all said and done

Redirect

2006-09-27T23:40:00.000+10:00

Please update all your links/rss feeds etc... to: http://allsaidanddone.com this blog now resides there and shall be updated there (NOT HERE) please excuse the frequent change of templateish stuff as I stuff around and ignore the bits that are there that shouldn't be. big thanks again to Geoff!

Slinky Malinki

2006-09-27T15:15:00.000+10:00

Check this out! The world might finally be coming to some sense. The refusal of 'too skinny' models is the best news I've heard in ages for this kind of crap . (I don't follow the fashion world at all and generally regard with huge contempt.) Lets see, if this takes off - I might even allow myself to look in the occasional magazine when I find myself in a waiting room. Mind you... I'll have to add an extra 5 years so the subscription dates are old enough to make it there.

All Said is Moving!

2006-09-27T14:48:00.000+10:00

So some recent investigations into moving across Wordpress have extended to the greater application of shifiting not only the blog, but aquiring such a thing as a domain name. Of which I am utterly indebted to an 'almost' present from Geoff (I think he's pretty good! Now go read his blog!). So... be on the look out for: allsaidanddone.com (when it gets through and when I get to putting things up). This blogspot address with cease to be updated when this happens, so while you remember, update your feeds and your links (so I still get your traffic :P). And so comes room for redesigning... I think I'll probably keep things relatively familiar. Any suggestions, please shoot them my way.

Investigating

2006-09-26T16:13:00.000+10:00

Hello readers who WILL comment. I am investigating the possiblity of either going with Beta Blogger (which I haven't dared to try yet) or wordpress. Wordpress Trial with potential to be used can be found HERE. I have imported my posts (so it can be done, comments included) and stuffed around with a few categories. Oh and is there any way to get around customising my template more than just the header image without having to pay? What say you?

Taking the ribbon off the box

2006-09-25T17:11:00.000+10:00

Last Wednesday Stephen Said came to 'guest speak' for young adults. We - as I somewhat expected, explored the wider implications of living out our theology - to pin a cliche theme on it: social justice. As small as my 'practical application' for this is, my challenge, my red button of the evening was pushed good and hard. Something I'd been thinking about for a while really. About 6 months to a year ago I stopped watching the news. Too much, too depressing, too little time. Through the course of the evening's discussions, I lighted on a curious parallel (but a static one, because in my mind parallels just keep on going forever). I talked to God about compassion a while back. How I wasn't/aren't that compassionate a person, which being one of those regretable (but beautiful) asks, hit me a bit hard. Soon thereafter ceased my exploration of current affairs and what's going on in the world. I didn't recognise it as anything other than just reclaiming some more time. I'm wondering now if it was 'other'. So. It was my intention this week, to get back into watching the news. Downgrade the bifocalisation (there I used it!). My small thing. Watch it, allow myself to recognise, and dare I suggest feel it. Intentions are good things. Not so good if you don't follow through on them. I think I've watched the news once. I tried to read the paper - but felt really out of it and didn't have any background to get back into the what was going on. It shouldn't be hard, but it is. Time is a ridiculous commodity that's forever getting in the way. So, engaging with the issues that we should care about in the world - how do you do it?

Eccentric

2006-09-22T01:54:00.000+10:00

Well, so much for promises. Any made on here seem to be as empty as my head is. Java Script Validation blah-de-blah gave me more trouble than I thought possible. But due to some very well meaning nerd friends (who tried to help - even dredged up someone from the past for me) but really one very cluey someone who saved my sanity, I got started and managed to work the rest out myself - which meant removing one form field because I (dare I admit it) couldn't be stuffed. It was a frustrating day really. I'm not sure what's happened with me and deadlines. I used to have things done well before the day and I find now that I'm cutting things down to about the hour - absurdly enough my marks haven't changed. Which leads me to wonder what I could've done with all those extra hours that I poured into 'perfecting the finer details'. The problem here is that being who I am, quite likes the finer details and the job not really well done isn't half as satisfying, nor does it sit as nicely with my conscience (or whoever happens to be on the blame plate.) Why the heck Rebecca are you up at this hour? You probably don't go around reading the "time I posted" information, but in case you do, here's some kind of explanation. I have had equivalent to approximately a litre of Coke, some fairy floss, a brownie... and mm yeah that's about it in the past 5 hours or so. That sounds pretty bad, now I write it out. Why. Truth be told, and hey Mum is going to read this eventually, so what. They've (That being the Parentals and the two little sisters) been away for the week and get back tomorrow. ~~Mum~~ Dad left a request that all the ironing be done by the time that happens. At about 7:30 this evening Laura and I happened to remember that we'd better do something about it. We unearthed a solution; went to the video (or should we start calling it dvd) shop up the road, to get out three possibly degenerative choices and capitolised on what sugar we could find. So after - Sliding Doors, Four Weddings and a Funeral -neither of which I'd seen before, the ironing was done. 50:50 split with a spill or few of coke and water (one of which was for the iron, one for myself). We then looked at the clock and decided to, "Why not watch the last". The third choice, was probably not exactly your typical hum... 20yrs/youth/adult choice. We had the old versions on video and loved them when we were younger and probably still own them. We also remember Mum reading the book aloud. We also, also hadn't bothered to see it when it was re-released. So, 5 Children and It. Freak variation, with the classic 'Eccentric' line which, coupled with the hour, had me laughing pretty hard. Odd though. Don't know if I really liked it that much. Not quite the magic the story used to have. It is now 2am (at least). I've worked out that I have to go into Uni tomorrow to hand in two assignments - Goodbye all plans of a relaxing 'at home' day. The one that caused the heartache earlier and the Folio for 'Foundations of Design' of which NO-ONE has been told a thing about, there is nothing about assesment up online at all, she hasn't mentioned a squeak and when we were going to ask her the tute was cancelled. All we all know is that we have to submit 5 images by some time on the 22nd of September, now today. As the situation pans out, I only really have 4 of these images as we had a substitute tutor for three weeks who took the class to new heights by creating his own cirriculum. So I have dredged up a 5th and can hopefully talk my way into fitting it into the bigger picture. Of which I have absolutely no idea how that is going to work and don't know that I will be able to when it comes to it. Oh, did I forget to mention - this assignment is worth 50% of the Subject. How much I love Deakin and it's P (see Myers Briggs) tendancies! I confess I am more worried about the one field I cut out of my form validation (assignment all up worth 10% of the subject) than that folio. I know she likes my work, so I'm hoping my hardest to lean on the 4 decent and definitely valid images. And I was going to go to bed early tonight...

Static and blog are antonyms

2006-09-21T11:51:00.000+10:00

What a boring blog. Today I shall endeavor to throw a few posts your way. It is afterall, an exceptional way to procrastinate while I continue the horendous plough through some java script for my assignment due... um, tomorrow. I am far more of a fan of design than I am of coding. What fool told me I should have a little of the dry stuff to back me up and so chose subjects to match? The best news is that I am on holidays for a little over a week! And once this assignment is done. Oh wow! I shall let my mind run and my fingers go ballistic on this keyboard and read and do all manner of other things which I haven't quite worked out yet. Somehow amongst all the busyness, I have still managed to fit in reading some stuff. You can have a look here.

Go on till you come to the end

2006-09-17T17:16:00.000+10:00

Unless some miraculous impartation of genius arrives just about now, you're going to have to content yourself with a 'doings post'. I've tried starting what I want to say on Community and what I want to say on what God's been pushing buttons in me all week but it's not working itself into any kind of reasonable framework. I think I shall start refusing to say, "It's coming" because I was all keyed up to write something the moment I got home and I sat down at the computer and started something that didn't flow and couldn't be finished. I have had - if I can count Friday, a most marvellous weekend. Friday was my chance to take a day for myself. Meaning: sleep the morning away, and be productive in doing all the little things I've wanted to do for ages. Things like giving myself some time to simply enjoy myself by reading more of a book that has very little relevance to life and absolutely no practical implication whatsoever. The evening was spent going to see Nacho Libre with Geoff. The movie was very stupid but funny as anything so it was quite an enjoyable experience. We then came home to my Mother's plea for a Boggle match with her, Dad and Lulu. Saturday Geoff and I went into the city, to have a look at the Charles Blackman: Alice in Wonderland exhibition, among other things. Very worth a look at, cheaper than Picasso - and dare I say it, better. Fantastic bright colours and big paintings. This one is in at the Fed Square in the Ian Potter Gallery rather than at NGV International. Had a wander in the Botanical Gardens as the weather was fantasic, then I took him down to Albert Park near where I used to work, had a coffee at Browns and walked down to the beach and got a few photos (which I may flickr soonish). Dinner back at Geoff's and then two 21st's. And today's doings can wait as they are pertinent I think to the post on community and beginings (or endings as the case may be) that refuses to be written. "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop." - Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

We're There For You

2006-09-14T20:41:00.000+10:00

So after trip to Anaconda to confer with Mick and Dan (and Laura - I was just driving) about a certain birthday present being 'joint bought' by 15 or so people for Marty, Laura and I wound up at Eastland. After some sock shopping (I'm being quite serious I really need some) and some looking around, there was a, 'Poor, silly person you left your lights on' announcement. This time the number plate was read out and it was all too familiar. Anyway, after calling home and realising that the parentals were at my sisters school interview, we waited and contemplated calling the RACV. Had a coffee and a pretzel thing. Dad called back and told me to call the RACV as it would be faster. They took about 5 minutes. I tell you what, I'm a huge fan! And that was truly the only remotely thing close to a drama today. My life wouldn't make a good soap. At least I'm getting my money's worth out of it, alright maybe it was a birthday present, but Laura, you should possibly start driving before you allow people to bother getting you any kind of roadside service insurance! Post with more thought coming! Maybe even tonight.

Trail through

2006-09-13T18:04:00.000+10:00

triumph of the day: Getting some Java Script to properly validate after a very messy mess around in some code. random freak thing: Today I became an 'actor' for one of Jess' uni friends Analee mini movie. She sent me a text message saying I didn't have to really act. I ended up pretending to be dead, running away and falling down some stairs, in the view of a lot of people just passing by. Wow that girl owes me big time! enjoyable moment(s): Seeing Geoff this morning. Afternoon tea with Samantha where I talked my head off. We covered a lot of ground in 45minutes. low scumb fall to temptation: It's a difficult thing when you've been at uni all day and you have to come back through a food court, a maccas, a coffeeshop and numerous other food outlets on the way to your train. It's particularily difficult when you have to wait half an hour because you've just missed the last one. I managed to curb actually buying anything (like clothes) early on after starting at Deakin. By restricting myself to 'just looking'- I have about 20 minutes minimum to waste at BoxHill each uni day. There isn't anywhere except the food court to sit, so that's how I waste time. The last minute pass by Maccas/Gosh coffee is really surprisingly hard. I'm usually pretty good with how I use my money, but it's getting horribly easy to give in. I sucessfully refused getting anything (except a present for someone) which I was pleased about. I got onto the platform and some bout of insanity took hold and I 'had a look' in the food stall. $2.70 later I had some hot chips. I was immediately not impressed. I couldn't eat all of them and frankly I wasn't even really that hungry. I thought about it a lot on the way home. Too much maybe. Sometimes I do turn trivial things like that into much larger issues. After I decided it probably wasn't so much worth beating myself up over giving- and feeling decidedly not all that good for eating them in the first place, I thought about how I do spend money. I've been thinking about it a fair bit lately actually. I had a conversation with Jess W about money and spending habits - on her prompting about a week ago. God and money and how much we should 'consult' him before we spend. Everything? Yay/nay or is that too wishwashy? Or is it afterall the principle beneath. The conciousness/acknowledgement (or other word with 12+ letters that's relevant) of God. It's a well known fact that I'm a Dutchy stinge and it's a personal realisation that I've gotten far less concerned about it in the past 6 months - which I think is probably a good thing, because I know I've been far too tight fisted. When it comes down to it. I don't care a lot about money. It's not something I have an awful lot of in terms of 'Western gurus', but it's not something I lack. Care to start up a 'buy Bec a digital camera' fund? Don't. I'll refuse your money. I do think I'm hitting a bit of a point where it can get a bit trivial. I spend a fair bit of money on coffee - although I've found $1 coffee's now so that's alright. I often get out of bed too late to get enough food for lunch so there's that. And sure you can 'do it cheaply' BUT if I was less lazy and got out of bed sooner, it'd be wiser. So. From today or tomorrow perhaps. I shall be keeping better track of where the loose change is going. It doesn't hurt to be a little bit free occasionally, but the other shrapnel could be going somewhere better. It's also got just a little bit to do with good stewardship. But hey, that's a whole big book issue. Lets start with the surface level stuff. Grow up and realise that your theology should underpin your life Rebecca. anticipation: Tim's running young ad's tonight, I've got some inside info in whats going to happen. I've decided to hold off on posting any community related thoughts (which was the blog post that is coming) as I might just get a few more tonight. Here's to banding together!

A few links

2006-09-13T17:32:00.000+10:00

A few links for those mildly design/art interested. And try the second one anyway, whoever you are. Daily Dose of Imagery by Sam Javanrouh - a photographers blog which I intend to keep an eye on. A is for Apple - try this one out! I'd bet this is one of the weirdest design/random sites out there. How's this for postmodern navigation? It's all rather disturbing. I don't want to know how long it took to make.

In a Tif

2006-09-12T23:02:00.000+10:00

So, I spent 4 tedious hours today scanning in over a hundred of my slides. Every little problem I didn't anticipate came up to bite me in the bum. I managed to get hold of the slide template and the scanner was free. The computer was not happy with finding me on the network, I'd left my usb stick at home and had no blank cds. The template is due back tomorrow morning. I ran down to the studio and borrowed Matt's stick. 256mb, with some stuff already on it. So I scanned some, then crashed a classroom of 'typology showing students' a couple of times to offload onto my drive - which was having issues also. The usb stick went psycho and filled up with only 2.5mb spare even when I deleted the last lot, which would've left more than half the slides un-scanned. I had a moment of triumph when I worked out what was going on - more really that I fixed something I don't know why the heck was happening. I get home and spend ages getting them across from the ftp onto my computer because I want to be able to have a good look at them and put a few up. Sure, I've scanned them in at a mighty high resolution (as they are slides and really small and you want to get them up to beyond thumbnail size). That's fine. I saved them as .tif to attempt to keep as much quality as I could. Anyway, now photoshop is chucking a spaz and not letting me resave them as jpgs. even when I try to ferry my way around it. I can't help but thinking that this is something to do with the bit-depth, which I think was also very high. But why! It doesn't make any sense! And flickr claims to be able to read .tiff files (which I can save them as) and still doesn't like it! So, you'll have to be satisfied with a screenshot for now. I can't put them up on flickr until I work out what's going on. Any suggestions would be marvellous.

Rundown

2006-09-12T00:00:00.000+10:00

Before the day ends, a very brief run down on the goings on of the last few days... Friday night: Last Youth night for the term - cooked spaghetti for the kids after nearly forgetting the frying pans. Excellent night with some good conversation and discussion. Laura ran the God spot and talked about Loving others. A personal 'funny' moment was explaining what 'fly off the handle' meant to a 12 year old... Yeah and they say the Message version is meant to be relevant! Saturday: Managed to avoid the mad house of getting things ready for Em's 18th. Went under the 'pretence' of gardening (so claims Mum) at Geoff's place - it threatened rain so we watched Garden State instead. Close enough. Did some gardening after the movie. Found: worms, snails, a slug, a very cool frog... and a lot of weeds. Came back home where people had already arrived. Em had a girly/pink (ugh) party with about 20+ girls. I think Geoff was a little overwhelmed but he can probably speak for himself. I found it highly amusing and the fact that all that pink was way too much for me, I don't want to know how Dad and Geoff were coping. I had to have a shower so left him out there with ~~Laura~~ LuLu to entertain him. Ate some party food and got out of there. Got to Burkie's 21st without getting lost. Saw a lot of gusheroodle people I haven't seen in a long time. Belle was there!!!! Geoff got to meet Paul and Burks. Funniest speech I think I've ever heard. Sang Happy Birthday and made the long trek back. Sunday: Overslept so came 20 mins late to church. To Ana's place afterwards with the crew for a BBQ. Few of us stayed for dinner - homeade pasta. I managed to touch Ana on the back about 3 times unintentionally, I don't think she was impressed. On drive back from dropping G home, God whalloped me hard with something (See previous post for vague references). Monday: Morning. Slight Embarassing moment where I find out something my mum, no wait, make that my WHOLE family knows. Huw (from uni) and I have a conference about course changing after I balk at the structure of BIM (Bachelor of Interactive Media) next year. I'm not keen on 3D animation let alone animation and so much of it is around that. Decide I sensibly should get out. I land on a very promising possibility at Swinburne Prahan - Communication Design. *Which I'll link when the Swin. website is working! It's more print, more publishing, graphic designy stuff and the 'big picture' elements. With some alternatives at Monash and RMIT. Need to get onto them soon and pull together some kind of folio. I almost definitely will be applying after I investigate a little further. Dinner out with Geoff at the Pig and Whistle. Very nice. Now. Crappy blog post. Bed *It is now working

A New Way

2006-09-10T22:46:00.000+10:00

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." - Ephesians 3:16-19 "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." - 1 John 3:16-20 "You're throwing your love across My impossible space You've created me Take me out of me into A new way to be human" - Switchfoot lyrics (A New Way to Be Human) I do not feel well at all. Not in the sense of sickness or tiredness. Simply in the fact that I am far too familiar with living my life out of my head. My relationship with God is much the time not much of a relationship at all. More of a knowing and getting stuck in that and not really understanding it in its fullness. I sometimes get to taste this foreign beautiful realm of feeling. It's been a very long time. It is curious to see what it takes to crack what feels like a major block in any true authenticity. It takes too much. I am glad of a God who persists .

Why I hope I do what I do

2006-09-09T00:49:00.000+10:00

Tally-ho, it's late but this one can be posted now and the other one brewing (that is a post - and expanding in my brain at an ever increasing rate) can wait until tomorrow if there is time. I am beginning to think that I must look like a very approachable kind of person. Not that this is a bad thing, but when you start attracting those trying to convert you to xyz - it's a bit of a worry. I guess I'm a 'safe target'. So I was sitting having a rather good chai latte while I was waiting for the train (in to uni today to hand in an assignment) and this old lady is dragging her pale green old-lady shopping cart around. I moved my chair slightly to let her pass and she stopped. "I just have some magazines in my cart" I gave her a quizzical look while my mind was running through the reasons why she would be telling me that. She pulls out two thin magazines - rather shonkily designed, if I can say so. Very, very Jehovah's Witness looking publications, by that I mean it said so on the cover. "I just want to give you these" Out flew any reason and smart alec responses from my mind and I politely said I didn't really need them. She persisted. "I can take them, but I don't think I'll be reading them" "It'd make me happy if you read them" "Um... I already believe in God (etc...)" "No, this is different, it'll be quite different to what you've heard before this tells you the right kingdom way. You can just read one a night. " "Uh...well... I'll take them, but I wont be reading them" I took them out of her hands and said a very aimicable goodbye and as soon as she was out of sight went over and dropped them in the bin. Afterwards I was sitting thinking through further what was going on in my head at the time - the rather desperate, "Okay, what do I know about JW's and such" and about how it's really quite sad that they are so caught up in (hope I've got the right 'religion' here) earning their salvation. It's like being part of an impossible footy tipping competition. You never quite get things right. You just have to keep trying and trying. To steal a quote from Christina's blog,

"It may take us a lifetime of fishing to realise that there is a figure waiting on our shoreline, waiting for us to recognise who he really is. Waiting for us to turn from ‘earning’ to ‘accepting’. We can choose to look away, humiliated by our inadequacy; we can refuse his identity, preferring to retreat into our own concepts of how God should deal with us; we can bury our hope in activity. But that will never change who he is, what he has done and what he expects of us." - Geoff Bullock

Frankly, I really like the whole concept of grace. I have definitely been caught up in legalism banter before and played a pretty decent role in probably misconstruing quite a few things down that alley. I am so thankful that my reasons (when I truly consider them) for trying to live my life the way I think God want's me to live are not based upon earning his favor. They don't need to be. “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”- Psalm 143:10

How black my outlook

2006-09-07T17:17:00.000+10:00

So you haven't heard recently of those picking on my poor car. I'm not sure if I mentioned the vegemite squashed onto my windscreen? Last night was by far the worst. We were cooking some meals with the rest of the crew (these meals go out to the community and it was what we decided to run with for this weeks young ad's thing). I did end up getting a face full of flour and wasn't happy at all about it - having contacts in. I did think that was the end of it. By the end of the evening my car (and Geoff's car - I guess you get targetted by association) had flour all over it. The cars were wet, due to this rare phenomeon we call rain. I was not impressed. It took a while going over with buckets of water to simply clear the windscreens enough to drive home. I am even less impressed now. I've just spent almost an hour with the hose, hot water and other stuff scraping this mucky pastey crap off pretty much everywhere. This hour could've been a lot better spent. I don't usually believe in retalliation but I've been seriously considering bending the rules this once. Not happy. Any idea's would be welcome, his name is Daniel if you would like to deal with him in person.

