Yes I agree with Ryan and Erin, Audrey Hepburn is the bomb.

I have to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's again because Jo hired it and it's sitting on the shelf.

There was a picture of Audrey up at Hornsby Odeon, probably still is. I used to spend my days with her looking at me in that Audrey kind of way:



Maybe that's what I miss most about the cinema. I never really paid much attention to her, it was just nice having her there.

I had a leader's lunch today but only Lauren turned up. That was ok though. We went to the shops and ate chicken burgers. My usual cusine (I've given up on the butter chicken). I feel like I did a lot of raving. Especially since talking to Jo about it. We covered the topics of sex, swearing, pirated music, Christian conduct. And it feels like I spent the whole time vomiting out "Tom thoughts". This wasn't "Tom time", this was worse.

Lauren did talk a bit though. We just got on to all the wrong topics of conversation. I had something to say about everything. Sometimes I get annoyed at myself for talking too much. Other times I get annoyed for talking to loudly. I didn't talk too loudly today though (actually I did, once, but that wasn't during the "leader's lunch"). Just in general.

I'm blogging now because I'm meant to be running a d-team, but alas, no-one turned up. I've often only had one person. Today none. It's a little sad. But what can you do?

I got too little sleep last night. After attending a trivia night with various people for Hannah's school. It was an interesting night. I won a lucky door prize which was a British Airways travel pack. Like those ones with the sleeping masks and the shampoo and stuff. It was a pretty poor lucky door prize if you ask me. But it was the last one of the night and I don't think they were planning to give it away. It was pretty funny though.

The guy who hosted it made some jokes which were a little inapproriate, like saying to a woman who couldn't find her lucky door prize ticket "Don't worry about showing us your ticket, show us your tits!". He also called his wife, "wife".

But it was a nice night none the less, hanging out with nice people.

Prior to that (I'm working backwards) I had a sit around lazy day. I got up at around 10 and after my shower sat around with Mum, Tinku and Jo eating french toast that Jo had made. It was very nice. We spent about an hour and a half sitting around the table, being together.

I tried to work on my talk for these scripture seminars but I'm doing really badly. I worked on it this morning in the car. I have picked a really bad passage to do a talk on (Gal 4:4-7). It all seems nice in theory but actually getting into the passage, there is so much theological foreknowlege assumed, it's making me puke. How do you explain to a year 8 kid what it means for Jesus to be born under law, to redeem those under law? I'm struggling.

Grrr.

Anyway, so I didn't get much sleep last night I was planning today's ministry activities (lucky I did because I slept in). And I was thinking about things that make me angry. I was going to make a list, but I didn't get very far. I thought I might blog, because I was having quite interesting thoughts, I thought, but I have decided against that too. So I'll just leave it in my memories.

Grandpa told me tonight that he gave the address of my blog to one of his friends. She read it and said to tell me that what I said about terrorism is "Bullshit".

Perhaps that is true. My blog is probably just a collection of it.

I'm not sure quite what the objection is to, but it's kinda cool. Only Ryan seems to get people saying that about his blog. And that was only in the good old days.

But if I can elaborate...

I think terrorism is effective because the amount of destruction caused by the terrorists has a huge impact for a relatively few deaths. I think that's what I've said before. Since September 11, there has been a shift in the way westerners, and perhaps everyone, see the world. There is more fear. There are no longer bins on Sydney train stations, because of fear. We get stupid fridge magnets in our letter boxes, because of fear. We look slyly at people of Middle Eastern, or Asian appearance, because of fear. The terrorists (with the help of their enemies) have managed to vilify whole racial groups of people, on either side. And because there is no particular army, anyone could be a terrorist. Anyone who's not an Anglo at least.

I think terrorism is effective because I've seen my world change, maybe only slightly, but change, and it's only been through around 5,000 deaths. Maybe less.

And on the flipside terrorism is now an excuse for any government to do whatever it wants. George W can invade various countries to fight terrorism. They can round up their Muslim citizens and make them get registered, because of terrorism. Saudi Arabia can round up, interrogate, and torture it's citizens, to fight terrorism. Australia can pass stupid laws to deprive the rights of it's citizens, to fight terrorism. Terrorism is the new buzz word. Terrorism is working wonders. The western world is setting itself up against the rest of it. The "Us and Them" mentality must have the terrorist organizations cheering. People are being forced to one side or the other, people who in the old days were much more likely to be neutral. The "Anti-US" sentiment, I would think, must now be much higher than is was before September 11. The anti-Islamic sentiment is going the same way.

So as I said, I think it sucks. I wish the US knew how to respond to terrorism with mercy and not "justice". I wish the terrorists knew how to respond to injustice with wisdom and not revenge. I think what terrorism has done, and the actions of the western world which has fueled it, is tragic.

Terrorism is having an effect. The world is changing. I wish it was for the better, but I'm sure it is not.

I don't know what I can do. But I won't let it bring out the worst in me. I will pray that I can act justly, love mercy and walk humbly, even when the rest of the world won't. Terrorism has affected me, by the grace of God it'll be for the better.

I found this on my computer.

It was the start of a script I once thought about writing about my Yr10 and 11 life experiences. Maybe I still will write it one day. Not today.

I think it was meant to begin on the front steps of a function centre down at Dee Why as I arrived at my year 10 formal.

From a backwards point of view, I see everything. But the beginning never is what it seems, and ends only really happen after they actually do. I mean you never end at a specific point. Usually 2 months, years, down the track you think “Well I guess that’s over.” And I guess it is.

But in finding a place to start this story I have decided to start here. Year 10, 1998. My formal. Strange really. It was my first, and second last. Many people arrived in their posh cars, with their posh partners, attempting to sneek in posh illegal substances. I arrived in my white people mover with my Indian friend Raheeb. Right now I’m attempting to extract a hefty object from the seat of my pants. Notice those cool looking folks cool looking at me?

COOL FOLK
Tom, what the f*** are you doing?

Tom digs around the back of his pants some more. He extracts what he was looking for.

TOM
My book.

The story of me. I didn’t take girls places. I took books. The rest of the formal isn’t all that interesting. I tried to read my book but only got four pages read till the lights went out so people could dance. And the rest of the time I was trying to persuade Raheeb not to take photos of the girl he was stalking. She asked me to ask him to stop. Maybe she liked me.

There are so many blogs out there of raging teenagers.

From SMH.

I just got an e-mail from my Grandpa and he noticed that I didn't link to him in my Wednesday post. So now I will rectify the situation.

Go and find out about my wonderful Grandpa, he's the bomb.

And if you want to find out about his recent trip all over the world (well most of it), go here.

And if you want to see him pretending to be a penguin, go here. (He didn't tell me to link to that, but I think it's a good photo)

There we go, now you can know all about my Grandpa.

Tops.

Listening to Zooropa at the moment. I've had bits of it in my head ever since playing Helen TOOBSC stuff this morning.

Today was an interesting day.

I went to the high school and sat around for a lunch time talking about mobile phones.

I fiddled with Matt's computer to make it send automatic replies when people send him e-mails. It's half working.

