JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

At least that is how it feels. Two blankets, a polar fleece jacket, wool slippers and a cup of ginger tea are not enough to warm me tonight, the fourth since the snow began on Sunday. Yet those of us who live on the Pacific Northwest coast can’t complain about the cold. We are wimps when it comes to weather. Rain, yes, snow, no. The number of days each year when the temperature drops below freezing can be counted on one hand. Snow horror stories however abound. A little becomes a big disaster. Ted and I slept on an airport floor when we were stranded at SeaTac ten years ago. We were only a year into our Silicon-Valley lifestyle, a year out of Rhode Island, and it seemed almost embarrassing to explain to our East Coast friends and family why Seattle couldn’t cope with a few inches of snow.

From the comfort of my aggregator this week, I’ve read about weather adventures in Vancouver north of the border and around Seattle. Myk O’Leary’s commute home titled How D2, a cell phone, and the Internet can keep you safe takes the cake for scary while Chris Pirillo’s snow angels get the award for frivolity. The Canadians I’ve been reading have posted some lovely pictures. I’ve kept clicking back to admire Tim Bray’s magnolia tree, one of my favorite ways to remember this snow.

Since we Leungs homeschool and work from home, life has been nearly normal for us despite the weather. The kids and I did our studies anyway; we’ll take our “snow days” another time. I wish I had some lovely pictures of our snow to share, however the memory card in my camera became corrupted before I could download the images (either due to moisture absorbed as I was photographing, or the magnetic wand one of my children was brandishing on my desk). Abigail made a snow guinea pig, a tribute to our pet Chatterboy, and here it is a couple days later:

Oh, the fragility and fantasy of fall! In the beginning, at the end of summer, the leaves are unremarkable, green, no one to notice, playing audience to August’s last burst of blooms. Yet days later, they have assumed their place on stage, commanding attention with colorful costumes, the talk of the town and the delight of children’s eyes. Days disappear and the leaves disappear, falling into anonymity, fading brown and dull on the ground, brittle underfoot, sodden and decaying in rain, making mud. Now that the first snow has come, branches are bare, leaves buried beneath the blanket, their glory gone.

It’s been a year of changes in our family and my life too. Like the ephemeral foliage, my own mortality has become more apparent to me. I’ve changed priorities and made choices.

As a blogger, as someone who wants to be authentic and transparent, as someone sharing from her life and experiences, I’ve felt a responsibility to write about these changes, yet these transformations have also meant that I have had fewer resources to give to blogging. I’ve felt overwhelmed by this (self-imposed) duty to update my readers, while faced with the new needs and priorities. Some aspects of this season cannot be posted publicly. Other aspects. although large and looming to me, seem trite and small compared to the pain and crises others are experiencing.

Yet the changes cannot be denied. For example, this fall, others have asked me if I’ve changed my hair or lost weight. People see something different. And this site – the silence on this site – testifies to differences in my life.

I haven’t known how to begin blogging here again. As I look through old posts, I feel a bit of distance, a difference, separating the Julie Leung typing on the keyboard this morning from the one who posted pieces months and years ago. Also my blogging style has to change. In this intense season, I no longer have hours to write late at night or during (now-nonexistent) afternoon naps. How I’ve loved lingering over words, playing with text and pictures, polishing posts for hours – and I am at a loss to find a new style.

But I want to be here. Whether it is researching my previous holiday recipes I posted in the archives, keeping in touch with friends or finding a book that gave me new inspiration and perspective as a parent and teacher, blogging continues to impact me this fall. I can’t deny the differences in me but I also can’t deny the differences blogging has made in me.

Perhaps the way to begin is to go back to the beginning. As Darren Barefoot reminded me recently with his First Posts post, I started by crawling. And that’s what it feels like again now. Awkward. New. Slow. But this is beginning. And if I go slow, I’ll be able to savor the seasons. Going slow, I can savor each day the leaves are gold. Before they are gone.