The Hub

2006-09-07T15:38:00.000+10:00

Last year I had a class run by this guy (Mark Sayers) on practical evangelism. I now find out he blogs every so often. Some very interesting stuff about youth related mission.

Reunion

2006-09-07T00:25:00.000+10:00

Some photos from the YITS reunion night can be found over on Tom's flickr account. This is Tom by the way - and me. We were 'nerd' friends (and hopefully a bit more than that) through last year. He blogs over here and lives much too far away to see even close to frequently. He's a funny man. If you ever get the chance ask to read his 'book' and tell him to hurry up and finish it.

Another equally gullible fish

2006-09-06T23:47:00.002+10:00

Apparently my little sister nearly bothered staying up late just to see my reaction (which she predicted would be me 'close to wetting myself')... She didn't stay up. I did however laugh and laugh and laugh. A very well meaning (I'm sure) and usually very understanding/reasonable, wonderful relative of mine dropped by some time today and gave Mum four envelope's for us girls. I guess she got the gist that there might just be some boys round the place and it might be good for us to 'be aware' of certain things. Wow the phrasing in this thing is beautiful! So very, very wrong and so very funny. I couldn't stop laughing after knowing who it was from and seeing the first word that jumped out at me from the page - which to be quite honest was 'sex' (ooooh). Oh the moose line! Read and cry. "Why not prove your love by sticking your head in the oven and turning on the gas" < If that's not an Analise style line if I ever heard one! (And yes, the underlinings aren't mine, she must have gone to the trouble to photocopy it... Mum warned me not to be too harsh, which is why I've not named her... when it comes down to it, I really do think my Grandma is a very wise woman).

One's brain reels

2006-09-05T22:38:00.000+10:00

"To live is to be slowly born" - Antoine de Saint Exupery

There were a couple of options in starting this - I could have afterall, written this post last night. The outcome would've been far more glum. I have been madly working on (and procrastinating) my next assignment by doing all kinds of fun social things and I'm sorely tempted to just get offline and immerse myself in The Moonstone (which happens to be what I'm reading at the moment) which isn't really social at all - nevermind, but for the sake of getting something down and while things are looking a little bit more like they belong in an optimist's world, I shall continue. If you go back a few lines to where I started, that quote, however beautiful, speaks pretty much to me of life in all it's pain and messiness. It might be a tad extreme to parallel my life exactly with that, but life is not neat. I guess the comforting thing about that quote if you run with the metaphor is that some kind of miracle is the end result. I know that life isn't all pain. Life isn't all horrible. Life is on the most part is quite good but for the sake of an argument I hardly need to make, there certainly are 'the pits'. If I wanted to keep running with ridiculous metaphors, I'd say that uni and the career thing is my pit and the moment and I get to wield this shovel and can't quite work out if I should dig myself into it or dig myself out of it. Early yesterday I had a fairly decent conversation with Adrian - who is my tutor for Studio and a fantastic guy, who remembers his students as humans. I was the only one around for the first 20 minutes or so and he was asking me how I was finding uni. I confessed again, (After last week's and previous miserable experiences) how uncertain I was about continuing the course. He asked me about my interests, an easy kind of question: writing, theology, photography, some multimedia stuff like blogging... and he did state pretty plainly that I should definitely go where my interests are. a) I'll enjoy it b) I'll be good at it because I enjoy it. And told me to find something that combined my interests - believe me I've tried - but I can't help thinking I'm looking down a hall way and only seeind doors instead of the birds-eye view. We talked a bit more about what I would want to do if I didn't stick with Interactive Media. A far more difficult question which I still do not have an answer for. As far as things play out there are a couple of alternatives. None of which I have yet taken the time to properly look into. A rough idea: Tabor to study more theology, my mind and heart would love it, but I don't know where it would take me, Teaching, but if I did that I think I'd want to wait a bit, Writing, I worked out probably 'no' to doing it as a course focused thing a while back, Work and delay all career moves which is not a good option and I shouldn't have bothered mentioning it. Last night (where the glum post isn't). I chanced across a couple of quotes that I have been familiar with from the past, both in actuality and themeatically.

"The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." - Fredrick Beuchner "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Gil Bailie

Being where I am (BIM) does on the most part frustrate me incredibally. I think that I've talked before about time-wasting and how I don't feel all that intellectually challenged by the work and those around me at uni. It is wrong I think now, with 24 short hours of hindsight, to pick those quotes and the depth behind them and pin the label of career onto them. Which is what I sort of did in my tired state last night. Ultimately a lot of what I'd like to be on about isn't around career at all -I really couldn't care less about the piece of paper - but I do care about what I'm doing with my time. This casts things in a massively different perspective. This afternoon I said how scary it is how easily I swing from, "I need to get out of this course" to, "Yeah maybe I can do this". What I am doing is highly dependant upon the choices I make in regards to how I'm going to approach it. It is not senseless to pursue a career. It is not senseless to choose otherwise. It is thoroughly ridiculous to be sitting in something stuck in a rut of complaining about being there and not bothering to use that time effectively. It's also a very, very easy thing to do. If there is one thing you could pray for me at the moment, it would be about this - because regardless of whether I'm being intentional about thinking it or not, the people around me do not shut-up about talking about their dissatisfaction with everything they can find a name for, which essentially makes me think about it anyway. If you were to ask me which was my favourite subject this semester I'd be hard pressed to choose as I don't particularly like any of them that much. I would eventually settle on Systems Design, despite the horrible assignments, incapable tutors and the endless chatter during lectures. So, today the lecturer (She is fantastic) for Systems, digressed on this glorious tangent about paradigms and multimedia and other big exciting words like inoculate. I got all rather inspired and perhaps saw some light/possibilities at the end of the 'era' (ie: when I leave uni). It's no real secret that project management stuff/design does interest me, and the rest of the class I kept finding these weird parallels with the methods and techniques in designing systems and with life/God stuff/theology. So I left encouraged and with the idea that maybe I can stick with this afterall and maybe it is relevant. I do however need to decide to care and decide to get enthused about what's going on and clearly pick out what path I want to take within this massively massive field. And of course in the meanwhile, in the intervening time, in the duration of whatever I'm doing, I need to follow the golden rule of usability testing - doing it all the way through instead of just at the end when it is far too late. And by that I mean, keep living now how I believe God wants me to live and stop hanging so much off 'what happens when I get there'.

"It does one good to feel that one had still a brother who lives and walks on this earth; when one has so many things to think of, and many things to do, one sometimes gets the feeling: where am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? And one's brain reels, but then such a well-known voice as yours, or rather a well-known handwriting, makes one feel firm ground under one's feet." -Vincent Van Gogh

And thats the other half of the whole equation... Who am I 'travelling' with? But community and the like is encyclopaedic. Tacking something small and smartly ugly on the end can wait. It deserves it's own space.

Filling in

2006-09-03T09:12:00.000+10:00

I am restless this morning. There are absolutely no conclusive reasons why I should be. So I am up and very awake and listening to classical music. Why shouldn't I blog? It would do to mention that we had the 10 year Aniversery/Reunion for Year in the Son the other evening. The hall at Tabor was packed out and there was this contagious buzz which made the introvert in me disappear for a good while. It was great to see the majority of the crew again. I am not pleased with myself that I hardly talked at all to Katie and Jo and couldn't even find them when I was leaving. I had FAR too many ~~compliments~~ comments about me looking different without my glasses. Tom caught me just before we went up to get food and we had a very decent chat - and I think he suceeded in getting me just about as close to giggling about something as I ever have. The other notable conversation of the evening was with Tony. I'm always grateful to not waste an evening small talking. I'd much rather use my time effectively on one person than ineffectively on twenty. The electricity in the area's grid went out just as the speeches really got going. So it was tea-light candles, desert and no hope of finding anyone in the dark for a good hour. I think it possibly improved the evening. The following morning Jess VW had planned for whoever of our year was sticking around to have breakfast together (a lot of them slept at Tabor). I took my sisters to work as I had gone home to sleep and arrived about 9:00am. They were all still in bed. I went and played the nasty "Wake up! I'm hungry" role. By 10:30 (no joke, it took them ages!) we were eating in the pancake palour after being joined by a very jovial (hehe) Sam - because Steve is over. Jess, Jane and Lex (that's Alecia to you) somehow ended up eating elsewhere... I can't say I was overly impressed at having to wait so long for food and the whole, it's all organised, wasn't. Spent the afternoon with Geoff. Where I showed him Yerring Station. Which was a pretty good way to spend a Saturday! An Indian evening at Kat's place where I got to meet more of Geoff's school friends. I've now met Beth quite a few times and already know Mick and Kat through church, so it's all pretty easy. Much fun, great food and the chocolate game. ...and, I really should get going or I'm not going to get breakfast before church.

Lukewarm living

2006-09-01T11:24:00.000+10:00

I have moved myself out of doors to fully enjoy the first day of Spring. There are several things I should be doing - there always are. I have a washing basket full of books to put up on eBay and there's that storyboard assignment that's due on Wednesday. I could blog about meeting Burkie's Beth yesterday. It's definitely worth a mention and it was delightfully funny watching the two interact. It was good catching the Burks again and I really like Beth - if not for the primary reason that she's shorter than me ;P The reason that I came back on here, was to mention what we talked about on Wednesday night at Young Adults Small Group thing. Pete Downes made a 'guest apperance' comeback and did a mighty fine job of it. We began with the sweeping generalisation that about 50% would no longer be Christians by the age of 40 and looked at some of the causes. Namely life pressures, spouse choice, career etc. Then at the implementation of 'usefuls' that keep us going.

Spiritual Mentors
Discipline
Community
Accountability/peers
Choice of Christian partner (if this is the avenue you happen to waltz down)

I have heard similar statistics before and as 'freakish' as it is, I find it a bit difficult to comprehend. I can't claim to have done things overly well. I know that how I approach life and God can get sloppy at times and I certainly don't get everything right but he is pretty well ever-present and whatever difficulty I have in comprehending him only very very rarely gets to the 'existence' question. I unfortunately can't claim never - but am in some ways glad, because doubts, although unpleasant can push you on to something better and make you rationalise and work out more of your faith and why you believe what you do. Complacency is by far greater the worry. Although I can see myself remaining a Christian I know how easy it is to let things get comfortable, to drop off the self-discipline means of actively seeking God - enjoying God. A friend of mine, Analise (I hope you don't mind) wrote this poem,

Unsettle our hearts Feel challenged Feel encouraged Feel like we will never stop Continue to grow Continue to learn In you About you Unsettle our hearts Not get comfortable Not get lazy Not get caught up To go Live Breathe With our all But Unsettle our hearts

Revelation 3:14-22 addresses this. "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (3:15-16) It's an interesting passage. Because of the whole 'cold is prefferable to lukewarm' thing. Christianity in a:

comfortably numb
going through the motions
feet in two camps
apathetic
pious
bland

sense is not much use at all. I'm kicking myself now that despite writing a few things down, I skipped over this bit - maybe because the discussion got too interesting. So why is cold is prefferable to lukewarm? I started a thread a week or so ago in Gush on Rededication and the part it plays in Christianity, with the quote:

"A real barrier preventing Christians from enjoying the rest that Jesus promised is self-effort. Many have been so conditioned to believe that they must, "Do something for God" that they are constantly struggling to do more and more. Many have rededicated self to God again and again. Yet self is what stands in the way of victorious Christian living. As long as we struggle to live the Christian life, Christ is hindered from living it through us." - Steve McVey

I am always a little skeptical of the whole altar call approach to re-dedication. Perhaps it has to do with my fairly emphatic views on emotional manipulation. I don't think the issue is so much a re-dedication but a repentance and alignment. Which may or may not be the same thing. It all depends on how you look at it. I think it's brilliant that the, stand at the door and knock passage, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Rev 3:20) Is within the context of being directed at Christians. It's a bit sad that it gets so far removed from this context that we totally disregard it. I'm a huge fan of this whole passage (Yes, I'm still talking about the Revelation one).

"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." (3:17-18)

There's a lot more to Christianity than the going through the motions. A life of righteousness is both wonderful and excpetionally daunting. Certainly, God through his Son sees us that way without it we'd be screwed, but there's still that call to avoid the lukewarm living.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." (John 15:5-8 read more)

Be unsettled. And while you're at it, over on Matt Glover's blog there's a post that nice and relevant. Faith, Perspective and Passion.

Blogs

2006-09-01T10:21:00.000+10:00

It's always pretty exciting when I hit on a new blog that I really want to keep tabs on. As you might know, I'm a pretty regular reader of the Boundless Webzine - which I find thoroughly thought provoking and often bring up their content. They play a large part in giving my mind/heart a poke which usually results in something I share on here. So much to my delight, this morning's check of my email bought to my attention that Boundless are going "Live". They're starting a blog. This means more 'articles', more often. Whoop-de-doo! Boundless Line While I'm talking about blogs, I might as well give you an insight into a few more that I've noticed recently. The Rebelution (yep it's aimed at teens but an interesting line up of articles and posts here) Between Two Worlds (only noticed this one today, apparently it's got a good rap.) My Life as a Christian (not sure how long this one will last on my rss, but something must have caught my eye or it wouldn't have made it there) Jason Clark (conversations about church) Missionary Blogs (I had a bit of a laugh -and I'm allowed to, because I was subject to this situation- but if you want to keep tabs on some stuff going on around the world, its probably not a bad place to start) and some that I've been reading for a while now Pro-Blogger (If you blog you should possibly read this now and then) Waiter Rant (For a laugh) Out of Ur (For reading when I'm not tired because there is some fantastic stuff here - it just requires a bit of brain) Girl Talk Solo Femininity and all that saying, my blogging'ness really is very passive. I read and seldom comment - something I should redeem. Please, please share any good ones.

Dare I return to this again?

2006-08-31T21:20:00.000+10:00

So... I noticed this on Stephen's blog and although I don't find it overly hilarious, it's kind of a decent way to point out some flaws and identifying factors of the whole Myers Briggs thing. ~love the resident INTJ'er The Prayer for Myers Briggs Types ISTJ: Lord help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 11:41.23 am e.s.t. ISTP: God help me to consider people's feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive. ESTP: God help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they're usually NOT my fault. ESTJ: God, help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if You need some help, just ask. ISFJ: Lord, help me to be more laid back and help me to do it EXACTLY right. ISFP: Lord, help me to stand up for my rights (if you don't mind my asking). ESFP: God help me to take things more seriously, especially parties and dancing. ESFJ: God give me patience, and I mean right NOW. INFJ: Lord help me not be a perfectionist. (did I spell that correctly?) INFP: God, help me to finish everything I sta ENFP: God,help me to keep my mind on one th-Look a bird-ing at a time. ENFJ: God help me to do only what I can and trust you for the rest. Do you mind putting that in writing? INTJ: Lord keep me open to others' ideas, WRONG though they may be. INTP: Lord help me be less independent, but let me do it my way. ENTP: Lord help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I'll settle for a few minutes. ENTJ: Lord, help me slow downandnotrushthroughwatIdo. Amen.

Of which I am ashamed

2006-08-31T14:15:00.000+10:00

About 5 minutes ago I bought the camera out to the kitchen and mum gave me a panicky, "Don't put this on the blog!" Now usually I'd respect this kind of statement but in order to expose the most shameful thing about our house and to hopefully prevent it from happening as often, I'd like to introduce you to our fridge. I live in what I think is a pretty good house. Being one of the 'neater' (most of the time) members of our household I'm generally fairly satisfied with the way things are - when I choose to ignore the numerous bits and pieces of 'collections' mum has around the place. The fridge is a totally different matter. I've known Laura to jump infront of friends to 'not let them look' only to appologise profusely afterwards. "Just shove it where it fits, if it fits" is said fairly often as well as, "I don't want to know what's in there". So it's been bad for a LONG time now since no one has bothered to clean the good old, cold, white thing. I've been avoiding it as much as possible. I could just clean it, but I find that there is vast difference between cleaning say, my room and cleaning off food and out of date salad dressings. I do throw the occasional suss looking item out but I do my absolute best to steer clear of getting involved. I'd rather solve the problem by prevention and throwing things out well before they get really bad than deal with it only when it reaches a certain state. So I walk out to where Mum and Laura are tackling every item I don't want to know about. There are three bags of rubbish sitting on the floor. Mum poses for the photo with the packet of out of date, once ham. Maybe later I'll go looking for something in there beyond margarine and milk and venture beyond the door. Whenever I happen to move out - which could be a while. I don't ever want a fride that remotely resembles what we've got.

Artsy Fartsy

2006-08-30T18:55:00.000+10:00

So, something at NGV (which I've been waiting for) has finally arrived. Charles Blackman's: Alice in Wonderland I was looking around the web one day and stumbled across a few of his artworks, only to discover that he'd be showing his face (or at least his paintings) later on this year in Victoria! I certainly intend to go and visit. The exhibition is on until October 15. Anyone interested?

Back state

2006-08-30T16:44:00.000+10:00

The days seem to procure dramatically different reactions. Yesterday I had quite a few good (or messy) reasons to be not so impressed with myself and yet it was superb in straightening some things out. I did, (as you checked Monica) take some time out for myself which was very important in clarifying a few things and finding God absolutely all over that. The God stuff is on the improve - if you can claim that? Today uni cast it's ugly shaddow yet again. I am frustrated at being sort of-perfectly okay with what I'm doing one day and totally fed up with it the next. I don't exactly want to give you another gloomy blog post again, but hmm it's a bit of the reality at the moment (not everything of course but hey). The problems I have with back/neck/shoulders are usually fairly subtle, so much that I think I'm just used to it never being quite right and only after a longish day or excessive hours of having to use the computer do they really hurt, but coming home today was pretty bad and still is. It's reached a point where I'm trying to work out why I'm so 'Blah' so often and I think it's got a lot to do with it. I went to the lake for a little bit after getting back to my car because I needed to walk or move/stretch a bit or something. It's a beautiful day out there! I really should get my back checked it's no longer pleasant. Oh... and if you ever want to give me a massage? I had afternoon tea with Sam who was in a very silly/funny/hilarious mood. She gave me a present! The Garden State dvd. I am very happy as it was on my list (which doesn't really exist) of the movies I want to own. Thanks Sam! If I wasn't going out tonight, I stay home and watch it in my beautifully clean room where I can actually sit on the bean bag again. My blogs are spacing out to one day on, one day off... their content isn't so much improving. A small cause - which is excellent for me but maybe not so good for you (as a an all said and done reader) is that I've started journalling again. Wish me well in my endeavours, but do give me a prod to put something new in here now and then.

