So I'm online checking my email after submitting my second to last chunk of Undergraduate coursework (yipee) and I come across this article and it made me think. England has changed me. When I was in Kenya, the typical rite of greeting was; hello, hi. How are you? Everything ok? How is your family? And university/school? How is your boy/girlfriend/ husband/wife/significant other? Children? Etc. Essentially, by the time I finished saying hello to someone I was bloody familiar with the general wellbeing of their entire family tree. Now the ritual is more hi how are you? Busy eh? Working hard? Stressed/? essentially going round and round in circles discovering more and more about how stressed out the individual is.

And that's just it. Individual. What a selfish society we live in! Where it becomes mroe important to self analyse and self critique than to extend a warm handshake or greeting to someone else. If you spend time listening to someone moaning about how difficult their life is then suddenly you're friends, even though later on you discover that you actually don't know anything about that person. I certainly don't consider many of the people I've met in England friends. More like close aquaintances. I am hungry to get back to the ways of the old country. I need a dose of that Kenyan hospitality.

Read the article and enjoy...

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There is a colleague I often bump into at the university where I teach, and we exchange a similar greeting every time. "I stayed up past midnight reading application forms for today's meeting," she says. And I answer, "I got up at dawn to prepare for a class." We groan, laugh lightly and rush off to our busy day—until the next morning's story of being too busy.

A friend in Senegal tells me that people there address one another very differently—family to family. "Blessings on your father and mother," one might say upon seeing a friend, "and blessings on your mother's parents, and blessings on your father's parents, and blessings on your children." It is a pleasant greeting, and it takes a while to say it. So why do we Americans greet one another in our grim, rapid-fire way, workload to workload?

Because overworking has become our national way of life. More of us are clocking longer hours, and we seem to be packing our free time with extra activity. According to a report from the International Labour Office, Americans now put in nearly 2,000 hours per year, which comes out to two weeks more than our counterparts in Japan, formerly the long-work-hours capital of the world. The Hilton Time Values Project reports that in a national survey it conducted, 26 percent of respondents agreed with the statement "I consider myself a workaholic."

What drives us to stay so busy? Some of the pressure to overwork comes from the boss and the need to pay rent. But when I asked those I interviewed for my book The Time Bind why they worked long hours, many of them told me, "We do it to ourselves." Indeed, some of the pressure to overwork comes from ourselves. Some may feel addicted to the adrenaline rush of doing too much, and at the last minute; others seek appreciation from a supervisor or co-worker. And still others see work as a measure of their value. They think that if they do more, get better, go faster, stay at the office later, they'll be worth more—and be happier.

But many who struggle still aren't happy. And with every additional task, we become a little less able to tell what it is that we really feel. What emotions would we experience if we weren't working ourselves to death? What wishes drive us? What fantasies hitch themselves to our continual busyness? Only when we step away from our frenzy can we know.

Even under the threat of being labelled a hater, allow me to take this time to announce to the world that my flatmates are idiots. Class A, certified idiots. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Idiot 1 goes off and decides to move out but leaves us the going away present of her rubbish all over the kitchen floor. Idiots 2-4 ignore the rubbish for days -and I concede that I am an equal idiot for doing the same but in my defence I've cleaned the house more than my fair share of times and I just got fed up - and pretend not to notice. Between hair in the bathroom, rubbish on the kitchen floor, age old crumbs on the side table, recycling left piling up for months they are all idiots.

And idiotic for not standing up and saying that the time had come for us to buy new bin bags until the last one was finished. After doing the shopping twice in a row I got fed up of trying and the nannied idiots sat in their rooms and waited for the bin bags to run out. They never buy anything, even though their parents literally do their shopping for them every weekend, pick them up and drop them off at the doorstep and do their laundry. They are idiots.

Three months and counting...

Yes, I know Lent is supposed to be 40 days but you know, I figure Holy Week counts too so as I said, I'm extending the Fast to Monday of next week. Not really expecting a deluge of messages but ah well, it will be good to see what Stalkers Anonymous have been up to. In the mean time, I need to finish my dissertation and reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Its taken me ages to get to this point of reading but better late than never. Its almost the end of term, I'm tired and bored but one must not loose sight of the prize. A short break to reevaluate things and then back to the grind. And I need to find a job as well...sheesh...

Wow. Its 8 minutes past midnight but I can't get to sleep because I am just so overwhelmed by God's graciousness and mercy towards me. To think this time last year I was lamenting the fact that music had just gone out of my life and I was having to start from scratch. I am still not perfect, my voice is not the greatest but oh Lord, nothing beats the feeling of a moment of praise and worship that just comes together, and your Name is just lifted HIGH and HIGHER above all others. Thank you for the worship Lord, thank you for the worship. A Gospel music concert and a praise and worship evening in which testimonies were shared and people were touched and You spoke healing into the hearts and minds of many. There is truly none like you. I'm glad I gave up facebook for some time Lord, I really am, because I feel like I've made room for You in my heart and in return You have blessed me by revealing Yourself to me in new friends and new relationships and new experiences. Not to mention a peace that passes all understanding...how can I say THANK YOU?!!

I am waiting for my nail polish to dry so I can only type with two fingers. its sort of like being back in school learning how to use computers all over again...ha ha ha. Anyway, its day 32 of the Facebook Fast and I'm definitely gonna keep it going into Holy Week but I am now seriously considering making the change permanent. I feel like not having Facebook has cured me to some extent of my social laziness. I have met so many people in the last few weeks its ridiculous. On the one hand it may just be a phase in my life that I'm going through but on the other,not having the option to secretly stalk good looking guys at my university can only be a good thing. Facebook in itself is not a problem, it just feels to me like its helping to facilitate some weaknessess in my personality - my inherent shyness around members of the opposite sex, my laziness when it comes to keeping in touch and my desire to wait for people to contact me first, my inability to remain focused on a single task for inordinate amounts of time, and my arrogance and penchant for showing off.

Which is why I think the time has come to say goodbye, I have enough psychological issues without a. making it easier for new ones to fester and b. advertising the festering to the world. Sigh...anyway, ask me after Holy Week and we'll see.