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One major feature or change in my life recently was the return to freedom. Although this makes it seem like I might have been legally incarcerated, this is not the case, but living in China does limit some freedoms that one would normally wouldn’t experience in the free world...

A large decision was undertaken in September 2015 regarding changes in my life, and it was when I decided that I would seek other employment opportunities. While I love the kids I teach, the system under which I was teaching was becoming increasingly unsustainable, and I wanted out. I began interviewing in October, and I landed a contract in March.

The decision was not taken lightly; I really did mull it over for a long while. Part of me wanted to stay because living in China became easy, but there were some serious life questions that I started to ask myself: Is living here sustainable? Can I find what I’m looking for here? And after I reflected a bit, and some stuff that went down in my personal life, the answer was an unequivocal no. Thou shall hear of those reasons in reflections in the future, but for no the details are irrelevant.

And so on June 30, after leaving my apartment (and home – and yes it really did feel like home) at 21:00, our shuttle bus bound from the interior of Jiangsu Province was bound for Shanghai. In what has later become 60 hours of transit (which I originally thought was 34), I relived June 30 twice and half of June 29th and arrived into Toronto via Tokyo and Vancouver.

And thus I found freedom, sort of. It’s not my final destination and it doesn’t feel like real freedom yet, but it’s a step in the right direction. Hello Twitter, Hello Facebook, Hello Blog, Hello unrestricted internet, and Goodbye VPN.

I miss you already, China, despite your shortcomings…

I think that I’ve experienced enough of the negative results of technology affecting people that I can base an opinion now on personal experience. In the past few years with the advancement of technology (mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) I find that people don’t honour commitments the same way as in the past.

What do I mean by this? Say for instance you agree with a friend to meet at a specific time and place that is pre-established. Said friend flakes on you at the last minute as something else comes up or they are distracted by something else. Or say for instance you do end up going to what was planned, but your friend is constantly checking their phone for messages or Tweeting about their experience or such.

In the second instance despite having shown up, is the friend still honouring their commitment of time to you? I’m not saying that you are writing your name or commitments in blood, but I think that a lot of people have lost the importance of doing something they say they are going to do.

Does it ever occur to them that they are taking advantage of your time, and that your time is valuable as well? In flaking on you, it’s really just a disrespect for your time and your life, and depending on the level of friendship you have, it may make you think twice about accepting and agreeing to do something in the future.

What made me think of this? Well I’ve been chatting with someone for a few weeks and they have been very eager to hang out and meet. As usual I’m hesitant at first because in the past I’ve been flaked on a lot, and so in theory if I get to know someone better first there is less likelihood of it happening (well in theory of course). After all the kerfuffle to organize a mutually agreed upon time, and pressure from them to commit to a time, they end up flaking at the last second.

At this point I’ve heard just about everything except someone died, but it’s all the same: a blatant disregard for the importance of other people’s time. I’m twenty five years old, and I’ve never said I was going to do something then didn’t do it. I’ve never flaked out on someone (regardless of how well I know them) at the last second. I understand the importance of other people’s time, and respect it accordingly. I don’t have an expectation that everyone should be as committed as me, but I truly believe that people don’t respect other people on this basic level.

This isn’t a rant, but perhaps I have done it anyways. Any comments, suggestions, experiences to share?

Have you ever wondered if your RSS feed is working properly and wanted to find out? Well this is one of those posts to see if it actually ends up posting to Twitter via my client or not.

Lets go team automatic!

It’s time so make my salute to the people that lead us through our programming: Marie Serneholt and Rickard Olsson. They have both done a fantastic job at this year’s Melodifestivalen, and will continue to do so for the Andra Chansen round and the Grand Final. I did however need to take a moment to salute one of them in particular, for whom I’ve developed quite a fancy.

Rickard Olsson is a newly aquired journalist for SVT, and I welcome him with open arms. In fact, he even went so far as to show his arms in the first semifinal in Luleå. All I can say is that I like what I see. He’s funny, he’s got a great voice, he’s from Gävle (yay like mumzy!). He really cleans up too, wearing the cute suits and he can actually sing too.

In the semifinal in Linköping, Rickard got nice and personal with Fredrik Kempe, sharing secrets and being a little flirty throughout, but it all got better in Malmö where he pointed right to me. I’m quite smitted. He’s a nicely aged man, very amusing, very cute, and has the most adorable ears. I recently even had the honour of getting a tweet from him (shown below).

If it isn’t already clear I’m RIckard’s biggest fan in Canada, without a doubt. He heard that I said it, and in his disbelief managed to at least tweet back. I had a famous person tweet me, I will now swoon. If there are any eurofans out there, namely people that I know people, thou must share my love with Ricke in the same way that you shared my love with a certain Danish person…!

I recently stopped over to a little kiosk in Toronto to pick up a SIM card for my new Nexus One phone… (not pictured at this point) which is of course available in Canada yet, but I managed to land it.

In any case, I picked my plan, got my no-contract unlimited deal, and my first month free. So far I’ve had no problems with my service at all, except for the lack of ‘home’ service in my town, which will eventually come they tell me this year.

Otherwise the unlimited 3G and wireless connections suffice for me. I find myself tweeting on Twitter more, responding quicker to emails and Facebook messages. Eventually I might even blog from my phone. It’s become invaluable, and it’s so great to have a Canadian phone number that is local (for the first time).

Just a shame that I don’t know anyone here that can call me, or that I can call…