We had youth group. That was good tonight. We had a small amount of kids. We joined with the older youth group and watched Unboxed which was good stuff. It was good to do something different with the crew. And the piece (if that's what you call it, I think I've heard Helen call things "pieces" so I guess I can) was good too. And Kaye did a talk. That was good. And the kids were really well behaved. That also was good.

Then we had small groups which consisted of a lot of jokes about not conforming (which is what Unboxed is about), some tangents (I now know that there are four pot houses at one of my guy's school and he knows where they all are), and some discussion about what it means not to conform. Yeah. It was a bit scatty, but it always is on a Friday night.

After youth group I had a very silly official debrief, and an even sillier stand around.

After, after, Helen and I had a chat and went out to Macca's and talked more. Mainly ministry stuff. We discussed the fear of unfruitful ministries and our dreams for the future. It was interesting. I thought a lot on the way home about my fear of having a ministry that sucks. I noticed tonight that the youth group is half as big as when I started. It's always a struggle to make sure you're focused on being obiedient, rather than looking for easy solutions, or dodgy fixes. I know how to run a youth group that gets kids. At least I think I do. I know much less how to run a youth group that works. Many times I feel like a fraud. Which reminds me that Lesley once told me, or perhaps it was Karyn, one of my past youth leaders, that you feel like a fraud for the first 5 years in the work place and you spend your whole time waiting for someone to turn up and tell you to "Get out, go home, the game's up".

Anyway, I don't know. It's hard having to trust God. I don't know if I'm destined for big things. I don't know what God has planned for me. I don't know where God is going to take me and what ministry He wants me to do. It may be that he wants me running a "fruitless" ministry in the middle of Nowheresville (it wouldn't be fruitless because I would be where God wants me, but from the outside, it'd have the look). And that scares me to bits. But it could be. And if that's what He wants, then that's what I'm going to do.

But untill then, I'll pray, and work my hardest, to make a ministry that reaches and changes as many lives as possible with the Gospel. I'll do what God requires of me, and trust that everything else after that is God's problem.

But I still hope I don't end up in Nowheresville.

I have the self-discipline of an ice cube in the sun.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it's the best thing I could think of.

I have terrible self-discipline.

It's the wizzing game!

How cool.

While I was deciding whether or not to go to church tonight I lay on my bed in a fit of indecision.

I woke up half an hour later and the "event" had started three minutes ago. I no longer felt any indecision.

Mum and I watched No Man's Land tonight. Depressing. Funny. Very black. Good quality.

There we go. There's my manditory, useless, one-line review.

The Clubs say 70% of them will close down if the government raises pokies taxes.

And I say, "Good stuff". It'll encourage them to find some other way to make money than off people's addictions.

If Hornsby RSL closes maybe Rob and I can go halfs in that big hall with the posh stage.

What a crazy 24 hours. Not a bloggable 24 hours. But a crazy 24 hours.

Of the bits that I can talk about, they have been quite usual.

We had take-away for dinner last night and where else to get take-away but the House of Chan! Hornsby's finest Chinese establishment.

I saw Mars last night too. Closest it's been in nearly 60,000 years. Wasn't very exciting. It looked like a really, really, small orange street light.

Not like this:



Today I wrote a Bible Study.

Tonight I'm contemplating whether or not to go to church and meet some missionaries. Or should I just stay home. Home is feeling very appealing at this present time.

It's the Verve, meets Radiohead, meets the Holy Spirit, here is Sonicflood!

I don't think Sonicflood sound much like the Verve or Radiohead, and I've never listened to an album by the Holy Spirit, so I'm a little un-sure about that introduction on Sonicpraise.

I listened to Jesus Freak by dc Talk in the shower yesterday. That was a bit of old time coolness. I listened to Jars of Clay this morning, that was alright too, but I never liked Jars as much as the Talk.

After I got off the train today I ran into Lesley so I went to her place for a cup of tea.

That was fun. We covered the usual topics: Films in general, films we want to make, religion, the Bible, churches, male and female relations, blogs.

And I had tea.

That's tea number 2 for the year.

I went and saw Down with Love today with my Grandpa. That was fun. He took me out for lunch and a movie. Very romantic, except not. The movie was good fun. It would have been so much fun to make that film. 60s cool all the way. The sets were wonderful. Costumes, ahhhh. Generally the Art Direction was very funny. It looked like a lot of fun. Do the 60s kitch thing. Ya Ya.

And don't we all love Ewan? (I was going to link to every recent compliment of Ewan in this blogging community here, but alas there are some bugs and the blogs are being dogish, so we'll leave it)

I would like to watch The Apostle some time soon. I went and saw that with sbevis way back on 14th July 1998 (the joys of a movie ticket collection). That was a fun night. We went to Broadway. I was a young year 10 boy. We went to a 4:10pm session so it was only really night when we travelled home. Must have gone after school. Or maybe I was on holidays. That sounds right. We caught an express train home and they had just introduced the "2 Security Guards on every train after 7pm", and they came through the train. I commented to Steve that they weren't very useful because they weren't allowed to do anything. They could only walk up and down. They just made people feel safe. And some bloke across the isle from us said something rude about them to us. Steve laughed politely and I probably did too, but I wasn't really sure how to respond because I don't think I wanted to be rude about the guards.

Anyway that's a tangent, I want to watch The Apostle again because I have been thinking about making a film about a pastor for a while. It may only be something that interests me, and I don't really have and intentions of actually making a film. Just thinking about it. I guess I like the idea of a spiritual leader going on a journey of struggle, and fall, and redemption. Someone who understands grace, and teaches grace, and believes in grace, and then experiences grace. Not that they wouldn't have experienced grace before, but even the big people of faith need to experience grace again and again. It might go the modern David and Bethsheba line. Although I don't think I'd want to actually have my main character having an affair. Perhaps just moving towards and very close to it.

I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. I guess the scene that has been stuck in my head is when the pastor confesses to his wife what's been going on, and then preaches that Sunday to the church and tells them something or other. And it'd all be really moving.

As I said I don't think I'll ever make it. But I'll think about it.

I think terrorism is a bad idea.

Although, it is quite effective. Compared to all out war, it has a huge impact with relativly few deaths.

That's if you only count what the terrorists do. If you count how the US responds then there are a lot more deaths.

Still, effective or not, it pretty much sucks.

If my son came home and told me he was a terrorist I'd send him to his room.

And lock the door.

And never give him the keys to the car.

Until he said sorry.

After that I don't know what I'd do.

Angus asked me yesterday: "Do you think some people only quote Brave New World to look smart?"

Everytime I watch or listen to Elevation Bono says after about 5 songs "Thanks for hanging 'round" and everytime I think to myself, "As if you wouldn't!"

I feel like I should recap my weekend. But I can't be bothered. I'm feeling a little sleepy.

I went to Soul Survivor on Saturday night. It was good but I was sitting down the back so it felt like I was watching the whole thing through a bomb shelter.

