Abuhachi torazu ｢虻蜂取らず」 is an idiom found at the beginning of Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms, it means literally to catch neither the horsefly nor the bee; in other words try to do two things at once and fail at both. Deconstructing it we have: Abu 「虻」'horsefly' + hachi 「蜂」'bee' and a form of toru「取る」'take in the hand; acquire'. This is to say I feel I have too many different interesting scholarly projects going and I'm feel as though I am failing at them all.
The Explorations of a Curious Mind
