The weekend

Friday night: Winging it 2 with Janelle, Missy and Pete (and Mathieu joined us for a bit).

Pete! Turn left! ;-)

Saturday morning: Slept over at Missy and Nelle's. Went to sleep at 2, got up at 10.

Saturday afternoon: Jam session.

Saturday evening: 21st birthday for a girl in my home group.

Sunday morning: Church.

Sunday: Visiting grandparents.

This is beginning to sound like Adrian Plass (I read his 'Sacred Diary' on Friday night/Saturday morning)

MONDAY: Out
TUESDAY: Out
WEDNESDAY: Out
THURSDAY: Out
FRIDAY: Out
SATURDAY: Out! Out! Out!

I really need to clean my room. :-s Like, REALLY BADLY. Soon.

Am I on at Nightlife tomorrow night?

I tried cooking a meal tonight. Looked like I was storing up for a six month siege! Oh well.

Gotta go to bed now before I collapse from exhaustion. Goodnight!

P.S. PLEEEEEEEEASE comment. I mean it. If you have not commented in the last 3 weeks, your number is UP! Do it now! :-) *If those of you who have commented in the last 3 weeks would kindly refrain until others are up to date with their commentship - on the other hand, perhaps I won't have any comments if I wait for them :-p * Oh for goodness sake - just everyone comment! There is a 5 million word limit, though. Hehe.

Blog number two

So.....

I have a second blog. I originally created it to put things on that I didn't want people to read.
"But if you don't want people to read it," I can hear you thinking, "then why did you create it?"
Well, I guess the truth is, I wanted people to "accidentally" read it and feel sorry for me.

Sometimes, I do silly things.

That was one of them.

So now I've taken the unreadable things off, put some readable things on and it's open for all to see. Except it's not as 'pink' - maybe the second blog is my 'emo' blog - although I cannot stand the term. Emo. It's like an emu gone wrong. Plus I'd like this blog to be full of both happy and sad/emo things - integrated, not "here is my dark side, here is my good side".

Maybe there'll be a special purpose for the second blog soon enough - it's got a lot of song lyrics on it. Maybe it's a "music/drama" blog. I don't know yet. If you've got any ideas, please, let fly in the comments. (That's a rather indelicate phrase, but you know what I mean.)

Congratulations!

This is to certify that Nathan (most of you don't know him - he's a guy from my church) completed his I.T. course on Tuesday and will now be graduating to.......well..........only he knows, I guess!

Well done Nathan (if you're reading this).

And if you wanted to correct my "Sweet Revenge" terminology, there is a link to that post here.

:-D

My blog looks funny, and I don't know why. When I view it, it's not showing any pictures. I think there's something wrong with Firefox.

I had all these great things I wanted to say, but now that I'm writing this, I can't think of them! Oh well.........

A quote from John Stott:

What form might the cost [of reconciliation] take?....If we ourselves are to blame, there will be the humiliation of apologising, the deeper humiliation of making restitution where possible, and the deepest humiliation of all, which is to confess that the wounds we have caused will take time to heal and cannot light-heartedly be forgotten...p.296, "The Cross of Christ"

He was talking about how it cost Jesus so much to reconcile us to God, and that reconciliation between Christians is costly.

I read Psalm 34 yesterday. It's one of my favourites :-D

Complete tangent: Just before (or during?) MYC I was reading a book (The Fight by John White, if you're interested - I recommend it) and it talked about how life as a Christian was about praying the prayer 'Not my will, but Yours be done'. Not, said the author, that life was to be a series of Gethsemanes (which is where this prayer was prayed - by Jesus), but it was to be a continual prayer. So I started praying it. For a long time I've been scared about what God will do if I surrender. I'm not entirely over it. But I keep praying this prayer. And I've noticed a couple of small changes:
I realised that God loves me and what He asks me to do is out of His love for me.
It makes it easier to choose God's way over mine.
Sometimes I can tell the difference between when God really wants something and when I'm just imagining things. (But only sometimes!)

That's it. It's still a struggle. I'm not over my fear of "what God wants" or "God's will". But I think it's getting better. Hope that was helpful for someone.

My phone is playing up. I want to get a new one. But I also feel like that would be a bit materialistic.......I probably only need a new phone battery to make it work better - that's like tens of dollars as opposed to hundreds of dollars. And I pride myself on making things last until they wear out. I think I'll get a new phone battery. It's kind of a novelty to have the oldest phone around.

