There's now only three weeks left until I return to the U.S.  For some reason today was just a challenge to get through and to do things.  I was wrestling with lacking motivation and inspiration, but also how to get things done done.  In my head, leaving and three weeks don't fit together.  The reality of leaving seems so much greater than three weeks, and it is.  Why it bothers me is, even though I feel like I'll be able to leave when the time comes, it's that feeling of uncertainty that still lingers. 

But how.  I don't have the details for what's next.  This isn't something where I want to give some trite response about "having faith" because of the limits of words with this.  The consequences of my actions feel more real now, and I wonder about how I've handled other choices in the past that also had gravity to them. 

Problems from inhabiting your own head for too long. 

I think my taste buds are going to stage a revolt against me any morning now.  Most mornings I've settled into the routine of using instant coffee.  It's one of those things where I don't really think a whole lot about it, but I do know I just do it because I don't want to make REAL coffee, namely drip coffee.  "Sure," I tell myself, "it's easier and requires less time for ultimately the same thing." 

Alas, it's not the same thing, but it's definitely lesser (though maybe nothing bad in and of itself).  In a way, I find it sort of reflects how things have been here lately.  This is normally that time in the semester where I'm cresting the final hump of classes since most are at least at the two-thirds mark of being done.  Assignments are fully churning along for teacher and student alike, and it just feels easier, more convenient to give way on lesser things when better things are available.  It's instant coffee. 

Now, sometimes this "instant coffee" can be okay, obviously.  Sometimes you're too tired, sometimes you just plain can't, and sometimes maybe you *shudders* LIKE "instant coffee."  For me, both the real and figurative instant coffee is none of the above:  I know I don't REALLY like it, but I do it anyway.  A little laziness, a little something else. 

I'm not trying to be deep or anything.  I simply had a thought after a sip of instant coffee—"hmm, this is awful" (well, maybe I worded it a little differently, but anyway)—and then I began thinking about my main complaints recently.  "Wait a minute . . ."

Sometimes the small stuff can point to more prevailing habits, good or evil. 

The week I've had has been fairly mixed, and it's a little odd to say that because the week itself didn't really involve a lot to do.  It wasn't a matter of actions that made up anything that took place.  If anything, it was more from absence that I found the most notable in me. 

A good portion of this week was wasted.  There were things I could have done but I didn't, and things I chose to do that I shouldn't have.  My motivation and backbone have been pretty wobbly, and it's hard to put my finger on any one reason for it.  One thing I do know for certain, though, is that I've begun withdrawing myself. 

I look around me and I'm just not as committed as a was.  The previous semester wasn't too bad with this because it all felt normal.  Ever since I've returned to Viet Nam in February, though, I've been less and less invested than I should.  It's a quality I realize in myself, and others who pay attention to how I am would be able to pick up on it.  This is something I've been afraid would happen, even though it is almost to be predicted given I'll be leaving in two months.  Actually, almost exactly two months from now, as I'll be flying out late on June 5th. 

What do I want to do?  I can't say.  I don't know what would be there to say.  What I do know is I look around me, and, as much as I physically am here, my heart remains distant.  Still half here and half not, but the reality of leaving finally seems to be taking its toll on how I live life here. 

I'm getting to that place in the time that remains here in Viet Nam that a part of me has quietly known would come, but has been hesitant to commit to:  making preparations for leaving with no certainty about whether I'll return. 

In theory, in the comfort of my own head, I'd gotten used to telling myself, "Oh, just take it in stride and roll with it once the time arrives."  I knew that'd leave more of an edge once time came to leave, but I took it as a necessity to carry on "business as usual," not denying students from what would otherwise be normal.  Well, that too must end, and here I am now in the midst of accepting it. 

What has it felt like?  Against my better wishes, I've found myself quietly withdrawing in ways.  My heart has been a little less gung ho.  Not necessarily distracted unto more work, but half of my heart is someplace else that isn't Viet Nam.  At the same time, it isn't in the U.S., either.  It's just kind of drifting, "out there," as it were.  Maybe it's either for a heart to drift than for it to settle somewhere. 

