Essays and radios

I don't want to write my essay. But it's due tomorrow.

I really just want to go to sleep now.

Oh well.

I have an idea - I'm going to do a little experiment. I'm going to listen to all the popular radio stations and compare and contrast them - after this essay, of course ;-)

My list of radio stations:
96.5
Triple J
Triple M
B105 :-s *I'd rather not do this one, I used to listen to it waaaaay too much - so I'll make this the shortest part of the experiment!*
97.3

Any others?

And then I'll need a list of criteria by which to measure them. Something like:
Style/s of music played
Amount of talk time
Lyrical content

Any other criteria I should include?

Library

I was at the library today because I needed to borrow some books, but first I had to......*boom boom boom* clear my penalty points.

"If these librarians," I thought, "are going to be like my school librarians, then I'm for it."

So up to the desk I went. "I need to get my card cleared, cos I'm on full penalty points," then added a quick apology - not because I actually meant it :-s but because I just wanted to pre-empt any general carry-on - you know the drill - 'You need to bring your books back on time!' etc etc etc.

The librarian looked me in the eye. "This is a joyous day! A marvellous occasion!" he said, smiling.
"It is?"
"You don't have to pay me any money! I don't have to take your money!"
I explained to him the whole school librarian complex.
"Look," he says, "they're not my books. People are supposed to borrow them. If they're going to bring them back, they will. And if they're not, they won't. Now ye can begone - and borrow everything!" as he gave me my card.

What is this country coming to?

I walked past a Red Rooster sign yesterday. It had a sign up for a meal deal called the 'Aussie Sunday'.

Below it read: "Available on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays only."

Connexions

Hey all u crazytown people who went! :-) and those who didn't :-)

The lowdown:

The speaker was great. He spoke about encouraging one another, accepting one another, loving one another and serving one another - with lots of little extras in it as well, which I thought was great - like the whole strong faith/weak faith thing? That's given me heaps to think about.

Tim and Adam are crazy, and hanging out with them gets addictive. Break the addiction - have a day off! :-)

Hann and I nearly died!! Not really. We went on a bushwalk and a bunch of us decided to climb up a creek to get back to the path. There was this log that was about 1.5m (?) above the creek (with submerged rocks) - and nothing to hang onto either side. Think balance beam.

Anyway, with some difficulty, I didn't panic. Hann said "I"ll help you" and grabbed my hand. Then she started slipping - and you know those terrible moments of panic where you think "That's it!"? I had one of those. But I just grabbed her and she stopped moving. We lived. Whew. So yeah, I'm glad we did that. I feel like I accomplished something and conquered a fear :-)

On the way home we (i.e. Tim, Hann, me, Pete, Gloria and Mathieu) stopped for ice-cream. Pete ate a litre.

Oh yeah, and getting there was fun. Tim turned up at my place - I was in the middle of packing. Then we had to get Janelle before I finished. And then we stopped to buy some props for the MC stuff, and also some tea. By then it was 5pm and we had to be at the camp by 5:30 so Janelle could practice. So we sped home, grabbed my stuff, and took the shortcut to Mt Tamborine. It was funny!!!! :-)

That's all for now. Maybe more later.

Nightlife

It was great tonight :-)

First, thanks Gloria for your testimony!!! :-) I didn't know all that stuff about you, but I'm so glad that you're here in Oz with us crazy people. You are a great friend, and your testimony really encouraged me. (There was something specific that I meant to thank you for, but I can't remember what it was.......I'll let you know if I do) But thank you!

Also Hann - great work with the music, like I said, the songs were GREAT and they really worked with the talk and they really spoke to me too, especially the first one (I love that one).

And then, of course, God! Thank You so much for using that talk to speak to people, and thanks that it was something I enjoyed doing! Maybe we can do it again sometime?

Thanks everyone for your encouragement and prayer :-)

Fun!

Sport in the park is turning out to be a lot of fun.

We played soccer. It was 30 degrees. We were boiling.
Pete goes, "Can you fill up my water bottle?" as I was off to the drink taps. Pat asked the same question.

I couldn't pull the lid off Pete's. I finally did, filled the bottle, and couldn't push the lid back on. Turns out it's a screw-top lid.
"Yeah, it's a special lid," he said. "It doesn't leak, see?" and he shook it. Water splashed onto me and some other people. Then began an innocent game of Pete's own invention - how to 'accidentally' splash people. Soon it escalated into a big waterfight.
The climax was probably pouring my whole water bottle down the inside of Pete's shirt. Or Pete and Pat ganging up on me - I, with my 600ml and them with their 1 litre each.