All in a day's standing around

2006-08-28T23:08:00.000+10:00

Oh the lovelys of Connex. However much I detest and love the thing (simply because it saves me money on petrol) I really don't appreciate it taking me 3hrs to get to uni. Leaving at 7:42am and getting there around 11:42am (pretty well on the dot) is not exactly preferable. Mind you, it's probably a little bit to much to just blame on the train system. A good bit of blame must go as an almighty round of applause to Eastlink. On the lighter side. My morning made the Herald Sun and I had company pretty much the whole way. We managed to say a quick hi to James while waiting for about an hour in a line that just kept on going, got a seat on the bus, experienced three kinds - no, make that four, ways of getting from A to B, Adrian was nice and caught me up on the whole class of Studio that I managed to miss (5 minutes sure beats 2hrs), and I still got my assignment in on time! I have never seen a line of people that long before! (The photo - thanks Herald Sun, was pretty much exactly like it was but unfortunately doesn't show how far down it went) The comments on the Herald Sun article are quite amusing (some guy hitch-hiked - which was definitely one of the options being discussed by those around us). I was not at all impressed with 'miss smoker in the silver plastic vest'. She lit up in the middle of the crowd, jumped the queue and gave the uggliest greasy I've ever seen to some woman who told her off. Other than that it was all pretty peaceful, pretty amusing and fairly annoying. Just glad I was not coming from Belgrave - or it would've been ten times worse.

Habitual

2006-08-27T19:52:00.000+10:00

It's so very easy to slide into habits and so very easy to break the good. I've been thinking a little about changing a few things in my life. That would mean pulling out (I'm thinking almost entirely) of something that I've been involved in for a long time. That would also mean removing things like msn from my computer. It has been a long time since I've had a lot of time to myself. It's funny because the whole busy thing really does sneak up on you. I can often gauge how much time I've given myself just to relax or to think by what I'm reading - or rather, not reading. I haven't read a novel in at least a month, it's oddly a pretty common self-warning bell. The state my room is another guage - at the moment it looks like a small tractor has torn it up. The state of my mind - which isn't working at all very well. I'm finding it hugely difficult to concentrate properly on things that I'd like to be able to take in - some of the fantastic theological blogs out there would be well worth devoting some time to. It seems pretty small, but when you open them, sit there, look at it, want to read it and just can't, it's no fun. I want to pour new things into my brain, but it's thoroughly convoluted and there's no room. The whole it being a selfish thing to 'take time out for myself' deal doesn't worry me anymore . You can't keep going well in life if you don't take time to recharge. I've done some things far too long and my enthusiasm (what there is of it) has really bottomed out. Cease effectiveness. I'm doing some new things, like youth. I'm really liking it and I want to put much more into it but where things stand at the moment my efforts feel like they are being spread too widely and therefore I'm not properly useful anywhere. Time for some change. Or at least to start think seriously about implementing some.

Hmmm

2006-08-26T15:00:00.000+10:00

Because

2006-08-25T17:21:00.000+10:00

I was quite delighted today to have my cousin (the best one) say she's addicted to reading my blog. Mum said something about the four-day lapse in thinking of checking to see if I was okay. Laura thinks I should change the font back to 'small' - anyone really disagree? I am still sick although I hope have gotten over the worst of it. The headache is down to an occasional temporary throb and sits as dull background the rest of the time. Not exactly sure how up to doing 'Messy Games' at youth tonight but I can only try. I've spent a bit of the morning and all the afternoon working on my website for some fictional bookselling company "Second Book on the Right" (here's to making up random names). Doing my usual overcomplicate things until realising - or actually reading the assignment info again, that I could ignore all php/java scripting entirely if I so desired. I could've saved rather a lot of time instead of stuffing around investigating things. So it's almost done, just need to throw in a few product pages and hope like mad that when it comes to client & server side scripting that I will have worked out what's going on. Not bad, considering most of this was done very last minute and I haven't really done a website in well over two years. Dreamweaver skills - as easy as the program is, came flooding back pretty fast. Yeah right to coding from scratch when it has to be done by Monday (or tomorrow morning so I don't have to think about it any more and can go be as social as I like). Some things are not worth the effort when there are perfectly suitable and allowable ways to do it simply. I was thinking about holidays yesterday, possibly because I want one so badly, and how when it comes to the actual event I spend it mostly bored out of my brain or annoyed at myself for sleeping far too long and wasting each day. I should plan myself a holiday. I've always said I'd like to take a few days or a week just for myself. Go down to the Rye house or similar and be a blissful loner for a little while. Maybe take a wanted friend (how rude). Bring copious ammounts of interesting books, good music, a camera and hope the sun's doing what it does best and filling that front room until there is no more space, then go to sleep in it without getting sunburnt and have no pressure from uni, from other people, from any 'to do' list - real or not real. And simply enjoy myself. Frankly I think my body is tired from being sick and my mind is tired from irrational stress about assignments that always get done on time anyway and from attempting to work out 'next'. Whatever other part of me left is tired - just because.

The Shape of Me and Other Stuff

2006-08-24T18:23:00.000+10:00

Hannah tells me it's been four days since I've blogged. So here I am again (back finally!) to give you a run down on the past few days. It's Thursday today. My week has looked like this: Monday - fairly standard, I think. I'm having a lot of trouble remembering anything special which isn't surprising. *Oh wow. Huge appologies (sorry Tom). Monday night we had a YITS catchup thingo - how could I forget. In around the Hawthorn area at Alecia/Laura/Em's place. Heaps of them all came up. Tom and Jane all the way from Geelong (was very happy to see them), Dawn from Castlemaine. There was all kinds of carpooling going on and it was a generally enjoyable evening with some rather wonderful pizza that had pumpkin on it. Tuesday wound itself into something pretty spectacular (which is exaggerating maybe a bit), Geoff and I decided we'd have a 'card playing' night with Anita (his sister) and whichever of mine were home. I left uni early as I was feeling pretty blah. Slept for three hours when I got home and decided to not mention it so that the evening would still happen. It turned out Anita was babysitting and Laura had a uni friend over (others all out). So Colin and Tim joined the invite list. Col couldn't come, so I unsucessfully tried to get on to Analise to make up some numbers, gave up and found Tony in my phone, after which Ana called and decided to come anyway. I was way out of it and there were frequent comments all evening about how dead I looked, but it was great fun. Wednesday was one of "those" days. Relatively horrible really. It started well. Caught the train with Geoff, Matt (from uni) was there too, and Gabe and he were on my bus. I get along well with both of them even though they mostly just talk about games... both friendly. I spent the lecture (which I couldnt really hear because he refused to turn his mic on) talking to Justin (the mature aged student) about the assignment and uni in general. This is the assignment that the due date was listed in one place as September 28th - it is wrong!!! It's now due on August 28th, which is what I thought originally. I am of-course not impressed and tomorrow is going to be all about finishing it. Anyway, Justin's always been really nice to me - I think it's sadly got something to do with my work ethic, but I certainly needed it. I got the lecutre slides off him - these are the ones the lecturer refuses to give out to make people come to his classes, which is all very well, but really not very convenient for looking back on. I don't want to know how he got them. So we were talking about how certain subjects were a complete waste of time and how people just talk through them etc. And I mentioned how really not happy I am with the course I'm in etc etc... He offered to buy me a coffee (just in a nice way) and just work on stuff etc... I declined and opted to go home as I was feeling pretty lousy. So, the bus trip back was full of 'what next' thoughts. Various ad's around Box Hill station taunted me with, "She'll find out what She's Cut out For" etc... And Dad got a call from Johann (Dad's overseas atm) which I answered, he had a brief chat to me and told me to stay in uni *glare* (I didn't really want to explain the full circumstance so I just let it slide). The hard reality of the situation is that when it comes down to it, I really don't want to continue in the course I'm in. There are quite a few reasons. The people are fine - but the level and quality of what's being taught, and what it is just isn't fitting. I don't think it's the area I want to end up in. But then, I don't really know what is. I'm not at uni, 'just to get a qualification', I'd like to hope the three years would at least be fractionally interesting. At the moment I can't see how I'd come out of the course knowing much more than what I already did, or what's common sense then when I went in. I'm not being arrogant - sadly just realistic. I don't want to not study, but I think I need to change angles or at least get into something that will stretch my mind. Of the evening - I changed my mind multiple times about going to the 'girls' thingo (Usual young adults stuff a bit different this week). I wanted to, but when it came down to it was feeling far too blah so I stayed home watched Two-Weeks Notice (veryaverage chick-flick) and went to bed at 9:00! Thursday. I am now definitely sick with something. After 14hrs sleep woke up with a headache and sore throat. It was pretty good day really. Easy. I worked most of it. Ebay stuff is going well. I will think about the assignment tomorrow. And so, that's the rather boring run-down. Quality literature from a very tired mind. I shall continue no doubt in the next few hours to feel pretty lousy, make some dinner, have a shower, go to bed,read and then turn out the lights early again. btw. Isn't that picture great! (the Blogg one) it's from a Seuss book of the title of this blog post.

Reality is like a fine wine

2006-08-20T21:48:00.000+10:00

Before I begin - or by way of beginning , I've stolen the phrase, "Reality is like a fine wine" from Donald Miller's Searching For God Knows What, which I happened to start (pretty timely) this evening. I think the phrase is both satisfying, beautiful and pretty relevant to what I want to say. This week a friend asked me quite out of the blue, "What is maturity and how do people become mature?" (In the context I think of Christianity) It's a far larger question than I gave proper concern to at the time and I was pretty flabbergasted about how I should go about answering her effectively. In my slight late night stupor I made mention of living life directed beyond yourself and other such (lame) things. Perhaps this was touching the surface, but I by no means did the question justice. So this morning when we had a 'four-corners' morning at church and one session was on, "Maturity and growth" I did a bit of a mind dance (the only kind of dance I ever do) and deserted the idea of joining the youth. It was a fairly big dissapointment in terms of what I was after. You really shouldn't always enter with tight specifications/expectations or you are far too eaisly let down. Whatever the case, I didn't really hear anything very well due to her style and her approach which really just wasn't me. I spent the majority of the time getting frustrated at myself for being frustrated, checking alternate passages in the Bible, contemplating something a guy said during prophesy time this morning that went totally against something she said and the other bit of the time just a little bit furious over some 'American' comment or other. Luckily for you, this is now a very large part of why you are reading a post on maturity. So my 'tight specifications' here are to make some kind of small headway in to looking at what it is. That saying, this will most likely (at the best) only suceed to throw up the question in your own face. I can hope that I can have further conversations with you about this. I think the curious thing about looking at maturity for me personally is that so many of the underlying things about maturity and growth like change and patience have all been rather big issues for me. Pain in the butt type things and I think it's probably a pretty common road we all find at some stage. "My verse" for last year, the one that just 'happened' was, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" - Heb 12:2 (the first part) Which I possibly misconstrue it in my mind at several stages, but hung on to it pretty tightly and I hope sought to do what it said. It was a year for a lot of growth. I also, (and am not too ashamed to admit it... I think) read a lot of non-fiction, some of which could be described as 'self-help'. It's no secret that it facinates me and I do hope that I keep things in perspective. I definitely like the idea of, 'growing me' and it's really easy to get off the right track and think I can manage by myself and work things out and set things up. So my background for growth and maturity hasn't been that passive at all, although breaking things down into a tangible process and working out 'what's happened' is tricky. To cut back to the wine quote, let me give you the fuller version (which is laughably not much fuller).

"Reality is like a fine wine... it will not appeal to children."

Why equate maturity with reality? I hope I'm not doing that, but reality is what happens to us. We aren't technically children any more (unless there are any odd exceptions reading this blog) although we certainly act like children and approach life in childish ways far too often. One of the primary childish ways I fall for over and over again is the issue of control. I'd like very much to have a step by step process to form maturity in me. Then I know what's going on. I can determine how fast that happens. I can get a grasp on God and on myself and on my life and where it's going. The more I look at maturity (just by what I've come across today even) is that so much of it isn't our business at all. The incongruency I came across today in the prophesy/'sermon' was do with how, "Circumstances don't mould us, God does". Which at a quick look sits fine, but maybe doesn't take into account that circumstances have a huge impact on who we are and what we become. Then of course you can use the plee that, 'God directs all the circumstances in our lives'. It's interesting really how the dictionary definition for mature gives the following:

Having reached full natural growth or development
Having reached a desired or final condition
Worked out fully by the mind
No longer subject to great expansion or development

...and other such similar things. If an 'end point' is the subject of becoming mature, there's got to be a LOT more God in it than us. I was going to chuck a lump of verses your way, contextualise them etc... but it's not happening. So a few of those I've been thinking about through this, James 1:2-5 Philipians 2 Romans 5:1-5 and more... Maturity is hard to gauge, impossible to plot out except sometimes in retrospect where you can see what you were and who you've become. I like learning, I like growing. The further I get along the supposed life continum the more blurry any clear learning gets. I'm really quite unsure of a lot of the God stuff at the moment, how it all plays out. I'm just sure God's trying to blow a few preconceptions out of the water,

"The truth is there are a million steps, and we don't even know what the steps are, and worse, at any given moment we may not be willing or even able to take them; and still worse, they are different for you and me and they are always changing. I have come to believe the sooner we find this truth beautiful, the sooner we will fall in love with the God who keeps shaking things up, keeps changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in Him, teaching us not to rely on easy answer, bullet points, magic mantras, or genies in lamps, but rather on His guidance, His existence, His mercy and His love." - (Searching for God Knows What)

We can think we know who God is, and we can even think we know who we are and then hit the point of realising we don't know very much at all. Maturity I don't think is something we can force. We can try all we like to extend our character. We'll have those life situations that make us grow up quickly, but ultimately it isn't something we can do by ourselves or on our own. I'm still starting to think now that perhaps we should really just let God deal with the whole lot and instead just look at who he is... not of course as an excuse for a passive existence. Hopefully maturity is us pushing ourselves (perhaps with a bit of intention) to live holy lives. Impossible without God. Steering clear from childish behavior but still approaching the throne of grace with the childlike acknowledgement of Father. How to be mature? I think that one is for you to figure out and to ask God about if you dare to have made clear those areas that are childish. Far from my rather arrogant position this morning of not really 'geling' with the whole Growth/Maturity sermon, I think perhaps I was looking for a far more formulated process. Maturity is a huge amount about, who God is, obedience, surrender and sacrifice. (Her points) How maturity plays out and will play out in your own life of course is something I can't tell you. I can hardly touch the corners of it in my own reality. It's a good thing that God's doing the 'good work in me'. ...and really, was the gut of this post maturity or something else altogether?

Smart

2006-08-20T00:11:00.000+10:00

Oh look, Dad 'dropped' by the blog from the Solomons. Solomon Islands > Honiara, Makira One small minor issue there: Honiara is no way on Makira. Honiara is on Guadalcanal. Makira is a totally different island. At least it exists! Nice try Blogger.

Oh the drama!

2006-08-19T19:42:00.000+10:00

Every single time! Any time I have anywhere I have to dress up for even just slightly, I get accosted. Emily and Hannah's eyes light up and I start hearing, "It'll look natural... just a little bit... if I do this you can have..." and Mum starts using horrid phrases like 'dolled up' (no joke. it's cringe worthy 3,000,000 times and she knows I despise it). Anyway so tonight it's a 21st. Nothing that fancy. Emily insisted interferring as the Haigs is out at her own party. I had my way by refusing to wear what she tried to make me and am wearing exactly what I intended to. She got turned down for foundation, mascara etc... but managed a little bit of I don't know what. Such bother! I mean really, if makeup is going to 'look natural' and 'hardly be seen' and it's night-time anyway and the lights I doubt will be up to sun-type standards, then what's really much of the point? Look a little bit. Whatever, I can deal with it, it can look nice but why is it ever that important!

Blue on Blue

2006-08-19T14:54:00.000+10:00

Well a bit boring to poke another 'media of the moment' type thing at you. But yesterday I managed to come across the new Leigh Nash CD, "Blue on Blue" (former lead singer of Sixpence None the Richer). I knew it was coming out in August and was intending to get my hands on it, but not expecting it to be around so soon. Anyway, it's a winner. Probably on the more 'cheesy' end of the scale of music I listen to - much more 'pop' than Sixpence stuff. But her voice is beautiful and you can either 'no brainer' the thing or have a decent listen. It was declared 'liked' immediately by at least Laura and Hannah. I guess you could compare it slightly to Sarah McLaughlan - not that I really know any of her stuff. Same producer guy, same genre apparently. Just sort of... hmm, fun, enjoyable and a lot less depressing than a lot of Sixpence Stuff. Written mostly to/about her husband and son with the underlying 'God stuff' poked in there pretty subtley (true Sixpence style) now and then. Favourite songs thus far would probably have to be Along the Wall or Never Finish.

Adaptation

2006-08-18T01:08:00.000+10:00

Very pleased this was recommended to me. I finally got around to watching Adaptation tonight. Wow what a fantastic movie! Arthousey enough to make me think, thrillerish enough to sufficiently freak me out (possibly not ideal), but an EXCELLENT movie. Do bother watching it if you haven't.

Last shot

2006-08-17T17:08:00.000+10:00

On June the 18th 2005 I bought a camera. Today that camera rewarded me with a System Error. I thought the SD card would've been the first to cark it. Sadly no. I have given the funny old thing a run for it's money and have taken thousands of photos - so many photos that I'd just tipped the 9,999 limit and the counter had restarted. This is still pretty frustrating, particularly as the waranty ran out only two months ago. You'd hope a $600 camera would last you longer than a year. I sincerly doubt it's worth getting fixed. Cheaper to just get a new one. It was already starting to tell that the button was getting less responsive. So. I guess it's now on to saving for a digital SLR and work out what my dream (but still affordable) camera is. I somehow don't think buying one is going to happen any time soon. much sadness.

Design

2006-08-17T12:07:00.000+10:00

Wow. I don't think I've EVER in my life drooled so much over a blog. Such designs!!! The badges, the mugs, the bags, the art! And I came across it by accident! I like. I like! Print & Pattern

A Brief History of the Smile

2006-08-16T23:46:00.000+10:00

The real reason for the blog title is that I had an hour or two to kill at uni today and I spent a lot of it in the Library reading psychology books. I came across a book with the name, "A Brief History of the Smile". Some titles are simply satisfying. It was begging to be used. So I'm using it. To make it all slightly relevant. Something that I have great cause to smile about was that I was having had a bit of chat to God on the way to young adults and throwing something in about maybe it'd be nice to just be encouraged. I'm not sure why, I don't feel that much of a need for it, things are pretty good. And... We split into groups for the evening and spent time praying for eachother (and other stuff). So Dylan, James, Ana and I had a bit of chat about what's going on in life as a heads up about what to pray for. My spiel was very very short with the whole, well things really are going pretty well at the moment - then we got sidetracked into other peoples stuff. I didn't mind. I didn't have much push to share anything at all really. So we're praying and I realise I didn't exactly give people 'stuff' to be specific about. Hmm okay, whatever we'll just get the 'general' deal if at all. Then James starts praying for me, and he's talking about enjoying where I'm at, and knowing God as Father and ALL these other 'key words' for me at the moment. It was amazingly spot on. It's not something I'd talked about, he'd have no way of knowing. It's just been bits now and then for me from God but enough that I've been clued into it. I let him know about it later. I love how God dropped this 'answer' to my offhand,"Hmm a bit of encouragement would be nice" thing, just right there. I couldn't have conceptualised how encouragement during tonight would be - but it was pretty well perfect and pretty well where I needed it. Nice to know God's definitely still around. So. That's what I have to smile about.

