Busyness

What a hectic week!! From meetings to setting up a new Facebook page for work to guide dog help with Jay and taking my step-sister out for lunch. I have barely had time to stop and take stock of where I am going. I have taken time each evening to read and also downloaded some new books for my VRS.

Among those, and the one I chose to read first is:


A biography, Rebecca was a young woman living in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's book 'Middlemarch'. Re-reading it, she found that the novel offered her something that modern life and literature did not. The author leads readers into the life the book made for her and also retells the life of Eliot.

It is a talking book I am thoroughly enjoying and it may persuade me to read 'Middlemarch'.

I am still reading Susan Cutsforth's book about their annual pilgrimage to France from Australia to renovate their old farmhouse and to live the village life visiting flea markets, enjoying the cuisine and instilling the French lifestyle into their very being.

On the recommendation of the WLM Facebook page I purchased several books recently so need to get busy doing more reading on my kindle. Among the latest purchases are:
   

 AN INSPRING TALE OF A VOLUNTEER TEACHER ABROAD! 

Namibia is a country of intrigue and mystique. Many of the country’s regions are economically deprived, but rich with culture and tradition. For one year, Wes Weston lives and teaches out in the rural countryside. Water and electricity are intermittent, donkeys and livestock roam the school grounds, and the pace of life is almost at a standstill. But Weston learns invaluable lessons in this new environment, ultimately discovering that perhaps one person can’t change the world, but the world can certainly change one person. 

Watermelon is Life is a lighthearted and humorous travelogue of a volunteer teacher in rural Namibia. It is the second book in the Do U English series, chronicling the educational misadventures of Wes Weston. Follow along with the extraordinary journey, as Weston attempts to teach the world. (less) 

On the recommendation of a friend I also purchased:


An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.

As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?

Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.

She could not return, since rumours of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities – involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable.

This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life – not once, but twice – first in China, then in South Korea. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit. (less)

All the reading I am doing is giving me itchy feet again. I need to get out my travel planning journal and start doing some research. I have dreams of returning to Europe as well as exploring some places a little closer to New Zealand. Guided tours are so expensive I feel I still need to travel by the inexpensive options. I have several friends travelling at present and am quite envious of them.

Jay is much improved since his session with the guide dog instructor on Thursday, hopefully if I continue to take a back pack with a rug in it he will settle and allow me to enjoy the company of my friends over a hot chocolate.