There was a time of prayer ministry and they called for people to go down the front to pray with the people who went down the front. I went down to pray and I couldn't find any spare males to pray with. Tanya saw me and pointed me in the direction of a guy who was standing in the first row next to a chick who was getting prayed for. I couldn't tell if he was down the front for prayer ministry or he was just in the first row. I asked him and he said he was just in the first row but would be happy for me to pray for him. So I did. I realised halfway through that I was positioned right behind this other chick and she was starting to rock and cry. I don't have a problem with this except that I was standing very close to her and if she fell, then she was going to fall right back on to me and I would then fall over on to the chairs and it could all have been very messy.

Anyway I prayed with this guy, when I'd finished he said no-one had prayed for him for months so that was good. And then I got out of there before the chick fell on me.

So that was my mildly interesting story of the night.

Yesterday was like any other church day.

We played air hockey before and after Bible study. We love air hockey. The puck hit me in the hand and now I have a bruise but you get that from hard core sports like hockey.

I have been meaning to talk about the mystery blogger but I keep forgetting. I found out who the mystery blogger is. After I told them to send me an e-mail I got an e-mail from the mystery blogger. They had a special hotmail address and everything. They said they couldn't tell me who they were but they would be happy to have ginger beer with me one day.

In the end it turned out after meeting them on msn, that the mystery blogger was who I thought it was.

And just to keep the mystery (or lack of) a little longer, this is the mystery blogger.

That's me on the right.

The list of some things we have searched for on this computer:

Often when I write an essay I start out thinking that it is most un-interesting, and I feel like I know nothing about the subject.

When I finish I think my subject is most interesting and I wonder how many people I know would be interested to read my essay and learn huge amounts about the interesting topics I spend various Saturday afternoons writing about.

I wonder how many people would be interested in reading about the rise of the Anabaptist movement and it's distintive beliefs. Probably not many.

That said I don't think my essay is particularly good. I don't really answer the question very well. I'll pass but I don't think I'll get much more than that. Pfff, these things happen.

I think all essays should be 500 words or less.

At least when I'm feeling uninspired.

We watched Simone last night. It was really sad because it could have been a good movie but it wasn't. It had a good concept, good cast, but silly direction, and a silly script. And it could have been good.

It was written and directed by Andrew Niccol who wrote The Truman Show and wrote and directed Gattaca, both wonderful movies. It's a shame then that he came out with Simone. I'm hoping that it went bad due to studio influence or something. Whatever happens, I'm still willing to hold out for Niccol for a few more bombs.

There's a new toy in my house.

On Thursday night Rob and I discovered that we could make his video camera into a webcam. And a damn good webcam at that. This has meant that late night silly performances for various people have occurred.

So far we have performed for people in St Ives, Belrose, Canada and Bangladesh.

David and Chris joined in the fun last night. In fact Chris and Rob were silly till the early hours of the morning while I slept on my bed in the corner.

Brave New World Quote Number 2

The Savage speaking to Mustapha Mond, the Controller.

'But I like the inconveniences'

'We don't' said the Controller. 'We prefer to do things comfortably.'

'But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.'

'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.'

'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.'

'Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what might happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.'

There was a long silence.

'I claim them all,' said the Savage at last.

Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. 'You're welcome,' he said.

Major earthquake shakes NZ

Local residents reported damage to crockery and glassware.

I'm about to go to bed.

Thursdays are always much less productive than planned. I was going to write some of my Church History assesment today ("Why study church history?" To pass the exam and be able to make snobby jokes about Henry VIII). I only really got to write the Bible study for tomorrow. I usually plan for that to take about an hour but it always takes more. Today it took 3 and half. Then it was time to eat maccas, help David with a video, fall asleep on the couch, then watch The Pianist with mum.

That was a sad movie. Very good. I like classical piano. Yah. It is very nice. The movie was top notch. Better than Schindler's List. It made me want to go out an punch a Nazi. It's kinda weird to think about that being part of my heritage. I don't think about people making movies about the time that my Grandfather lived through, I think about my Grandfather living through the movies. Not that I don't think of my Grandfather's experiences as real, but the movies have shaped my ideas of that period of history. I guess I don't know what to do with it all. I read my Grandfather's book in the past few years, and that had a much greater impact on my than any movie I have seen though. And that was all much more real, and much less clear cut than any of the movies I've seen.

So I'm not sure what I was saying. Just reflecting I guess.

Anyway, it was a good film.

"Does anyone really think that the Hornsby Odeon is an attractive destination?" - David, 1 minute ago

My house has many a non-dull moment.

I was going to say "never a dull moment", but that would be un-true.

Tinku and I went to McDonalds for lunch, at 6pm. I had one of those yoghurt things. It wasn't all that bad. A little rich, but not bad.

I got an e-mail just then inviting me to view Gigabytes of Exclusive cruel pervert domination videos!

The joys of the internet, eh?

She caught hold of the Savage's arm and pressed it, limply, against her side. He looked down at her for a moment, pale, pained, desiring and ashamed of his desire. He was not worthy, not...Their eyes for a moment met. What treasures hers promised! A queen's ransom of temperament. Hastily he looked away, disengaged his imprisoned arm. He was obscurely terrified lest she cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of. - Brave New World

I have had 9 visits to my April archives this month. I can't figure out what's so exciting about them. I think June was a much better month. Although I haven't really done an in depth look at all my archives. Every now and again I get distracted by them and think, "I forgot I did that" or "Aren't I funny?" or "Aren't I a smart person?" more likely though, "Why the hell'd I write that?".

Actually April did have this gem, perhaps that's what everyone is reading.

I had meeting with Steve Wade. We talked about the fact that I don't hate Fusion. There were rumours circulating that I didn't like Fusion. We talked about that. We're friends.

At my wedding 1 Corinthians 13 will not be read. It's so done. Just because it says "love" 9 times doesn't mean it's the perfect wedding reading. That's not to say that it shouldn't be read at weddings, I've just seen it a few too many times.

At my wedding there will be no 1 Corintians 13.

Unless the lady wants it. And then I'll say "Yes, sure dear"

I think I'll recommend Galatians 5:13-15 because that has the word "love" in it twice as well as the phrase "biting and devouring each other", which would be much more fun to put in a wedding. Plus if you include verse 12 you get the word "emasculate" too, so that's just adds even more spice.

I just had a thought, perhaps I have a split personality and I'm the mystery blogger. That could be interesting. Maybe my other half will send me an e-mail. Cool, I love making new friends.

I still don't know who the mystery blogger is. All the people at college who I thought it could be said "No". They could be lying. But they lied well if they did. And they didn't really have any reason to lie to me unless they thought it was funny and in that case then they were. I expressed my lack of anger, just curiosity. Anyway, if you are the mystery blogger say "G’day" to me. Tell me where I didn't sign out. Have beer with me. Actually you can drink the beer, I don't like beer. And if you're not the mystery blogger, say "G’day" anyway because I love getting e-mail.

Yeah.

Yay. I just read Jo's Blog and we got our show times at Black Stump. I think it's fully sick mate! TOOBSC gets two shows at posh times in a posh place. I love the Palladium, it's like the Big Top of arts.

Plus Hands and Trains gets two shows too which is like they've given us all we could ever ask for. Not that I have anything to do with Hands and Trains but I'm still happy for the general vibe of it all.

