Hippo Meets Dissertator on Forked Path in Academic Jungle

The hippopotamus walks slowly across the savannah. It looks lost. It is not a very smart hippo. Look - it falls into a ditch, belly up. Hopeful vultures circle overhead. But, annoyingly, the hippo stands up again, recommencing its clueless trek. The hippo is the doctoral dissertation in the humanities. I just wrote one. With any luck, mould in the vault beneath the library will eat it before anyone reads it.