As I'm aware of all this, I'm doing my best not to get distracted by the inevitable, while at the same time knowing there is a little over two months left during my time here.  Sending my first box back early next week will be a start, and securing my one-way plane tickets back around the same time will be another step in the same direction. 

How will I feel once that ball gets rolling?  I'm not altogether sure, but what I am sure of is it'll probably not feel normal. 

I inadvertently, yet still very much successfully, deleted ALL of the e-mails in the Inbox for one of my e-mail accounts.  All it involved was the simple, forgotten clicking in of a box many months ago to delete e-mails I delete from my computer.  This all came after the Internet suddenly "clicked" with my computer and programs are starting to work again.  I load Mozilla Thunderbird and, low and behold, it works.  Then, in a matter of minutes and absentmindedness, deleted EVERY E-MAIL. 

So unbelievable.  I am such a complete idiot . . .

When I look back on the past week and weekend, the overriding feeling I get is that I kind of wasted time.  I know some of you will want to jump in and say something like maybe I needed to rest or that it wasn't laziness, but no.  In all truth, I know I simply didn't use my time very well last week.  There were times where I really just did nothing and plainly filled time with . . . more time. 

That isn't rest.  I wasn't catching up on sleep, I wasn't overly stressed out, and I wasn't in-between a lot of work.  In fact, I truly did have stuff I could have done then.  The part of me that didn't want to over-plan with classes I was waiting to teach now this week wasn't so great that I couldn't do something, such as further planning and preparation for graduate school assignments. 

I'm going to resist the desire of simply shrugging and saying "it happens."  It shouldn't.  However, there was night and there was day—a new day. 

It's now a few days since I've been back in Viet Nam, but it doesn't really feel like it.  A part of me isn't still in Thailand somewhere or wondering about going back to the US or anything.  It also may not be helped by the fact my ears haven't yet returned to normal since the plane's descent into Ha Noi Thursday night (a bit of a quick descent caused my ears to pop and gave me a splitting headache).  Besides those halfway-explainable reasons for why I feel this way, I honestly cannot say why I feel so unsettled. 

For this reason I haven't taken on a whole, whole lot since I've been back.  I originally thought I'd do this anyway since I haven't had anything of a vacation for the past four weeks.  The shape the past few days have taken seems more like a result of not being sure what to do.  Graduate school and teaching are all manageable responsibilities, but my motives have been a bit halting.  There's a part of me that just isn't ready to be back and finds it difficult to make those initial steps.  This ain't "vacation brain," that's for sure. 

Whatever it is that has brought this state-of-mind, a large part of me is quietly aware it's not an empty, wasteful reason.  That's not to say there hasn't been selfishness and sin mingling this time, but something else, something unrelated to this being the last semester in Viet Nam for however long . . .

It's now a week before I'll be back in Viet Nam and on my last semester in the country.  Being in a fancy hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand, makes that feel a little further away than it actually is, but the occasional quiet, reflective moments here reassure me the days will tick by quickly enough until that day.  In ways, I find myself returning to the thought of the forms things end, and the way a normal human might venture along such a path. 

There are limits for what a person can leave behind, such that I think simply being remembered is enough, but not really.  The reason I don't like the idea of things ending is a mix of how I don't really know the future, but also, with people, there are always ways of staying in contact.  The nature of the relationship may change, but it continues.  In different ways I know I'll be missing Viet Nam, but not as much as the presence of the different people I've come to know while there. 

So, parts of me do quietly acknowledge the inevitability of life around five months from now, but . . . people are my life.  Only death is the end, but, even then, not really.  That's what guides and directs my ways along this path and walk . . .

This is now my fifth trip to Thailand.  The first one was around January of 2005.  I'd had a bad experience over-nighting in the Bangkok airport, then a quick trip through Viet Nam, and back to Thailand.  Each year the gloss has warn off a little bit more until finally bringing me to today. 

I hold no grudge or ill-will towards Thailand and its people.  I haven't suffered from a seriously bad experience that sours my impression of the country.  Aside from taking graduate school classes here for two weeks, I simply haven't chosen to be here. 