3,000 and counting

2006-08-15T23:24:00.000+10:00

Good bloggers don't keep track of how many people visit, but I've been watching one of my stat counters (the newer one) and it's just tipped 3,000. Three cheers for All Said and Done. Which is fairly impressive and mabye probably a lot inaccurate. But it's a big number, and I like big numbers...sometimes. This time last year I posted the angry version of Shout to the Lord. Which gives me a really good excuse to link through to Christina's post on prayer because I like it lots and I've been meaning to mention it ever since it got caught in my bloglines. The evil assignment is pretty much done. Except three diagrams. My budget section... well, I could've possibly done that better. It's a royal pain being a perfectionist sometimes, you work so hard on the other bits (Even if you do leave them until the last day) to just get the wording right and if you can't do that all the way through, you feel like you've let the rest of what you've done down. Budget bits are numbers I probably grossly underestimated, I have no idea how much things should cost.... :\ didn't I just say I liked big number. What a prime example of just how it doesn't work! Blah. ...and so what if the picutre shows some random cartoon man counting music, it looks like numbers!

In full view

2006-08-15T14:16:00.000+10:00

I got to uni early (as per normal on Tuesdays) and I wound up on my own in a computer lab, stuffed around by going through bloglines and reading what others had to say and saving some pages for my uni blog. Then I opened Bible Gateway - because I couldn't be bothered working on my assignment for just 15 or so minutes and I read through Romans 3-8. I have a slight obsession with Romans 8 sometimes but was pretty happy to get a bit of a different perspective on some things by looking at the Message version.

Romans 3:25-26 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it's now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.

I wasn't thinking about it earlier but if I can steal a phrase (just because it jogged some more thoughts) but: "In full view of the public." We sure don't opperate that way as Christians most of the time. I had a very funny - it thrilled me to pieces actually, experience this afternoon as I was coming home. I was in Box Hill waiting for my train and this really short asian girl taps me on the sleeve. She was with two other girls. They ask if I'm a student and let me know they are Bible College Students from South Korea learning English in Australia and 'teaching Bible'. I smiled and said I was a Christian which made Ruth (it was something like that anyway, she's the extremely short one) quite excited and she was bouncing around and beaming and saying bless you... Sophia, was the most competent with English and I ended up sitting down with the three of them in the food court. So after Ruth had gotten a photo, Sophia pulled out her Bible which was an English/Korean parallel. And I think they were 'having a practice'. We discussed the passover and communion and what Jesus had done and were reading bits and pieces together. I was beaming, it was gold! They were so happy and really just lovely. Communication was a bit hard. Ruth kept starting to explain things in English and getting carried away and slipping into Korean. It was beautiful! I got the 'evangelistic' aspect of what they were doing despite not really needing it (they knew that) and just the excitement for me of seeing how God is working in them and through them and how willing they were to just be out there talking to people. The idea of ever doing something that freely freaks the living daylights out of me. They asked for my phone number, so I gave them my mobile (haha which will hopefully be okay) and had to head to get my train. On the train, I ended up having a conversation with an older guy on a scooter and his wife. He was pretty intent on telling me about some big accident he'd been in and how his body was 'riddled with' cancer and how radio-therapy had cured his prostrate cancer but it had come back... he mentioned that he was in AA and wasn't ashamed to admit it, and how life now was the best it had ever been (despite the cancer). I was thinking about it later, why God would dump me in the two rather peculiar situations and I guess the common thread through the two is the fact that these people were so genuine and so open about who they were to me. This guy wasn't ashamed to say he'd screwed up a lot of his life and was really just loving where he was now. Those girls were happy to speak up about what was important to a complete stranger. If like that guy, 'life is the best it has ever been', when we have this free life in Jesus, why is it so hard to be open about being a Christian and to share about who we know God to be?

A Good Love is Hard to Find

2006-08-14T15:13:00.000+10:00

I came across this article this afternoon: What (Not All ) Women Want. About the 'finicky femininity of Captivating' by John and Stasi Eldredge. I was quite delighted with it to be honest. Sure there were bits of the book that were extremely helpful to me at the time I read it, much of it rang true but when I look back now - there was/is something a little bit missing. I'm not exactly a very stereotypical female. If you know me, if you've read this blog for any decent time or read OOCQ where the 'bagging out' (I think it's friendly) of my 'half male' brain, you might be able to put a finger or five on that. Sentimentality doesn't do a lot for me. I'm much more thrilled to have a brain engaging conversation than be told mass of 'sweet nothings' or compliments - however "nice. Again that's generalising a lot. I am by no means the only female of the kind around -thank goodness. I like being complicated and I like who I am. I probably don't define submission quite the way it's traditionally thought of. I probably don't think I need to ever lose reason to love someone. I don't like the infatuation concept. I like books over jewelery. I understand the clothes are usually very intentional in conveying a message or meeting a 'warmth'/'fit-in/fashion' need than just the 'girly thing to obsess over'. I don't really giggle or shriek, in fact I probably more often snort and roll my eyes. I don't have any idea where this blog is going but I know I want to say something (maybe because I'm having fun). I don't always know what to say but then I don't always sit quiet to get it just right - for it to be sweet and perfect and nice. I'd rather be bluntly truthful than softly recommending. I'd rather sleep the extra 10 minutes than spend it on my hair. I'd rather watch a movie that makes me think than one that tells me the same old 'boy meets girl, boy gets girl, all ends happily' deal. I don't as a general rule bother with make-up, oh look, I don't think I even really own any. I don't think cooking and cleaning and keeping a place looking nice is a very large part of my purpose. I don't think I could manage if I ever hit a point where I wasn't allowed or couldn't learn. I don't know if the soft feminine side is an outdated concept that we still plug away at just because? Shards definitely remain in the minds of plenty of people although it's probably not half as relevant an argument as it was years ago. I don't particularly like being called 'unfemale' - becuase I can assure you I very much am. I like being female! I'm probably a little fed up with the half-male brain comments, however funny. So you narrow-minded (in the nicest way possible) boys who keep pulling them out: *cough John/Paul/Jas/Tony...* . If you could do me a favor and define femininity for me in short essay form (or post size, I don't think you could get it down to one sentence) post it as a comment or send it too me in an email - this being femininity and not just 'Bec style'. I would be grateful. I'm not cranky, I'm just interested. What is femininity really? And a slight shift... Boys will be... wait, where'd they all go? references an article on men in church. Although that I think that the point does need to be put across, that perhaps the 'everyone fall in love with Jesus/Jesus is your boyfriend' business is definitely offputting to males, it'd be nice to acknowledge that it isn't the worlds most thrilling idea to a lot of females. It is true that females are supposedly wired 'more relationally' and I am not trying to equate the genders but we are all relational beings. I can't help but wondering if church is how it is, then maybe it's almost more a byproduct of a culture that really wants experience and is lacking significantly relationally - having appropriate relationships. We then over-concentrate this good (best) relationship that's on offer and shroud it and drown it in sentimental 'femininity' to try keep our hold on it. The predominant view of relationships on offer through television, music and movies (which sadly seem to be the primary forms of communication around) is just that - I see you, I like what I see, I am infatuated, I will do anything for you... and more blahish crap. Frankly I think we just misunderstand and misconvey a lot of what Jesus is on about. "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." - Deut 6:5 Is that really all that soft? When I look at God's love for his people in the Bible, I don't see a cushy sentimental love. I see a hard love, a true love, a good love. Male or female. As part of the church, as an insider I think I can make the observation that perhaps we've really gotten a lot of how we do things simply wrong. Does anyone really relate to the short lived emotional highs that might come with the appeal that intends to 'tug the heart' to gain a response. We experience it as an experience only. Something else, "Murrow suggests that men value being/feeling competent (we don’t stop and ask for directions cos we want to be competent navigators) and we don’t feel that competent in a church environment which values qualities of expressing feelings, understanding emotions and singing songs." (10 male fears about church) If men so like to drive the compass/steer the ship, why did it slant toward the 'very female' angled way we do church in the first place? Is it just the physical extrapolation of misunderstanding around what is love and loving God and church structure and non-structure? I'm also curious, the advocation for 'song', for music is definitely not just a female thing. Music isn't at all gender specific, you hardly need to look very far at all to see that. Finally, "I’m a man and I really value church but I find myself agreeing that I am not very engaged by it. The most engaging thing about church this morning for me was arranging to go out on friday to drink Guinness and talk theology with another man." (10 male fears about church) well, I am a woman and I really value church, but I find myself agreeing that I am often not very engaged by it. The most engaging thing about church for me is to know I have Wednesday night to drink coffee and talk theology and life with those around me. So, what about that emotional/relational pit that we're inaccurately trying to fill at church? Because it is there. It's glaring from every corner and written all over the faces of those that show up where there are others, even if they 'don't particularly like how things are done'. That's something extends well beyond just church on Sunday. No one wants the temporary. The love lust that's so transient it makes a memory that we are ready to replace as soon as the next option comes along. We want the real deal. The thing that shows us up, that meets us face to face regardless of whether we are male or female. That's Jesus right? So what should church look like?

The love post

2006-08-13T22:56:00.000+10:00

Bit hesitant to call this 'the love post' becuase by now 93.5% of you will have jumped to the wrong conclusion - having just posted a photo of Geoff and having spent rather a lot of time with him this weekend. Sorry to pop your bubble, but this isn't going to be full of sentimental jargon - which is something that so rarely comes from my mouth it probably wont be any real surprise. This is a little about what God's been shoving in my face. Some of it does involve Geoff but only in the fact that, as Sharon Payze (old teacher) said to me on the phone the other day, "Having someone new around really does make you understand a heap of stuff about yourself and about God" (NB: she was talking about her new baby, and it was just because she was after Laura that I talked to her in the first place, but I'm glad it happened). So. My thoughts were all pretty screwed up last night in regards to God and his love and other people's love and I guess just feeling pretty, 'so not worth it' and my head pretty startlingly clear about how I guess I find it quite hard to recieve love sometimes or even return it appropriately. Which leads to a whole 'guilt' thing about it not being fair to the person/God on the other end of the deal. Yes. It makes a lot of sense. Love. Yes. I have thought about it. Yes. I know exactly that we can't ever earn or don't deserve God's love. BUT it's something that can wreak havok with my head at times. I can know know know with the grey matter but be really clueless about what's genuninely going on. I went to bed feeling decidedly shocking even after such a brilliant day. I contemplated at various points skipping church in the morning and just going off on my own somewhere. I didn't in the end - mostly because I had to get Em and Han down there. A huge thank you to Di for her sermon this morning. It hit the mark like nothing else. She preached on the grapevine passage in John 15. To be honest I can't exactly pinpoint what it specifically was, but that coupled with some of the prophesies this morning, sank in pretty deep. There was also her curious story about being in the line at the shops and the guy infront not being able to use his card properly and how she responded - I had an almost replica exprience this week when I was buying petrol. I took the soft option and regret that I did almost immediately. It certainly made me pay attention to what she was saying. It was as if I needed last night's shaking up to make things tangible. A lot of it was/is about relationships between other people and myself and I am by far the better for having that argument or point where I just got overwhelmingly frustrated about where things were really at. I find it exceptionally hard to make concrete a lot of what goes on in my head. It's been a far messier, 'reach that point' and I guess a different way of hearing something pretty distinct about myself from God. Not a heap of, 'hold it in my hands' words or thoughts. Something that's peaked and climaxed and crept up on me without me really noticing it. Something that's been highlighted through circumstance and experience. I'm not sure if I like doing things this way. It hurts more becuase it's a lot more confrontational, but then I'm not sure if it's something you could really get a grasp on if it all came through my head - because it has before and obviously never quite got there. Still travelling. Still in that funny old canoe (see previous post). No paddle whatsoever, just drifting along with the current and hitting a few rapids. Ha! Okay, maybe I should leave off the corny metaphors.

Yep he's real

2006-08-13T00:22:00.000+10:00

So... This is so you know Geoff's real (aside from his blog over there) Had an extremely nice day walking km's and km's up near Steavensons Falls. My knees are SO sore. Worth it though.

On the Double

2006-08-11T23:54:00.000+10:00

And the SMART award of the day goes to: Rebecca For not eating enough dinner... or potato and pea curry just didn't have quite enough substance or something. Then feeling blahish crap and the good old rare hypoglacemia made a return - all through Youth (we went bowling) and I only picked up fractionally after a cheeseburger, and then I was stupid and got another one, and I've still got the shakes. How completely unpleasant.

Doings and short-timed

2006-08-11T16:17:00.000+10:00

To use another post to point out a 'good read', this post over on Carolyn McCulley's blog, Priorities and Decisions: Human Beings or Doings is worth some thought. I know my life has been feeling pretty insane due to 'not enough time' lately. Some of my struggle with time is knowing what I want to be doing and what I have to do (like uni) and opting for doing what I'd rather be doing (because in a sense I can argue that it's more important to who I am) and still not ever fully getting the worth out of the half hearted effort I put there - probably due to the fact that I've got all these other 'tasks' weighing over my head. Or I start doing stupid things like pushing sleep further and further back, just so I can finish everything. Unfortuantely although Beth and I have discussed the possibility of a 28hr day - it's not going to work. It's easy to talk to God and get caught up in blah'ing out our busy lives to him or to others and not really make the effort to listen properly. Someone on Wednesday night - I think Evie might've said that, perhaps we are really a lazy society. We work 5 days, we rest 2 days - regardless of religion (I am generalising of course). We were discussing the Sabbath principle - there doesn't feel like a whole lot of time for any of that really. I fill my 'days off' with far, far too much. Little things are starting to get to me, like the fact I haven't sat down and really read/finished anything for almost a month. On that fine note - I have another assignment due Wednesday. A big one. I'm trying to work out when I'm going to have the time. I skipped my one lecture again today so I could get some ebaying done, in hope to clear some more time for homework, but other things have come up and I'm still where I should've been at 11:00 this morning.

Taxi

2006-08-11T11:55:00.000+10:00

It's funny the news stories that get to you - they should perhaps be the world affecting ones, not so this time. There is something about knowing someone's utter stupidity and recognition of one life worth more than another that is so intensely wrong. This time an act of kindness was repayed with death. The chain of events, and the death of the taxi driver consequently sparked a protest and from there, people go on about hoping that, "A life was not lost in vain". How much do we as individuals really stand for the whole community? I don't know if our death should ever be worth more than what we will be remembered for in life. Why when a tragic circumstance like this happens do we immediately try and gratify the situation by sucking as much out of it as we can? The same goes for solidiers really. Except their 'choice for others' is far more intentional. Can death be exploited? Can life be exploited? Yes. Should we ever capitalise on either?

Up the creek

2006-08-10T20:02:00.000+10:00

Threats towards my blogging come in several forms, usually somewhat like the following: "Hurry up and post or else..." "Your blog font is too small" "You write too much" I don't know if this is seeking to redeem any of them, but as got mentioned today, people might start seriously thinking I'm missing so I decided I'd better post (IT'S ONLY BEEN ONE DAY!) You will also notice, or the strain on your eyes will have lessened and I'm about to tell you why: the font has been upsized! Please feel free to comment on the betterment or the uglyness of this 'trial choice'. As for stating my case why I haven't posted. I have an assignment due mid-day tomorrow which is still very much in the process of being completed (hence more procrastination on here). I have been getting home late, due to spending time with marvellous people, at least one of which I'd rather spend time with than blog. I am sorely sorry I didn't have some kind of recording device on me last night, because we were at young ad's after and TimO/Geoff/Tom and I were in a group praying for eachother and talking some stuff through re: life. And Tim was doing his Mr. Analysis thing on what I'd just said and worded quite well where I am at. As for all of it, I'm still processing what I cannot grasp, and as a wise friend pointed out, perhaps it's time for me to relinquish a bit more of that control (that's a very big paraphrase). When I'm sitting in my room or simply alone there are things people simply don't see or I don't let them see. From a vast number of really strange facial expressions, to reactions to events, news or otherwise, and reactions to say, something God shoves in my face. So the following - if you'd care to have a sneak preview into a random Bec expression, had me saying, "wow, wow, wow" and looking like a fool, quite to myself especially as it was quite out of the blue.

"Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done." Colossians 2:7 (NLT)

What 'letting my roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him' exactly means for me I'm not so sure. Is it a two step phase? If so, where am I at the moment? The growing down? The drawing up? Something I do recall being said the other night and something I've been getting the idea of, is that God is quite intentionally pushing me down a slightly different route to how I'm used to experiencing him/knowing him/loving him. It's a bittersweet thing (more bitter than sweet) to kiss goodbye to my brain and intense thought workings and hand it over to the foreign arena of what I might dub, 'the feeling zone' or even simply: experience. So, I sort of know where things are at. My question to God is: "I know I'm in the canoe... when can I have a paddle?" (and the photo is simply an example of a weird facial expression, if you thought I was just making things up!)

The best way

2006-08-08T17:53:00.000+10:00

I spent this afternoon in one of the ultimate ways. The sky and weather was still glorious by the time the train pulled in. I sat in my car for a bit while I made up my mind what to do. I wound up down at the Lake, where I went for a walk/run (which means slowish intermitent jog - far too unfit for cross-country!) and found a spot on the grass in the sun. I sat/lay there for a very long time and simply enjoyed it and enjoyed God. The lake was all sparkley (cringe word), the sun was warm, there was a breeze, the sky was blue and the clouds minimal but in beautiful forms and very white. Bliss! What would be your perfect day?

Blue sky

2006-08-08T09:33:00.000+10:00

I'm beginning to really enjoy my getting to uni a bit early on Tuesdays. I'm sitting in the corner cafe in an extremely decent chair which is doing wonders for my back (no I'm not being sarcastic). Bloglines spat out a few good reads this morning which I think I'll share. Adi over on Donec Requiescat in Te has written something that I think is 'nice' - for want of a better word, about love. Here. and... Kat Coble over on Just Another Pretty Farce has pointed out something about understanding God. Here. It's a beautiful morning out there. Blue, blue sky. I have half an hour or so until my lecture, then it's uni until 2pm or so. I ran into Aydan and Natalie this morning (both from school). I missed Mel's (Aydan's Fiance) party last night and nearly didn't go to catch up with some YITS people as I was pretty flat. Jess is housesitting, so we had it here. An interesting evening, mostly full of jokes (and not particularly the kind I really like) and a some sad attempts at kicking off something with a bit more depth. Clacy and Mark got there later and I managed to have a pretty decent chat to Mark while the others continued with their.... humor. I do realise why I opted for the evening out despite being so tired. There is something pretty important about being around people you are more than entirely comfortable with. Time is a master at that. Of course then you must take the frustrating with the 'best of' those you are with. It's really not a bad trade off.

