I'm starting to get sick of twisties.
Priscilla has come over to edit so I'm on the upstairs computer. I think this computer has gone to the dogs since I used to use it. The screen is purple, and there are thousands of stupid ads on it. I've tried to fix what I can but it's a pretty poor sorry computer this one.
I shaved today. I hate shaving. I cut myself. I think because it's a new razor. Bler. Shaving's a poop.
I don't like songs with sexually explicit lyrics. Like that "Licky Licky" song or the "Do it like they do on the Discovery Channel". They make me go "Yuck".
So if I ever become a rock star make sure I don't let me sing any sexually explicit songs.
Except maybe "My Sharona" cause that has a good guitar solo.
Tonight was a good night. The creative worship night was creative and worshipful. But it's wasn't vibey. That was nice. I arrived feeling a bit dodgy. Maybe like a waste of space, but came away not feeling like a waste of space. Spending time with God and His people is a good thing*. I wrote a poem, which is different, poems aren't my thing, but I wrote one. I paired up with Chris and read it too him. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to let anyone see it, but I did and that was good. But I think I'll put it away in the prayer draw with my other prayers to be unseen again (I haven't written down a prayer for the prayer drawer in years, actually I don't have a prayer draw anymore, it's a prayer folder, hmm).
After the night a few of us hung about and packed up the church. It was good fun. Sometimes packing up is the part of an evening I least like but I had fun tonight. Silly accents (I am so glad there are people in the world who like speaking in accents), arguments about pew placement and I managed to have two conversations about exfoliating gloves tonight, that’s more than I’ve ever had in one year. I’ve probably only had four conversations about exfoliating gloves in my whole life. What an amazing night.
So yeah, worship-ness was good, pack up fun, drive home not very interesting.
thend
*You can quote me on that.
Lots of people put Quizilla things on their blogs (not any from my blogging community though) and I think Quizilla is stupid. Please don't go to the link.
I was going to talk about worship, but I might save that for later.
Word of the day is: de minimis
I thought I might talk about this word but I don't understand it. I think perhaps I could say, "I was quite tired at the time I got angry but that is de minimis, I was angry because he shot me in the knee cap" or something like that.
I think I'm bored. The problem with days off is I have nothing to do. I don't allow myself to do work of any kind and so I search for things to do. I should go see a movie. In half an hour I'll go to church for a creative worship night. Now there's something to talk about...
I used to think the BMW Z3 was sexy.
In fact I still think it's sexy.
I think car enthusiasts don't like the Z3 very much, but I'm not a car enthusiast.
Last night Rob and I watched The Cleopatra Project and Panda 82. They were good fun to watch. We made some silly stuff back then. TCP was just an excuse for all the cool things I wanted to do, like mexican stand-off, "love scenes", fight scenes, and lines like "F-Crying out loud!". TOOBSC is similar to TCP, concept-wise. But it's better. I'm not worried about it. Hey, if I copied myself, then who's going to get annoyed? Me? TOOBSC though isn't really made as an excuse for anything.
Actually now I think about it, it is. It's an excuse for me to do a pop film clip with dancers in it. I've always wanted to have dancers. And a film clip. Now I have both. And a stedicam. Geek out!
But, while watching the early days of Sparkly Bee, I noticed that all the bits that used to make me cringe and hide my face every time I watched those films (like the really bad pan in Panda 82) I no longer worry about. I think they are long enough ago, enough water under the bridge, that I can have a laugh. Rob and I were thinking we might do a commentary for TCP, that could be fun. But I'm not sure that we ever will. The sound is really bad on that film.
After having the "retrospective" I ate twisties, we drank Kahlua, and we watched Standing in the Shadows of Motown which was a cool film. It made me want to be a really good musician. We had a discussion while watching about how I was going to be a really good guitarist and piano and drums player, and Rob would be a really good guitarist and trumpet and drums player. Then we would sit upstairs in the study and have jams. That would be cool. I don't think that will ever happen. Although Rob is at Chris' right now learning to play his new guitar, so you never know.
Last night Gus and I did end up going out. He came in while I was down stairs watching TV. He was holding a cheeseburger and a Coke. I said "Oh gosh, there's an idea. I wouldn't mind some McDonalds".
"Do you want to go to McDonalds Tom?" Gus asked me.
"I do"
"I'll go to McDonalds with you" said Gus. So off we went to Engadine Maccas.
While we were walking out the door Mike shouted at us "Can you get me three cheeseburgers?"
At Maccas I had a large McOz meal which wasn't very nice. Gus and I had a conversation with the Maccas chick about the Big Mac chant. When we decided to leave I bought 3 cheeseburgers.
When we got back to college Mike said he was only joking so he shared the cheeseburgers around.
Today I had a sleep after New Testament so I would be awake for Church History. We had New Testament again in the afternoon. I fell asleep then too. So I had another sleep after that before I drove home. I set my alarm for half an hour but my phone turned itself off (or I turned it off because I wasn't thinking) and I slept for forty-five minutes. That was ok. But it was dark outside when I woke up and everyone had gone home. Then I went home too.
I listened to Powderfinger and PC3 as I drove home.
People at college have discovered Strong Bad. This is a good thing. They all have a good laugh. This is a good thing too.
I fell asleep a few times in New Testament Overview today. This is not a good thing.
When I'm at college I seem do a lot of blogging. I think because we don't go anywhere often. I often read books or something. Gus and I went for a walk once. He's gone on one tonight. I might have gone on it with him if he didn't mind, but it's too damn cold.
I've noticed that because of the cold I've been running everywhere. All day I've been running around college. Doing this stupid half run half skip thing. I'm sure it would be embarrasing to do in Westfield. Not here though. No shop keepers to look at me.
Let me talk about Saturday.
Saturday was really good. I had a terrible sleep the night before because I was going through all the shots we had to do in my head. It was extremely frustrating. I think I got to sleep around 2 am.
I got up at 6am and had a shower. I think I showered for too long. I had a breakfast and Rob and I packed the car.
I made plans to pick both Ryan and Lesley up at 7:15. This I think was a bad idea because it is physically impossible to be in two places at once. So we were either going to be, at best early for one, or late for another. In the end we were late for both.
Ryan was the boom operator and Lesley was the Assistant Director. They were both very good. We had a very good crew.
We arrived in St Leonards about the same time as everyone else. We unloaded the car and caught the lift up to the 3rd floor where we were filming. I gave instructions to cast and crew alike and people started setting up and getting changed. We rehearsed the first scene for about half an hour and then moved into the boardroom to say “Hello” and to pray.
At this stage we were running 20 minutes late.