At the end, we were all drenched. (Gloria had to dry herself off with a hand-dryer in the toilets) So we decided we couldn't let the good times stop. We went and saw 'Walk the Line' that night. The movie wasn't the greatest (I think you need to know more about Johnny Cash to appreciate it), but it wasn't the worst. And we had fun going to the video arcade and playing driving games. And Pete figured out how those water fountains in Queen St work (quite by accident). Then we all got home late. It was fun.

Whoa

My blog was a year old last Friday. I forgot!

Happy birthday, blog.

Daisies and roses

Daisy, give yourself away
Look up at the rain
A beautiful display
Of power and surrender
Giving us today
When she gives herself away....

Pain, give yourself a name
Call yourself contrition, avarice or blame
Giving isn't easy
Neither is the rain
When she gives herself away

Let it go, Daisy,
Let it go
Open up your fist
This fallen world
It doesn't hold your interest,
Doesn't hold your soul.
Daisy, let it go.........'Daisy', Switchfoot

I love that song. It's painful, but it's beautiful.

Why is it that roses smell the most beautiful when they die?
Why is it that (in most parts of the world) the trees and plants are the most gorgeous, brilliant colours when they are dying?

And maybe it's true that in dying to ourselves, in giving ourselves away, we are at our most magnificent.

a collection of thoughts

Bands improve over time. (Some do, anyway)

downhere is one such band.

I loved their first CD. I never heard their second. Now I'm listening to some of their songs from their third CD. And I have to say - it's a similar style, but musically and technically, they have improved. And they weren't bad to start with.

"So why don't we do
What we were saved for......"

A thought. God has saved me for something. That means it has to be a good something - if it was a bad something, intended for bad, why bother saving me? Why not just leave me as I was?
"Unless of course," says some horrible little part of me that I prefer to ignore, "He was just playing a cruel joke. And now you're for it."

Well, if I was a bit younger I might get a bit freaked out and lose the plot for awhile. But now I'm a bit older and I just say - then look at the cross. He gave His Son. That's no joke. He's saved me now - that's it. End of story. He's not turning around and going, "No, I'm not" - cos it's too late, see. I'm already saved. There's no going back.

Ok, so I'm tired and all that was probably a bit weird. Never mind.

Time to go write lesson plans. (ha - imagine what they'll look like in this state of mind ;-)

Roll up! Roll up!

See the Yermits video - (otherwise known as Connexions Camp promo)

Watch Tim wear a funny hat!
See Nicola acting emo!

Go to Luke's blog and follow the link.

Drama and music

Drama teachers and music teachers seem to have such a complex about their subject areas - and I'm sure I'm going to find out why on prac :-s They make the funniest comments though.

My music teacher: (commenting on how little music is regarded as a worthwhile subject)
"What a great class! I can't wait for our music class on Friday, last period. It's a shame we're in the toilet block......"

My drama tutor: (commenting on kids' perceptions of us as teachers)
"In terms of year eights, you're old. And suddenly you don't know anything about music. You just die."

Carnivorous sheep, the Goodies and I

I had a dream a couple of nights ago.

In this dream, I was hanging out at the Goodies house!!! Yeah :-)

Across the road was this farmer with some dogs and some sheep. These dogs were able to get over the fence into our yard, and then get back over. So were some of the sheep - only they had trouble getting back over.

One of them started biting me. We all realised that these sheep were trained to eat people, and somehow we all knew that the next morning all the sheep were going to stage a take-over of the Goodies' place and eat us.

We had to do something.

Someone suggested that we feed the sheep lots of food so they wouldn't eat us. Graeme and Bill were absolutely hopeless - they sat in the house doing nothing. Meanwhile Tim and I were out on the front lawn scattering every type of food we could find, so the sheep would eat it, and not us. All-Bran, even soap - we put it all on the front lawn. We tried to close our gates, but then one of my drama tutors from uni came along and walked through one and broke it - so we couldn't close it. We were all panicking - dawn was approaching. Then I suddenly had an idea.
"Wait a minute!" I yelled. "We don't need all this food! All we need to do is get a dog!"
Tim nearly had conniptions, he was so angry that we'd done all that work for nothing!

The sheep never came, because I woke up.
But yeah, me and the Goodies are friends now ;-)

Something found on someone else's forum

"Be careful not to take long lingering looks at your own sin. It takes your eyes from where they should be. Believe God when He says that He will perfect the work begun in you. It's so much better when He is the one doing the perfecting."