Outline

2006-08-06T00:30:00.000+10:00

It's a definite indication that I am far more interested in 'other stuff' (some of that being sleep) when I get home and write a blog post called: Outline and leave it unpublished in drafts. It disturbs me a bit when I can't record a day as I've been doing it for so long now, it's a sad substitute. So! In going with this Outline post pathetic replacement theory - tonight you get to read a blog full of subheadings. This basically means that I am forcing myself to write at least something on everything that I put down late last night. I did not write these un-dotted dot points in any particular order, so please bear with me. Do your best to follow along by treating each as in an individual post and hopefully I'll get to daunt you with a horrendous amount of words. *I will wait with great anticipation for the comments about making the font in my blog bigger* Pearl of Great Price - The God Stuff Wow, might as well hit you with the biggish one first. The God stuff. On Friday night I went along to lead youth and after a lot of games and running around we had the 'God spot' which Geoff ran, and I really liked. If I'm really honest, it's possibly purely because I think that this society has severely lost the art of story-telling and I got to enjoy the experience of it. He did a very good job. I had a look around at one stage and everyone was very caught up in it. The story of the pearl of great price can be found in Matthew 13:44-46 and as it's so short you can read it for yourself:

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it."

We spent a great deal of time last year looking at what is the Kingdom of God/Kingdom of heaven. I don't think I ever considered the approach of having to explain the concept to a bunch of kids before. In light of how much depth we tried to simplify previously, presenting it to some very untheologicalised minds is no mean feat. I really should've thought about it that way before, the perspective was far better.

I can't remember exactly how Geoff ended up putting it, but something pretty basic like: living how God wants us to live. This fictional merchant's joy over his pearl/treasure is pretty much how we should treat living for God. Giving it everything we've got. Nothing else matters, being 'sold out for the cause'. We really, really don't do this well. I think the semi-flipside of the coin is that for me, I tend to forget how much of a joy it should be to simply know that we do have the opportunity. What an amazing thing to have God, to know we can approach God and the chance we have to live to please him. In a sense, we've already grasped the pearl, already have it... (highly incomplete ideas) I do like how the story has two perspectives. One for the 'coming across' the pearl where you wouldn't expect to find one, and one for the merchant already out looking for 'fine pearls'. It fits with our differing attitudes and experiences... As for the merchant's joy. I haven't bizarrely had the worlds easiest time grasping that all recently, despite all the fantastic things going on in my life at the moment. The God stuff has been more difficult, there has been less motivation, although not a lesser desire for it. It's just been harder. (Which leads nicely into the next point) Soul Sista - seeing people, attitudes So, I was at Soul Sista all of Saturday and from the first main session I was talking to God about some of the, having trouble 'getting' Him' at the moment. It became all too clear that I am ( or was - I hope I'm getting there a bit more now) stuck in the head position of knowing the stuff but not really understanding it. The day itself unfortunately didn't particularly provide anything highly enlightening in itself (on that 'theme'), but it was a good time to step back from home and relax a bit. A big part of my intention of going/motive was to suss out the stuff talked about so that I might be able to later have ideas for more gushgirls stuff etc. I knew the day would be aimed at a slightly younger level and it was. Quite helpful in that regard. I did get the chance, and I found it pretty exciting to write a letter to, 'whom it may concern' about refugee/detainee stuff. Something I've always looked at doing but never really known how to go about. I am still and always have been in two minds about the whole issue and have not recently done enough research to know exactly what's going on, but I think it's pretty important to remind those where it counts, that yes we are dealing with real, feeling, human beings. I pretty much roughly filled out and expanded on a couple of points they had listed on a page of many, but it was good to actually have something set down. Who knows if they get read. As for the 'seeing people' business. I had the fantastic opportunity to run into quite a few people I hadn't realised would be there. Cathy P (James whom I know through gush modding, his girlfriend) she's so lovely, met her several times. Sophie from Wattle Park (old church). Beth - Dan D's friend who I got to know that trip to the beach, and Darryn (YITS)'s sister - Chrissy. I don't really know her, but got to work out that mysterious, "Why do I know your face" business. That and Analise was there, a crew of Em and Han's friends, Evie, and Thea for a short while. Connex Trouble Worth a mention, because it is highly typical and I don't think has ever quite happened to the extent that it did. We got to Camberwell station and the train was delayed, not just 5 or so, but 20 minutes and there was no Lilydale train in sight, so the Belgrave it was. Grabbed some tea (SO GOOD turkish bread spicey mince/veggies thing) ran back to the station. Other waiting passengers (incl. the police we saw on the way down) drooled over our food. Train was packed. We're at Ringwood and the announcement comes over to swap to another platform - the platform where you have to go out of the station and up over the crossing. This happened THREE times. Back and forth, back and forth. Several passangers started verbally abusing the station workers, there were people laughing at the ludicrous nature of the situation and on the third 'Lilydale passengers please note that the 7:00pm will be leaving from platform 1' there was this glorious collective groan. 150 people trecked back to where they'd just come from. It was much fun, although a little annoying as my phone died and I was having to let various people know when to pick us up/why I was going to be late. Mention evening spent with Geoff TRUE! I genuinely wrote this down. So mention it I will. I was originally heading there (Sat night) for dinner, but that didn't happen (read Connex Trouble again). So it was dessert, and watching GATTACA and some good talking and I made him show me some 'when he was younger' photos etc. There... that's um, mentioned it. It was really good :D Gratitude Why the heck I wrote this one down, as it's far too large a topic to expand on just as part of a post. Whatever the deal is at the moment, despite it, God has been shoving some pretty good references regarding gratitude in my face lately. I greatly admire those who can live like they are genuinely thankful, it's such a dramatically different outlook on life. I am seeking I guess to impliment this a bit more in my own life, because I really think that I do have a huge lot to be thankful for. God has been extremely good to me and is extemely good. Any suggestions whatsoever would be welcome. Prayer for this also even in the continued elaboration of this attitude within the 'less than ideal' circumstances. It's a big wide wonderful world, but still big and wide. ...and that's all folks (*cringe at that lousy word*) It looks like I'll have to save my thoughts on Rob's extravaganza of a brilliant sermon until tomorrow.

Two Eyes - Part 3

2006-08-04T13:05:00.000+10:00

Well, it was coming. The honorary 'no glasses' photo. So there you go. Hopefully all drama's over. I am wearing two different kinds (strange) apparently the right eye - is the slightly worse fitting contact, yet this is by far the more comfortable. The world still looks a little strange as it's a new prescription which truly is the worst thing about getting used to new glasses (or just new lenses). At least the floor doesn't feel extra far away like last time...

Seeing

2006-08-04T10:30:00.000+10:00

I went to bed earlier than I have in about 6 years last night- By 8pm I was well and truly there, by 8:30 or so I think I was out of it. Slept around the clock - 12 good solid hours and woke up with a splitting headache. I now feel like I've found cloud nine, despite all that I have to do today. It could be due to a good breakfast, the knowledge that I don't have to go into uni today (erm... yes, I'm wagging that one hour), panadol that's curbed the headache, found some rather nice words in the 'What I love about you thread', or/and the fact that I got a really nice encouraging PM on Gush about something I'd posted, AND I came across something that makes anything I ever do on Gush so unbelieveably worth it:

"Oh, and I think this might be the place to say this, but I don't know. I do owe Gush A LOT, I think if it wasn't for Gush I would have thrown the idea of a God out the window long ago... I actually found myself praying today a little.. and realised that Gush is still having a change in me.. so thanks guys"

It'd be true to say that in the past week or so It's been much more of a task to notice God as much as I used to. I've been finding it pretty hard lately to be intentional about spending that time. Despite all this, I keep continually coming across a lot to do with being grateful. It's always a strange thing when you realise something has shifted in your relationship with God, usually pertinent to a change in life circumstance. Generally it usually works out better than previously because you have grown in some way, but there's that unstable point (days, weeks even months sometimes) where there is a good bit of weighing up what is, what should be, what was and how it all works together. I think sometimes the 'lazy-mans' method - or one of my methods at least, of when I don't feel like it with the God stuff - of reaching that point of acknowledging God for who he is and who I am in light of that is, is to opt for putting on some music. Of which happens to usually be on already. In that way (supposedly my doing - but I think not) something will resonate and I'll remember. There's an article up on Shared Worship about Music, Song and Worship. I guess what interests me a lot about it all is the link of music to joy,

"Song is a subset of music in this same task of expression, and is a great tool also. The use of words, our’s or other people’s, can often bring clarification to us of how we feel and what it is that erupting out of us. Song also brings an added dimension of the ability to give expression to the more “down” side of our feelings. Yet biblically it is clear that it’s closest partner is joy."

I remember maybe two years ago or so, I had a right old whinge about doing my 'thinking through song lyrics'. It was a time again like now, with the shift in circumstance/relationship. A conciousnesss of some kind of change, definitely a lot darker blacker point than now but there are some parallels. Looking at it now, it's not such a bad thing. I am not a 'music' person, but music is a very powerful way to get through to the core of something. I don't expect my 'coming across' the themes of gratitude and joy to slow, I'm a fair way from grasping the fullness of it. Between Joy and Patience I think I've got material enough for a lifetime. Funny really, what comes up considering that everything going on in my life at the moment is definitely worth being thankful for. It's a challenge, it's a never ending struggle to be following and recognising God continually, “But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, "Let God be exalted!" – Ps. 70:4 I'm not sure where it's all going. I do know that God is good. I do like how he doesn't ever stop working in me. I am grateful for the moments like this morning where he uses others to encourage me by pointing out what he is doing. Keeping your eyes open (metaphorically or even normally!) takes work and hurts sometimes, but who would ever give up sight - there is far too much at stake, too much worth not missing.

Two Eyes - Part 2 (bloodshot, pissed off)

2006-08-03T13:15:00.000+10:00

I woke up this morning with itchy eyes. Not a good start. Drove to Chirnside for my appointment at the Optometrist's. Nina is insanely nice (had her last time), she showed me the ropes, talked me through it, made me practice etc. Gave me an extra big bottle of solution and told me to hide it from the receptionist as she was only meant to give me a little one. Contacts feel a bit strange, but its a really good feeling to be able to see without glasses. Due to a prescription change and the 'new glasses' feeling, she suggested I didn't drive home with them - I thoroughly agreed. There's a cliched compliment that says that the colour of your shirt (or equivalent) brings out the colour in your eyes. I'm wearing a red jumper today. I have a headache. It's great. I was happy. Didn't have to pay anything yet and booked in for an appointment next Thursday to check them. I get home and after messing around for a while I go and decide I'll put them in. I have NEVER been more pissed off at myself. I am disappointed, embarassed and really not very happy. I managed to drop one - the first one. Laura and I had a really good look around, but it must have taken the route down one of four tiny gaps in the hole in the sink. Of all things! My reaction? Take your pick, but the language kaleidescoped in my head for a moment or three. Now I have to get over myself and call Merringtons and let them know what happened. *Sigh* There's a little bit of funny to it, but I'm really not impressed. *5:30ish update: Called them up, went back as she had the other 'trial' pair there. I now have one of each kind - strange. I'm not going to bother tonight as my eyes feel so sore and I have a whallop of a headache behind my eyes. It's been a lousy day, but a huge thank you to Sam, who had lunch (Morrisons) and came out with me afterwards and one to Geoff too, for being excellent.

Management veins in bedrock

2006-08-01T18:28:00.000+10:00

project management The process of planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling the production of a system. Of all things to remind you of your childhood, project management should not be it. I was however, sitting in my System's Design lecture today and became supremely concious of how much of what was being talked about I had actually done before - but when I was about 10yrs. If you haven't guessed it by now, maybe I've changed a little bit. I was an extremely bossy little girl with my fingers in every pie and running absoutely everything (which means of course: delegation, unless I could do it better, in which case I'd let them do it and then would proceed to fix it up how I wanted it to be, often upsetting the person in question.) I'm sure my parents and sisters can testify to this. I was probably fairly horrible a lot of the time and royal pain. I was organised, the 'pack leader' (not hard when you're the oldest girl and your 'peers' are mostly a few years younger) and forever going about 'doing new things' or expanding on what was. Being rather imaginative/creative and quite apt at drawing people into my ideas or coercing them, I on several ocassions took Laura on the massive expeditions into what I now know as: systems/project development! She might claim that she had as much of a role in launching these - but I somehow don't think it would've gone to quite the extent it did had I not been involved. I became aquainted and then very good friends with Microsoft Works (Excel equivalent of the time) and as I explored the various ~~limitations~~ posibilities of technology, the world expanded beautifully. Laura and I, with the aid of a Readers Digest Home/Farm running book "Back to Basics", a spreadsheet, hours and weeks, my facination with horses (at the time - how lame), created a full blown ranch/farm. Planning and budgeting. Staffing and Managing. We were quite aware that it would never 'come to be' but it hardly stopped us. That's not to mention, the scout clubs for our Sylvanians (which we still have somewhere). The running of mud towns (NB. Bec in position of power - always), newspapers, mock restuarants, clubs, small businesses that actually operated etc... And now I find myself with the daunting task of doing it all again - a little differently, a lot more realistically. I have a semester to produce a System design, unfortunately with a lot more constraints then just that. The true budgeting thing freaks me out, but I think the overarching concepts have reignited that long dormant thrill.... Which is really the only thing I can think of that produced that feeling of supressed and curious excitement during a fairly boring 10am lecture. Now I just have to decide what to actually do it on.

Theories

2006-07-31T23:49:00.000+10:00

Why the blogs are dry at the moment: THEORY ONE Person: When I had people to talk to, I had no use for the blog, I couldn't be bothered. Bec: I had lots of people to talk to and still blogged. Bec: It's almost as if God is in someway trying to shove me into 'experience' rather than thought Person: Oo well why dont you blog about your experiences? Bec: No just generally. I do blog about experiences Bec:I dont know, is this a 'learn to feel' properly time? WHO KNOWS!!!! *sniggers at lameness* ...more to come, someday?

Another Monday

2006-07-31T13:22:00.000+10:00

It's another monday (at uni) and I'm sitting in the brand spanking new internet cafe "Caffeine" - I probably shouldn't be here as I haven't actually bought anything. Far many more computers than the Corner Cafe, and architecturally/aesthetically pleasing. Gosh Coffee in Box Hill was the fortunate business to get my patronage today. Buying one coffee is more than enough. I'm justifying sitting here by knowing Jen is two computers down from me and she bought a hot chocolate from them... and look, she's playing FreeCell. Such the appeal of actually working! There are certain things I really like about uni. Despite not being a very good morning person my body clock rights itself a few weeks in, which means I'm definitely getting there now. I can handle the waking up early quite well. I love being around our house when I'm the only one awake. I like any morning sun that gets through, the look of fog and other early beautiful things. I really like the drive down the station (except if the car decides to stall) and the time you get to think/pray or just be. There are those days where I can get the same train as Geoff (what a delightful coincidence!) which makes the whole public transport thing thoroughly enjoyable. I mentioned Gosh coffee before... despite being perfectly situated - you can't escape the aroma, and are of course thoroughly tempted, the two ladies who work there (well, the one that serves) is exceptionally cheerful. So once I reach the cold wait for the bus; I've spent time with Geoff, have a coffee in hand and been served by someone who's brilliant attitude has further rubbed off on me, the sparse but what I think is beautiful view from the bus terminal over the roofs to look at and masses of birds. It all adds up to a very content feeling, which makes the bus trip enjoyable, usually funny and simply nicer in seeing those 'regular' faces. So as a total change of tune, I've been sitting here for a good hour on a stool (doing wonders for my back) as the Studio area has some renovations going on above and beside us and they've been drilling holes in the roof and other such nuisances all morning. By about September, it will be the largest motion capture studio in Australia apparently! Here however is no quieter. I have a headache from the constant chatter and the music I'm using to drown it out, my eyes are sore. I'm a bit stuck for concentration and have thus given up on attempting homework. Productive studio session. Discussion around Open Day stuff - "Glimpse Your Future" (what a tacky name). Which means I have to come into uni on Sunday - hooray! Ah well. I don't know how organised we are as a whole, I certainly have done my bit. Picked the 'later' shift, that way I can hopefully get church in beforehand. Next is a tute for Systems. Bring on D Morisson's 'game' (one every tute) and hopefully he'll have some idea of what he's talking about this week. I do apologise (to myself mostly) for the very big lack of posts with any real substance lately. I keep intending to, as there have been a few things I've been thinking about. The words will not come and the thoughts are refusing to complete themselves, which means my head has felt remarkably empty of late, this disturbs me. Until that rights itself, you'll have to be content with posts like this (the daily borings) or nothing. Then of course, I could always torture your interest with some BlogThings.

Two eyes Part 1

2006-07-29T11:25:00.000+10:00

Well, by Thursday I should be one step closer to my eyes being 'de-framed'. Optometrist finally got back to me! 10am on the 3rd, I get to and try out all the different kinds (contacts) they ordered in for me. How exciting!

Woops I did it again

2006-07-28T23:25:00.000+10:00

I've just done a very silly thing. Geoffrey (and I guess I can call him that because I'm pretending to be annoyed at him) managed to get me to 'fill-in' as Laura couldn't make it to youth (leading) tonight. I had a little too much fun and I've gotten the old itch of really liking being where I can serve people in that way. Yes I technically do already youth lead over on Gush, but this is a little more people tangible. Slightly younger kids too, which reminded me very much of ESA junior camp - without the hanging off my arm and ridiculous chanting songs. Needless to say (but I like that phrase so I'll use it anyway). I can sort of guess what's going to happen to my Friday nights. ...someone asked me if I was married :S I don't look that old do I!

Well rounded day

2006-07-28T17:44:00.000+10:00

Dora Marr, supposedly inspired Pablo Picasso intellectually, artistically and I dare say emotionally. It would have to be a pretty powerful thing to have those behind you. Fairly honoring to be in that position for a start. But then - they as two artists, they would've fed quite regularly off eachother. The interaction is interesting. I can't help but wonder if it was shared emotion, if he was so close to her that it got utterly poured into (particularly) Picasso's artwork. It's all so dramatically depressing. I genuinely like his work and can appreciate it, despite it being quite strange, but do I find exceptionally dark. As you may or may not have picked up - especially if you didn't know it was on, I visited Picasso: Love & War at the NGV this afternoon. It was worth a look, maybe not quite what I anticipated and it didn't give me quite the same thrill as when seeing Rembrants, but I can claim satisfaction in having experienced a genuine Picasso and have definitely lit (and perhaps burnt out) that small woodpile of curiousity about the whole thing. Why the city on a friday? Well, I did first make the trip into to uni for my one hour lecture (WWW) and then stopped by the Hawthorn'ish area to have lunch with Geoff, which was rather good! I could definitely justify the 'afternoon' out. The train was highly entertaining today. I don't think I've ever had a better run of 'the funny stuff'. I got to the station early after heading up to fill up my front tyre with some air, so I jumped on the 8:3something instead of the 8:53. It left late due to some trouble with the doors. A few stations down the line the driver's voice comes over the P.A. "Passengers, we're still having some trouble with the doors so if you can try closing them again and giving them a kick then we might get going!" His colloquial tone and words were beautifully human. You sometimes forget that they're having, 'just another day on the job'. Trains don't drive themselves. Whatever kicking the passengers did do, it worked. Had to change later on due to the same problem, but it was worth it. On the way into the city. Sitting behind me was a classical voice music student (guy) and a 40yr'ish, older guy who had obviously just started talking to him 'because' he was within proximity. The conversation was loud and I found it incredibally funny, to the point where I was laughing as silently as I could and not just doing the whole 'grin my face off' thing. The student was listening to the musical soundtrack of Rent (something Jess W has talked about a lot recently) and let the other guy have a listen. It hit the point of where he made the descision to go out and buy it, but couldn't get his head around what the piece was called. "Oh wow, this is great music, I really like it!". The conversation extrapolated wildly from there on and at one point the older guy got quite excited, "Maybe you could join my brother and I, we're thinking of starting a band, you could do back-up vocals...". Middle aged pipe dreams? I have no idea how the student was finding it as I couldn't see either of their faces, but he was quite amiable and he played along with a cool, "Maybe." I think he really baulked when the older guy asked about singing excercises. The student mentioned the larynx and moving it up and down and then after a little longer, "Uh, I'm not really a teacher". They talked about the future and how musical theatre was on the cards and how difficult it was to get in. The student was encouraged in his pursuit of what he wanted to do, "If it's really in your heart" but the guy suggested quite unhelpfully that perhaps he'd better seek more stable means. He meant well. The whole thing was gold! So. A very peaceful in many ways kind of day. Thoroughly enjoyable. A bit of learning, a bit of humor, a bit of being with someone I rather like being with, a bit of culture and a lot of taking the whole thing at my own pace. Can't top that very well, although maybe a sleep-in would've been nice...