We had a big day of filming ahead. I had 38 set ups planned and 13 pages of script to get through. We shot two scenes before lunch and were running about an hour and a quater late. We cut fifteen minutes out of lunch and a 45 minute rehearsal time and came within 15 minutes of our plan again after lunch.
After lunch we were shooting the first scene which involved a long continuous walking shot following two conversations. It was the most complicated thing we had to shoot all day. It was at this stage that we discovered the boom had a habit of “popping” every now and again and cutting out lines of dialogue. That made it all the more difficult to get right.
In the end due to all the different issues we encountered shooting the scene we had Helen, Lesley, Ryan and Jo as extras making the offices look full, Matt, Louise, Dave and Jill walking in front of the camera, Rob filming and walking backwards, Me tiptoeing with the boom trying to float as not to make the boom pop, Sal guiding Rob so he didn’t walking into any walls, and Sal, Rob and I all with our shoes off and pants rolled up, looking like we were about to go wading, so we wouldn’t make a noise on film. It was good fun and it turned out alright in the end. I would have liked to have spent more time on the shot but we didn’t have it. Anyway it works.
At one stage filming that scene a woman turned up and found us filming. She didn’t look too pleased. We had positioned people in her office. Arnand (who was accompanying us at the office) and I went and said “Hello” and Arnand told her what was going on. She was much more friendly after that.
Following that we finished shooting the scene in the boardroom and moved on to the last two. With the light fading outside it was important to get all the scenes with windows in them done quickly. There is a big difference between the stuff shot in the morning and the stuff shot in the afternoon. We film the middle two scenes together so that we could use the same set ups. In the end we managed to pick up time and finished shooting right on time.
It was a really good shoot as I have said. I think I'll have to put it done to prayer and the God-influence. We have never had such an nice set. I think Christians should make more films because they may not make good ones but at least they'll have a pleasent time doing it.
Once we were done we packed up, put everything away and all crowded into the lift for a group bonding experience. We packed our car then stood around like it was the last day of camp and no-one knew how to say “Good-bye”, at least that’s how it felt for me. In the end someone broke and said “I’m off” and we all took our perspective cars.
We pulled up at the lights next to Helen’s car and my car all picked their nose. Just for a laugh. They laughed and said we were disgusting.
We overtook Jill and Sal’s car and all picked our nose but they didn’t look so we all just felt silly.
That night Rob and I went to Kaia’s party. That was good. I managed to only talk to people I know. I wasn’t in the mood for meeting new people. It was nice and we played a silly M n M game. I promised Kaia that I would take her out to dinner and a movie because we have never done that before. I have never taken anyone to dinner and a movie. I hope her boyfriend doesn’t punch me in the head.
I don’t think he will because I’ve heard he’s a very nice guy.
I just wrote a really long post about how I feel about blogging. But I'm not going to post it.
Basically I said I want to glorify God and not myself with my blog.
So if anyone has found the desire to worship me and not God as a result of my blog let me know. I’ll send you a “WWTD” band.
I'm back at college now. It's good to be back. It's relaxing. It's my refuge from everything else. It's really nice to have a place that I can go to and it's un-connected to the rest of my life. I have really good friends here and I can come and be and idiot and have very little responsibility. It's so nice.
I was thinking tonight about what I'm preaching on next week. I've been looking forward to this because it's one the things I like to talk about. What I realised tonight though is that I talk about it so much that I don't know what it means any more. I have my set of things to say about the passage and then I'm done. So this is now a good opportunity to figure it out again. I do like the passage, but now I need to learn it again, let God teach me something new because I don't want to spout stuff that is of no relevance to me.
Since I've started to think that way the passage has started to worry me. It may become challenging once more.
Just to fill in while I figure things out.
Filming was good. The best shoot we've done I think. Technically we can still improve. We had a lot of love though. We all got on. Twas very nice. People were nice. People helped each other. People didn't complain.
I might say more later. I begin my last semester of college tomorrow. I'm feeling I'm in a constant state of frustration. Not with anyone, just with life in general. I was thinking the other day that when I am tired and stressed I feel like my whole life could fall apart at any moment. Actually I feel that way all the time. Though when I'm tired and stressed I feel like my life actually will. That's the difference.
At 9:05am today I finished.
Good on me.
This is a note for myself so don't worry if you don't understand it.
I wrote this about my first impressions of my church, before I knew I'd be employed there:
The chruch was cool. The sermon was nicely Bible based and then they did a lot of "waiting on the Spirit" stuff. I had a good time. Very different from St Pete's. They played music well too.
When I started thinking I might get employed there I started calling it, The Church with the Yellow Walls. Then I realised that only one room has yellow walls. Sometimes I call it the church with the green carpet which is much more accurate but makes it sound less appealing.
December and January are full of first impressions. Some of them were accurate. Some of them not. Still interesting.
I just bought a hat for Matt to wear in TOOBSC.
I thought "Yeah, I might think about wearing that hat when filming is done".
I had never heard of the brand so I went to their website.
I'm definatly branching out in my fashion tastes.
Rob bought a hat too. This is their website.
I think the hats are fake.
We have a boardroom. God provided.
Tonight I'm going to Lesley's for dinner. Lesley is the Assistant Director. Her, Rob and I are having a production meeting. Very swanky.
I booked the stedicam and spider dolly today. They are going to cost $490 to hire. That's a worry. But hey, like I said, I'm not gonna let much stop me from getting this stedicam. Not even money.
Sorry to get all sappy there. I am listening to Counting Crows. It seems to do things to people.
I would like to say that I am very much looking forward to making TOOBSC. Tonight was a lot of fun, as privately confronting as it was. It's going well and the actors are the bomb. It's gonna be good. Now all we need is a boardroom.
Rob described today accurately enough for me to worry about re-capping. If I ever need to know what I did today I can have a look at his post.
When I got home I tried to work on the program for the youth group. It's just not looking good yet. I'd be crying if I wasn't such an emotionally stunted person.
At 5:23pm Jo and I exited to go to church for a rehearsal of TOOBSC. We arrived and started re-arranging the church centre to make it look like a boardroom. We discovered the lights weren't all working so we went searching for a new light globe which didn't turn up. Helen told us we could rehearse in the church because she didn't need it anymore for dancing. I um-ed and ahh-ed for about 5 minutes. Not really weighing up the options just jumping from one decision to another and back again. Never knowing why I made each choice. I think I'm getting to that stage of the cycle. Today was supposed to be by day off, but alas that didn't happen. Tomorrow I will attempt to make relaxing, if not "off".
Eventually I settled on the church. Jo and I put our makeshift set back and headed over to the church to make thing happen. People arrived and we began. I prayed to begin with and trailed of into inanity which I can only trust the Spirit knew what I was talking about. I ended with something like "And may your name be the most, biggest, things that we make the bestest, that would be cool...um...thanks, amen, that's it". Things weren't off to a good start.
