More testing

A test in preparation for a mobile photo blogging project in the new
year

back in the saddle

Ok so I AM still here. I am also still in Shanghai, still teaching, still painting, still alive.

I would apologise for my absence here, but I've done that before and then life gets in the way yet again. However, a few things have indeed changed. I have returned back to teaching in the mornings only and will have much more time to write.

But I am totally disconnected from the blog world. The Chinese Government's internet restrictions are becoming worse and worse. For a long time we have had to use proxies to view certain websites (blogspot being one of them) but it just became a way of life. Now the range of websites being blocked is increasing, as the effectiveness of the proxies decrease. Facebook and Youtube are blocked (I know, I know, what do I do with all that extra time on my hands, you say) and even the one proxie I have found that still works fairly regularly is mind-numbingly slow. So not have I not been writing much, I have also not been reading or commenting on many of the blogs I used to be an avid reader of.

This is all to change. I promise to write here more, things in Shanghai are still weird and wonderful. and I have much to report on. But if any old friends (real or internet) are still out there, please say hello. It'll give me the motivation to get back in the groove again. Alternately if there are any new readers lurking out there- go on, introduce yourself! I promise I won't bite much.

Hellooo??

I'm back. Is anyone still reading this??

A change in the view

Usually when people come to visit you in hospital they bring flowers. Perhaps magazines, balloons or even fruit. My visitors brought me the common cold.
But I digress.
Nine days ago I was lying in the sun on a pristine white beach in Boracay, Philippines. Four days later I was lying on white bed sheets in a Shanghai hospital.
Last Tuesday night, 24 hours after we arrived back in Shanghai, I started vommiting and having stomach cramps. By thursday evening it had gotten so bad I went to the doctor, who admitted me for observation overnight. Five days later I'm still here.
The short explanation is that I had a small bowel obstruction which has mostly corrected inself without surgery- thank god- and a case of pancreatitis. The doctors are not sure if the obstruction came first and then the pain killers they gave me for that inflamed the pancreas, or if I had some micro-gall stones unseen by the ultrasoud when I first came in which then affected the obstruction infection as they inflamed the pancreas.
In any case I'm in a lovely western-run clinic with all the mid-cons. Usually in public hospitals here you literally need to bring your own sheets, food and even medicines, so I'm feeling pretty happy that we have insurance.
Up until today have not had anything to eat or drink since last thursday, but today I have been allowed to drink 100mL of water every four hours. I have to say that if I'd known that my lunch on Thursday would be my last meal so to speak, I would have eaten something other than vegemite on piece of toast!