I keep trying to write songs for other people, but it just doesn't work as well as writing songs for myself. Mind you, if I only write for myself, then I have to wait for ages until I get a good idea. There's always material if I write for other people, but those ones don't seem as good.....ah well, more work.

Btw, if anyone wants to take over sport in the park on Friday afternoons, let me know, cos I am unfortunately not available to do it anymore.

Have a good weekend!

The definition of "blessed"

A feeling and/or perspective.

Something good that has been done or given to you, especially when you
did not deserve it.

Self realisation of the good things in life.

The feeling of joyfulness despite/regardless of circumstances.

Those were definitions that we offered at home group last night when asked to come up with a definition of 'blessed'. I'm sure it's by no means exhaustive - I would probably add to that definition that blessed is a state you are in, whether or not you realise it. But it could include realising good things in life too.

The Beatitudes ("declaration of blessedness") were what we studied.

Blessed are the poor in spirit - those who realise they are spiritually bankrupt, owe a massive spiritual debt and realise they cannot pay - for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Realising that I have no resources with which to deal with sin apparently makes me blessed - because only then am I one step closer to understanding that Jesus has done it for me, and accepting that fact.

Blessed are those who mourn - over their sin - for they will be comforted.

There's a line between mourning for our sin and feeling utter condemnation. Mourning leads to comfort - the realisation that I have been forgiven. Condemnation doesn't.

Anyway, that's just two that really stood out for me.

Windows Live Messenger

Even if the name didn't contain the word 'Windows', I'm sure I'd be able to figure out that it was created by Windows due to the sheer dodginess of the program.

Ok, so perhaps that's an exaggeration. What I'm saying is that I can't figure out how to use it. Why are only 2 or 3 of my MSN contacts showing up? Can someone help me? If I'm using this thing at uni, I want to know what to do. Thanks.

Saturday

I'm working.

On a SATURDAY.

But it's not too bad, because I'm getting things done.

Yesterday I had a three hour meeting with our new accountant (who also went to QUT - yeah!) He let me print out a bank statement from his computer - which was located on a desk smaller than mine, IN A CUBICLE!!!!! Images of Dilbert flooded my mind as I blurted out, "You really DO work in cubicles!" It was a real eye-opener. I think he might have laughed.

So let me add "accountant's office" to the places I have been to work: lawyer's firm, engineering office, high school and now, Level 5 of the National Bank house on the corner of Adelaide and Creek St.

MYC - how could I forget to post about it :-) I just thought everyone else was doing such a good job reporting on it - not to mention the PICTURES (of which I have none) - that I didn't really need to say anything about it. But I will make mention of a few noteworthy events, which did not occur in conjunction with George the monkey (unlike most other events at MYC :-p) - although everybody really does love George (myself included, perhaps Tim Muller excluded).

DAY 1: Before I got there, I was given a driving lesson. Thanks must go to Trev for his clear instruction, his patience and his calmness.
Then after we got there, it was time for registration. I said g'day to Tim and possibly contracted his cold - that night when I went to bed my throat was scratchy and my nose was starting to run.

DAY 2 - This might have been full-blown cold day. Not sure. Anyway, at some point during the week a few of us went to the chemist in order to stock up on Codral, vitamin C, tissues and, of course, the all-curing chemist jelly beans. (Note: If you eat half a packet within an hour, you will almost fall asleep during your next training session).

OTHER SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS:
Chatting with friends/missionaries and sorting some things out - questions answered, fears dealt with, opinions voiced, disappointment expressed, and afterwards I think we all felt a bit better. The amount of times someone said, "Can we go to the beach so we can talk?" was probably a record. But it was good.

Trev's car. What more needs to be said?

Holding Elijah (Jess and Kye's baby). I forgot how heavy babies can be - or maybe I'm just out of practice and was holding him wrong. It's been 11 years since my brother was a baby!

Being smart enough to bring a torch to NOT get scared by Missy hiding in the bushes on the walk up to the beach.

Talking with these randoms on the beach about Christianity/Jesus/God/Bible on the last night!!!! It was sooooo good! Relational evangelism? More of that, please!

Outreach - listening to a man who thought that the sooner life was over, the better - he needs hope. Pray for him.

Noticing Pete falling asleep, but forgetting about it when I was talking (is that why everyone was laughing when I was talking?)