We did a read through of the script and I timed it. It came-in in a nice time frame. It was good to hear the script in full. It made sense. There were bits where people laughed and that was a relief. We kept the "downies and spastics" line in. I'm glad about that.
We discussed characters, especially in relation to their costumes. It was interesting because I was discovering a lot about the script. I think I've written a lot of subtext into the script without really thinking about it. Half-formed feelings became fully formed thoughts as we discussed what each character was like and what they were wearing. At one stage we talked about a characters handbag and how it was symbolic of how various characters in the film treated their life. I spent half the time feeling like I was spouting bullshit, another half thinking what I was saying was true, and the third half feeling apologetic that I sounded like a year 12 English teacher. I think what I said was true and is in the script but I feel like I'm discovering it at the same rate as everyone else. It's exciting and embarrassing at the same time.
Which is kinda what the whole night was like. We went on to rehearse and block two of the scenes. When I write, each character is usually a different facet of myself. Some are more like me than others, but everyone is a bit me. I don't really think about it when I write but seeing people perform what I have written and then discussing it and analyzing it, was a very strange experience. When I noticed myself within the script, especially when the characters were not behaving well, I felt both vulnerable and embarrassed. I was like "Oh my gosh, all my secrets are here in front of everyone. Stuff that I would never put in my blog, or tell people because they are behaviors I am not proud of, are here, going on film for the world to see."
I remember both Will You Love Me and Clean were like that. Honest writing scares me. But it only starts to worry me when I see it come alive, and I've committed myself, the actors and the film to it. It doesn't worry me with the nice characters, the well behaved ones, but with some, like Zac, the main character, he's a self-obsessed prick. Almost all the worst bits of me are in Zac and I don't want people to see that. I want to be the good characters, like Sarah, Jess, Zac's mum and Zac's dad (3 out of four of them are female, that's a worry). But I'm not, not all of me, not most of me. Damn honesty. Damn vulnerability. Damn artistic commitment.
But Zac gets redeemed. Zac gets saved. Zac gets transformed. And that's good.
I may be a prick, but I'm redeemed.
I'm saved and I'm transformed.
Praise the Lord.
I'm having location finding difficulties. We can't shoot in our planned location on Saturday. Spanners in works. Oh well, God will provide.
I had dinner with Mum, Angus and Tinku tonight. We had curry. It was very hot. I drank about eight glasses of water. I sweated and my nose ran. It was terrible. The food was nice though. I don't handle hot food well. It burns by face off.
After dinner Angus, Tinku and I did a Bible study. It was good fun. I like looking at the Bible. As daggy as it may seem, the Bible is the toppest notches book, and I like not much more than sitting around talking about it.
After that Gus and I watched One Hour Photo. That was a good film. I spent the first half of the film feeling really uncomfortable. I thought the dude was really scary. I don't like stalkers. They make me squirm. I have decided never to become a stalker. Although, I figure stalker never thinks they are a stalker, they probably justify their stalking. So I may be a stalker and justifying it. If I am, please, I encourage anyone I am stalking, to take out an AVO on me. Stalking is bad, I shouldn't do it.
The last half was easier to watch. It didn't make me feel good, but it was a good film. Very interesting.
I got an e-mail today from someone who found my blog. They are from overseas.
Ooh. Very exciting. An e-mail.
They seem like a very nice person.
Hello Non-Australians.
Good on youse all.
Well today I found out that one of my earliest and most faithful blog readers will no longer be reading my blog.
It was good. She was a good reader. She will be sadly missed.
And in honour of her I will dedicate the next 5 words on my blog to her:
Apple
Foot
Release
Fall
Smile
Gus and I have been storyboarding all day. It's much fun. It's good to see the film before we shoot it. Gus is a good storyboard guy. He does well. It takes a long time. We've only done three scenes so far.
Rob, Gus and I went to the food court today. I go there too often. Tomorrow there will be no food court. I'm going out to lunch with Tim. It's a shame because Jo's coming up to visit the Field of Dreams and I won't be there to welcome here. I'll probably be eating in another classy establishment, Hornsby RSL.
I think I should go a week without going to the food court. That would be healthy of me.
I should also start running. That would also be healthy.
Sal has posted more on her blog. She is moving leftwards towards my links list. A little more peer presure and it all might come together.
I am a little cautious though having got burned by Matt last time. So sad.
I thought Matt might be a little like the good ground that had the seed of blogging fall on it and it grew up nicely until it got choked by the weeds, choked by the worries of the world (like getting a life perhaps). Maybe we can bring him back.
Come Back Matt!
Well here I am and it's 11am on a Tuesday. The whole house is asleep. Mum because she's already been up and gotten Hannah to school. Angus and Rob are just asleep. I woke up extra early (think 9:30) just in case Angus was up early too (seeing as he is sleeping in room with no curtains) and wandering round lost as people do when they sleep over and wake up and find no-one else awake. But alas he is still asleep. He managed to watch the movie last night. I got distracted by MSN. But I am quite happy I got distracted. I had a productive type.
I rang the guy about hireing the Stedicam yesterday. He tried to convince me not to get it and hire the cheaper dolly. These guys give good service. He was worried that for making a film clip we wouldn't want something that didn't allow you to replicate shots. I have discussed this with my DOP and we decided "Damn it! Let's get the dolly and the stedicam! What's another $90?". So now I have to ring the man and tell him my silly ideas. Generally I should probably just go for the dolly but I've wanted to use a stedicam for about 5 years now so I'm not going to let anyone stand in the way of my dream. Perhaps. I guess I would let a policeman. He might want to stand in the way.
"Stop! You are not to use that Stedicam!"
"Ok"
Angus is here now. Actually he's just gone to woolies with Rob to get some Coke and ice cream. I'm here with David who was fixing my computer.
I'm a little tired.
We will probably watch Undercover Brother. Rob and I started last night at around 2:15am. I fell asleep at around 2:25am. We didn't bother finishing the film.
Gus and I are going to storyboard tomorrow. I'm going to have to figure out what we want to see in this film. That will mean using my brain. Making films is a little stressful at times. I'm glad I don't do it very often.
Regie won Big Brother
How useless.
I'm trying to write an e-mail about costumes for this film. It's very difficult. I know nothing about clothes. I need a costume designer.
Chris and I used to arrive at school half an hour before the library opened and wait outside till the Librarian let us in. I remembered that this weekend and decided that would probably have classified us as "un-cool". That and the fact that we used to fight over who would get to read Time magazine while we were in the Library.
