Jelly days and fishy nights

A rundown of the past day or so. Yesterday evening Mum decided she wanted to go to the aquarium - somehow we all ended up going. Laura's said she felt really young again doing the whole family outing thing. I agreed. I directly reminded Mum that, "We are no longer six, so don't speak to us like we are." Sometimes I despair of her, have to remind myself that she is the way she is and I can't really change that. How harsh does that sound :S It was quite good regardless. The jellyfish were utterly astounding, the sharks being a tad less impressive than the Sydney aquarium but still sharkish and mysterious and the coral reef bits made me sufficently homesick for snorkelling and the Solomons and the marine tank we used to own. So I sat in this great big long bean bag thing and watched the massive fish and sharks and stingrays and thought about how it would be a good place to come (all day) to just think. Hmm. a future possibility perhaps? That, or come all day with someone and sit there and talk about everything and anything - simply as it is an unusual and interesting location and why wouldn't you bring someone you wanted to talk to, to a place like that? I tried to forget the matter of the legionares disease scares. See some jelly fish and go to flickr to see more. We ended up going to the sale at the Exhibition centre later on and that was a major waste of time. Rather overwhelming too at the volume of books and stuff they had there, entirely trippy when you are walking along rows and rows of books and cds trying to see if there is anything worth buying. It was kind of nice doing the whole family outing thing. Mum did mention that 'we are' going on a holiday (3 days) at the end of January up to Bright or somewhere near there. I made up mind that I am not going to go. I told myself that last time was the last time (at least for a while). I don't want to have to shuffle work and I would welcome the space and time. I told them this - they can't really do much about it, and know it. It's not that I don't like spending time with them - yes I do find it difficult but three days would probably be quite okay. Sometimes you have to draw a few lines particularly if it's going to (I hope) vaguely flick a few switches on in certain parent's minds. Saying that, Mum's not stupid, she knows very well - I guess it's just another sad little attempt of Bec's to invent independance. Church this morning. Was okay, the sermon wasn't very sermonish in the typical sense, talked more about church values again, but stuff that they are adressing which I was pleased to see. I decided that I'm going to give Vineyard a shot until/if God gives me a whopping big shove to move on. Analise wont be around much longer as she's moving up to somewhere for uni, but I'm slowly starting to get to know a few of the others. We went to someones house for lunch, none of their 'older' kids could make it, two of them away and their oldest (whom I know by sight - 20's something age) lives elsewhere. Really nice people, she's teaching maths at MECS (they finally score a decent methods teacher!). They had a pool. Which was excellent considering the weather was warm enough. Swum. It's so nice to swim again. Laughed a fair bit with Em and Laura. It's weird you know I've spent more time with Laura recently (thanks to watching various episodes of Alias *cough*) - not sure exactly why but we are beginning to have slightly more than just passing by conversations, its a good thing. I'm just not sure where it's headed. My family is weird. I think everyone timewarped a bit being 'out' at someone's place for lunch. Australians dont' seem to do that much - share meals. But a heap of old stories resurfaced. I think they either thought we were a lot more outgoing than we actually are, or just plain strange. And tomorrow I shall attempt to find a, "What's distincitive about missionary kids" list as Mum, Hannah and I talked about it in the car on the way home. Quite interesting. Oh, I have a driving lesson tomorrow - a real one. If you are going to 'invent independance' you'd best do something about it. Sleep dreams.