good grief.

I guess I don't really feel like there's any one thing on my mind that I'd like to share... but I'm experiencing another sense of unrest today--and if I keep ignoring my pile of papers to grade, I'll keep feeling unsettled and eventually uncomfortably guilty.

I had started an e-mail to a friend a few weeks ago, in which I tried to respond to this person's advice that I "get more rest." It felt self-indulgent, and I never finished the e-mail.

Another ajarn (that means teacher, by the way) told me the other day that I "work too hard."

I responded to the ajarn in a letter to someone else by confessing that this lie (that I work hard) seems to be very widely believed by people around here. And maybe I even believe it sometimes; but I don't. I really don't work very hard--or it doesn't feel like I do.

The grading piles up on my shelf and everyday I look at it and set myself against the work that much more... I think this is part of what makes me feel unrested. Although I may not actually be working in a quantitative/productive sense that can be measured, I'm inwardly resisting the work and thereby defeating my own chance for quality rest.

It's aggravating. I don't quite understand why I do this to myself. Or why I have to take the long route on my way to somewhere that certainly does have easier passages. Even with this grading: if I just did it without complaining, if I just sucked it up and got through the papers... maybe not putting as much energy into the papers as I think I might like a professor to put into correcting one of my papers, then I think the potential for better restfulness would increase immensely.


This afternoon I was lying on my bed trying to quiet my thoughts and really listen to the Lord. I know he brought me here to Thailand; and he has me working at this job for some purpose, though I'm not fully aware of what that purpose may be. I don't even know how important this job is to him--how much he expects from me. Should I be a better teacher? Should I be preparing more for each day? Should I be surrendering everything (my time, my desires, my animosity towards this work) to him? Am I fighting this place/this profession for any good reason? Why do I feel so unsettled? Sometimes I think there must be something wrong with me--with this pattern I have of feeling rotten on the inside about certain tasks. I feel like Jonah, trying to run away from what God has asked me and sent me here to do, and it's really a worse idea to refuse God's requests... Starting to smell a little like whale vomit around here.

I only have 1.5 weeks to go.

God, why is it that even this short distance seems endless? And I know I'll somehow get through; but I don't know how I'll ever get through.

A paradox. But, I'm so dramatic. I'm sorry... and I still haven't responded to the e-mails in my box.

So sick of myself these days. So sick of being self-indulgent.