Me talking to Jo:
Tom says:
Lives aren't important, just the impression of a life.
Tom says:
And that's what blogs are good for.
Ahh the amazing wisdom of Tom.
Matt has killed his blog.
It's a sad day for the blogging community.
But kinda like Lightning Crashes by Live, and new blog has been born.
Or at least concieved.
Sal said that she would get a blog.
Yay.
Sal can take Matt's spot on my left-hand links list if she proves herself to be "un-flaky".
My Weekend by Thomas John French III esq.
Well I went away this weekend. It was with the eldest youth group at Church, Year 11 to 2nd year out of school, which doesn't include me. We went up to Wentworth Falls.
It was a nice weekend with a lot of hanging around. Damn cold. Chris lent me a lilo because I didn't bring one. Matt and Louise and I spent much time discussing TOOBSC. Good fun. I got to hang out with a bunch of people I don't normally hang out with which was nice. I went to get to know people, and I did that, so that was good.
I had small group with Guin. I wasn't expecting to do any leading on the camp, just being there, but I got a group. I ended up leading 3 out of the 4 small groups. I felt a little un-prepared, but it was good. I do enjoy a good small group. Nice it was.
I don't know if there are any highlights. Or funny stories. We played the animal game which was a hit.
Last night Matt, Emma, Liz and I sat around and laughed about poo and wee and farts. It was really good seeing Emma laugh about things which I find so funny because I didn't expect her to be like that. But see was right into it. It was good quality. We had good bonding.
Last night also contained a bonding session where we all passed around sheets with our names at the top and we wrote nice things about the people. I find those things really hard. I try and find something new everytime and I got sick of writing the words "great" and "friendly". Even if I meant them it felt fake.
Someone wrote on the back of mine "Tom I think your sexy".
They should have written "Tom I think you're sexy".
Oh well, I got their meaning. But I think they were joking.
If not, good for them.
Yesterday we went for a walk to Wentworth Falls (the actuall waterfalls) and Phil and I talked about worship music.
We came home about 1:30pm.
When we got back to church I went searching for Helen and her dancers who I thought we meant to be learning the dance for the film clip. They weren't there. I was an hour early. Bugger.
I came back an hour later and there they were, dancing. Very cool. I was impressed. I can't wait. It's been a dream of mine for ages to make something with dancers in it, now I can't. And the dance so far is looking very cool. Yay.
The people who heard the song all thought it was good which was tops. Matt liked it. People were impressed with the effects we put on Matt's voice. I was impressed too. I think they are the coolest bit of the song. It's good fun. Yay for Chris and his musical poshness.
Tonight in church we had a panel on sex. Well it was on sex and dating and lust and all the rest of it. I was on the panel. It was the most honest I've been in front of a church for a while. It was a little scary because I shared things which, may not have seemed big to other people, were big for me. Things which in the past I have only really told one or two other people. But I'm glad I did it. I said what I thought was important for people to hear, I pray that it was helpful.
The first question was on how to ask someone on a date. I had to answer that one. I felt throughly un-able to answer that questions as the thought of asking anyone on a date scares me to the innercore. Well maybe not that far, but pretty far. Plus my past experiences of shareing my romantic feelings have been less than ideal.
With this in mind I shared how I told Kaia that I liked her and the explination of my feelings via a mobile phone on Hornsby Baptist steps. Everyone had a good laugh at me. After church many different people teased me. Sal suggested that Jo pass all her comments at filming on Saturday to me via a mobile. Jono, Pete, Dan and Chris all had a good laugh at me while I carried my table and at the end of the night Chris walked up to me with his moblie and showed it too me, it said "Bye Tom". It was quite funny. Now Rob isn't the only person who teases me about that incident.
After church we went to maccas and were silly. Helen and I discussed TOOBSC and found that it was running over time. We need to do some trimming so that should be fun.
When we were kicked out of maccas as is usual on a Sunday night we hang out the front and were silly some more that was cool. I met (or perhaps saw close up is better) Jo's famous friends. That was cool. We were silly outside maccas some more and then went home.
And then I dropped Luke, Tim and Rob home, and dropped myself home. Now I am here.
I have a lot of bolgs to catch up on.
That's what happen when you spend a weekend with three sisters.
That's "The Three Sisters", you dirty minded people.
Last night, after Rob and I dropped Jo home, we we're driveing back into Hornsby and I noticed a broken egg on the road. I thought "That's odd, why is there a broken egg on the road. Someone must be egging cars". And then BOOM. We got hit on the roof by something.
"What was that!?!" said Rob.
"An egg" said cool, calm and collected me.
And sure enough when we got home there was egg all over the back corner of the car. I had a lovely time at 3:30am this morning cleaning egg off our car. I think they threw it at us because we're Christians. We were being persecuted for Christ. You can tell I'm a Christian because of the way I drive my car.
Blessed is Howie and I.
Terminator 3 was good fun. I liked the film. David thought the ending was stupid, but I had fun. I think I'd allow it in the Terminator franchise.
Since watching the movie we have come to my house and eaten pasta which Anmol and I cooked. That was fun. I got in trouble for not being as well behaved as I would want to be. But these things happen.
Repentance is about making an about face. Going the opposite direction when you do the wrong thing. Darn eh?
Now I'm working on the TOOBSC script. I want to have that finished and photocopied by tomorrow arvo.
Terminator 3 was good fun. I liked the film. David thought the ending was stupid, but I had fun. I think I'd allow it in the Terminator franchise.
Since watching the movie we have come to my house and eaten pasta which Anmol and I cooked. That was fun. I got in trouble for not being as well behaved as I would want to be. But these things happen.
Now I'm working on the TOOBSC script. I want to have that finished and photocopied by tomorrow arvo.
I'm wearing my T3 boxers today because I'm going to see it tonight. I hope they give me special movie watching powers.
Today I went to Chris' to work on the TOOBSC song. It's coming along. It's not ready yet. It's a very difficult thing to make. Neither of us make pop music much. The song is on it's way though. It'll get there. There is enough for the dancers though. They are going to start dancing on Sunday. Fun, fun.
I had a discussion with Jo on Tuesday about my rules for teasing. Because after Monday night I started to get a little worried. You see, my rules for teasing, especially about girls (or guys depending on who you're teasing), is that it's ok as long as it doesn't upset relationships. Like having a joke with someone about a girl can be a bit of fun at times, but it can make life awkward. Like when you were in year 7 and someone would call out across the play ground "So-and-So likes you!" and both you and So-and-So, would get all embarrased. It would then be uncomfortable between you and that person. And over the past month there have been many instances where people have acted like silly year sevens. Not that that's a problem, most of the time.