Site A. I definitely prefer it to Site B. Except maybe the beds......too much SAND. Too much LIGHT. Too much NOISE. But I still like it more.

Going to the Ettamogah Pub on the way home - it's becoming a tradition........who will carry it on once us fogies in the old crowd are gone?

I didn't lose my voice this camp! Hooray :-)

Now I can go and get ready to paint the town red.....I'm not spending Saturday NIGHT behind the computer!

P.S. A cockroach crawled on me today. Ew.

"Give it to Mogg!"

That was the cry that went up last night as we were watching the State of Origin.

The other cry that went up was, "I'm blind, I'm deaf, I wanna be a ref!"

Now I am not a sport fan. I particularly don't like football. This, in fact, was the first State of Origin game I've ever watched in full. However, Roy and H.G.'s commentary made it palatable ;-) And we had our own going that also made it fun.

The refs, as I said, were at times blind and deaf. I have been told that a 'knock on' occurs when the football bounces off/out of a players hands - not stomach - and rolls forward. However, when the ball was on the ground and a QLD player dove on top of it and it rolled forward, there was "No Try" because it was deemed a knock on.

However, when the ball rolled through a NSW player's arms, along his torso and off his right leg and rolled forward, that was not deemed a knock on and a try was scored. A little bit unfair, wouldn't you think?

Another highlight of the game was watching NSW plant the ball on the ground a few metres away from the line and jumping around, hugging each other as though they'd scored.

We thought Tate (and I have no idea who these guys are, I just saw them last night) was hopeless for most of the game - every time he got the ball, he fell over! But he redeemed himself with his big sprint to the try line. (Is that what it's called?) Meanwhile Mogg was, in Aaron's expert opinion (Aaron "Wolverine", not Aaron S), "the only Queenslander who wants to win!"

And just how many scrums can you put into one match? "10 minutes since we had a scrum? Well, maybe we should have another one!" That's what footy fans pay to see - a bunch of blokes standing around having a chat before attempting to mash each other into one big unit. How's your form, Queensland - two minutes left on the clock, and the ref decides there needs to be another scrum! So Qld takes its time, casually sauntering up to the scrum and having tea and bikkies while the NSW team have already assumed the position. Nice tactic, guys.

Well, overall, a few dodgy decisions by the refs - but a very exciting match, and I think it's about time Queensland won.

Psycho Jelly Babies!

THE OPERATION






Siamese twins are born!












The operation




















The anxious family














The crazy surgeon!


















Hooray! It was a success!












Oh no!




















We've had a bit of an accident!



















Ooh.......not good.












Note the rather flattened one on the left.









RANDOM BABIES









Burnt baby












Drowning babies












Sick baby


















Strangled baby













Drat that anaconda!










Homeless baby









THE STORY OF THE PYRO AND THE HOMELESS BABY






Pyro baby





















Meets homeless baby on his property












"Get off my property!"

































"Hehe."















Dead baby.













Psycho jelly baby.













CANOEING






Canoeing























In the toilet bowl
















Oops, we got too wet and had to be thrown out...







MEDDLE NOT IN THE AFFAIRS OF DRAGONS......






For thou art crunchy......























........and will taste good with tomato sauce.


















Wolverine?! Is that you?!








Acknowledgements:
Shelly for use of her camera
Aaron, Sally, Shelly and I for appearing in and taking the photos
Jelly babies for subjecting themselves to torture
Shelly for the photos

Sweet Revenge

(with thanks to Nathan and Aaron for teaching me the game and giving it a name)

This is a game for people who are watching a movie they don't like. The aim is to score as many points as possible. Points are scored in the following way:

The person who is having their turn selects their ammunition (be it an anaconda - i.e. jelly snake - or a different type of lolly). They select a shot (eg. the hand of the person sitting in front of them) and give a call ("And the call will be - 'Stop throwing lollies!') If the lolly hits the target, 1 point is scored. If the lolly hits the target and the call is correct (i.e. the target responds in they way the person throwing the lolly thought they would), 1 point is scored. Extra points can be scored for ricochets or "lick-and-sticks"(i.e. the lolly sticks to the object).

At the end of the night the score was:
Nathan - 15 points
Aaron - 11ish points
Me - 9 points (I started on 7, because I came in late)
Warwick - 7 points (he also started on 7 because he came in late)

Kids Klub after parties are fun. They're even more fun with "Sweet Revenge".