What I'm reading

Why is it that the Shakespeare play I know the most lines from is Hamlet?

What do you read, my lord?
Words, words, words.

I will take my leave of you.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal. Except my life, except my life, except my life.

Where is Polonius?
At supper.
At supper! Where?
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.

I suppose it could be because I read it in my senior English class in high school (psych lit) and watched part of Kevin Brannaugh's movie adaptation of it, which I later saw in full. We also watched a comedic version by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Then I saw the more up-dated Hamlet with Julia Styles. Then I found Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the library and laughed myself silly. Anyway, that's not today's topic, but it is what I feel like saying every time someone asks me what I'm reading. Words, words, words.

This is a book I started about a week ago and could not wait to finish. I finished it at work two nights ago, on my lunch break. Here I sit, crying in the lunch room. It's a beautiful and somewhat melancholy book about a little German girl who grows up in Nepal and Indonesia--and doesn't know Germany at all and gets intense culture shock going back the first and every time afterward.

It's a very well written, easy-to-read, true story of a daughter of missionaries who move to the jungle to learn the Fayu language and culture. I'm sure it appeals a lot to missionary kids and third culture kids of all kinds, and also people like me (I like to style myself as a third culture adult--on somewhat of a different level than having grown up in a culture other than my parents', but still having spent critical, formative years in radically different cultures and becoming some of this and some of that and some of what I was born as).

It's just beautiful and eye-opening and not too too much to try to process. Although it might be a little rough on your heart in some chapters, mostly it is delightful. And in my experience, delight is sweetened from having tasted sorrow.

Anyway, if you've been to Indonesia, or are/were (is there were?) a missionary, want to know about UPGs (unreached people groups--those with little or no outside contact), or just want an easy but true read about a beautiful jungle childhood, this is a good book.

And now on to my next book....tba pending whether I like the one I'll probably start tonight at work. Tonight is my last night shift of the block, then Stacey arrives tomorrow from Calgary! We also just got news last night (well, I didn't get it until this afternoon) that our brother Andrew is coming home from Thailand on May 31st, and we'll likely pick him up from the airport. Hooray! Other than that, Frodo is moving quite a lot now (not quite hard enough yet for Jason to feel) and I find it the coolest thing ever. Especially at work when I feel so isolated and sometimes a bit overwhelmed, then I get this little nudge nudge from inside and joy fills me. It will be wonderful to see Frodo's face in October.

Oh, we're also looking at houses. To buy. Not as scary as I imagined it. I suppose I've done scarier things (cliff jumping, dengue fever, India all come to mind). This, for me, is mostly just exciting. We're just waiting on one document from the States before we can proceed--come on FICO! Stop holding us up!!!!!!