Anyway, I talked to Jo because I didn't want to make life bad for either of them. Jo was good about it, which was good. But since than I have been working at being better behaved. Even if making jokes isn't originaly annoying, it can get there. I'd rather it didn't. We all love a good gossip, but it can be un-constructive.
I cop a bit of crap at home about women, but I play my cards too close to my chest to be of a lot of interest. Over the past few days I think Robert has gone from thinking I don't like someone, to I do like someone, to I don't like someone, to maybe I like someone. I've said nothing. And people here at home play by the same rules as me, tease if it doesn't stuff things up.
Anyway, I would like to thank Rob and Jo for being such good sports.
I'm going to try and stop acting like I'm in year seven now, most of the time.
Queensland kicked butt.
But NSW still won over all. Yay.
Not that I really worry either way, but I'll give it 5 minutes interest.
Passenger stabbed on flight into Sydney
That's all people seem to do on planes these days, get stabbed.
I have done a lot of posting today with out saying much. I guess it's been one of those days. Pleasant though. I've been paid out a lot today for my organising of Andrew's visit. If I were a sensitive person I might cry when I got paid out, it seems to happen often. But I'm not, and so I have a chuckle and think "Aren't my friends rude?" in an affectionate tone of thought.
If I were more sensitive I probably wouldn't get paid out so much. People would be afraid they'd hurt my feelings. Well at least I wouldn't get paid out to my face as much.
Anyway, today has been pleasant. I've managed to not do anything work like for most of the day. I rang the Bible Society to see if they had any Bangla translations of the Bible for Tinku. They said they only have Bangali. That could be the same thing, or not. I don't know. I'll have to ask Tinku.
Tomorrow is back to the grind again. Good, good.
Last night we watched Analyze That which was on par with the first film I reckon. Had some funnies. Ha Ha. Twas nothing special. But it was fun. It took us about 3 hours to watch the film though. We had a lot of interuptions. Especially the interuption of the mystery person in Jo's (sister) house yesterday who listened to Jo's Vynyard CD really loudly and used their plates then left in a white van. No body knew who it was and they have no idea who it could have been. They knew it happened because one of Jo's housemates was in the house at the time and heard it. But didn't go and check to see who it was because they thought it must have been someone else who was staying in the house but they had all gone to work. When they went to check who it was the person left and she ran to the front door only to see some guy getting in a van and driving away. Anyway, that was the mystery. I hope my sister is ok. Maybe the man is the white van is like Goldilocks. That's what I reckon. Sydney's very own inner-west Goldilocks.
Now Analyze That has been returned and I spent the afternoon minding Hannah. She was pretty easy today. I like Hannah when she's in a good mood. Actually I like Hannah all the time. She's a good person to have around.
These people have black friends. Good for them eh?
I just got an audio cd burnt. I think the Real Player Burner must be a dog because the Nero Burner worked good.
I had another food court expedition today. I went to K-mart and bought three pairs of boxers. One of them is a Terminator 3 pair. They are pretty cool.
I'm going to bed now before I shove my head in the blender.
Lucky my blender won't fit my head in.
Islands in the Pacific Ocean that I like the names of because I think they are a little amusing:
Rape Island
Disappointment Island
Starbuek Island
Bikini Island
I study them when I am in the shower each morning.
We'll here I am 12:52 on my day off. How nice.
I have two things to say.
1. I hope the US and North Korea don't throw bombs at each other because I think that would ruin my day.
2. Welcome Matt to the blogger revolution.
Maybe Matt's welcome should have come earlier. Maybe it should have come first. I'm not sure what's more important Matt getting a blog or the threat of nuclear war.
Things to ponder.
I'm at church again. Five days in a row. My gosh this is going to be a record for me. I'm feeling really stuffed. I haven't had a day off since before Griffith. My routine has gone out the window so I've forgot to stop and not do anything. It's really showing today. I having a hard time stringing sentances together. I feel like a bit of an idiot because this wouldn't happen if I were looking after myself. But alas, I have been decieved by the spirit of business. As I said though tomorrow is my day off. Nice.
The leaders meeting this morning went well. I went to pick up one of my leaders, but ran very late due to my old trick of thinking then when you are heading forwards you are heading North. I read the map upside down for that reason and had a terrible time fixing that mistake. I think perhaps if I had been more alert things might have gone better.
Meeting was good though. We got everything planned. I had lunch with Steve. We had soup. That was good too.
One day I'm going to burn out like all good youth ministers.
Not tomorrow though, tomorrow is my day off.
Well hasn't tonight been fun. After what began as a fairly quiet night at the pub turned into an eventful conversation about female peodophiles, girls who turn into guys at puberty, big brother, blogs, blogs, Newcastle and blogs. Erin joined Ryan, Chris, Jem and I (I can't be bothered linking to them all). Later in the evening Jo joined us from all the way from the otherside of Sydney practically. That was fun. Howie didn't make it as he was up visiting Steve and Mim.
At some stage it came up in conversation that people at church think there is something going on between Jo and I. Which I find quite amusing. More amusing because of what we have all being talking about in the non-church end of town, which I will not talk about as I do not want to be any more badly behaved than I already have. I'm sure it's been one of those nights where everyone will be de-briefing. Right now I'm off to bed.
Today I finished draft one of The Opposite of Being Self-Centred. Is a very good feeling. It's certainly not ready, but it's on it's way. Very nice.
I picked up Matt 10 minutes late because I had to print out and staple the script as I was very excited to get it done.
Matt and I drove to Hornsby listening to Matt's choice of Matchbox 20. I like them. They play good.
We arrived at Chris' house drunk and disheveled, minus the drunk bit, and maybe only a tad disheveled. But we did arrived. We recorded the song. The first half hour consisted of listening to my terrible singing it seems. Matt did good. He sings much better than I. If I were his mother I'd be proud of him.
At 2:40 we broke for lunch. Off to the food court it was. That's were you need to go on recording days it seems. Rob met us there and we had silly discussions. Robert and Chris were mean to me. Matt was playing the Swiss. Robert encouraged Matt to get a blog, which I agree with (Matt get a blog). When we left we showed Matt the airlock at the carpark. There are some amazing things to see in Hornsby when you are a visitor.
We got back and finished off. Recorded a rap and me wispering crap as backing vocals. Then an accoustic track. Nothing special that was, but it was good to get something done for a general idea.
When that was done I gave Matt a lift home listening to the Counting Crows. Now I am home and listening to Powderfinger.
Soon I will go out to the Blue Gum to say "Goodbye Ryan" before he goes to Newcastle and becomes a Newcastlian. He's staying with Natalie and Erin. Ryan likes hanging with them. They have fun together. I think he'll have fun. That'd be good. They are friendly people. If Ryan was moving away to stay with mean people I would be a little offended, but he's not so I won't be.