An elephant of an ideal

2006-07-27T22:29:00.000+10:00

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way." — A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh Not what you expect. An interesting comment really. Life throws some curious curveballs. I do like to have things mapped out. "This is how it'll happen, how I'll do things". It's a bit disconcerting when something does happen that is 'anti' your plan. Or not quite perfect in the way you've envisaged it. When you realise that you've picked the slightly less you-conventional route and work out a little later that you have, it tends to send the fire-engine of doubt screaming your way. No matter that the thing is still good, and perfectly okay really. A bit like the elephant in the picture really... now I'm the one on the top moving perhaps towards the same goal but just from a very different perspective (in the mammal's case - backwards and higher up) instead of plodding along. I don't know yet if it's nicer from 'the top', it's different, maybe it's not my ideal, but it's still good. Many, many questions about how this will all play out but thankfully God is good enough to me to throw the odd reminder now and then that he is well and truly in control.

Flipsides

2006-07-27T12:13:00.000+10:00

I'm not quite sure how to write about last night justly. Young adults was very interesting. Jess H led it by running through a heap of... I guess you might call them maxims/principles re: the Christian life. Dualism > Holiness, Self Governed > Spirit Governed... I can't say I fully agreed with everything shared (whether that's just due to insufficient thrashing of each out - there was a lot to cover) and my 'filter' was running full steam with many 'Yes, but's'. She did however do a very good job with what she had. I have much to think about and more to explore in depth. Three big cheers for this, I love it when I get something to take away. Macca's afterwards. The typical crew hung around later, Geoff, Tim O, Laura, Analise and myself. After the quiz and other random moments that had me laughing pretty hard (~~and I wont explain or~~ it'd embarass Tim and make me look like an immature kid for laughing at fart related, bench seat vibration things). Conversation took a smooth turn. Tim, Geoff, I and Laura (a bit) had a beautifully, intense, a little firey/confronting, deep conversation around erm... the ways of communicating things, open dialogue, love God - love your neighbor, community (wow too much was covered... I can't even remember it all!). The kind of brilliant passionate conversation/debate/challenge that in participating in, makes me feel utterly alive. If there's one thing that gets me really excited and feeling like an evening has been spent in absolute best way possible is to have a conversation of that sort. Yeah, I really can't do the time justice.

A better country

2006-07-26T18:50:00.000+10:00

Hebrews 11-13 I'll be selfish, this one is really here just for me as a reminder.

Uni and the markup language

2006-07-26T12:19:00.000+10:00

Well, hello from uni. I'm in the Studio killing time until my next class - that being "Foundations of Design", a new subject which I apparently missed the first class pf (which I thought wasn't on last week as it's only a tute/workshop). This morning held both the lecture and the tute for WWW and the Internet. I sat in the lecture and watched Huw draw a rather good characture of the lecturer - that's about as interesting as it got. Turns out Chris Memory (was at my school the year down from me) is in that class, gave him a wave. The tute was alright. I don't know if I'm an immediate fan of how the whole thing proceeded - the tutor is a little hard to understand accentwise, but I'll get there, and a lot of it seems like, "Open up DSO and work through the prac given". So I survived some exceptionally basic HTML excercise - the girl beside me cried because she couldn't get it :S A vague intro to some java and php. Not that I really have worked out or can remember any of the latter two. The idea of the tute was obviously the 'simple' stuff - so I got of of there about an hour early after Justin came over with a cheery hello and a 'have you decided what you're doing for your system's assignment yet' in his typical fashion. No. I went and bought the text book for WWW straight away as I should've had it there. Goodbye $117 or so. Thrilling! Had a brief look at the 'optional' other two for Systems. They looked horrendously boring and ridiculously expensive so I passed. It's the Library or buy when absolutely necessary. They shouldn't make textbooks so expensive. *The programming text book is pink **I found another BIM student who come from out my way. Caught the train back with him (Matt) He has the most unusually square jaw I have ever seen in my life!

Sensation Gatherer

2006-07-25T17:32:00.000+10:00

I've been reading the book, Mass Culture: Eucharist and Mission in a post-modern world (edited by Peter Ward) for a few weeks now. I'm still only halfway through and the bottom corners are going to be pretty stuffed by the end of it. (Top corner fold for marks my place, bottom corner for marking something interesting like a quote). The book is a collection of 'article'/chapters around the themes of Communion and Mission and Postmodernism (oddly enough) and how they interrelate, written by a variety of leaders from a variety of denominations. It's facinating, pretty pleasing and enlightening stuff. A couple of the points I've picked out so far (pretty much from one particular chapter) as worth exploring more or just simply interesting (here's where I flick to the first lower corner fold and try find on the page what I found interesting)....

"Another element of post-modernism invites its audience to 'enjoy the surface' of life's experiences because there is nothing beneath the surface. In other words, nothing is sacramental, nothing points beyond itself to anything else. Each experience is what it is or does ot you, there is nothing beyond. From this perspective the eucharist may give a sense of awe or of ancient community, but it can never be more than a sense, a vibe. Any such experience is understood as a feeling to be fleetingly enjoyed, it could never be more. So from this perspective, while the eucharist gives you a buzz, go for it. When it doesn't and the 'been there, done that, so this place as no more ot offer' feeling comes over you, then move on to something stranger.... Life is understood as a perpetual present, or rather a series of perpetual presents - a perpetual sequence of living for the moment. From this point of view, 'the goal of life' is 'an endless pursuit of new experiences, values and vocabularies'." (p.77) "Worship can have the power to convert or (and alas, this is more frequent) to repel. It is not just that the conduct of worship can be amazingly incompeteten; it is that people have a very real sense of whether what is being offered is the genuine article or not." -David Stancliffe (quoted p.82) "Alan Kreider has pointed out that the significance of worship for the mission of the early church was not that it was attractive to outsiders, but that it helped to shape Christlike lives in the world, and these lives were profoundly attractive: Worship, to which pagans were denied admission, was all important in the spread of the Church. It was important not because it was attractive, but because of it's rites and practices... made differences in the lives and communities of the worshippers. It performed the function of re-forming those pagans who joined the Church into Christians, into distinctive people who lived in a way that was recognisably in the tradition of Jesus.... (p.86) "'Seeker-friendly' worship is important, but it must be authentic Christian worship. First, and above all, worship is for God (Eph 5:19-20)... If either edification or evangelism usurp the God-directed focus of worship it ceases to be Christian worship..." "There is the danger that post-modern people seek experience for its own sake, that they become not more then sensation gatherers, but an experienceless Christianity is not New Testament Christianity and will never commend the faith. Churchmaship may high or low; the worship may be liturgical or more spontaneous, the focus may be on the word or the Spirit, but there is no substitute for encountering the presence of the living God. Once again, an over emphasis on accessibility my be unwise: "Chrisitianity's talent for shooting itself in the foot is nowhere better displayed than its recent drive to demystify itself. Afterall, who goes into a church to get reasonable? Mystery is precisely what used to draw the crowds; no wonder gates are down." "...An event in which the kingdom of God is actually present is a far cry from a constructivist view, for constructivism changes nothing beyond the mindset of the constructor. In Iain Bank's novel "A Song of Stone", his main character says: "All is construction in the end... But we are the naming beast, the animal that thinks with language, an all above is called what we choose, for lack of better terms, and everything we name means - as far as we are concerned - just waht we want it conote. There is a reciprocity o finsult for out name-calling here; for our fine defining words tame nothing in the end, and show we ever fall victim to th unseen grammar of life, we must brave the elements and suffer their indifference, fully requited in return." The eucharist, though offers a positive alternative to the 'naming beast', one in which eternal reality bites back. We are indeed 'naming' creatures (Gen 2:19), but our authority to name comes with a responsible relationship with God as his stewards. The eucharist offers an encounter with this living God..."

There is potentially too much right there to pick at something specific (if you would like me to poke around with one of them a bit more, I can do that - just let me know which). No promises either, who knows what tomorrow will bring ;) I think it's probably been most interesting looking at the influences of post-modernity in my own life and how I treat different situations that arise, how I respond to things, what I go out of my way to do or 'experience'. It's fairly confronting in the way I often approach God. I do hope I've moved a bit beyond the 'live for the experiences' (sadly that in a way, that is or used to how I treat some of life). We can't do the immature dismissal of God by believing our doubts when we cannot see him working, when we cannot hear him, cannot 'find' him. God exists despite our experiences or conceptions. But oh, it's easy to get frustrated! There is a great beauty and life in encountering our maker. It's a richer and fuller comprehension of something if we can feel 'part of it', but the experience does not mean it ceases to exist after that point or didn't exist before we got there. Communion/Eucharist in itself is a brilliant way to encounter the grace of God in past, future and present - and no I haven't ultimately worked out how I'd describe how exactly God is in communion, or whether it's simply symbolic (which In some ways I think lessens it hohum - straying into controversial ground...) I am pleased that communion is something I get to participate in, to 'experience' and to meet God in. I love it that we've made an effort in young adults to do this together. To be really comfortable in my postmodernism, I have no problem saying that there is definitely something about those moments, there usually is! But we shouldn't take up the position of not 'having communion' - just because we don't feel like it, or feel it. And there I'll cease forcing my scattered thoughts on to you. Well done if you've read this far. Anyone care to borrow the book?

Busy

2006-07-23T18:25:00.000+10:00

Interesting how your life takes a turn now and then, and you suddenly have every day full and far less time to get caught in old habits. I do like to take time out to think and to read, but when it comes down to it if the social option is there (well, okay it does depend on the people) then I'd far rather take that. Life has become significantly more busy the past week. I think I quite like it! It's probably about time to start rethinking my sleeping patterns now that uni demands an earlier start than the 10:30-11am sleep-in's I was taking advantage of during the holidays. A rude shock to have to contend with the alarm at 6:00 or at 7:40ish but if it means I start making a point of getting to bed earlier it's got to be good for me. The 2am'ers which I pull off far more frequently than I admit (Hi Mum I know you're reading this) have some advantages but when you spend the following day continually yawning and just a little dependant upon getting that dose of caffine... well! A very social kind of weekend. I did manage to slot in some extra sleep on Saturday morning. After a lot of stuffing round, I managed to catch Tim O for coffee at Morrisons as he wanted to chat to me about something. My that boy can talk! Hannah chastised me for not going to help Geoff move by being the, 'good little girlfriend'. I honestly think I would've just gotten in the way. Sadly I don't think I'm truly all that helpful when it comes to moving things like fridges. I hope I made up for that today :P Home for a few hours (oh dear, this is becoming another 'what Bec did post') then off to Tim's house (the same one) for dinner, with Kat, Mick and Geoff. I beat Tim home from somewhere, and so got to meet his mum/dad and a friend of theirs. Always interesting. Geoff got there and we (or I) made a mess making salad and pasta etc. Sat around with our BBQ dinner, inside and watched some of the Live8 Dvd - which I never got to see. Talked, etc. The whole intention of the evening, or the social activity by which to structure everything else around was Superman Returns. It didn't start until 9:15ish. Good movie. Longish and I have a sore back to pay for that, (partly the way I was sitting haha), but highly enjoyable! Some fantastic oneliners in there. Church this morning was a really odd mix of things - one of the 'cafe' mornings. Two video segments, and Ruth spoke. She was great. The videos - well, that's another story. I don't think I quite approve. In trying to be relevant - lets say... erm no, it didn't quite work. The idea behind the thing was alright. I really didn't get much out of it - if anything. Susannah's for pizza afterwards with a good crew. I mentioned my back, and Tim (being Mr. Outdoor Ed) told me to stretch a certain way. Ah the pain! Managed to scab a bit of a massage from it all. They put on Spiderman. I left a bit after Geoff did to go help him, Sam and Steve clean some of the house. Quite an odd thing to be helping out there really, some very funny moments including a serenade by Sam, Steve, Tom and Josh to me while I was cleaning a wall. I don't think I've ever vaccumed a carpet quite so - ~~disgusting~~ dirty. Anne and Ron came by (Geoff's parents). And I managed to work out that my mum's been feeding the 'food's I don't like' information (some of which isn't true) her way. I do like pasta! Open invite to their place. All very nice :P Coffee with Geoff after that at the only place open on a Sunday afternoon out this way. Macca's. And hence concludes yesterday and today. Some new experiences and highly enjoyable ones at that.

Boring

2006-07-21T22:58:00.000+10:00

Three cheers for uni! My slides were found (along with everyone elses) and wound their way into the Arts Collection point, where I did just that. They are now in my posession. I need now to find an afternoon, a spare scanner and template and get them digitized. They also finalised my mark for Comparitive Imaging. I got a D(isinction), strangely enough my lowest mark (score-wise) and I thought it'd be my best subject - ah well there you go. Unfortunate timing bus-wise on Fridays (and a pity because it's going to keep up). Finish at 11am and get home around 1pm, due to time delays between finishing class, busses and trains etc. *yawn* Nothing deep and meaningful coming from my end at all tonight, far too stuffed. Helped Elyce celebrate her 19th. Had nothing short of a banquet. Not too big a party so it was quite nice. Then some Survivor type games including fire building to burn through a string and the speedy consumption of food. Josie, Matt (Jo's boy :P) and I failed to win, despite having lead the entire way through. The other group had four. Of yits'ers it was only Sam, Jo, Elle and Myself. Excellent evening, I feel far too full. Pavlova is superb and I didn't even have that big a piece! Windscreen frozen over this morning, Dad hosed it once for me, but it froze again - second time it worked (when I was around to actually start the car). I skipped breakfast, a good thing as I nearly missed my train. The car stalled 5 times on the way to the station. Not impressed. I drive an automatic! It's only a 10 minute trip. Steering sounded shocking tonight after being parked on a very steep angle at Elyces and the battery light was smiling glumly away at me. Oh the joys. Sleep I want sleep!

Falling, tripping or just jumping off the cliff

2006-07-21T00:14:00.000+10:00

"We would rather die than not be able to choose our spouse, yet we would rather divorce that same spouse than choose to love them. We want the option to choose without the responsibility to choose." (when it comes to love I'm pro-choice)

Mum said, mentioned or questioned something interesting tonight. The phrase 'Fall in Love'. Why is it fall? The general thing you think of when you think about falling is the none too pleasant landing at the end of it. I've experienced this personally many times in my life, from the dramatic slide off a horse (on a stupid trial ride) - where I was totally unconcious (literally) to the landing only to hurt for weeks after, to the odd ending up on the floor after having been in bed - surprise, hurt and no more comfortable mattress, to tripping on the gravel in primary school - okay some blood in this one. None of the above situations were overly pleasant and I dare say those that you can recall ended roughly the same. I like the fact that love is a good bit about responsibility, it means it's not all passive and wishy washy. I wouldn't want that for anyone. Effort means you are going out of your way for something - which throws 'self' out of the window, at least for a while. It's such a good expression of what love is! Alternatively the 'Fall' part of "Fall in Love" could simply refer to the clumsy nature of the whole business, the uncharted, unplanned aspect of the whole deal. Perhaps we should just "Trip in Love"? It's more applicable.

"When falling in love, we seem to float on air." - Diogenes Allen quoted in this exceptional article

Does anyone else find this exceedingly ironic? I am not condemning infatuation, or anything of the like. In some ways it has it's place. It just looks like the footing isn't too stable. Can we just recoin the whole deal to "Fall in-fatuation"? Spare time? Check out some of the other interesting articles over at TrueU if you can get past the slightly cringey name.

Have a look at

2006-07-20T12:20:00.000+10:00

If you have keen eyes and aren't fixated on your beloved RSS reader you'll notice that I've added a new link into Other Blogs this means: you get to go find out a little bit more about my friend Tim (this is IT Tim, Timmit or Tim P). So far it's been pretty interesting. And to save Scott wondering: this is another Vineyardian blogger. :P Timodial there... that's a sufficient plug methinks.

Real study

2006-07-19T11:29:00.000+10:00

More 'daily happenings' for you to read, but as some of you like that... some time soon I'll find the time to explore a few things I've been thinking about lately. As a reminder to myself about what these will be:

Gratitude, not sure how I can forget this one as it keeps appearing all over the place!
Frustration
Stuff that came up on the Baxter Kruger evening (maybe)

So. I did somewhat explain half of yesterday. The other end of it was spent in the city with Jas, Paul and Samantha. I had great fun. The others hadn't had lunch so Paul directed us all to a very cheap (but good! I know because I picked bits off their plates) popular Chinese place in the Port Phillip Arcade. We then went to Word bookstore. On the way out Jas noticed a sign sitting at the counter,

"Don't have time to read your bible? Get a verse a day sent to you on your mobile..."

Collective, "Ah no's!" and as that kind of thing sets me on bordered outrage and I was relatively verbal about how terrible and pathetic it was. It's something I do on the odd occasion and have to be careful as I've been known to mention how the food isn't that great in the presence of waiters. As Sam put it, "She was only saying what we all were thinking". Paul had a right old go at me for it later on and did the whole, "I can't belive you did that!" business. Well, hello Paul - welcome to Rebecca, I sometimes-frequently do speak my mind like that. Interesting how it always happens so dramatically in Christian bookshops? The attitude of the signage was shocking, completely disgraceful. Getting a verse a day is not specifically wrong, but advocating not having time to read the Bible by supplementing it with one verse is hardly a standard anyone should bother to uphold! And the fact that it's being advertised as such, well! A brief visit to St. Pauls Cathedral, then I made them come with me to Starbucks because I like it there. Sat and chatted for ages. Very funny all up and very enjoyable. It's been really good to spend more time in person with Paul if you ask me, seeing as I mostly just know him online and in a 'meeting' environment. Sam I always like spending time with! And it was great to see Jas again before he headed back. We then wandered up to the Old Melbourne Gaol. I was kicking myself I didn't have my camera with me. Not worth paying to go inside otherwise ;) We didn't go in, although I would very much like to one day as it's something I've never done. Paul pointed out an advertisment: Real Life, Real Values, Real Something Else. And commented on how, "Well, society obviously can't trust those things to be authentic/true/valid anymore." Very interesting. I might go back and get a photo next time, if it's still there. It reminded me a bit of the huge 'Want Everything' advertisement which is also in the city. Sam and I got the train back. This morning's one lecture was for this semester's elective. WWW and the Internet which I chose back at the start of the year. A change from taking photography subjects but wow am I impressed. After the brief one hour, I'm getting the idea that perhaps I'll actually learn something new by doing this! Much excitement as my biggest gripe with my course so far has been the 'lack of' discovering anything incredibally new. Yes, I did learn a lot about analogue photography last semester, but to be honest it wasn't the worlds most interesting class - it did have good assignments. This class/lecture/tute etc. looks pretty decent. It is in a rather massive lecture hall for only 40/50 people. Everyone spread out apart from everyone else doing the loner thing. Justin came in late, so he's there, as are Joe and Riley. Huw is meant to be in the subject too - so a few familiar faces which was nice! Lecturer seemed organised and had pretty specific objectives. Whoopdedoo! (and I'm not being sarcastic). Good things, good things. Home before 11:30 due to some immaculate bus timing! Not bad for a 'day at uni'.

