The importance of being Hamster

I often wonder why I took to blogging with such enthusiasm. The Dear Diary concept never worked out for me. I usually ended up writing things like "dear diary, I am lame, this is lame, you are lame. School is lame, the parents are lame, life is lame. Even the word "lame" is lame." I was not a born scribbler.

But then I stumbled on my creative writing assignments from school, from grade 9 all the way to Grade 12. How these survived my countless moves I do not know.

My high school English teacher, who I ended up having for 4 years, was a believer in writing in specific concrete detail. She did not like fantasy stories involving aliens. And so all of my creative writing pieces are bloggy style; stories from my day to day life.

For my entire high school career, I was writing a blog. About hamsters.

Std 7, age 14:

Bart was in the second compartment of his cage, nibbling contentedly on a peanut. I looked again, trying to discover what my sister was so distressed about.

"Bart has not had..." suddenly something caught my eye and in shock I shrieked, "The hamster has had babies!"

Std 7, age 15:

"I felt a small ticklish sensation on my toe. I looked down. Sitting there was a small grey ball of fluff, fondly known as Peanut. Peanut's minute paws were perched delicately on my foot, and he was twitching his whiskers in that quizzical manner that hamsters have, and his stubby tail was protruding in a comic way, half erect, as if he was trying to wag it."

Grade 10, age 16: "To my delight, Fluffy clambered over my ear and onto my head. I sat up, and he began calmly washing his whiskers on my head."

*

But it was not all about hamsters. Take for example this essay from my final Matric portfolio (Grade 12, age 17):

"The number of times a gecko has plummeted from the shower ceiling as a result of the considerable steam I produce, and landed on my head is uncountable. ...But trying to pick up a frightened gecko is worse than picking up soap, and I end up dropping it a couple of times before I can fasten it onto a steamless wall.

*

The rest of the writing involves hadedas, my cats and a few about my grandfather.

It may be relevant that one of my favourite books when I was a kid was My family and other animals, by Gerald Durrell. I seemed to have had animals in (and on) my head most of the time.

It is also interesting to note that I wrote sentences about 6 lines long and did not know how to keep it brief. Hmm, not much has changed. I am no Ernest Hemingway. But back to more important things. Hamsters.

Fast forward to today. Here are some searches leading people to my blog:

• how many hamsters in 2010? (not enough?)
  
• hamster panicking in cage (take cat out of cage)
  
• sea hamsters (quoi?)
• African names for hamsters (ama hamsta hamsta)
  

Notice a trend here?.

The moral of this story. I am running low on blog fodder. I think it is about time I got me another hamster.