First visit to Chennai

We have been burning midnight oil the whole of last week preparing to teach in Chennai, India next week. I remember that I was in Chennai at exactly this time of the year two years ago! It'll be interesting to watch Brian's reaction to the order-within-chaos traffic there!

We've been so busy we have have forgotten what it is like to actually sit down for a proper meal or to cuddle up on the couch for a movie... For me, it will continue to be hectic until mid-June when we get to go away for two weekends consecutively - one, a retreat to Malaysia with some friends from church, the other a somewhat free holiday to Phuket in Thailand (we're grateful to generous friends who share their goods!).

All the late nights have been especially hard for Brian as he has been under the weather. Well-meaning friends last evening gave a host of suggestions on how to prevent minor illnesses like cough and cold. One actually said that he is trying to eat right as he has plans to live up to a hundred. Now why, I asked Brian later, would one want to live that long? I don't want to live that long - when all my peers have gone over the other side and I'm still here???!!!

My motto: A short but purposeful life is always preferred to a long one. Besides, there is only one thing that is guaranteed in life - that we will ALL die! Here's what Steve Turner has to say:

Death Lib
The liberating thing about death
Is in its fairness to women
its acceptance of blacks,
its special consideration for the sick.

And I like the way
that children aren’t excluded,
homosexuals are welcomed,
and militants aren’t banned.

Con men can’t con it
Thieves can’t nick it
Bullies can’t scare it
Magicians can’t trick it.

Boxers can’t punch it
Nor critics dismiss it
Don’t knows can’t not know
The lazy can’t miss it.

Governments can’t ban it
Or the army defuse it
Judges can’t jail it
Lawyers can’t sue it.

Capitalists can’t bribe it
Socialists can’t share it
Terrorists can’t jump it
The Third World aren’t spared it.

Scientists can’t quell it
Nor can they disprove it
Doctors can’t cure it
Surgeons can’t move it.

Einstein can’t halve it
Guevara can’t free it
The thing about dead
Is we’re all gonna be it.
[Steve Turner, “Up to Date” (Sevenoaks UK: Hodder and Staughton Ltd., 1987), pp. 72-73]