Round Two

2006-07-18T18:48:00.000+10:00

Well Uni's had two days to start back so I'd perhaps better mention it. No tutes running this week! If I'm allowed to whinge one last time, I have a lecture first up every single morning (Mon-Weds and Friday) which means no extra days off this week. Oh well! I do quite like being back. So Monday held Studio, which goes for 3 hours or so. It's the Interactive Media (course I'm doing) exclusive subject thing. We have our own room - which I've raved about before somewhere. The fact that you can get free coffee and spend time playing with wind up McDonalds cars, if you so desire... Adrian the 'tutor' for Studio is fantastic. Great sense of humor if not a little strange at times. Due to there being two classes, we had a bit of a different mix of people. I was quite happy to see Ben, Kim and Jen there - looks like Huw isn't it that one, ah well.. It's probably the crew I got along best with. But the new (to me ones) are great. The girls outnumber the guys! Six of us to five of them. There are seven girls all up in my actual course and a lot more guys than that. Probably a more fun group to go through this half of the year with. So we get, Richard, Jen (another), Amy, Peter (?), Tim, Victoria and Aydan. Adrian made us do work. Finally! We are involved in getting something together for open day which means we have to get down to it. It also means a Deakin hoodie might come my way. I'm up for freebies anytime! Tuesday (so this morning) a new subject, but run by Penelope who I had for Principles of Interactive. Media, and she's great! This subject is basically the next in line: Design of Interactive Media Systems (ie: production and pulling things together how to's etc). A new location, much smaller room which suits. I had a vague idea of the whereabouts. It was good that I ran into Tim and his cheery goodmorning on the way in, so we found it together. The lecture itself was very 'introductory' ie: "Be good first years and keep organised". But the subject should far exceed the basics of the last one by the look of it. I like pulling everything together so it's right up my alley! Muchly enjoying it all so far. It's good to be back. I don't mind the public transport thing (now that Jess and I can't carpool due to vastly different timetables) There's some good company ;) and if not, the humors of those that choose to ride Connex, oh, and a few odd hundred school kids when there aren't any of those (It's not every day the primary school goes to IMAX).

Steak

2006-07-17T22:08:00.000+10:00

HAHAHAHA What a funny evening. As I type, Paul is giving Geoff a good grilling (hence the tacky picture). And they wont let me in on it!!!

The Office

2006-07-17T13:41:00.000+10:00

Saturday (because I didn't get around to writing anything) held out the long awaited - by some: 'The Office Party' with Jess W as host and the mastermind behind the all day fest. The Office is a BBC Comedy (The UK version I hear is the only one worth watching). Which if you are entirely interested, can find more about here. So a 12pm start dragged all the way through to 11:30ish. I say dragged, but it was quite fun - although I don't really want to see any more of the show for a good few years. Two whole seasons worth and two longer Christmas Specials. The aim of the day, despite being social (yits and young adults and other crew there) was to raise money for TEAR Australia. I'm not sure how much was made in the end, but a goodly amount. There was a lot of food - including some rather good brownies, if I can say so myself, that I made to prove a point. Good thing they did turn out - saved my face. It's a sorry thing when you get a reputation for not being able to cook when you've make a few mistakes in the past. We also played some game to do with TEAR stuff. Jessmyn and I had a miserable run of it. Dad used to run a slightly similar game (in principle) when we did the 'missionary' travel around and visit churches thing. Ugh. It was quite a brilliant day, if only for all the people there. Jess did a marvellous job hosting it all.

Concrete Girl

2006-07-16T01:12:00.000+10:00

My thanks in some ways to Hannah for this piece of artwork. This kind of thing (content-wise) strikes a pretty hard chord in me, to the point of where if I'm being really honest, made me cry. I got innocently asked tonight what my 'dream' camera would be. Something I haven't thought about. I don't do that very much. Dream beyond the realistic box. Being grounded too far into reality isn't always the healthiest places to be, but it's familar so of course it's safer.

From the West

2006-07-14T23:49:00.000+10:00

Yesterday is definitely worth a mention. You can read some of it here. I picked up Paul, Paul2 and Jas from Ringwood. And had a crap day at driving I tell you - what must they think! My car was struggling a bit with having a lot more weight than just me (and okay, my parking was terrible). We then went and had a meeting/chat with Rowan. Which I found quite interesting. I tried to get the others to make me a gush admin but it obviously wasn't my day. Then to Starbucks - which both the Paul's had never been to before! I was very amused that Paul2 had never even come across lids on paper coffee cups before. But then, what can you do?! He's from Western Australia. Back to my place. Sam and Reinhard came down and we all had dinner. Mum coped remarkably well with the huge influx of people. I'll be seeing Jas on Sunday - as he's coming along to Vineyard so that'll be good, before he heads back. Paul will make it there one day and Paul2 I doubt will ever make it that far out 'east' again - at least this year. Good company. Reasonable food. I do it any time!

Results

2006-07-14T18:09:00.000+10:00

Whoop-de-doo! Here's to a good first semester of uni results 2 High Distinctions (and one being for the subject I thought would be worst), 1 Distinction and one Result "Not Yet Finalised" (which is the Subject I am least worried about anyway). Not that I was really worried at all. Golly I should be ashamed. I really didn't put in that much work.

Reactions

2006-07-14T00:25:00.000+10:00

There have been some quite classic reactions to THIS NEWS. To be honest about how I am, having decided to leap off the edge of the diving board into the complete unknown, it (reactions) was something I was more than a little worried about. If you don't already know me well, or even just a little you'll probably know that I don't too often talk about a) what I'm feeling (of course this is much of a mystery to me at times) b) boys - unless it is in the arms distance position of questioning/critiquing/analysing and forming opinions around relationships and how they should work. If you read back, I've written extensive and many blog posts about relationships/singleness etc. When it gets personal like that I usually run. I've avoided truth and dare games all my life up until very recently - to the point of refusing without much shame to not participate and so being the household 'party pooper'. I have also been in the curious position many many times of being asked a plethora of relationship advice questions from numerous friends/gushers. I never quite understood why they'd go to the clueless, never had a boyfriend before 20yr old (let alone verbally profressed interest in anyone before!). Would someone care to explain that! As to knowing the stuff: I hope that I've somehow gleaned a little advice from playing psuedo counsellor. I can read as widely as I like (and have, sort-of), but am all together certain I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL about how this all works in reality. And although it's all rather *insert very happy face here* it's massively daunting. But God has been fairly evident in everything so far and so I guess that's a good place to start if not the best. Whatever I've said, this kind of thing is not a descison I'd made lightly at all and it's been a hugely stressful past week regarding everything. I did manage somewhere in there to work out that Geoff is the kind of guy I think well worth the risk. Hence now why things are where they are! It's good :D Oh and the first date thing is delightfully petrifying, but it was nice! so... reactions: Family were surprisingly good. Apparently I put Laura through too much hell in the early years and now she wouldn't ever put me through the same. Glad that didn't back fire! My fine littlies think it's all rather exciting (and they like him lot anyway. Han knew him before I did). Mum hasn't been too bad, I think the rest might have the tight reins on her (so the little birds say). Hi Mum, you read this too don't you :S please don't. Dad has been Mr. Typical, which has been quite lovely, haven't heard too much from him. Analise, guessed before I said who. Sam was all rather wrapped up in her own euphoria... haha Sussanah's, "Ohhh!" was all class. Clacy quite literally found the floor in his typical fashion and laughed his face off in disbelief/delighted or something similar. Jess got cross that I hadn't told her before Clacy (whom I happened to see earlier and couldn't lie to his usual 'Are you dating anyone' type question). Mr. Youl - well, he absolutely made my day. Which does mean it's probably circulated the staff room of my former school (Hi Anne ;) Kat overheard, "It's about time!" from some unknown, when we walked out together on Sunday... apparently lots more people knew something was going on before I really clued into it all. Tad disturbing that. Jess H was sitting squashed up on the couch with me on Wednesday night. "Did you hear Geoff has a girl-friend!" I nod, "Do you know who she is?". It was glorious giving the simple, "Me!", her facial expression was priceless and she was bouncing around on the couch making wild thumbs up signals across the room. Hilarious! Mark Smith - Dad's good friend (old family friends of ours) and an old work colleague/boss of mine. M: "Have you got something to tell me Rebecca?" R: "You know what it is or you wouldn't be asking" M: "I know the boring side...." etc... M: "It's quite a surprise, we didn't think you'd even have anyone until both Emily and Hannah were married!" I know of a few more - not of my experiences though. News travels fast. It's been easier dealing with it than I anticipated. Much to my relief. Fear is a silly thing sometimes. And I've already said far too much! So that's enough on that, I might just go back to pretending that I don't play truth and dare. Don't expect many/all the details. That's not going to happen. Pray for it all please. That's the best thing you can do.

Never understanding

2006-07-13T01:19:00.000+10:00

It is particularly late again. I have been listening to some Todd Agnew songs (haven't for ages) one based on Isaiah 6. I was doing something else online at the time but it's one of the few songs that really hits something home in me regarding God. It interuppted what I was doing - I'm not a super emotional person, but it definitely got there. The actual passage - "Isaiah's Commision" is actually quite disturbing. I love how it reveals some of who God is. It's quite beautiful in, "With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." (v.7) But then this holy God goes on to tell Isaiah to let the people, "'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'" I'm not sure I understand... This is really not the best of times to be thinking about theological stuff - and I'm not in a place where I can recall the story of Isaiah very well. But it is curious. There is a profound wonder and mystery about God. About his holiness and why God does what he does. At the same time I guess much of what this is about (or whether I'm being influenced by what I've gleaned through what I'm hearing) is about letting it all go and letting this Holy God be God. Who are we in light of God anyway. And more so, look at what he's done to place us in a position where we so clearly shouldn't be.

And the big freaky news

2006-07-12T17:53:00.000+10:00

...that I found out today: Dad reads this blog. "Hi Dad!"

When you hear from

2006-07-12T17:43:00.000+10:00

I laughed heaps at recieving this email - so I thought I'd share it. It also puts a bit of my 'unsaid' news out there which I've been pathetically alluding to for a few days now. This is from my old English/Texts teacher. Mr. Youl. An extremely knowledgeable man and a great teacher.

Bec! Hi! Just heard the news about a certain boy/girl friendship of which you personally provide one of the polarities!!! I was able to give the mother of the male polarity a GLOWING report of your charm, style, and grace, not to mention vim (I had to look that last one up). She in turn alerted me to your Blog, which I've just visited. Very interesting indeed. I tried to leave a comment, but the 21st century does not really like me visiting it, and I was told my application for an identity had been denied because something or another had been "disabled", I think. Anyway, lovely to be reminded of you, and interesting to read some of your meanderings. I was not sufficiently skilled in computereze to locate that part of your Blog which was dedicated to me. Blessings be upon you, Bec, Colin

Nice to know you gave me a decent rap! This one can be dedicated to you if you like.

Early mornings

2006-07-12T00:49:00.000+10:00

I would really love to go to bed right now. I did just realise that the electric blanket hasn't been on however and as Melbourne had thrown an exceptionally cold one into the wind, (of which there really is none just now), I might as well leave you - all those who are still awake, with something to read. I can tell you now it's going to be a 'what happened' and not any real profound thoughts on anything. I woke up awake and pretty happy at 6:30 this morning - which is an altogether a bizarre thing for me. Felt the need to pray for a couple of people (as you do *shrug*) so had a good hour or so doing that and just thinking. I must have slipped back into no-conciousness land because the next thing I knew the clock was saying it was almost 11pm. To which I fractionally panicked as I was meant to be in the city by 12ish - Takes a good hour by train. Got my act together eventually after aiming to get the train at 12:30 latest. Which worked quite well - because I couldn't as easily leave my car at the station tonight and so waited until Mum was heading out again. I found Katie and Jo waiting for me under the clock. We wandered up to Max Brenners (CHOCOLATE) in Melbourne Central. Jo opted out of the festivities. Katie and I got something different. Mine was extremely good - far too rich. Did taste a bit just like an extra good hot-chocolate (which is good because I've never been that huge of a fan). I couldn't drink it all, but it was well worth what I paid for it. Great atmosphere! Interesting shop/cafe really. An hour or so there and on to Top Arts at Fed Square. My suggestion. Basically because I keep going into the city on Mondays when it is conveniently closed. Got to see Julia's portraits (one of my lovely cousin Jaclyn) on show finally. I really like the diversity you get through the VCE art. We stood for 20 minutes watching a dvd a guy had made on the city and on status differences - like homelessness. It was funny, but at the same time quite powerful. Wow some people are talented! It was great to run in to those two again. Nothing like the last 'city' visit, which began so awkwardly. Do you still read this Katie/Jo? Sat in McDonalds to escape the cold and to act like a loner (after they left) and a non paying patron but not for long. Geoff got there and we walked the long way round to Southbank. Had some dinner. Then the curious treck to Brunswick St - or along Brunswick :P Ran into... what's his name Nethercote and co. and then up to the Retro Cafe. Mum invited me a few days back to something their homegroup was going to - A Forge night with a guest theologian: Baxter Kruger. Spare tickets and as I'd heard his name mentioned somewhere before and at that stage had nothing else to do and with no idea of who was going to be there - agreed. I was definitely the youngest person there. Many familar Tabor faces though. Was great to see Warwick again, and sat on a table with Troy. (past YITS lecturers) also, Deb and Allan Hirsch (old family friends), Tolly and Lyndal. Wow how to fill my mind so fast. Actually that's a little of an exaggeration. I wasn't totally unfamiliar with the concepts presented. Go read about it here, I can't be bothered. Warwick has well and truly mentioned the whole idea of 'the dance' and I liked a lot of what was said. Not everything no. And I agree with Anne that I would've liked to see more actual direct Biblical references. I personally didn't find him very funny but that's alright, he was still engaging and easy to listen to. Being the 'youngun' in a room full of brilliant minds was fractionally daunting but extremely enjoyable. I for once revelled in the slight feeling of powerlessness. I did a little bit enjoy hearing a real non-movies American accent again :P I did take some notes, so more thoughts on some of that later. Car trip back with, my parents, Geoff's parents, Geoff and Trudy was very amusing, despite being quite asleep. I like hearing Dad throw around theological ideas, reminds me how wise he is ;) There was also a very strange point during the trip- where it was like I'd definitely dreampt some of it before. A 'dejavu' moment - except not. Okay, that bed had better be warm now...

My stunning mind

2006-07-11T23:01:00.000+10:00

This has absoultely nothing to do with my day, but the following cartoon (which I nabbed off Ana) describes me perfectly at times. Credit to Clay at Morsel Disruption for the fine piece of work.

Monday not Tuesday

2006-07-10T23:10:00.000+10:00

Do you know how flipping annoying it is sometimes to be totally abnormal/contrary to the rest of the population in how you view particular things - how you respond etc. Wow the head has perfect control - too much control. Live a little Rebecca? YITS people caught up tonight. At Jess's place again. Poor girl was sorethroated and not even awake when Sam and I got there. Dave rocked up followed pretty shortly by Luskie, Clacy, Elyce, Darryn and Iain. That was it for the night. A good crew. Some amusing banter - around my current circumstance and other such happenings. Jess was 'mock' (or really) cross with me for a short while and then got over it. Sam got a phone call and left the room. Elyce caught my eye and I moved across. She asked me some pretty straight out questions and we had a brilliant conversation. The others moved rooms and we stayed chatting for ages. Really helpful, really encouraged and better still she prayed for me at the end of it. How much I value her advice and her love, her ear and her willingness to bring whoever it is before God, in this case - me! Had interesting conversations the rest of the night from, 'Gay marriage' to some funny animal theory Elyce had (not as bad as it sounds!). Got a superb massage from Jess and a good scarce compliment from Mr. Lusk which I fully appreciated. Fantastic day! Oh... and I managed to watch "Tuesday's with Morrie". Very interesting movie! Much to think about in there - I'll really have to get hold of the book. Bring on philosophy, poetics and the nuances of life anyday! There's a poem read out in the middle of it - I really want to get my hands on it...

Times are a changing

2006-07-10T17:22:00.000+10:00

I think I just made quantum leap in something I've wanted for so long. I picked Hannah up from school and we went out for coffee - something I promised her before she went on Centre Trip. 16 years of 'catching up' - of starting something finally. We talked rather freely about all kinds of things. Friendships, Relationships, Parents, Sisters, Head vs. Heart - how we differ. I am insanely excited something of the sort is finally happening. I am not very close to any of my sisters -despite being a twin and having three of them. Too much good stuff!

Dumb blog things

2006-07-10T13:09:00.000+10:00

It's really really nice outside - windy and if it was warmer I'd be out there, but for the moment I haven't even gotten out of my pj's so as I just came across mandy's blog (she being a gusher) I'll pretend to be utterly facinated in these things because they're: OH SO TRUE: You are Ocean Blue You're both warm and practical. You're very driven, but you're also very well rounded. You tend to see both sides to every issue, and people consider you a natural diplomat.What Color Blue Are You? You Are Crimson Red Down to earth and warm-hearted, you instantly make everyone feel at ease around you. And while you have an understated passion - you lack the uncontrolled passion of most other reds. You prefer to sit back and enjoy every situation life has to offer. You put an optimistic spin on everything. And even when things are going well, you don't get too amped up. You prefer to keep your emotions as steady as possible. What Color Red Are You? You Have a Choleric Temperament You are a person of great enthusiasm - easily excited by many things. Unsatisfied by the ordinary, you are reaching for an epic, extraordinary life. You want the best. The best life. The best love. The best reputation. You posses a sharp and keen intellect. Your mind is your primary weapon. Strong willed, nothing can keep you down. Your energy can break down any wall. You're an instantly passionate person - and this passion gives you an intoxicating power over others. At your worst, you are a narcissist. Full of yourself and even proud of your faults. Stubborn and opinionated, you know what you think is right. End of discussion. A bit of a misanthrope, you often see others as weak, ignorant, and inferior. What Temperment Are You? Your Blog Should Be Green Your blog is smart and thoughtful - not a lot of fluff. You enjoy a good discussion, especially if it involves picking apart ideas. However, you tend to get easily annoyed by any thoughtless comments in your blog. What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be? Your Personality Is Rational (NT) You are both logical and creative. You are full of ideas. You are so rational that you analyze everything. This drives people a little crazy! Intelligence is important to you. You always like to be around smart people. In fact, you're often a little short with people who don't impress you mentally. You seem distant to some - but it's usually because you're deep in thought. Those who understand you best are fellow Rationals. In love, you tend to approach things with logic. You seek a compatible mate - who is also very intelligent. At work, you tend to gravitate toward idea building careers - like programming, medicine, or academia. With others, you are very honest and direct. People often can't take your criticism well. As far as your looks go, you're coasting on what you were born with. You think fashion is silly. On weekends, you spend most of your time thinking, experimenting with new ideas, or learning new things. The Three Question Personality Test And *snigger* my power colour is.... Your Power Color Is Lime Green At Your Highest: You are adventurous, witty, and a visionary. At Your Lowest: You feel misunderstood, like you don't fit in. In Love: You have a tough exterior, but can be very dedicated. How You're Attractive: Your self-awareness and confidence lights up a room. Your Eternal Question: "What else do I need in my life?" What's Your Power Color? I totally do not agree with many of the above statements!