Was there anything truly optional in this matter?  Not really.  It's all required, not the least bit optional.  Considering I'm in debt to certain degrees, the required nature of the trip after this next week will only drive me back into debt trusting I find myself out of it soon.  This is especially true when this is the hotel everyone will be staying at.  Does being a member of a non-profit organization mean that you organize ways to run out of money?  Is that what "non-profit" means? 

I've never been much for opulence.  I definitely was years ago when I was a bit more careless about money and getting things, but not so much now.  What makes a trip nice is not the reality of going somewhere that's all decked out—it has to do with the connection I have with where I'm at.  When the basis of my connection to a location has primarily been as a result of other people's decisions that didn't involve me, where's the gratitude I should be feeling to be here?  Instead, it feels more like shame. 

If I had to choose, let me be back in Viet Nam where I can continue getting to know the people there who make up my life. 

The emissary of fate and adversary of faith.  At times I wonder of which purpose doubt would serve.  I'm not referring to the doubt that masquerades as conscience—actual conscience is something else—but a lingering sense of question, of uncertainty.  In some ways this is unavoidable:  as certain as we're living in the present, there is the next moment is forever unseen.  I've never been too, too worried about the future though . . .

No.  If I'm honest with myself, it's usually a lingering discontentment with the ways things have been and how they could be.  I'm not mixed up in ideas of performance, but right-living as well as innocent, genuine motives that are free of agendas.  My life can reflect that on most days, but it's quiet, gnawing doubt over the reality of chinks in my armor that cause me to wonder. 

I'm no less human nor deserving of an exceptionally large quantity of grace, so my priorities do not feel too, too misplaced.  The thing that gets me, though, is the allowances I make for those chinks in my armor, those ways that ought to be changed.  It's the line dividing knowledge of my humanity and the will to choose genuinely, not out of simple duty or obligation. 

One such quiet reflection on a Monday night. 

That's about how today felt for me.  I didn't give myself enough sleep last night, so waking up at 5 AM this morning went a lot more sluggishly than during times passed.  Maybe it's just the fact the semester is winding down, but it's like my mind wants to seize up and stop working.  This is definitely normal in some strange respects, but, come midday, an overall funk beset me. 

Oh, the weekend, and a less-busy schedule.  May I use it well. 

Come Thursday will be the official day for Thanksgiving in the US—and another special day of profound personal importance—which means December is merely a little over a week away.  (Randomly, a Vietnamese boy and girl are in the back behind the guest house.  Considering all the cockroaches that skitter out back, why is there the romantic location of choice tonight?  I flipped on my back light and looked at them, particularly the guy.  Come on!  Take the lady to a nice restaurant or something!)  With my second-year students, this week is week 13 for them, so week 11 for my first-year students.  Before too long will be Christmas, my Mom will visit, and next semester soon afterwards. 

It'll be over before I know it.  For whatever reason, I think I crested that point of realizing how this is my last year.  I knew it in my head, but it finally dawned on my heart.  I can understand why some people in positions like mine would feel like they need to "end strong," "have a good final year," and so forth, but those simply feel fake.  From the beginning, my attitude has been "either I'm faithful with what I've been given or none of these minor details will matter."  Those "minor details" mainly being the little things that matter the most, those unquantifiable choices that make up a day, and the simple things you say to people you care about.  If I had to take back one of them, it wouldn't stop there. 

A part of my heart has come to accept the gritty, brutal ugliness of the good and the bad in my daily life.  It's there for everyone—and I hope I never let such a reality dilute grace in my own eyes—but you just have to learn to live with it.  Not in glorifying the bads or assuming they're somehow acceptable on even the most slighting level, but you keep walking, you keep serving and loving the gifts you've been given for the time you're given to care for them.  All of you is involved in where you're at.  There's got to be acceptance, even of things you might otherwise feel tempted to regret.  You're not a completed work yet. 

Then, varying according to venue and situation, you let go of a part of it.  Not all of it, and not merely in the nostalgic sense of remembering what you "had," but you let it change while what you love the most about it remains. 

You let things change . . .