Self control

Saturday night, and I'm at home. Which is a bit boring, but the good news is that I just finished writing something for Nightlife. Hooray. You'll get to see it in a couple of weeks, if you go to Nightlife.

A lot of what I've been writing about has to do with self-control. I think I need to develop some - at least more than I have at the moment (come on people - does a person with self control sit and eat 2 doughnuts after both tea and dessert? I think not! :-)

Self control is broad - it covers lots of areas.
* Am I going to go off my head at that person who just ticked me off?
* Am I going to have that extra doughnut?
*Do I really need to watch another TV show?

It is smart. It says things like,
"If I write the assignment now, then maybe I can read the whole book tomorrow (instead of half now, half tomorrow)."
"5 hours on MSN is probably a bit too much."
"Maybe one Goodies episode, not six."

Oh, for more self control. See Titus 2:12.

More random stuff from Random Stuff

So.....

Yesterday was International Women's Day! And may I just say how awesome all you women are :-)

Right, so I've got stages of moral development swimming around in my head. Apparently in some cases I am morally superior if I steal in order to help someone. ????? This is the kind of thing that ticks me off, but I don't think I'd dare say that in a tutorial. Hmmm.....who knows? Maybe I will.

Um...I forgot I have assignments, so things are piling up a bit. But I'm slogging away, and feeling tired, but good :-) The kind of tired that results from working hard, but not being burnt out. It's nice :-) I hope it stays. I hope I don't get burnt out. After Connexions camp things will hopefully settle down a bit.

Umm........um....I have to write the exegesis on Saturday. But once I have that'll be a load off my mind. It'll get done. *I'm starting to panic a bit*

Right, I'm going to go and do something constructive and lighten the load.

;-)

Desperate for sleep

I just need to sleep. Please.

I'm at work and I'm bored and full of caffeine. But sleep is looking so inviting.......:-)

I read a review about Switchfoot's CD 'Nothing Is Sound' and they said that it was a 'missed opportunity' - as in it didn't convey the gospel message. But they seemed to love one of Jessica Simpson's CDs. What is wrong with this picture?

I guess it just depends where you're coming from.


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When you read too much....

Tony Campolo's book left thoughts in my head such as: "Is evangelicalism sexist? Perhaps. How should we treat homosexuals? Where is compassion?"

The lecture on drama curriculum swirled in thoughts like: "How to define an aesthetic experience" and "Why do you want to teach drama" and "How are you going to respond when a kid completely freaks you out by asking if they can do a play/movie/documentary on *insert scary topic here*"

This was mixed up with prac information ("Get your blue card asap!" "How not to fail prac") and the aims of Australian schooling. Also mixed up with a definition of music ("organised sound that is intended to be listened to").

And then onto discipleship and "where does my value come from?" "What has God been doing in your life?"

Back to drama curriculum and some woman carrying on about "What is an artist for?"

Then onto "How to make Quickbooks work so you can figure out last quarter's BAS for your parents" and stress about the upcoming exegesis on Titus and the lesson plan for year 9 music students using a 'creative musical approach' (what does THAT mean?!)

Don't forget quiet times, and a bit of a lack of sleep. A lot of a lack of sleep. I didn't know it was going to be this busy. I feel tired, but energised. I feel great :-) Okay, a little cranky, but that will fade.

Keep an eye out for the yermits! :-)

Just an idea

I was thinking about conspiracy theories today. (Don't know why) And indoctrination - we were talking the other night at uni about what was the purpose of education? Is one of the purposes indoctrination?

And then I started thinking of the theory of evolution - and it's pretty much indoctrination. It's presented as fact and generally accepted, even though it's an unproven theory. Now admittedly you can neither prove creation or evolution. But to push one over the other - you've got to wonder what the agenda is, right?

What might be better? Perhaps a presentation of both theories, along with their pros and cons, in schools. Eg:

"Here is the theory of evolution - blah blah blah. The strengths of this theory are: blah blah blah. Scientists have found that xyz supports this theory. The weaknesses in this theory are: blah blah blah.

Here is the theory of creation - (repeat above process)."

This is a more balanced view and allows students to investigate for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

Instead, what we have is something closer to indoctrination. What's laughable is that creation theory is the one denounced as propaganda and indoctrination.

So I was thinking - why not write a play or a TV show, and completely send up the way schools are pushing evolution? Okay, it will probably infuriate a bunch of people - maybe. Unless we can use humour so that they're so busy laughing at it, they forget to be infuriated. And then maybe students will stop to think about what they're being taught, and why.

Just an idea :-)