I wrote a post at work about Sunday, but my computer is a dog and the post disappeared.
Grrr.
The wedding was good.
The Miller tripod was good.
Robert teased me all day about girls.
The food was good but I didn't eat enough.
Got home at midnight.
There you are.
Well here I am at work and it's way too early in the morning. I'm not really here to do work. I am kinda. I'm working on the script for TOOBSC but that's not really work. I thought I'd do it here because I have to pick up Matt at 11:30 and I couldn't be bothered going home. So here I am.
I am so tired. I went to my cousins today after church for my cousin's 25th birthday. It was pleasant but I was finding it difficult to participate. Finally Mum, being motherly, asked if I could have a sleep on my Auntie and Uncles bed. They said yes and I slept for about an hour and a half. Beautiful. I really need a day off soon.
Church was good. The music tonight was good. I like my church. I don't like it because of the music. Not just because of the music. But it does have good music. And good people. Silly carpet. They believe the Bible. They teach the Bible. They love Jesus. Good stuff.
Am preaching again soon I have heard. That should be fun.
We worked on the song again today, Chris and I. I wrote some of the script for the Black Stump project while I was waiting to begin. The scene I wrote was quite politically incorrect. It had the main character commenting about quadriplegic children:Yeah Downies and spastics and stuff. Everyone loves those kids. Always smiling and running around and stuff.
I'm sure no one but me will find it funny. I'm sure people would probably get offended. So I probably won't leave it in. But if I do, I'll have a good laugh. The main character isn't meant to sensitive.
Before we got to work on the song we (Chris, Howie and I) went to the food court for lunch. I met Chris (different one) there. He joined us for lunch and told us of his work as a famous television and radio star. I don't think he's all that famous because when I looked for him on web I could only find this picture which is not him, but very funny. It was good to see him too. Andrew is coming back to visit soon too, it's like old days.
Chris and I made little progress on the song for a while after lunch but made a break through when we upped the tempo and decided to be silly. The result was better than anything we've done so far. It's not classy enough to released as a single, but it will do for our purposes. It was fun being silly. Chris is a funny guy.
During an intermission I made phone calls for this film which was most tramatic as I get scared making phone calls. I had a 50% success rate. And some funny missed call business.
Now I am home and am not sure what to do. Probably go to bed. I'm a little tired and I'll go to work tomorrow. I'm not fully sure what I'm going to do there. Maybe a mail merge. That sounds like it could be fun.
Yeah, I'll do a mail merge.
On Tuesday I said: "homosexuality I believe are not the way God wants things, and can be classified as sin." But I would like to say that, I don't think homosexuality is a sin. I believe that sex practiced outside the confines of marraige is a sin, whether that be hetro or homo or whatever. Having desires for someone of the same gender as you is probably not something that you can do anything about anymore than when you have feelings for someone of the opposite gender. How you deal with those feelings, both for the same and opposite gender, is what is important. And that's not an easy one to get right.
So that's my clarification.
I just went to the Hornsby Gang Show. It was good to see Michael do his thing. They used video well. That was good. It looked like fun.
I went to Chris' today to make music. We spent all day working on a song that turn out to be crap. In the last 20 minutes we started again and come up with some thing good. Tomorrow we'll work on the good song.
I had a dream last night that aliens were invading the world.
Thinking back it's a little strange because I never seem to have dreams as conventional as that.
I have been thinking about enduring hardship, abortion, and homosexuality.
But don't think I have anything much to say. I haven't figured out enduring hardship yet, but I think it's about not resorting to selfishness in hard times. Abortion and homosexuality I believe are not the way God wants things, and can be classified as sin.
I also think that we should love people who sin because Christ does. I don't think homosexuality should make any difference to a relationship. I think within the church it is important to judge people's actions as we are the body of Christ, and there should be no sin within the body. But there will be. And homosexuality is just one of them. Maybe it's more prominent but it is by no means the most prevalent sin.
Outside the church judgment is God's problem, and ultimately, it's God's all problem.
I've done alot of sitting around today. I've tried to work on The Opposite of Being Self-Centred. It's slowly coming together. I'm starting to get a little stressed about what needs to be organised. So much to do. I might fall over.
Other than that, I've mooched around. Tonight I'll probably go the community dinner.
Community
Community
Community
Ahhh
After going to Griffith I have thought a lot about what I think about everything. I think that evangelicalism is good quality. I think the Bible is very good and it's really sad that people don't teach it. I think the Anglo-Catholic movement was not a good thing. I think that Sydney has so much and elsewhere has so little. In many ways I would really like to move out to the country to do youth ministry because there is one. In Sydney we have a youth minister in what seems like every third church, one of the kids from the church in Griffith said that he didn't even know what a youth minister was. It's really sad that there is such a need out there, and no one to fill it. It would be great to see the Bible taught in the churches and the Bible taught in schools. When we went to the schools lots of the kids seemed to have no idea of the Gospel and a thirst for what we had to say. I don't think there are any youth ministers in the whole of the diocise of Griffith and none of the churches are growing it seems.
I am very blessed to have grown up here. I very blessed to have a knowlege of God revealed through the scriptures. I am blessed to have a desire to tell people about Christ.
I was worried that when we went in we would be arrogant Sydney people, and at times we were, but overall I think we did alright. But Sydney people really are lucky. If we aren't arrogant, we have so much we can offer our brothers and sisters. I pray that people, Anglican or not, will be raised up to preach Christ to the people all over the world who don't get to hear of Him, or who do, but hear un-truths that hide the grace He has to offer.
I know this isn't very eloquent, but I guess that's what's on my mind. Griffith was a place I really loved, but when I looked at the church out there, it made me sad. Sad because there were faithful people who had so little good teaching and leadership, and sad because there are so many people who should hear about Chirst but don't because the faithful have so few and poor resources.
That's what I have to say.
Today
Well, today I planned to leave at Griffith at 10am but was late because Donna, my billet mum, cooked me breakfast so I didn't do my normal breakfast escape. It was really nice. I gave them some chocolates and was sad to leave because they were a really nice family.
I picked up Shanan, Lani, Kerryn, Mitch and Graham and we headed out of Griffith 50 minutes late with a full tank of petrol and pumped up tires. We drove. Mitch, Lani and I drove. I only ate maccas once. When planning dropping people home we had much difficulty and it resulted in much difficulty. My trip once in Sydney at 5:30 consisted of Granville to Lucas Heights to West Pennant Hills to Hornsby to St Leonards to Hornsby. It was a killer of a trip. I spent 11 hours travelling today, four of which were in Sydney. It was a killer. I got to read a lot Harry Potter though.