Several months back, either online or using a different medium, I'd reflected on the simple fact of remembering student names.  Many students would be made so happy over remembering their names, knowing who they are, and even pronouncing it correctly.  Of course, they don't feel so giddy when I'm asking them a question in class or when they're in trouble, but, even with that, it's who they are. 

With that, I never really understood why it was necessary to change names in China.  It seemed to be kind of an assumed practice and you just accommodated it.  Maybe I said this last time, but, if I had to go back, I simply would call them by their Chinese names because that's who they are.  I've done that here in Viet Nam and have been fine about it.  Some will still give themselves English names because they think foreigners can't pronounce their names correctly, but their name in their own language is THEIR NAME.  It means something, literally and from person to person. 

During times when people are confronted with something different, those are the tests for how willing a heart can be.  Do you learn someone's true name and make an effort to say it correctly?  Do you take the time to understand the reality you're dealing with someone whose background represents an entirely different culture than you know, or do you merely stand your ground and assume less of the other person you're dealing with?  Most of us assume less.   

These are all things I'm used to in my fifth year living overseas, but, at the same time, I'm from the US, specifically the southeast.  We don't have a great reputation of bridging the gap of differences and being peacemakers (unless you mean the handgun, then yes).  Many of the things I'd say about people who were different five years ago I'd very nearly smack upside their head now. 

An example of this isn't political, but take the fact our 44th president is named Barack Hussein Obama.  Even if I voted for McCain, I'd still feel EMBARRASSED FOR those people who speak his middle name of Hussein like it's a four-letter word or objectionable.  A person can have a well-reasoned, articulate opinion of someone that isn't sourced in the rumor mill and I'd be perfectly fine with that, whoever the subject is.  HOWEVER, I need to be honest and say the fact people fault the man because he was born to the middle name Hussein is a reflection of a person's cultural ignorance—I'll even say racism—when they use it that way, not an astute political observation on their part. 

I've heard of stories about young mothers naming their children Pepsi and Weed because those were their favorite things at the time the children were born.  What if we meet one of these children on the street?  Does our view of them change once we learn their true name?  Let's go more superficial:  what if we SEE someone and they don't represent someone we're accustomed to seeing.  Say they're a different race or ethnicity, and, when they speak, they can't speak English correctly.  No one wants to say we're racists or bigots or discriminatory—rather, we rationalize those things, do we not?  It happens around the world, done by citizens of every country, but what kind of justification is that? Is our personal opinion ample enough of a qualification? 

In the most honest parts of our heart, what do we believe about these people? 

That’s about the only description I can give to my present state.  Thinking clearly and articulately seems to come in concentrated spurts, and aren’t the things that find themselves readily shared with the masses.  Why exactly?  I don’t know.  Well, no, that’s not true:  I do know, but I don’t know how it got that way.  My persistent plugging away at that which is the month of October for me has been a big part of it, but being goopy-headed has been wearing on me. 

Take this week as an example.  It’s the final week where I have a make-up class, which was done on Monday, but I’ve just felt out of it for most other things.  This is also a week I need to truly finalize a graduate school assignment, so that’s another thing.  All the more, I feel out of it, and less sure of how I’m really doing in class.  I’m sure things are at the very least passable, but it’s been really tough to let the least of things register with me.  Normally I have those quiet, subtle epiphanies that tell me "you got it," but those have been more difficult to glean lately. 

If I can help it, I'd love to reach the end of the week and just let all the goop and uncertainty be replaced with Rest.  That very well can happen NOW—and I'd definitely welcome it—but it feels more like something to long after than to have at this point in time.  One of those times you're not meant to remain in. 

Even though I completed one assignment for graduate school, there's no self-congratulatory sense of "accomplishment," as I just feel like another bit of work has taken its place.  Instead of that it's more of the same, and less of a sense like I'm getting something done.  Be it sketching out another assignment, meaningfully preparing for classes, or taking care of other business, where's the enjoyment?  Right now, it just feels like "stuff."  I don't prefer that label, it wasn't sought after, but it's there.  An on-going sense of pressure.  That's what this feels like. 