In all fairness to Apple, this post is long overdue. Last month I lamented sending my machine away to be repaired for the random shutdown problem. The box Apple sent me first was not the right one for my MacBook, but that is my only complaint. After the correct box arrived, the laptop was gone for the equivalent of a long weekend, leaving Thursday afternoon and arriving home Monday morning. In fact on that Friday I received two emails, one indicating that my machine had been received, and the next one, late at night, notifying me that it was repaired and on its way back home. I didn’t mention the staining to the AppleCare technicians, but when my MacBook came back to me, the case had also been replaced. Although I was disillusioned and frustrated with Apple, when my computer came home after three days, I was surprised and happy. Since the repair, I have noticed that sometimes the machine tends to shut down quickly when the battery is empty, but perhaps I am missing the warning message that pops up around 10%. I can now open all kinds of applications and play multiple videos (like this post) without the strange shutdown: hurray!

Yes, my MacBook is exhibiting the random shutdown problem. Dave Winer’s blog posts let me know to look for it, and my laptop started shutting down once in a while in August or early September. By this past weekend, it was shutting down every five minutes. Reading the reports here doesn’t make me happy either. I suppose 2006 will be known in my life as the Year of Laptop Troubles.

In the meantime, check out my flickr pictures to see what else 2006 has brought our family. It really has been a good year in many ways, a year of penguin cakes and salmon eggs, deserts and mountains, movie making and even tap dancing. More on that later…

I’ll blog again from the other side of this…

My MacBook arrived this morning, surprising me. After we ordered it last week, the first estimate on the website was May 31, and then May 26. But I was not expecting Monday May 22.

I was already excited today because our largest tadpole now has four legs, one of them emerging between 8:30 and 9:30 am (yes, when I first saw it at 6 am, it had three legs). Answering the doorbell to receive a package from Apple (“Apple!” I said to the driver, while forgetting how to sign my name) made the day amazing. Now I no longer have to be jealous of those who already have their MacBooks. It’s the end of an era, a time that taught me many lessons.

A year ago I unpacked my Powerbook, and more than three months ago, I lost that machine to thieves working the parking lot at the Vancouver Aquarium. Since February our lives have had an intense pace and I’ve been short on resources to give to blogging. Health and family issues have required more attention. However, I think I also lost some motivation when I lost my machine. Using Ted’s resurrected ThinkPad was certainly better than the two of us trying to share a Linux box. For that first month or so, from February to the arrival of Ted’s replacement machine, I would get up early, trying to get in some time on the computer before Ted started work. One morning I crashed Ted’s browser (and all the tabs). The look on his face when I told him at breakfast…well, let’s just say we had some marital tension due to our lack of laptops (I wonder how crimes affect divorce rates etc.?!)

We were waiting for Apple to announce the new iBook line. Although the old ThinkPad functioned for basic usage, it didn’t have audio or video. It wasn’t mobile. The keyboard couldn’t keep up with me. Using Windows again felt like learning another language. I grew frustrated, gave up, got restless.

Months later, I remember the laptop loss often, in little ways. I don’t sit around envisioning revenge or cursing the criminals. But as I try to describe to others why 2006 has been so intense, I begin in February with “our laptops were stolen…”. Reminders of the theft remain. Until last week or so Ted and I were sharing the same cable for both of our cameras. I didn’t make a list of the losses – Ted has that – but now and again I remember something else that is gone. Like my autographed copy of Naked Conversations from Robert and Shel’s fun party. I’ll search through the cupboards for a water bottle and then remember that it was taken too. I want to forget and try to forget, but then I remember.

Opening a drawer last week I took out a CD I hadn’t played in a while. A great CD I wanted to share. Phrases filled my mind. Oh yeah, didn’t I write a review of this CD on my blog? And then I remember that the review was in draft form, lost with my laptop.

Pictures have probably been the most precious loss, along with my presentations. Yes, we now have plans for better backups. I hope that anyone will learn from our loss.

Now is a time to make new memories with my new MacBook! I can’t wait. I have a train of thoughts and plans that ended in February, and a bunch of new ideas that have sprouted this spring. I’m standing at an intersection, figuring out how to bring the two together, the me who lost her laptop and the person I am now. The Julie who is blogging from her living room sofa for the first time in weeks is overjoyed tonight, playing videos, movies and typing into ecto.

It’s a time of transition. A time of excitement. I’m fascinated by the frog-in-process swimming in the tank of tadpoles. When I have a moment, I play a game and see if I can spy this awkward creature, with a frog’s eyes and flat back yet a tadpole’s tail. In the time that I’ve lived without my laptop, I’ve begun some transitions too. May this MacBook help continue the metamorphosis.

the best pictures I could take with my camera of our four-legged tadpole..

Thank you for continuing to read and comment during this transition time.