Nostalgia and the word that tells him nothing

There is a certain nostalgia in using old pre-'windows XP' lappies. Been using my brother's 6 year old laptop that does not have a microsoft office, a few malfunctioning buttons and comes with a nice fungi-attacked LCD screen. At least the lan port is still working, and that is all I need to connect myself with the rest of the world. Okie... not quite, cos I am lazy to download msn messenger.

Speaking of nostalgia, try going to http://scholar.google.com/ , and search 'Time and Housing in Singapore: Becoming, History and Nostalgia'. Strange that they put my name as LW Chung. Oh well, I figured out my name isn't quite academic-superstarish to begin with. Dr Jimmy ??? Makes me sound like a drug or a deejay. I think if you want to qualify as a academic superstar, you need to have a respectable academic name; I think weird names like Susan Strange, Leotard, or Francis Fukuyama can either make or break the route to Phd stardom.

Anyway, I think I am a bit jaded. Which explains the less-than-positive outlook recently. The 4 days in Tioman (which I am really thankful for) weren't exactly power-boosting enough to replenish 5 months of wear and tear in the spirit and the soul, and the 2 weeks in China zapped quite a bit of my Xmen powers. So it is slightly worrying that the mission trip to Korat is less than 2 weeks away. I'm really thankful that Jen, Min Sin and Clem are on board the team; each of them has their own unique strengths - being prayerful and relational (Jen), being motherly and fun to the sec 1s (Min Sin) and being objective and task-oriented (Clem). As for myself, I am still working on those qualities, but my problem is that I kinda live on a short fuse; I find it hard to sustain the task-oriented mode or the relational mode for too long; anything more than a few days and I'll retreat into my own personal zone to space out.

So I think I need to space out for the next 2 weeks if I want to be effective for Him in Korat. Still working on the direction and trajectory for the mission trip. Somehow, I think He is putting the word 'relational' as the focus for the team. It makes sense to me, given that it is hard to really establish any concrete stuff in 7 days, and building good relationship with the field workers in Alpha Centre and the Korat kids will be a good stepping stone for future endeavors in Thailand.

I'm not thinking about Netherlands at this point in time.

Reason 1: Don't really have much time and energy to plan anything at this point in time. All I know is that I'm meeting my JC buddy in Brussels on 1 July to catch some world cup actions in a pub.

Reason 2: I don't know; feel more burdened than excited just thinking about it. I know what some might think: 'Jimmy the spoilt brat, who gets a blessing to the Netherlands but still complains about it'. Oh well, I must admit that it's true to some extent. But I find it hard to explain away the source of the burden; maybe some things just can't be explained away with words. Perhaps I'm feeling this way cos I'm jaded. Well, if there is anything positive that comes out from this sense of burden, it is the endorsement that certain dispositions in my heart remain unchanged.