Tonight I have blogged.
Yesterday, which was Sunday, was a good day.
Heather and Lani picked me up at 7:05am (they were supposed to pick me up at 7:15 but I think they forgot that it take 5 minutes to get from anywhere to anywhere in Griffith, and left 15 minutes early) and we headed off to a church in the middle of no-where. It was damn cold. As we drove we got to see the sun rise which was very cool. I love the sunrise. Bonhoeffer said that the sunrise is a mere relection of the glory of the risen Christ (actually, I don't think he said that at all because I have so much trouble understanding Bonhoeffer that I probably mis-understood what he wrote) and every time I see a sunrise I think of that. Everytime I see a sunrise I think if this is this good, how great must the resurrected Jesus be? It's pretty cool. The first time I saw a sunrise I thought to myself "Wow, does this happen everyday?".
We arrived in Darlington Point at 7:38 and found the church. The service didn't start till 8:30 (we thought it started at 8) so we went off to the river and practiced what we were going to say in the churches we were visiting. 8:15 arrived and we headed off to the church. We met some old ladies and got roped into doing all the readings for the service. We waited for the minister to turn up but he never did. There was no minister. The church was being led that day by a man named Nick who was very friendly and spoke very quietly. When the sevice started there were 14 people in the church including Nick and the 3 of us. 3 of them were men. The church was so cold I spent the whole time shivering.
During the service they gave us Youthworks people the sermon time. Lani gave an interview about college and Heather shared her testimony. They left ten minutes for me to "share" from the Bible. I think it was meant to be a sermon but all sermons need to be approved by the Bishop so I couldn't do a sermon. But that's fine by me.
I was a bit nervous talking to a bunch of people hugely older than me. These people would all be so much more spiritually mature than I am, I didn't really feel like a was a worthy candidate to teach them. I decided to take the tack of making my talk an encouragement rather than a teaching. If they learnt from it it would be good. I basically said the we can only be saved by grace and if we are saved by grace we must be changed by grace. I was speaking on Luke 23:32-43, which was the same passage we were using in the schools. When I realised that the audience was a little different than I expected, I modified the talk on the spot and managed to make almost no reference to the passage at all. That was a little sad but it all tied in well to Eph 2:8-10 which I read at the end at the risk of using an overused passage (not that I mind the use of the passage as I love it, especially going from 8-10, not just 8 and 9). All the people seemed to nod, laugh, and say "Mmm" at all the right places so that was good.
After the service we had a cup of tea with the whole church which was really nice. It was great. It was really good to see 11 faithful people who loved Jesus having a cup of tea together. I really liked it.
At 9:50 we had to leave as we had another church to attend in another town at 10:30. We arrived at that church. It too was cold, and the people weren't all that warm either. There was holy water at the door. When we got up to talk no one seemed all that interested. Heather and Lani did their talk there and very few people seemed to be listening. No one really seemed to want to be there. They seemed to be there because that's what they did.
They gave us lunch afterwards with some really nice pumpkin soup and some sausage rolls. It was nice. The conversations were pretty stilted. I talked to a guy from Wagga who was really good at discus.
We went home soon after lunch.
When I got home I wanted to sleep but I ended up playing jigsaw puzzle races, and bingo with Ellen, the six year old billet kid. That was fun hanging out with her, even if bingo is exruciatingly boring with only two people and 90 numbers.
The team met together at one of the other billet houses where we were cooked a wonderful roast by one of the ladies from the church. After dinner people congregated in the lounge room and talked with Jodie about theology again. I think this time it was about sanctification and justification. I was a little sick of the discussion and had a sleep on the lounge room floor. That was wonderful.
At 8 it was back to Jodie's place for the official debrief. It started off being like any old end-of-time-away get together ("I've had a wonderful time, my life has been changed"), to an emotional discussion on the state of Christianity in non-Sydney diocise Australia. I think alot of us, me included, found Christianity in a non-evangelical environment a bit of a culture shock. The emotion came when people started to feel that everyone outside of Sydney was being attacked and judged in danger of the fires of hell. I don't think it was anyones intentions to do either of those things, but there was definate anger about what gets pushed when the Bible isn't taught.
I returned to my billet's house to find the kids watching tv and the adults, with two guests, all drinking, the men quite drunk. They offered me a port which I accepted. We had lively conversation. I got grilled on my evangelism techniques which I was told were "bullshit" and would get me "kicked in the head", but after more explination they changed there minds and I was told there wasn't anyone else around like me. I was asked about the differences between Sydney Anglicans and Griffith Anglicans were, and the difference between a chrasmatic and an evangelical. I was paid out for being from the city (we're all stupid here) and one of the guests took me outside to tell me all his problems with the world, and kept insisting that we pray. It was a lot of fun, and even though it was difficult sharing my views in that atmosphere, they were all fun to talk with, and didn't kick me in the head, and were happy to propose a toast to me, twice. I drank more last night than I have drunk in years. That means two glasses of port. I had a fun last night with my billets.
Saturday
Saturday was Youth Fix day. The plan was to run a 14-hour day for the Christian youth of Griffith that encouraged them and equiped them. Unfortunately none of the Christian youth of Griffith knew about it. Or perhaps they couldn't make it. Or maybe there aren't any. Anyway, no one turned up.
This delighted me secretly. I was feeling extreamly tired and was very happy that there was the prospect of a day off ahead of me. We the team had a pancake breakfast together and were in good spirits (I think many people were secretly thinking the same things as I). After dinner Jodie convened us for a discussion on the Biblical Theology of the church (seeing as we were in the habit of discussing the church in our tangents). This took me by suprise. It turned out to be a 2 and a half hour theology lecture. It was good stuff but I was in totally the wrong head space. I had prepared myself over breakfast for a day off and suddenly discussing what the the 3rd Epoch had to say about the church. Still I learnt stuff. That discussion tangented into how the Spirit works and does God reveal Himself in ways other than scripture. Jodie seems to be a Moore man through and through which meant that his answers where what I expected them to be. This isn't a bad thing, but I do think I disagree a little. But who don't I disagree with? My disagrements with Jodie's theology are nothing major.
When we finished our session we had half an hour off till lunch. I seized the opportunity to grab chair and Harry Potter and dash out on to the drive way and read, in the sun, by myself. It was so nice. Harry Potter is so much easier on the brain than the Biblical Theology of the Church.
After lunch I ran off to a park to read more Harry and listen to U2. When I go cold there I went and had a sleep at home. It was so good. I think I slept for two hours. Ahhh so nice.