I got another bad sleep last night. Partly because I was awake for at least an hour thinking about how I'm going to edit TOOBSC and how it's all gonna fit together. I edited the montage last night (at around 11pm when I should have been asleep) and it's kinda fun. I've only done a rough edit but I think it'll work. If you were feeling a little emotional you may be tempted to cry. Not that that's the plan but I'm always up for a little tear shedding from the audience.

So yay. I'm happy.

Pressure is on now though.

I'm catching the 6:10am tomorrow.

I'll let you decided whether that's a good or a bad thing.

For everyone wanting to ride on Sydney's newest darling, you can find all the times of the Millenium Train here.

I caught one once. You can read all about my adventures here.

I set up a card table in my front yard today and sat down to do some college work out in the sun. It was very nice for 20 minutes. Then Mum and Ryan arrived and we ate sandwiches together.

That was a joke.

I hate Eskimos!

Hello special blog intruder,

Robert just informed me of my special post below. I'm not sure who did it because there are only two computers that I tell to save my password and they are both mine. But I might have accidentally done it elsewhere. Anyway, doesn't matter. It's not all that important. Unless they start writing things that might not be true like I'm a woman! or maybe I hate Eskimos. Both of which are untrue and could lead to quite embarrassing consequences in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen. This is why you should sign out when you use blooger on computers other then yours. Otherwise someone else can accidently blog on your blogger, without you knowing it.

I just finished capturing everything for The Opposite of Being Self Centred that isn't the music clip. This is a good thing. This means I can start editing it properly. I'm not sure if I should edit the bits I want to edit most first or I should just edit in a linear fashion. Hmm.

I like computer editing because you can do non-linear editing so maybe I should splash out and edit the way I feel like.

There was once a girl who rang to talk to me. I think it was last year. Or the year before. I wasn't at home. I think I was away for the weekend or something. The conversation went somthing like this: Jo answered the phone and the girl said "Is Tom there?" and Jo said "No" and she said "Ok, bye."

And that was it. We never found out who she was. I thought she might call back but she didn't. I decided there was a good chance it was the girl of my dreams. Chances are it was nothing important. But there was always the possibility it was a chance at true love.

Now that I think about it though, it couldn't have been the girl of my dreams. It was probably just one of my many admirers. The girl of my dreams would call back, or at least leave a message.

I didn't go to college today. I got up at the usual time of 5:something-or-other am and decided that while I was well enough to handle a day at college it would probably set me a back a few days in recovery and spending a night in those crappy beds wouldn't do me any good either. So I stayed home. And here I am. I might go and have some lunch in the food court at some stage but I don't have anyone to go with so I'm not sure if I want to go by myself.

I'll probably do some college work and some editing today. Aren't I an exciting person?

I've been sick haven't I?

It's kinda boring. The idea of lying around all day and sleeping and reading books and watching dvds always sounds good till you get sick. Then it's not all that pleasant.

I went to church this morning. Taught the kids about the trinity which is difficult at the best of times but I was feeling quite disconnected at the time. Kinda like everything was behind a glass booth and I spent all day walking around in my glass booth of flu-ness. Or something like that. We managed to get through the lesson and I think it may have gone alright. I don't know if the kids understood everything but hey, we made it through.

Then I went and had lunch with another youth minister from the area. We had scrambled eggs. I tried very hard to seem with it. I'm not sure if I fooled him, but I don't think he picked that I was sick. Probably just on drugs or something.

I got home at around 2 and slept till 5. I got very hot. And cold. I think I may have had, or still have, a temperature.

I just watched This is Spinal Tap. That's a good movie. I even laughed out loud a few times.

I should be at church at the moment but I'm on sick leave. That's a bit sad. I like church. I wish I was there.

Now I'll go hang out with my mum.

It's been a while.

I have so much snot coming out of my nose. And my head feels like it's been stuffed with a pillow. Not a nice fluffy pillow, but one of those dodgy lumpy ones that you'd have to use if you ever slept over at a friends place in primary school.

But still, I will soldier on.

I will complain and mooch around and feel generally sorry for myself. Sounds like fun.

I had meatballs for dinner on Wednesday night, and I have had it for breakfast every day since. I'm quite meat balled out. But I finished them off this morning so it's back to cornies tomorrow. Or perhaps rice and dog. We'll see what I feel like.

On Thursday I did the take Kaia out thing. It was a good night. We went and saw The Italian Job, a week early! It was a special offer. We had dinner at Thornleigh maccas.

It was good because Kaia and I got to talk properly, we haven't done that probably for the better part of two years. We cleared things up which we should have cleared up a while ago I think. So yeah it was good to talk.

The movie was good too. It was fun. It had some good Mini chases and cool heist ideas. I'm not sure if it's better than the original, probably not. I haven't seen the original. I would like too. Donald Sutherland is cool. Edward Norton had terrible facial hair.

Yesterday, drove to work and my nose started running. And then it kept going. I started to sneeze and it all went down hill from there. I only brought one hankie with me yesterday and by the end of the day I was feeling that was big mistake if you know what I mean.

Matt and I went out to lunch together and dreamed dreams of youth ministry and a persecuted church. We have some plans for the future now. They are exciting plans I think. We aren't planning to persecute the church. Or get it persecuted. We just talked about Acts, because we've both been reading it lately.

We went bowling for youth group. I don't really have much to say. I was in a bit of a daze. The pillow was in my head. I think the kids had fun. I wanted to meet the new people but I was having trouble staying focused. I think it went well.

When I got home I watched Memphis Belle on the computer. I kept falling asleep and thinking I should go to be. The film had a really bad transfer to dvd. The film was alright, not very imaginiative.

Now I am awake and I'm going to so some TOOBSC capturing. Maybe I'll even get to start editing today. It's a tricky one. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do it all. But hey, that's the joy of exploration.

Music I listened to in this waking day:

1. Vineyard - Vineyard Sampler 2002
2. Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts
3. Third Day - Offerings II (partial)
4. Goo Goo Dolls - Dizzy Up the Girl
5. Soundtrack - The Truman Show
6. Peter Nagy - Romantic Piano Favourites or in another language Romantische Klavierstuecke Succes romantiques pour piano
7. U2 - Elevation (partial)

Maybe it's time to talk about yesterday.

I think I would like to say that yesterday was another good day. It was a lovely day off.

I mananged to do very little for most of the day.

I had lunch with David.

I cooked meatballs at night (Mum cooked the first half and I finished them off). Mum, Jo, Tinku, Rob and I ate dinner together.

At dinner we made many silly jokes about balls. This moved onto a discussion about sperm. Sometimes silly jokes need to made about these sorts of things.

Then we had a Bible study which no-one prepared so I did it.

In the evening I caught the train with Rob and discussed the days events. We talked about how it was strange you can go one minute having a stupid conversation full of testical jokes to studying Philippians.

We got to Chatswood and waited for Jo and Sal to arrive. We were both in a silly mood, which is not unusual.

