Not such a tall tale afterall

Tim Burton's 2003 movie Big Fish was a Big Disappointment partly because the computer generated catfish at the end was so unbelievable. Right, like a catfish could ever get that big. Well, National Geographic has compiled their Top Ten News Photos of 2005 and guess what? Number 2 is a 646 pound catfish caught in Thailand. Somehow I missed this story the first time.

Ewan McGregor visits Malawian Aids orphans

This is the first I have heard of any celebrity visiting Malawi , but if it takes Ewan McGregor to get the world to look at the staggering damage Aids has done to Africa, and Malawi specifically, so be it. From the BBC article , "There are 70,000 children in Malawi who are HIV positive." A great many of them are ophans, their parents victims of the disease.

Adventures in subletting

I left for Europe without a subletter, but with a roommate. He had originally signed on as a subletter, but agreed to be my roommate when my intended roommate's boyfriend was sent to Iraq and her plans changed. I found another willing subletter who came to see the apartment with his wife and son. The wife drove an SUV, was casually well-dressed, had an air of Southern bourgeois about her. The son was two, well cared for, cute. The husband had tattoos on his forearms, longish hair, piercings, and a former-band-member-out-of-rehab vibe. He spoke about church and how he and his wife were working through their problems by attempting a little separation. If it weren't for his wife and child I wouldn't have considered him. We all agreed on a date for him to move in, etc. I never heard from him again. (I am probably very, very lucky.)

So, too close to leaving to find someone before I left, the task was left to my new roommate, with me acting as a lame go-between. He quickly found a guy, to our joint relief, and we went on with our separate semesters.

Last week I was home for two nights before heading out to Oregon. The apartment was so filthy that despite it being close to midnight on my first night, I seriously thought about calling a friend in Carrboro to stay with her rather than sleep on the cleaner of the two couches under my formerly clean feather bed.

I've been back from Oregon for two days and I've only managed to clean my room, the refrigerator, the sink, and re-wash some of the dishes. In my current roommate's defense, he's been in studio all semester and he doesn't cook.

I walked into my empty apartment at midnight two nights ago, relieved to see that the kitchen counters were clear and the dishes stacked in the drying rack. My relief vanished upon seeing the mound of recycling in the "breakfast nook," the grimy shelves in my food cabinet, the dirt and corroded coins on my empty plastic shelves, the leaves and dirt on my mattress pad, the dirty sheets and muddy towels in my laundry bag (at least he stripped the bed, right?), the bathroom mats resembling doormats in from a chicken run, oh, and my favorite, the unflushed, mildewed toilet bowl with two paper towels in addition to liquid remains. It was midnight, I had been traveling since 11:00am (by that timezone), I really had to pee, and there wasn't any toilet paper. Thank god Harris Teeter is 24 hours; I would have been stuck with the paper towels had I been in Prague.

But if this guy hadn't been available and willing to save the day, things could have been worse, so I'm not as upset as I otherwise would be. And, hey, at least I didn't have to live with him.

Goodbye, Prague

Or goodbye, Studio, at least since that's mostly where I've been this last month. It's been a wonderful semester, both academically and experientially. And I am ready to go home.

What I will miss:

Excellent public transportation.

The river's drama.

Innumerable vistas from which to view the city.

Walking up Wenceslas Square at night.

Visiting museums.

Cheap cultural events.

The TV Tower (I know, I'm shocked, too.)

Sleep.

Well-behaved dogs.

Jungmmanova Square

What I won't miss:

Fish.

My hotel.

Tourists.

Tesco.

The language barrier.

The TV Tower Babies.

Bodily fluids on the sidewalk.

Public Displays of Affection.