Tuesday, April 24, 2007

LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku

This Autobiography as Haiku is from the Washington Post (April 22, 2007). To me, it's all about love.

"I shop all over Washington in search of the perfect Chinese baby doll for my new granddaughter, who is half Chinese. I want her to have such a doll to identify with her Chinese heritage. I finally find the right one. As I give it to her, I see a blue-eyed blond doll that her Chinese grandfather, who just arrived from China, shopped all over that country to find for his new American granddaughter."
-Jane Steimel, Bethesda

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Adoption Status Update - a hard blow

They've "finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with their office before October 26, 2005." That indicates they were only able to match 2 days worth of dossiers this past month instead of their usual average (over the last year) of 13 days worth. This pattern of a slow down in referrals was seen in previous years right after the Chinese New Year, so maybe we should have foreseen it.

The CCAA hasn't updated the review section of their web page; it still states they've "finished the review of application documents registered [logged in] with their office before March 31, 2006."

Ugh, we've been clinging to the wait time not changing for estimating when we'll get our referral (and thereby hoping before the end of this year), but if we look at the number of days worth of dossiers matched per month's worth of time, we could be waiting another 18 months. So there you have it. I've said it. Poop on a stick.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Sandstorm in Beijing


We were first alerted of the sandstorm hitting Beijing by our friend Cathy who has been working in Beijing since November.

This sandstorm was created by a cyclone in Mongolia and is expected bring only (thanks to strong winds) a day or two of floating dust.

Eleven to 15 more sandstorms are forecasted for Northern and Northwest China this spring.