I just can't roll this one out...

Yeah - a dead elephant. Heavy eh?. Well I am in a new country with a new job and a new language and a new home and a new circle of friends and everything is new. I thought I was good at stuff - particularly communication but after a year of whirlwind craziness I have to admit it - I'm lost. If it were snakes and ladders, I would have just slid down that big fat snake with it's head in the penultimate square and tail all the way back in the beginning of the game.


If it was one of those crane grab things at the fair where you have to lift your prize and put it in the shute to win, I have alllllmost got it to the shute but damn! - dropped it right at the last minute. Ok, so we have our first metaphors - 'snakes' for those moments where life jumps up and bites you in the bum, 'ladders' for the very rare times when things go perfectly, and 'grab 'n drop' for those almost but 'not quite' moments...

OK so far? elephants, cranes, ladders and snakes. Good. The dead elephant on my back at the moment is communication. Or more precisely, the inability to communicate above the level of a six year old in in a new language. Does it matter which language - no not really.

Now all this is fine - perhaps even fun at times, but the craziness becomes a little clearer when you know that I am being paid a ridiculous amount of money to do a job I don't understand, in a country where I can't communicate on any higher level than a six year old in their language. If you have seen the film Being There, then you will know what i mean. Then it delves even deeper into the realm of surreality - I have been doing this for over a year now and you know what, apparently I did it so well last year that they gave me a fantastic end year evaluation, a huge bonus and a pay rise.

Ladder, snake, ladder-ladder - grab 'n drop - woohoo!! in the shute first time *sound of fruit machine coughing up golden coins*. Ok there are some mixed metaphors here I agree. To try and explain: first, the snakes and ladders game is 3 dimensional, so it's far more complicated than simply arriving via a lucky ladder at the end - it is as Churchill said, 'not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end - but is is perhaps the end of the beginning' - and Churchill knew a thing or two about metaphorical snakes and ladders. The grab 'n drop was good though - it's just that I have to empty the case and there is a loooong way to go (10 years to be precise).

So I sit here tonight surrounded by cuddly toys, mixed metaphors and a very complicated 3 dimensional 21st century version of a 1950's board game. I hope that through writing the mist will clear and some sense will emerge from the gloom. The quote: 'Like flying with a dead elephant on your back' is from the film Apollo 13 and refers to the difficulty Jim Lovell had in flying the Lunar Module Aquarius with a damaged and powered down Command and Service Module, The Odyssey (the aforementioned 'Dead Elephant') stuck on the end. He did actually say that too - I asked him when I met him a few years ago. When Jack Swigert shut down the computer and with it all guidance and telemetry, Lovell said: 'we just put Sir Isaac Newton in the driving seat' - a phrase which echoes through my mind very day...

So the end of the beginning it is. I am having to learn how to fly all over again but it is going a little better up here now Houston...

more soon.