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Hangin’ Out in the USA
So we made the trip to Texas about a week and a half ago, and life has been relatively quiet since then. We toured my future school and got set up there; Sarah got an accompanist job; we spent time with extended family for the 4th of July; we saw a touring team from our alma mater perform; we scoured the internet for nice apartments in great locations for low prices. On the Dallas apartment front, we have made one trip to the city to tour potential living situations and will do the same this weekend. We also purchased cell phones somewhere in there. In short, we’re doing those things needed to turn us back into Americans again. Which, being consumerist America, requires money. Or plastic. So we’re learning to deal with that too.
Here’s a couple notes on the past week:
- Television shows have too many commercials. Having watched DVD television series while in China, this has quickly become obvious.
- Freedom is nice. While in China, as many as half of the hyperlinks on my igoogle page were inaccessible. I still have to remind myself that it is not necessary to take additional steps to see the webpage I want to.
- On that note, it has been enlightening to read posts of late from friends like Josh, Denise, and Laura, as well as Frank and others.
- In my internet wanderings over the past week, I also found a Pastor for sale on Ebay.
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One political note: the media has focused recently on evangelicals “enlarging their horizons” and becoming more than one-issue candidates, turning to such issues as the environment and social justice. I really liked what Joel Belz has to say on the subject. Here’s a snippet:
…if some argue that the rising generation of younger evangelicals is a bit embarrassed by what they think is an out-of-balance focus by their elders, and thinks it’s time to get equally exercised over issues like racism, economic justice, and the environment—well, if that’s the case with our twentysomethings and our teenagers, then maybe we need to go to work and do a better job of explaining to them why we’ve put the emphasis where we have for the last generation and why we believe that it’s time not to lower our voices.
So that is the scoop in our corner of the world. You can see some updated contact info for us on the contact page. We felt it prudent to omit our new phone numbers, so email me if you want them.
Happy summer!
HT: World on the Web
Website Update
I just updated some software on this website - so if it was down before, that’s probably the reason. This should change much for you, the reader, but if you see any problems on the website, let me know. I’m very thankful for Wordpress, the company who creates this open-source blogging software and let’s me and thousands of other people use it for free. You can keep a blog on their website, if you want - simiilar to blogger, typepad, etc. Since I’m throwing out props, I’m also thankful for plogger - this program sets up picture galleries in a very user-friendly fashion. Open-source software is nice for cheap people like me…
Far-East Web Access
We were having some problems with accessing our website a few months ago and had to jump through hoops to post blog entries; here’s an article describing why. Selected portions below:
Depending on how you look at it, the Chinese government’s attempt to rein in the Internet is crude and slapdash or ingenious and well crafted. When American technologists write about the control system, they tend to emphasize its limits. When Chinese citizens discuss it—at least with me—they tend to emphasize its strength. All of them are right, which makes the government’s approach to the Internet a nice proxy for its larger attempt to control people’s daily lives.
All of this adds a note of unpredictability to each attempt to get news from outside China. One day you go to the NPR site and cruise around with no problem. The next time, NPR happens to have done a feature on Tibet. The GFW immobilizes the site. If you try to refresh the page or click through to a new story, you’ll get nothing—and the time-out clock will start.
Since our website is hosted on a server in the USA, we were on the inside looking out. So apparently something that was written tripped something somewhere and someone thought we were potentially dangerous. Or something. Just part of living in China and keeping in touch with the other side of the world, I guess.
New Website Design
As promised, our site has gone through some changes over the past week. Most of the changes have already been made, though some small tweaks may still be in order. Thanks to Brian for his work on this template.
Other than the noticeable aesthetic changes site-wide, the major difference with the site now is that the blog is now accessed from the homepage, which means that there is a new rss feed for those who take advantage of this feature. The picture gallery can be accessed while still having access to links to the rest of the site. We still have information about us, as well as past newsletters and other files and contact information, which has been updated. We are using Windows Live Writer to update the site, but are still partial to the freedom that WordPress brings to the publishing process. (We could always do movies here, but have only recently started to do so - look for more in the future!)
That’s all for now, but one fact about Chinese New Year before I go: the fireworks are still going - more sporadically than before, but they’re still coming!
Currently Reading:
The Living: A Novel: Books: Annie DillardWeekend Events and Website Changes
We started our Chinese New Year break with three days of not sleeping in. Very sad. But the time has been useful. Saturday Sarah and I took a 4-hour trip east of Chengdu to a town named Long Chang. We went there to participate in a New Year’s meal our school helped underwrite. For some of these kids, it is the only time in the year that they eat meat.
After sitting in on a New Year’s ceremony, we walked to a restaurant and had a meal with them, and then visited two of the poorer students’ homes. During this time some older girls latched on to Sarah, and were sad to see her go.
It was a long trip, but hey, we’re on break - so it’s something to do. Sunday we got up early to lead music at the fellowship. Today we pulled ourselves out of bed for the Superbowl! The game was a bit slow in the beginning, but it was quite the nail-biter at the end, right about when the Internet connection caused the video feed to skip a bit. So sad. We’re happy we were able to see the game at all. Maybe another time for that 19-0 season…
We are going to make a few changes to our website over the next week or two. (It is not going to be down for 6 months like before.) The major change will be the location of the blog: rather than being at theroebers.com/blog, it will start on the site homepage. So anyone who uses an RSS feed to access our posts will have to change the feed after the switch. Hopefully the site will be better when I’m done tinkering!
Back to School
I just finished my first day back to school. It was busy and exhausting (I hit a wall, so to speak at 12.30 and really needed a nap), but I was reminded once again that I really love what I am doing right now.
We started something different for our weekly assembly today - some of the upper classmen (upper classpeople?) are acting as small group leaders for the Re:View video curriculum series. Being produced by Cedarville, I’m a little biased for it, but seeing the students’ reactions today, I think it will work well with our school.
PS: thanks to Qumana, we can now publish on this blog much more easily!
Blog update
I’m playing with some of the toys I have available to me on the blog (thanks to these guys) and made it easier to add this blog to your homepage, be it iGoogle, Yahoo, AOL or otherwise. Check out the links on the right side of the page.
Website Update
We’ve changed around the website a bit - the old picture program I was using was attracting a bunch a spam in the comments section, and I didn’t like having it on the site. So, there’s a new site now! It’s plain for the time being - we’ll have it a little more interesting when we get back to China… enjoy!