They arrived and we went and saw A Mighty Wind which was very funny. It had very little plot, but that didn't stop it. It still made us laugh. There was one other man in the cinema. I don't think he laughed at all. When we saw him leaving the cinema he looked like a nice man so it can't have been because he was mean that he didn't laugh. Maybe he thought it was a real documentry. If that's the case then he would have thought we were very rude laughing at all those poor people. I felt a bit like that after watching American Movie because I thought that was a mockumentry and it turned out it wasn't. Then I had spent the whole movie laughing at real people. That was a little bit of a worry.

At the end of the night the four of us did a lot of awkward standing around. People saying "Well then..." and "Soooo..." and things like that. I have my suspicions as to why this was, but I will not air them in cyberspace. It was discussed in the Rob in our post outing de-brief on the train on the way home.

When we were coming down the bush we noticed Tinku on the computer. We decided to scare him. We crept up to the window, out of his line of sight. Then on three we jumped out of the shadows and banged on the window.

"Ahhhhh! F*******! Piss Off! Sucks! Bastards!" or somthing like that was his response as he flew across to the opposite side of the room.

I think we woke Mum up. We always seem to do that. Sorry Mum.

Tinku, Rob and I are constantly finding ways to scare each other, but last night was tops.

I think we're all still good friends.

There are crazy things going on on my computer.

I'm scanning it for viruses now. Perhaps is will be a naughty worm or something.

Not because everyone else is:

I'm in the basement
You're in the sky
I'm in the basement
Drop on by

- Placebo (my new friends)

I went for a run this morning and got a stitch. I kept running and it went away. The second time it came back I stopped. Stitches suck.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but who builds cities these days anyway?

This is my "theological thinking", don't bother reading it if you think it'll bore you.

If I was in MT I would put a title on this post. Kinda like this:

The Centrality of the Gospel

I watched Benny Hinn this morning. I was going to have my quiet time but I got distracted by the Benny videos on the web. Sometimes I like to have a little bit of a look. I guess I'm not a big fan of Benny but Mum was telling last night about a friend of hers who wanted to send money into the show so that a person would pray for them. That made me think, "This sounds a little dodgy, I should have a look" and I think I found what she was talking about, and I'd say it's dodgy. But what I noticed on the show is that it's all about healing. They spend the whole show telling people they will be healed and people saying they've been healed. Whenever that happens Benny says something like "All the glory to you Lord. We know it's only by the power of Jesus that we can be healed."

I was watching this, thinking, "Yeah, that's good. The glory of any healing should go to God and not Benny" and I was pleased with that. But the problem is that the show is all about healing. It's all about how God is going to work now, how God will heal you now, how God will bless your finances now. They sang about Jesus being beautiful. Why will Jesus be beautiful? Because He's about to heal people, He's about to do mighty works.

What was not mentioned in the show (and this is not to say it's indicative of every show) was the Gospel. The glory goes to God when there is a healing, and rightly so, but the glory should already go to God. The greatest miracle that could be seen in any Benny Hinn crusade is the thousands of believers who have been set free by the death of Jesus. The greatest miracle that has ever happened is Jesus' salvation of the world, and defeat of evil through His death and resurrection. And this is what should always be celebrated. We give glory to God because of who He is. We give glory to God because of what He does. And we can always give glory to God because of what Jesus has done.

Throughout the Bible there can be seen a centrality of the Gospel. The Old Testament looks forward to the coming of Jesus or as it is put "The Day of the Lord". Through the New Testament it all looks either towards the cross, or back to the cross and forward to the day of Christ’s return. There is a definite centrality of the Gospel. Throughout Acts there are many miracles done and they all lead to opportunities for the spread of the Gospel. In the epistles there is a centrality of the Gospel. Everything is centered upon the Gospel. The reason why Christians are who they are is because of the redeeming work of Jesus, achieved through His death and resurrection.

When you are a Christian then the Gospel is central to who you are. When you have been saved by Jesus your identity is in Him. There is no-where else where salvation is found. The reason why we want to tell other people about Christ is because Gospel is central to the salvation of the world. If there is no other way to the Father then it is imperative that Christ is preached.

And so I'm thinking, is the Gospel central to my life? Where does my hope come from? I know it is in the Lord. I know that I rely on Jesus. But is my hope always based upon the Gospel? Am I knowingly transformed by the fact that I've been saved by Christ? Not always. God doesn't save me through His healing miracles. God doesn't save me by making me happy. God doesn't save me by answering all my prayers. God doesn't save me by helping me make good films. God doesn't save me by helping me run a good youth group. God saves me only by the death and resurrection of Jesus. The things that God does for me, aside from saving me, only find significance in the Gospel. Nothing means anything without a relationship with God made possible through Christ. It is all meaningless unless I am saved by Christ. How easy is it for me to put my hope elsewhere? How easy is it for me to forget that I am who I am because of what Jesus has done for me?

My identity is only in Jesus. My life is only in Christ. I am who I am because God has saved me.

The salvation of the world can only be found in Jesus. The only way there can be any ultimate meaning in this world is through God's saving power. The only way the world can move from death to life is through the blood of Jesus.

And that is why I believe in the centrality of the Gospel.

I just spent too much money on cds. I was inspired by my list yesterday.

I bought Placebo Sleeping with Ghosts and Goo Goo Dolls Dizzy Up the Girl.

They sound good. I hope they are. Yay for new cds.

I ate a crappy roast from Stacks for lunch. I love the food court. So much dodgy food, so many good times.

This song is kinda funny

Pimples are coming back in fashion.

This is cool.

This church is paying people to come to church. That's evangelism at it's finest.

I was driving home from the mountains tonight and I was thinking about all the bands and artists whose cds I would like to own. This is a non-definitive list:

Goo Goo Dolls
Radiohead
Pacifier
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
The Dave Matthews Band
The Verve
Robbie Williams (perhaps)
Chopin
Eminem (perhaps)
City on a Hill
Audioslave (perhaps)
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
Mick Harvey
Some hard core dance (perhaps)
Some soft core dance
Jack Johnson
Lord of the Rings Soundtrack
Matt Redman
The Donnas
Lenny Kravitz
James Morrison
Pearl Jam
Bruce Springsteen

Limp Bizkit's new song Eat You Alive

Hey, you, Mrs. Too-Good-To-Look-My-Way
And that's cool, you want nothing at all to do with me,
But I want you, ain't nothing wrong with wanting you
'Cause I'm a man and I can think what the hell I want, you got that straight!?!

I'm not sure what to think. It's a kinda cool song. The words are all a little worrying. I didn't know whether to laugh or say "That's terrible". In the end I think I did both, the standard response.

And to continue the boredom...

Sunday

The morning group was really good this week. Jo ran a good session on God's faithfulness. The kids learnt. I hope they had fun. And we didn't play any games. Yay for Jo.

I ate lunch with Helen, I had a burger.

Matt met me at church and we did a little bit more filming for the video clip. I don't think I'll use the stuff though because it looks like a cheap horror film. We'll probably have to shoot it again.

I had one kid turn up to d-teams but we did it anyway.

Rob and Tinku turned up to church. Did church.