Hello October . . .

After too many hours working in my room, I needed to step out of my room to de-stress.  The sights and the smells were all familiar to  me.  The nose is assailed with a mixture of the acrid smell of exhaust, the lingering scent of something burning somewhere, an occasional smell of something sweet sold by a curbside vendor, and the sour, pungent stench of urine against a wall or dark corner.  As far as the sights, everything seemed a little smoky, and the crowded-flow of traffic as constant as usual.  The only time either were mostly absent was from when I was leaving and returning to the university, but even then it was about as quiet as a besieged castle is peaceful:  presence without experience. 

In many ways, I live a pretty dull life.  My schedule and interests are largely unchanged, being a result to adjusting to living in a city while adamantly favoring small towns.  There would seem to be many people around me, but very few to actually spend quality time with.  Countless conversations, but seldom any involving me.  Is this experience my choosing?  Not exactly.  It's more of a reaction to circumstances I don't prefer. 

Be it the teaching environment or the living environment, it's not exactly a good fit.  My students are great--I love them, but they're not the lower-level students I was readying myself for.  Ha Noi is fine--each city district in some way resembles a village, but it's still a city with countless people emerging out of nowhere. 

The question I keep returning to, in some form or fashion, is "where does all this leave me?"  I'm not angst-ridden or lonely, yet it's not a preference I had much say over.  Is this how I want to feel for wherever I'm going to work for the many years of my life? 

There would seem to be something unattainable in rapidly achieved distance.  Perhaps it's a spoiled land no one is meant to comment on, but I frequently find myself there.  I'd attempt to greet the things and the natures that estrange me.  To make strangeness and distance my accomplices in bonds. 

Then, there will be these measures, pulsating and living inside me, that would beg for the things I know not, and yet persists after.  Were I to understand this and be understood by it, would it draw me closer to You?  Does it mean retreat is the only way to do this? 

On which land do I stake my claim, make my home, and shrug this burden? 

I'll start back with teaching next week, and I'm feeling a little of that anxiousness that comes with returning to something you haven't done for a few months.  The "how to" is maybe not too elusive, while the raw action of going out there is still needing to be stretched and flexed a bit.  Add to that some genuine doubts towards some graduate school classes and it's maybe not the most winningest of feelings, so to speak. 

Perhaps it's just these old, familiar doubts and challenges, but they're present.  These things may never really leave, but it's definitely not comfort in having them be familiar feelings. 

It's a little weird having so much free time with seemingly little to fill it with.  Ultimately, I like it, but it's caused day and night to sort of blend together.  The only thing that seems to serve as a marker for what happens when is sleep.  That's really it because little else seems to do that.  I get up, and . . . well, that's about it, except for complete my last assignment for APU, the only thing find myself bringing up.  Everything else falls so much into the category of "a normal day" that I don't have much else going on.  Given everyone is either studying for the exam or getting things ready for the exam, that just sort of leaves me in-between. 

Should I be busier, or living a more varied life right now?  Possibly, but I don't see how I could!  Maybe this is a fitting precursor to the Summer with its traveling and such.  Yeah, maybe . . .

• Listen to music.
• Listen to the wind, the rustling of trees, the songs of different birds. 
• Listen for silence instead of trying to find it. 
• Read a book out of simple enjoyment. 
• Write a friend not because "it's been awhile."
• Take a walk at night. 
• Sit at a park and read, or simply sit. 
• Meet up with people because I want to, not because "it's been awhile." 
• Have a good, expensive meal purely because it's a good, expensive meal. 
• Play the music I want to play/feel so inspired to play.
• Explore different possibilities with all relationships because I can. 

It's a national holiday day, apparently in celebration of the Hung emperors of long ago.  Because of that, the school is utterly empty, except for the accompanying sounds of distant trucks along the highway, and song birds greeting each other outside.  (One such song bird seemed to have been inspired by John Cage, contributing oddly-rhythmed melodies and directions.)  With such freedom, it's made me a little reflective on things I haven't done for awhile purely for their own sake, not out of any sense of duty or sense of deprivation.