It takes all the running you can do...

This isn't an original; I read it on someone else's blog and I liked it:

"...it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.

When I came across this it simply made me think about how many aspects of my life abroad require me to work twice as hard to do the same thing. For example, all the usual scripts are insufficient. Not in terms of language necessarily, but what you actually are expected to do and say in every day social activities in another culture.

But after the week I've just had...trying to finish my first article 300-500 words at a time. I think I need to be twice as productive to meet my deadline! Anyways, that's another story.

To get me through these stressful times, I need some nice light and hopefully humorous reading. A friend lent me "The Hippopotamus" by Stephen Fry. The quip on the cover says something about, "Fresh, filthy, and funny" and sista, that is no lie. Watch out for adolescent bestiality. I'm generally not a fan of books that begin with the ramblings of washed up, lewd old men. I'll admit a bias towards female protagonists, or at least younger male protagonists. Yes it's shockingly dirty, not for the sensitive reader, but harmless and cathartic in a strange way. The plot has a straightforward arch involving a cozy "visiting a country manor and solving a mystery" page turning ruse. But the sharp and ironic humour of Fry manifested in the womanizing whisky soaked failed theatre critic protagonist, is poignant only because of the honest observations about people and life that underlying the simplicity of the story. Recommended for anyone feeling blue and/or bored who doesn't mind a roll in the mud.

"I was conscious of a sensation not unlike that which overtakes you when investigating a mysterious night-time noise that denies you sleep. You stand on the stairs, heart pounding and mouth open. You proceed to eliminate the obvious; creeper tendrils tapping against the window pane; your dog, wife or child raiding the larder; floorboards creaking as the night storage heater activates itself. None of those fits the noise, so, fighting a rising panic you begin to consider the less likely causes: a mouse in it's death-throes; a bat loose in the kitchen; a child's toy left running; the cat accidentally (or deliberately) treading on the remote-control unit and rewinding the video cassette, but none of those quite explains the particular sound either and so...if you are anything like me, you trot hastily upstairs, dive back into bed and cover your face with a pillow, preferring not to know."

-you thought I would include a dirty bit? think again, I have family members reading this blog!