After church I did the rounds. Told Jill an extrodinarily boring and usless story about her father driving behind me in Wahroongha. It was one of those moments where you realise the story you're telling is not worth telling but your halfway through. But laughs came out of it so that's ok.

Did the macca's thing and said something stupid to Tanya and Guin about swearing and Bible readings that made me sound like a terrible person who loves swearing and has no respect for the Bible.

Rob and I went home at the end.

Monday

I drove to various places around St Leonards dropping off lots of equipment from filming. I was worried about dropping off the Stedicam because we had lost a little bit of it which I couldn't describe properly (kinda, silver, triangular, little, screwy thing). When I told the people at Digihire they looked very concerned but they found it at the bottom of the case which made things good for me.

I arrived at college 3 hours after leaving home. How I hate peak hour traffic. I was late but that's ok.

I slept and watched the rushes. Things look good. I think we got some good stuff on Saturday.

At night we had a fireside with puppets. It was funny. It was like being a kid again. I wish we got puppets all the time.

One of the puppets made jokes about Peter Jenson. That's always good for a laugh at college.

James and I had a go at the puppets at the end. At one stage James told me he knew Kung Fu. I said I did too. I said "Go away! That's kung fu for piss...I mean go away". People laughed at that. I hope I didn't offend the puppet people. He said he was going to wash the puppet's mouth out.

I went to bed and had a wonderful sleep with my lovely doona and pillow which I brought from home. The good thing about driving.

Today I'm driving to Hazelbrook to drop off Steve's camera. I'll give Gus a lift home and perhaps Emily too. We might have a Macca's stop.

I have nothing to say.

Whenever I say that I do a really long post so we'll see what happens.

Lets do the old run down:

Friday

Went to the high school. Did the lunch time group thing, although we just sat around and talked because all but one of the attendees was at a gifted and talented students lunch. Strange that. Why are the majority of the kids that go to the Christian group gifted and talented?

I think I did some other things on Friday too.

We had youth group and it was much better behaved. We split them into small groups. It was an interesting idea, but not something I'd do every week.

After youth group I went out with the leaders and we did silly car games and ate ice cream in Manly. That was good but Ben was feeling really sick and I was feeling bad for him.

Saturday

Filming on Saturday. It was fun. I was tried, and stressed. But it was good. We shot the film clip. Matt sang and the dancers danced. We got about half of what I wanted to get done, done. That was a shame. That means we'll have to figure something out when Matt gets back from the Land of Eng.

I was silly. We got good stuff. I think it will be an editable filmclip.

And now it's bed time.

Wednesday is coming. Wednesday is coming.

Gus looked at me today after I sat down in lectures, probably a few hours after I sat down, and said "You need a sabbath."

And I replied with "Man, I can't wait till my sabbath"

That's the way we speak at college, which is a little embarrasing. But it's our college vocabulary. If you have to tell someone to have a day off you tell them to have a sabbath.

Anyway, as I have said many times before, I can't wait. My plan for Wednesday is to sleep in. Get up. Eat in the food court. Wander around. Do something else. Do perhaps another thing. Or not. Maybe sleep. Get up. Do something or other at night. And then I'll go to bed.

What a wonderful sounding day.

Ahhh.

God doesn't live in my boxes.

I vegged.

I watched The Truman Show. I went up to Video Ezy and hired it. I have seen it many times before but I love it. Love it to bits. It has one of my, perhaps my most favourite, moment in cinema in it. Beautiful.

Big Brother I dislike, Truman I love.

Ya.

I feel I should write something because it's been a while.

But alas, I am not in the mood.

I am so wanting to veg out.

Maybe later. Hopfully I'll just go to sleep.

Yeah.

Cds I listened to today:

1. Counting Crows - Hard Candy
2. Powderfinger - Vulture Street
3. Van Morrison - The Healing Game
4. U2 - Pop
5. Counting Crows - Hard Candy

There's an inclusio. Chris picked Hard Candy the second time so I was allowed a two play day.

Today I would like to make a little shorter.

Woke up at 11:11. Lovely. Lovely.

Drove Mum to Turramurra.

Came home.

TOOBSC came together. We got a location, I organised costumes, music, shopping, cameras and some crew. Sent e-mails. Felt good. God was providing. I knew He would. Because He does that sort of thing. It's just always a little stressful waiting.

I dropped Hannah at John Williams.

At 5:45 Chris and I drove up the mountains to get Steve's camera. I saw his shiny computer. And his shiny family.

Chris and I drove home.

Here I am.

I feel like a really long update is in order but I can't be bothered there is too much to write.

So I'll do a medium to small update. Yeah. Good.

So I got up real early like yesterday. I got up at 7:45am. I planned to get up at 8:30 but my alarm managed to set itself an hour early so after doing the usual 15 minute alarm sleep through I got up. When I realised I was an hour early I went back to bed for 10 minutes decided it was useless and got up again.

Then I got my mini-disk and went for a run. Today my legs hurt. It's the first time I've run in 2003, but I did pretty well. I got the best time I've got all year.

If I can take 3 minutes off my time I'll be at my 15 year-old standards. That was my peak.

At 11pm Rob and I drove to Belrose to pick up my sunnies (which weren't there) then to St Leonards, which was there.

We arrived at 12 for our 1 hour Stedicam training course. It went for four hours. I now have a much higher appreciation of the skill of a Stedicam operator. That are so damn hard. The guy spent four hours with us because neither Rob nor I could walk properly. The man said I waddle. At four Rob and I put the Stedicam in the boot and headed home. I had a headache and thought it was funny how bad we were at the stedicam. It's still funny.

If we never master it. Or Rob never masters it should I say, as I have no time to practice, then at least I will have exercised that Stedicam demon and I will never feel the urge to hire one again. Still it would be good to figure out how to use it properly.

In the evening I took some Panadol and went to visit Andrew. Twas good. Twas fun. It was a little like the past two years had never happened, but on the other hand not at all like that. It was a little strange. Maybe like when you dream you go back to your old school or something.

Later Matt, Rob, Jo and I went into the city to shoot the montage scenes for this film. It was very late. We caught an 11:13pm train in. We managed to film a bit on the train when there was no-one else on it. That was good.

We filmed in George St, Martin Place and Wynyard. At around 1:15am we walked back to Central to finish filming there. On the way we stopped in at Maccas. We noticed that they have the new salad menu and you can buy apples. I decided to buy and apple.

When it got to my turn the lady looked me and said "What would you like to order?"

"An apple please"

She looked at me funny. "An apple pie?"

"No, just and apple thanks"

She looked at me even funnier, pause, thinking "Would you like red or green?"

"Green thanks"

She heads off looking a little perplexed. She gets my apple and turns around and asks "Would you like it in a bag?"

I think about this. Getting an apple in a Macca's bag would be quite funny.

"Yeah, that's be good thanks"

And so she charges me 75 cents for an apple in a bag. Lovely.

We didn't film at Central. The last train to Hornsby was leaving in 2 minutes so we caught that. We got home at 2:30am. And it was fun night. Quite silly. But fun.

I accidently left my apple core on the train.

Tosser.