A bit more obscurity to keep you guessing

2006-07-09T23:00:00.000+10:00

What a terrifyingly excellent day! Picture from Exploding Dog, "and you don't know what's inside" just to be thoroughly obscure. Church: Pete was all over the place this morning, kept me on my toes - some good points though! Prophesy time this morning is also worth noting (despite me being so far back and some of it hard to hear) some stuff in there for me I think. If I'm allowed to take them personally (as well as corporately). Trust trust etc.

Stuff and Nonsense

2006-07-09T00:09:00.000+10:00

It's always a risky thing going along to a music recital where the vocalists tend to vary quite drastically in talent and scope. Tonight's experience was actually quite a good one. In my own humble opinion my beautiful little sister, Hannah's second song, "Stuff and Nonsense" (Neil Finn) was the absolute highlight of the night - and I'm not just saying that because she's my sister. I don't do things like that. I'm far too honest (usually for my own good). Her first was in Italian and as she described it, "Went slightly pear shaped" due to having never sung with a flute playing as well as the piano, I could only tell a little bit - but then, I'm thoroughly unmusical and I can't speak Italian (Although might be able to count to ten in it, I still get mixed up with French). There were some other highly commendables. Gabby did a good job, as did Tiffany (Can't believe she's only 12!) and a girl who sung two songs from a musical. Blair and Marita I should also mention (seeing as they're Em's friends, they were good, and she reads this). I dragged Sam along to spend the night with me. Correction: she needed to chat and that was the only time we could manage. The whole concert was a fund raiser for The Oak Tree Foundation and a chance for my sister's singing teacher to show off her student's talent. Clacy was there as he's a good friend of Gabby's. He did the typical Michael thing gave me a massive hug, called me beautiful within about the first three minutes and asked if I was dating anyone. I think I just laughed. We had him quite literally on the floor in shock/delight later as Sam can testify (if you bother asking her). Hilarious! Grandparents were there - of course. Came for dinner too. Can't believe my luck: Chicken and Broccoli two times recently!!! AND Sticky-date pudding. I ate far far too much. Decided I should probably start making my own graphic thingos - at least occasionally. Here's one. The result of boredom + camera + photoshop.

Not Worth Watching

2006-07-08T14:37:00.000+10:00

Lets provide the Lost in Translation contrast shall we... This (early) afternoon I watched The Notebook. Gag, Gag, Gag, nice in a bit of a way but terrible nevertheless. I don't mind the odd romantic story, but that was a little too much. Allie is just plain stupid. Mind you I knew a bit of what I was getting in for as I've read Nicholas Spark's book. That was a horrific experience. But when a friend who doesn't read gets excited about a book - then you do go and do the favor of reading the thing despite wanting it over asap. Figured I'd eventually have to watch the movie as it was, and I quote, "Better than the book". Not sure about that either, they were both at about the same low level - and seeing as the local 'video library' didn't have 'Everything Illuminated' (Nor had even heard of it!)- I grabbed it along with the two others. Best thing about the movie was the 1930's/40's fashion. Allie's character - Rachel McAdams was generally pretty good although I still think it's a stupid role because of the stupid choices the character makes. Whoever played Noah (I do like that name) was as boring as anything. Perhaps that was the greatest downfall? If you care to drown yourself in saccharine, I'd highly recommend it. It was a "nice" movie.

Favourite Things

2006-07-08T11:06:00.000+10:00

Inspired slightly by a thread I came across in gush and the current blogging trend of lists and more lists... so... "These are a few (*coughlot) of my favourite things" in no particular order:

Rain on the tin roof (when you're in bed)
Having my own car
Good conversations with good friends
Community when it's working and you're at the point where you are thoroughly comfortable just being yourself (and so is everyone else)
Finding the 'witty comeback' at precisely the right moment - or getting on a roll where they just keep on coming :D
Laughing til it hurts
Good books
Thinking and interesting theories
When God makes things superbly relevant ie: verse jumps off the page (that saying I like my Bible quite a bit)
Friends knowing your quirks and knowing how to respond to xyz or knowing exactly how you'll respond before you even do. Having enough of a history with your friends that there is plenty to laugh about/remember together.
People who challenge me and pull me up when I could be doing better, the best people in the world are those who can tell you the truth about something not so pretty in your life and still manage to not make you feel worthless and crap
Waking up feeling awake (anyone know what I'm talking about?) and because the sun came in the window and not because someone yelled at your or the alarm went off
Coffee/Cafes/decent Chai Tea
Chocolate Self-saucing pudding and Stickdate pudding
Spending time with friends
Word Games (especially when I'm winning) - I like winning too!
Having a choice made/a descision finalised/completing something well
Christmas Eve and reading the Hobbit and listening to Handel's Messiah
Photography
Art House movies and movies that have a bit of depth to them alt. comfortable favourites like Little Women
Good music (btw. check out Kings of Convenience. Thanks Tom!!!)
Interesting blogs
That feeling you get when you find exactly the right words when you are writing or that funny euphoria when the words just keep on coming.
Long (or short and good), not-to-everyone on the contact list emails
Views where all you want to do is look and look
Perfectly clear sky and when it's dark enough to see hundreds of stars
My ugg boots
Being warm
The smell of wet ground and freshly mown grass...
Green grass, blue sky, sun and a bit of a breeze and no pressure to do anything
The smell of my Grandpa
Respect
Open fires/watching fire
The shape of trees
Being right/getting things right
Beautiful art/photographs
Things that are aesthetically pleasing
Red walls (Kat's house is a good example) err, I just like them.
Having something to look forward to
Having the courage to set something right or the feeling of having done something you were afraid to do
Being able to offer advice and be a genuine help to the person you're talking to
People taking me into their confidence

wow... I could go on and on. I think that'll do for the moment. Might do the inverse to this list some day - now that would be interesting. Commenting is a no-brainer on this one! (hint)

I like getting comments on my blog

Worth Watching

2006-07-07T21:06:00.000+10:00

Just saw Lost in Translation Ahh! Do yourself a favor and see it. Brilliant, brilliant movie! I just find it really hard to articulate why...

Where He's involved

2006-07-07T17:39:00.000+10:00

Wednesday night, Tim P showed me a couple of things he'd written, one of which I think he'll be discussing with us all next week and another which he had in his hand and I asked for a look... after reading it - I asked him to email it to me as it was reasonably helpful/reassuring for that moment. It rings vaguely with what sits on my wall by my bed (and is on this blog somewhere).

"The places you don’t want to be are where I have called you. The people you have met and know, are the people that I have placed in your life to grow you and shape you. Each day new things will happen and your only certainly is that I will be there for you in it all. Trust Me and let Me love you, for I am more than you need. Soon days will come where you may feel in over your head, but know I am with you. With Me, you have power beyond anything that could come your way. Be strong in Me, and I will be strong through you. My love is sufficient for you."

There has been a fair bit of trust needed lately. A fair bit of leaning on God. Of facing ridiculous outdated fears. Oh it's good - it really is, which is probably why I'm so keen on working some on some of the scabbed bits of me. Ha. At the same time things are all pretty daunting. I like it how God makes a point of reminding me of where he is in everything. I keep coming across Psalm 116. It's a funny thing. There's reliance on God because of need, reliance because of want, reliance because there is no other option. It's a good experience to have a taste of it all - particularly the 'want' bit. I want so strongly for God to be entirely involved in this facet of my life. If only that desire was so strong for life as it is in it's everyday, it's intriguing, it's mundane, it's routine, it's occasional highlight, it's good times...

Universities

2006-07-07T14:01:00.000+10:00

You are currently position 403 in the queue. The waiting time is approximately 27 minute/s.

...so lets find out what my timetable's going to look like in a few weeks.

And so it goes...

2006-07-07T01:29:00.000+10:00

Sweet relevance

2006-07-06T21:32:00.000+10:00

If you would like to read about my day Analise has a mighty fine post (linked at the end so you read mine first muahaha) - this should save me a lot of words as I intend to focus a bit more on yesterday and last night. I spent the majority of yesterday feeling thoroughly unsettled/apprehensive (ie. no, just plain nervous) about something, by dinner I was 'well and truly over everything'. Spent too long putting up books on Ebay - there are quite a few up at the moment but it took far more time than it should've due to my head. I figured life doesn't give you too much of an option to envelop yourself into a foetal position, sure it'd be nice but we get a good nine months of that at some stage and that really should be enough. Maybe I'm exaggerating slightly - but oh I hate things that aren't strictly within my control. The drive to Young Adults was not the most pleasant in many regards but there was a little finality about something. I was insanely curious as to how the evening would unfold. We were missing quite a few people. It was a far cry from last week's frustrating discussion. My 'head runneth over' with everything else as well as the discussion around Luke 5. It got interesting. I threw an alternate perspective on the story of the fishermen out there - knowing quite well that it wasn't of the highest quality theological value, I do like taking the different angle on things - sometimes you get something out of them, if anything they don't do any harm (I wasn't being heretical) perhaps I should stick to doing it in my head. By way of explanation, the not-quite disciples got this mega lot of fish before they were encouraged to drop all and fish for men - my head ran down the path of that they would've had to do something with those fish. The usual: sell them (?) and so this is mega provision and 'setting up' before the go out to do the 'real work'. Now there is no substantial backing but it's interesting pottering around context and Biblical life time posibilities... yeh Bec, keep your mouth shut. I think very badly when I am on the spot. I love having the time, the paper and the pen to properly digest something. I truly suck at giving valuable input into groups over a certain size unless I've had considerable time to think about things first. Sure I might occasionally spit out a 'gem' but they really don't come when your head is entirely elsewhere. The whole transition and progression of the evening was entirely facinating. Tim P (IT) wrapped things up nicely when he mentioned trust. Very much a 'point out what's right in front of you' moment - I thanked him for it afterwards. James ran communion. A very interesting experience, where he took us out of the main area and behind a curtain (or infront rather) and talked about sacrifice and sin, complete with photocopied cows. A short reflection time for acknowledging something in our own lives - a sequence of passages from the Bible whereby he talked about how we often miss that we really don't deserve at all to be in that place - what the Jews knew as the holy of holies. And he finally tore the curtain (sheet) and we went through. A table with communion stuff and many verses written out on the ground. We were to pick one that stuck out as relevant, and sit aside with another and discuss/reveal why chose that particular piece - pray for eachother and take communion together. I pounced on 1 John 3:16 very early on. "This is how we know what love is - Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for others." Analise obliged me her company, her prayer and her verse and explanation. We ended up as usual at McDonalds. And it ended up: Tim P, Tim O, Geoff, Jess W, Analise and myself. We had some facinating and hilarious discussion around relationships/friendships, plastic spoons etc. Intriguing the topics that came up within those really. We wrapped up just before they closed MD... and from there you can read on over at Analise's. I thoroughly enjoyed her company both last night and today. I value your friendship immensely Ana and I am far more at peace about the things that were plaguing me yesterday.

On music

2006-07-05T12:56:00.000+10:00

I woke up this morning to, "Good morning sunshine, the earth says hello!" which I met with a groan. It took me a good long while to haul myself out of bed. Had some breakfast and showed Jess (the culprit) how to use ebay - although it was partially 'down' so that didn't work, I think I managed to reassure her that it was all very straight forward and you just click your way through the selling process. She had her computer there and was playing some of the new Nelly Furtado stuff - really not a fan. She has entirely changed her style and it sounds like a bad combination of 80's music and R&B. Nasty. One song was alright. I like some of her old stuff - the acoustic ones. I was hunting some Sixpence lyrics this morning on Google and found a few of their's I don't have... I own about six of their cd's and thought I pretty well had them all, aside from one collection lot - which I have every song from anyway. I cannot work out where the songs have come from, perhaps from movie tracks or other compliations? This mean's I'll have to track them down online or something to a) appease the curiousity monster, b) own them. I first found Sixpence not through the hit "Kiss Me" (having been out of the country) but on a CD called Exodus that mum picked up from somewhere Brighten My Heart. I tentatively bought their newest CD Divine Discontent - it took a good while to grow on me, and suddenly hit home that yes I really did like them a lot and was listening to them for siginficant periods of time without getting sick of them. And over the next year or two aquired as many as I could get my hands on - with varying likeability strength. I have found verty few people that share this taste. Oh well. Their lyrics are spectacular! Leigh Nash also has a new album coming out sometime in August - I will be getting my hands on it asap. That saying I detest their cover of 'Dancing Queen' because I've never liked the song and have bad mental images of Kylie Minogue strutting her stuff some Olympics opening ceremony to it... And a couple of others like Trust that I find pretty annoying. The reprise is okay. They are not flawless. Having spent the majority of my life outside of mainstream culture it's been a slow introduction to the music world. I still haven't got much of a clue when people talk about various bands. My collection is predominantly Christian music -which I guess is okay but it's a pretty narrow field. I very much appreciate finding good stuff that isn't - I never really know where to start. I like this one a lot at the moment (Sixpence) Drifting Drifting away from you Spinning down to the pinpoint drop of isolation In a spell Walking away from the fire That keeps my heart From turning ice Golden feet grace the surface of the sea Sinking deeper I view them from underneath Flailing kicking as I head for the deep I question a hypothetical lead supper Oh God receive my outstretched hand Will I inhale the blue Spinning down upon the glass A ghost towards realization of a cell Enclosing the hauntings of a past That blind the eyes And rust the heart So I fell I need you to take my hand And keep my heart from ice

You delight

2006-07-04T18:24:00.000+10:00

It's fair to say it's been a really good day. I managed to catch up with both Dave and Paul. Dave over 'beanie shopping' and Starbucks and Paul for late lunch. But hey, some good conversation can happen even in the middle of a food court. God has put some marvellous friends in my life. I guess I've really passed the point of my 'early driving career' where I can be all gushy about driving - but I really do love the alone time it gives. Driving back from Eastland this afternoon I had good music up loud, the clear and beautiful view of the Dandenongs and the opportunity to enjoy God and enjoy life in that moment (in a funny kind of way). Life's not exactly all roses, but God has been startlingly clear in his goodness lately.

A year of difference

2006-07-03T19:51:00.000+10:00

It's been a day run on very little sleep. I got a grand total of 4.5hrs last night. Due to a couple of things - something I was thinking extensively about and praying about and the rsi in my right wrist/shoulder flaring up. The latter was the most to blame when the time got to the ridiculous, I was well over running through a million and one options in my head. At 3:30 or so I got out of bed and sat in my beanbag and read my way through 1 Corinthians. Why the heck I picked that, besides something in me saying 'read chapter 2', I'm not sure. Chapter 2 really didn't get me anywhere too far. It did overall bring a certain kind of - stillness to everything and I managed to sleep pretty well straight after. Earlier in the evening after I got offline and a while - I began walking myself back through a few old journal entries. I wanted to check out where I was this time last year. It was just a little bit annoying to have not actually written anything on July 2nd 2005 but I read the days around the date. June last year was a significantly difficult time for me in terms of where I was with God. It was the 'dreaded midyear holiday' period and I believe there occured what I experienced as a shocking family holiday, a big lot of doubting and some pretty large issues around trying to be positive. By the very start of July '05 I was realising a few things and getting back some confidence in this 'God of mine'. 3rd of July '05 - the journal (I was on an 'off period for blogging') has a good old look at some stuff from the book Captivating. The mention of Prov 4:23, some wandering around 'understanding myself' and the mention of something I find quite funny - about some fears I had (and still sort of have) the wants, and the desire to find my place in the world. Very interesting. On Sunday Kathy preached - and if the YVV site is working you can probably download it in a week or so, on Eph 4:9-16 and Mark 14:32-42 - about 'Growing Up' 0r, "attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ". As always I got heaps out of what she had to say and took copious notes. The 'freedom' theme came up several times which was interesting in light of that dream I had the night before. Building into our spiritual maturity came up which she pointed to being both through spiritual disciplines and emotional health. I had a laugh in the midst of my head's garbage at the irony of just how low a point I was hitting in the, 'emotional health arena' re: the listed examples given, at that point. It's a good thing to know that God is invested in our wholeness. It is (spiritual maturity) very much a unity thing - the 'growing up' involves eachother. I was reminded of what John Capper gave me back in March, Phillipians 2 and how he encouraged me to keep on with what was already going on in my life. A very positive morning all round (other bits besides the sermon were really good too) that managed to thoroughly muck with my insides but in a good way. Today I spent on a trip into the city with Sam to meetup with Steve (that WAlien still hanging around ;) - I was glad to get out of the house and into a situation that didn't require or allow for much thought or the tendancy to slip in to, 'I need Matthew 6 principles now'. So we did the 'cultural' tour. ACMI as Fed Square Art Gallery was closed (yet again!) - I've never been there - it was pretty cool. NGV - no Picasso for Bec this time unfortuantely :( but I got to facinate myself with the photography exhibition on Suburban America which both S&S got sick of long before I did, and the Shrine of Rememberance. Check out some of the photos on flickr if you so desire. Oh - and a trip to Starbucks. I got the train back by my ownsome and was entertained by usual interesting train moments and my own head. Mum made Chicken and Broccoli tonight - my favourite, and there was pithy orange juice. The difference from last year to where I am now is huge. If it is possible to encourage yourself - I have by standing back a little and watching my reactions of how quickly God came into the focus of where my concerns were - He truly is what comes first and he really does look out for us.

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" - 1 Cor 2:9

This'll do nicely

2006-07-02T23:42:00.000+10:00

How not to take photos

2006-07-02T20:52:00.000+10:00

Rather than bore you with a long wordy post (I'll get to that later) here's a bit of a 'photo tour' with some extremely badly taken photos this afternoon. I can claim fault for a few of them - but for the rest I did not have control of the camera... There are some times where it's just better to save the photo taking until you've got decent light. Anyway with corny and normal captions, I bring you a social afternoon of the young adults where we bbq'd after church and crashed at Tim's place to play some (Boggle) games - which we got to evenutally, after charades and a fair lot of talking etc... BBQ'ing. Jess and Ana insiting on not being 'in the photo' Tim (oudoor ed Tim) and Susannah, err, this can illustrate all the 'talking' that went on. Andy, Jason (some mate of Tims) and another guy I never got the name of. Michael and Kat (Who just got back from Fiji ) and Dan and Nay (Just back from China!) being silly. Jess and I looking like we've taken something - Jess definitely did. Laura, Me and Geoff watching charades- I think this is the best photo of the lot despite it being rather grainy (having been lightened by me) candid is good even if it reveals multiple chins etc :S..... Not Laura's feet on the right. It does err show my comparitive shortness. Jerome and Cameron (who looks oh so young in this photo), Rest of the crew watching charades: Justin, Chris (unknown), Jess, Jerome, Cam, Isobelle, Ana, Dave (Jess's bro's jumper). Analise 'charading' and Nicole sitting on the floor there (who's NEW finally some more girls!) and Jess in her element with a *little* word. Terrible photo (massively lightened) but to prove Marty does exist, Jess and Dan (and a bit of Geoff's tongue apparently) because that's really the only other vertical photo left. And yes, there were a couple of others there: Chris & Sarah, Ben (Dan's brother) and some other new guy - whom I didn't get to meet (woops) they weren't really around too much, the one photo I do have is really terrible... not that I took it, but so that they feature (sorry to Ben): Aren't we all just so photogenic!