, no Twitter, Youtube, Google, with Tumblr barely loading anything but text.
Basically, 90% of my updates on all form of social media have been about my internet woes, which anyone reading this on multiple platforms will already know, so uh, sorry for that.
And speaking of social media - god, this is way too late to write about this, so I'll try to make myself make it short - I really want to get back to posting more, both to share my experiences but also to document it for myself, and - well, we're all on LJ/DW, I don't need to explain that. But while once upon a time the only place I felt comfortable doing that was on LJ, under a pseud, to strangers, then friends on the internet - this time Facebook exists, and writing about your life is so common and acceptable, and while the way I'd write about my experiences to Facebook and LJ/DW aren't exactly the same, they're also... not that different.
I also at this point have quite a few - not HUGE amounts, but also more than a handful - shared friends on both facebook and here, and... I guess for a lot of content, at this point I kind of wish everything was consolidated in one place sometimes, which it is not. I'm not even mentioning twitter/tumblr here, where I also have friends I want to update; there are some people I am basically spamming on three or four platforms.
Anyway. My current solution to this - which we will see if it works - is to, haha, open another account on an entirely different platform - Medium, because I like the formatting, and I can link to it from both Facebook and here without entirely... crossing the streams. I have no idea how well this will work and how long I'll keep it up, but we'll see. I might eventually decide to just delete that whole thing and do actual posting here, with other forms of photo-based posting to Facebook, or just post similar things in both places, who knows.
If you have any tips for/your own experience you want to share about navigating posting both here and on Facebook these days, please do share :-)
In the meantime, here is the post about my day today. it was my first day just walking around the streets by my apartment in Beijing and figuring out where exactly I am. (Still don't know the name of the street I am actually living on. I should remedy that.) Please don't link my fannish name to it (and similarly don't start calling me by my real name here :-))
IN FANDOM NEWS, I have started watching the TV show Heartbeat, which premiered last week. Is anyone else watching it? :D :D LET ME TELL YOU WHAT IT HAS:
-Melissa George, who played Merilyn the Ethics Whatever on the Good Wife
-Dave Annable from Brothers & Sisters, who has salt-and-pepper hair now that apparently I am so into
-A Grey's Anatomy vibe in most everything (they could do better with diversity, though they're not terrible)
-A total House vibe, in a brilliant-doctor-who-allows-herself-to-break-rules/hospital-administrator-who-tries-to-control-her kind of way
-a completely useless older doctor the protagonist is into (...as far as I but not necessarily the show are concerned), a completely hot awesome doctor she is dating (HI DAVE ANNABLE HI), and her rock star now-dating-a-dude BFF ex-husband who tells her she can be in love with two guys.
Let me tell you what it doesn't have:
-OT3/OT4 fic between her, Dave Annable, her husband, and possibly her husband's boyfriend.
-possibly enough ratings to keep going.
BUT I REALLY HOPE THE SECOND OF THOSE THINGS WILL HAPPEN SO THAT THE FIRST WILL TOO.
I mean, look. This show isn't a masterpiece, by any account. But... I am really hoping for that OT3 fic okay.
comments on Dreamwidth.