Multicultralism is a good thing.

It's all coming together.

Today has been long.

I'm going to sleep

in.

I'm off to get a Stedicam.

It's all my dreams come true.

I'm like a kid with the Starlight Foundation.

Thanks Angry Anderson.

Speaking of PVF...

Today we were watching a video of Acts in a lecture, the guy who played Peter sounded like, and looked a little like Sean Connery. He did a big speech in the film and when he had finished I turned to James (who was sitting next to me) and said "Bond!" in my best Sean Connery accent. It was meant to be quiet but I accidently said it very loudly. No-one laughed and I felt rude.

But the dude did remind me of Sean Connery. Angus thought so too.

I ran into guy I used to work at the Cinema with today. He still works there. I talked to him from one side of the crossing near the cinema to the other. I would have liked to have talked to him more, because I liked him.

Shame.

10 Mundane Things about Me

1. I look like I haven't done my hair today.
2. I have multiple holes in my shoes.
3. I am wearing my director socks that Lesley gave me for my birthday one year, they are green and purple.
4. I haven't shaved since Sunday.
5. Tomorrow I will get up at 8am or 9am or somewhere in between or after then but probably not before.
6. I'm currently playing Minesweeper with Jo G on MSN.
7. I haven't done my hair today.
8. I had an Iced Chocolate at Blu tonight.
9. I have $407 in my bank account.
10. I have run out of toothpaste in my college washbag.

The bloke on the train next to me was reading Brave New World.

He pulled it out of his briefcase and showed me. I took my headphones out and said "Hey, cool. Are you reading it too?" Stupid question "Where are you up too?"

He showed me chapter thirteen.

I showed him mine. Chapter Eight.

"You're a bit further through than me"

"Yeah"

Then I couldn't think of anything else to say so I put my headphones back in my ear.

I smiled at him when I hopped off the train.

I would have liked to have said more, but it was only until two minutes ago that I couldn't think of anymore conversation. Shame, he was probably a really nice guy.

I talked to all the noisy talkers today. We're all good friends. Like I said, they are lovely people.

This is appaling. Any parent who uses TeenScreen should be severly told off. And slapped.

Not that I would slap them. Or tell them off.

I'd consider telling them off.

Anyway, I think it's a really bad idea.

"Hey daughter, I don't trust you."

One of the other things I remembered yesterday that was in How to Win the Heart of Mr Right was something like Don't have short hair, he likes to have something to caress, he doesn't want you to look like a boy and Don't wear pants, he wants to be the only masculine one in the relationship.

I went to bed at 8:20pm last night. That was a good idea. Not a good practice.

I realised at fireside that I was in a really bad mood. I told Chris this. I noticed that when you are tired everything sux. Rationally not everything sucks. But it just does. Like Sunday was a really good day. I knew this, but when ever I thought about it yesterday I was like "What a crap day". I knew it wasn't crap, as I wrote yesterday, but it felt like it was crap. And lectures, I felt "grrr" at my lectures, and the whole stedicam was making me go nuts. And all this because I had no sleep. But the good thing was that I was at least aware of what was going on. I was aware that my feelings weren't matching up with reality, so I made it through the day without hurting anyone's feelings (I hope) and not building up any resentment, so that was good.

I fell asleep in fireside last night. I hope I didn't offend the Tanzanian missionary who came to tell us about African youth ministry.

So yeah I went to bed at 8:20. And I lay there. Read my book (Brave New World which I'm really enjoying, it's a good book, not what I had expected). Said my prayers (I may have fallen asleep during these). Put up a blanket so I could sleep without the light annoying me, and closed my eyes.

Just when I do that people come into the room next door and start having a conversation. There are two of them but I can only hear one of them clearly. One is loud and clear, the other one is quiet and muffled. They started talking about relationships and I'm working desperatly hard not to listen to what the're saying because that would be rude and that would keep me awake. And I'm so tired that I fall asleep everytime the quiet muffled one talks and awake up everytime the loud, clear one talks.

I managed to fall alseep for about 5 mintues at one stage but woke up when they started discussing Hills. The church not the clothes line makers. Again I'm trying desperatly hard not to listen, partly because I'm sick of talking about Hills, mostly because I want to sleep. Again I'm going through the pattern of fall asleep when the muffled guy speaks and waking up when loud person speaks.

This goes on for about an hour. Then they are joined by someone else. They take up a position right next to my bed but on the other side of the wall. At this stage I
give up trying the straight sleep tactic and I pull out my mini-disk and grab Van Morrison and put The Healing Game on. I love that cd. Beautiful. I figure I might be able to fall asleep to music, and if not I'll still enjoy myself.

By track 4 the room next door seems to have turned into a full on party and I can hear them through the lovely tunes of Van and his band. At this stage James and Gus come in, hear the noise. James being much more assertive than I, and less willing to have his sleep disturbed goes next door to ask them to be quiet. I could have kissed James at that point. They being the lovely people that they are oblige and I get to sleep 2 and a half hours later than planned.

And there is the epic of my falling alseep. Although I did wake up about five times after that whenever anyone else came into the room. But still I got my sleep. About 8 hours and I'm having a much better day. Everything looks good again. Even yesterday looks good. How I love sleep.

Today I had much stress about TOOBSC. Stedicam problems and the like. Probably more stress than needed, but on this amount of sleep I'm not feeling up remaining calm. Wednesday week and I get a day off. Even free from TOOBSC. I cannot wait.

Till then I have stuff to do. Yay, for stuff to do. Praise the Lord for stuff to do. Yay.

Well, hmm.

I'm so damn tired at the moment.

I got about 2 hours sleep last night. Grrr.

But we should start at the beginning. Saturday night I went to bed feeling like everything was a mess. I didn't have our sunday morning group planned, my sermon was feeling bler, and I have a week till we film this pop clip.

I woke up, felt tired, went to church. As I went through my morning routine I planned the lesson for the day on God's Jealousy.

I got to church, met Jo and prepared the lesson. Then we went over to the church as Jo and I had to play "Handies" behind a screen for the congreation. The service had a "Hands" theme. I think people enjoyed our hands for the five minutes of limelight they got. We were wearing white gloves. Like mime artists. Amazing. Never wanted to be a mime artist. Still don't.

The Sunday morning group went good. We had a relay which was half successful. Some of the kids had fun. Others threw pillows at each other and they had fun too untill they got in trouble from someone downstairs who asked "Is there an adult with you?". They said "Yeah, Tom is".

That was a little worrying because I don't think of myself as an adult and now that adult downstairs thinks I let my kids throw pillows at each other. I don't normally but I decided to ignore it yesterday because they were having fun. I got them to pick their pillows up.

When the group ended and Jo disappeared to wherever she went I got to work on my sermon.

I had a sleep on the couch for about 20 minutes and dreamt that Phil joined the army and didn't shave for a few days. He said he didn't like being part of the army.

Skipping forward a few hours, Rob, Ryan, Tinku, Chris and Jem came to visit church. Pamela and Peter came to visit too. It was a little strange having a large group there, but hey.