After waking up I met the others at Maccas again ate a small cheese burger meal and feeling sorry for the macca's worker that Graham, Mitch and Chook were silly with, then moved to KFC for the "team" dinner. That was fun. I talked to one of Jodie's kids for a while and was quite silly with the KFC worker who reconised us from our scripture stuff in the schools. Mitch accused me of hypocrisy for "chatting up" the KFC girl which was probably quite valid except that I had Shanan with me to be silly with so I felt we were less likely to seem like we were chatting her up. Plus we had just run scripture seminars for her and so hopefully had a different relationship. I try not to make people think I'm chatting them up. I would never chat someone up properly. That would make me feel terrible. Chatting up is so fake. I said something profound to Lauren (who has incidently has a blog now, congratulations) the other night when I was telling her about the chatting up affair at the church on Thursday. I thought it was profound but Lauren laughed. So perhaps it was wasn't profound. I wish I could remember what I said, then I could figure out if it was good or not. I was very tired when I said it so chances are it was crap.
After KFC I went home and wrote a talk for the next day's church visits then went to bed.
On Friday (blogger has funny new html tags) we had the morning off. I slept in till 10. I woke up once or twice to the sound of my billet brothers and sisters fighting, but mainly I slept. It was so nice.
I hung out with Mitch and Graham (I met them at Macca at 11:30 doing my usual breakfast avoiding trick) and we met some girls on the main street of Griffith who were from the school we were in the day before. They said they had taken the day off school to walk up and down the street. That's teenage lesure in Griffith. Much like Sydney really but Sydney has longer streets.
At 1:30 went to the church to set up for the Youth Pulse. The plan was to run a big thing like Youth Surge for all the excited teenagers in Griffith. During set up we planned what we were doing that night and the next day for the whole day youth event. This desended into a discussion of the pros and cons of charismaticism.
Once 7:30 arrived it was time for the Youth Pulse to begin. The teenagers were all set to arrive. We were almost ready. By 8pm 6 kids had arrived and we still hadn't started because the laptop was being a dog.
In the end the lap top started working and we did the Youth Pulse. James and his band played very loudly and the three remaining team members in the audience sang along while all the excited teenagers in Griffith looked on in a perplexed manner.
We played memory verse games and get to know you games. We prayed and Jodie gave a talk. It was good. I had a good night.
In debrief we discussed why no one came, and what should have been done. People seemed sad that not many people had come. I said that we had shared the Gospel, served God and were obiedient, so in my book it was a good night. I do think though, that there could have been room for improvment in the advertising of the night. The debrief decended into a discussion about the church in Griffith and the lack of youth ministry and Bible teaching. We seemed to be setting a trend for discussions that went tangental (if that is the right word).
So I'm guessing there is stuff to say. I'm not quite sure what yet. I guess I'm happy to be home. I spent the whole time in Griffith wanting to come home (not that I didn't love it there), and now I kinda want to be somewhere else. I want to not have to worry about everything that is coming up. I spend my whole life waiting for the next thing to end. I am very rarely content in the moment.
Last night I went to the pub and pretended to play the doggies. Was good fun eh. Tomorrow morning I get to sleep in. Yay. I am so tired. I fell asleep many times in the year 9 seminar.
Today we were at Griffith High which was reputed to be one of the "rougher" high schools in Griffith (there are only three so there isn't really much choice). It was pretty cool. I was up first with the year eights. They were a little ruder than yesterdays crowd. A bit more offended by my talk.
It all went pretty much like it did yesterday. The year 7 were feral (if I can use that term lovingly). I had a small group with one guy who kept wanting to talk about hell and another who spent his whole time trying to start a fight with everyone in the group.
My year 10 small group was cool. Two of the guys stuck around in the recess to ask me more questions and discuss Islam and Christianity.
At lunch time I went out into the quad and played handball with some year 7 guys. I noticed people playing and I thought it looked fun so I asked if I could join in. Twas good. I didn't share the gospel with them, but they had heard it before. It was better playing handball.
I've just been to Griffith Maccas again. I'm becoming a regular there. That maccas is the first maccas I have ever seen with a train track running through the middle of it (Well not the middle of the building, but the middle of the carpark).
Griffith is like that, train tracks everywhere.
I'm using a crappy blogger again at this internet cafe in Griffith. James is sitting behind me using a much better version. I don't know what they are different. I might use a different computer next time I am here.
The trip up here was kinda fun. I don't think we ate any maccas the whole way. I enjoyed hanging out with Graham, Mitch, Shanan, Pete, and James. I was very tired after staying up till about 2am the night before with Mitch and Graham, Tinku and Rob, being silly. Mum joined us at the end too.
It was an uneventful trip though. Upon arriving in Griffith I found that there was many round abouts and many rounded streets. I told Pete that we wouldn't have to worry about turning around because the whole town was one big round-about, like Canberra.
How right I was. It turns out that the town was designed by Walter Burley-Griffin, the same bloke who designed Canberra, and as a consiquence it's kinda similar in design. How strange.
We arrived 2 and a half hours late, and met out billets. I'm staying with a family of five. two girls, 6 and 10, a 14 year-old guy and a mum and a dad. They are quite friendly, but Ãt's all a little scary for me. I'm by myself and I don't know what the family culture is like. The dad insisted on showing me photos of his welding and crane driving jobs.
Today I woke up at about quarter past seven. 45 mintues later than planned, but still I was happy with the sleep in. I had a tablespoon cornflakes, and some lite-milk for breakfast and headed off to the Griffith Anglican Catheral, our base.
From there we headed off to Wade High School to do scripture seminars with year 7,8 and 9. Our theme was grace. The seminars got progressivly better as the day went on. I did the talk for the year eight kids. It was my first cold-turkey evangelism talk. It was a bit scary and I think I offended a few people. I told them that they deserved to die (as do I) and they should accept the free gift of salvation from Jesus. I spent more time talking about Jesus, but it was a little on the "turn or burn" side. It went ok I think.
We had small groups with the kids and they were quite ratty.
After the school we headed off into Griffith in search of an internet cafe. This meant stumbling across the Grace Christian Fellowship. Mitch, Graham, James and I decided to go in and say G'day and find out where we could do our blogging and e-mailing.
There was a young woman behind the counter who we got talking to. Sadly, I felt compelled to fill in all the gaps in the conversation and I'm sure I looked like I was picking up. The boys thought I was picking up.
I also made the mistake of saying "I'm going to try and come to this church on Sunday." which when I realised what I had done made me squirm.
Oh well. It's fine. I'll just stay away from the church on Sunday. I hate looking like I'm picking up. It makes me feel really dodgy. Really fake. Darn.
Now I have eaten Maccas and am about to head out to eat dinner with the Griffith junior choir. Tops.
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