I had fun preaching. It went much better than I thought it would. I'm going to give that one to God. He's good quality. Helps me out good. And He lets me preach his word, that's really cool.

After church I planned to go visit Andrew but Howie invited Jo to Snoam and I wanted to go catch up with some Hornsby Christians. I thought "I'll go to Snoam for a bit and then go to see Andrew". Jo invited Sal to join us so she did. We hung out and did the Snoam thing for a bit. Andrew rang me and told me he was going to fall asleep so I gave up on my plans to visit him and I went back and did more of the Snoam thing. Rob and I talked to Priscilla about being Asian. She laughed some. I talked to Kaylene and we "caught up". And it was generally Snoam like, but I don't feel as comfy there these days. I'm less part of the Hornsby Christian scene as i used to be. Oh well.

We got hungry so Rob, Jo, Sal and I headed off to Maccas where we sat around and had mostly silly conversation till they flashed the lights at us at around midnight, telling us to leave.

At around the midnight mark, but a little later because we were in the carpark, I realised that I had to get up at 5:30 this morning and felt that "Oh bugger" feeling.

Rob and I headed home and Mum caught us in the kitchen for one of our kitchen catch ups. I enjoy them.

That meant I got to bed about one.

I wasn't feeling good about this but it didn't really make much difference because I was awake until around 3:30 thinking. Damn, I think too much. I have way too much on my brain at the moment.

I would prefer to do all my thinking between the hours of 9am and 10pm. Sleeping would be so much easier.

But all up it was a good day. It started tired, and ended even more tireder, but lots of fun in between. God blesses me a lot.

It's way too early in the morning to be awake on this fine morning.

I'm at church. I'm preaching soon. I'm waiting for the person I'm meeting to turn up. I'm a bit nervous. I don't feel like I know the sermon well enough. I'll pray. Prayer works well.

Sunday morning group was good today. That got prayer.

But American Splendor looks good.

It's the Dirty Dancing sequel. How cool.

Actually the trailer looks like a bit of fun. There is this guy dancing and he's having fun and I'm thinking "That looks like fun" then they do some dirty dancing and I think "Nope. don't want see that movie, looks like Dirty Dancing" and then the guy starts his dancing again and I think "That looks like fun" and the cycle goes on untill the trailer finishes and now I don't know what to think. I'll probably have to go see it.

I went to the food court with David and Tinku today. I spend too much time there. I can't remember the last time I ate lunch at home.

Yes I can, Thursday. I had pasta.

I found a book in Borders called How to Win the Heart of Mr Right or something like that. I wanted to buy it but I couldn't justify spending $10 on it. It was a stupid book. It had things like: Don't talk much on a first date so you seem mysterious and intriguing or Leave your answering machine on on Firday nights even if you're at home so he thinks you have a great social life and Pretend that you were born happy and Don't tell him your problems, pretend that life is good. So either the book was a joke and I'm stupid or it was really, really dodgy. Hopefully there is no-one around who would take that advice. Hopfully not even the author takes her own advice. Hopefully she has no integrity. Because it's really bad form to encourage women (or men) to be people they are not. The whole idea of the book was to decieve the guy you like so he'll fall in love with you. Although perhaps to a degree that's what people do when they like someone, but it's probably better to strive for integrity and realism (if that's the right word) rather than going the other way. "Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?"

Thanks Avril.

I told Mum that I did a test on the net to see if I was ready to have sex (I was 86%, thank goodness, I would be devastated if I didn't pass) which got us into a discussion about what the world's view of sex is and who is responsible for the upbringing of a child. We talked about the role of parents and the Christian community and why the Christian community fails its kids so often. It was a good talk and I like having discussions like that with Mum. She's a good woman. She's very wise. I'd let her preach. I have let her preach. She also let me lick the beater of the cake she was making.

When I haven't been doing the things above I've been figuring out faith and deeds. Yay for faith and deeds.

This is cool: http://home.comcast.net/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

The time now is 12:51am but I am posting at 11:43 because I want to be able to call today while it's today, if you know what I mean. I planned to do this. 11:43 is the time I was at work and I slipped into the office and made a quick post so that I could edit it.

So anyway. Let me talk about today because as long as it is called today...

Hmm. That was very spiritual.

Yeas.

Today I went to work early to learn to use the new photocopier. I stood there thinking it was a little strange that 7 people stood in a badly ventilated room for the best part of an hour looking at a photocopier. But it is a pretty flash machine so there is some sanity to it.

I went to the high school and we had "Care, share and prayer" today. It was moving. We cared and shared too much and the bell went while we were prayering.

I got a phone call from Andrew when I was in the group so I called him back as I walked past the burnt out phone box outside the high school (made me feel like I was in a war zone). We had a chat and a catch up. It was good talking to him again. It was strange because we talked as if nothing had changed. The first thing he said was "Hello Betty how are you?" which is what he said two years ago.

While I was on the phone I ran into Helen and we decided to have lunch together while I was still on the phone.

I finished talking to Andrew and I ate a chicken burger with Helen while we talked about what plans we have for our lives. Neither of us want to be famous. Well at least not that either of us revealed.

After lunch I sat around in my office trying to do work. Sal arrived at some stage and caught me talking to myself. I attempted to have a normal conversation with her while Matt got off the phone but I found it quite difficult. My brain wasn't quite going right. Matt got off the phone so I could go back to talking to myself, where I have no need to make quality conversation. Generally I say to myself things like "Oh you stupid poop head" and "Tom, you're an idiot" and "I want to shove my head in a blender". Occasionally I'll say "Discownted Bwick" or "Solid" but only of rare occasions. The most likely thing I say though is gibberish. This is the best. Allows me to talk on a really, really, deep feelings level without having to put it in words. But "I want to shove my head in a blender" is useful too.

Matt and I discussed sermons later and then we had youth group.

Youth group was a shocker. The kids were really badly behaved. It took us an hour to get through 10 minutes worth of program. They talked and talked and talked. I'm not the sort to shout, I do the "I'm waiting untill you're quiet" thing. They didn't really pay much attention to me though. We planned to send kids who were talking out, but all the kids were talking so we couldn't send them all out.

Tanya did an abridged version of her talk. It was a good talk none-the-less and the kids listened. That was good. That's the important part to listen to. And it was a good talk. Since she cut it down to the bare bones it was very easy to figure out what her points were.

After youth group Louise and Tanya and I (there were only three leaders tonight, the other three are on a camp) de-briefed and made our plans for next week. We have good plans now. We might be able to fix this problem. Needs prayer. That's part of the plan. Prayer. Yay for prayer and an interventionist God.

Helen and Nic came in when we had finished and asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with them. I wanted too but I was feeling non-commital as usual. They said they were going to see Extreme Ops. I put a look of non-excitement on my face. I told them they would at least have fun watching the film.

And I went with them. We met Dave, Pete, and Rob there, and I did have fun. The film was terrible. But it was fun to watch. Really, really bad anti-climax of an ending. Terrible script, terrible acting, stupid concept. Good fun. I don't recommend it.

Now I am home. I had the leftovers of Rob's pizza and rice and dog for dinner.

Now I'm going to bed.