I'm off to Stump.

And I'm wearing a red t-shirt and red undies in solidarity with our Burmese friends.

I found this envelope on our notice board.

Lucky my sister doesn't charge interest. Or maybe she does.

I think Facebook might be ruining my Blog life. Like porn ruins a couple's sex life.

Not that I'd know, that's just what I've heard.

But gosh, Facebook is so stupid, why does it take up so much of my time?

Then again, I'm pretty pleased with Ryan and my new cause to save the Bottle-Nosed Hamster. It brings a smile to my face every time.

I went and saw Superbad with Ryan and Tom-Who-Sleeps-On-Our-Couch yesterday.

It was pretty bad.

There were some funny moments. But mainly it was just humour that was made as crass as possible as if that would make it funny. And the main character was an idiot so it made the film difficult to watch.

We did however all go out for Doy Tao and that was good.

Today is the first day of shorts.

Happy.

Wisdom with Tabitha makes a rather quiet return to our computer screens.

Here she is:



And for all your Tabitha needs, go here.

Plus, I did stick up the Tim Hughes' video from Donny Jaffa a few years ago as it was requested. So that can be watched too.

For those of you who were wondering what the Myers-Briggs judgment of me is:

Introverted (I) 75% Extraverted (E) 25%
Sensing (S) 55% Intuitive (N) 45%
Thinking (T) 70% Feeling (F) 30%
Judging (J) 50% Perceiving (P) 50%

Ryan did the test as if he was me , I'm not sure what he got. But I reckon I'll find out once I go downstairs and ask.

I did the test before once. But I'm not sure what I got.

You'll notice that I'm 50% J and 50% P which probably means I'm an ISTJ/P. I'm not really sure what the letters mean. Maybe I should go read. Right at this point in time though, I don't really care.

Today was mostly spent procrastinating. I felt like sleeping most of the day, but I had a Bible Study to write so I couldn't sleep. But I was feeling too tired to write it, so I procrastinated all day. It was rather fun.

Some of the highlights included cooking gnocchi for lunch with Nathan, the Student-in-Ministry, hearing our Acting Senior Minister's testimony (he became a Christian in his first year of Bible College) while asking him if it was ok to kiss your girlfriend (he deems it is), having an extended lunch break with Nathan and Kathy, picking honeymoon destinations for Nathan and Courtney, arguing with Helen about business card design (for old time's sake), watching Ricky Gervais on YouTube, and talking to Pip about grape juice and to Jon about, um, sport maybe.

It really was a productive day at the office of procrastination. Though I did manage some serious thought about where I will go when I die (I think I will die, leave the time space continuum and pop back in on Judgment Day to pick up my new body).

By about 5:45pm, because I wanted to go home, I started work on the Bible Study. I eventually finished it too. So things are good.

However don't ever let me encourage you procrastinate like that. It's bad, and you have to repent, and work late. Procrastination is for chumps!


It offends me when people say youth ministers don't ever do any work.

Jon and I were talking about doing some regular sporting thing in Newtown. We were thinking maybe Big Ball Footy on a Saturday arvo. Anyone interested?

It's one of those nights when I am baffled by the problems and pain of this world. Why can't someone just fix it?

We're not questioning God.
Just those he chose to carry on His cross.
We're no better, you'll see.
Just all of us, the lost causes. - Anberlin

I'm really enjoying Stronger by our friend Kanye West at the moment. I think I would have to say Kayne is my favourite Hip-Hop artist. He just seems to be a lot more interesting than anyone else.

Perhaps I'll buy the new album when it arrives.

Good on you Kanye.

I'm back.

I do enjoy camp. For some reason camps are the times when people sustain an unusually high number of injuries. I felt like I was constantly handing out ice packs. That's pretty much the extent of my First Aid practise. Perhaps being in-charge of camp you get to see all the injuries rather than just the ones that you might see or sustain when you're a usual camper.

Still, camp isn't really all about injuries. God did good stuff this camp. Mitch came and spoke and did well. The youth folk really liked him, so that made me happy. We had some creative worship times which involved everything from dancing, to foot washing, painting and playing music. All sounds rather vibey like that, but it didn't worry me at all. Perhaps the vibers of my church have infected me. You didn't have to participate in everything, so it wasn't confronting at all really.

One of the activities was for people to nail their sins and troubles to a cross. As it was promised that no-one would look at them, I took the cross back to church with me and had my own little pyro-session in the back yard burning all the sins, so no one could ever find out what was written. It was pretty fun, I like fire.

I ran communion with the youth group this morning. I've never really run communion before (except sortof at Soul) and I really enjoyed it. Perhaps not because I was running it, but because I got to run it for my youth group who I really love. So it was special getting to lead them through such a special moment.

Last night was the night of wide games and camp fires. The wide game was pretty wicked, involving party poppers, trip wires and booby-traps. I did have fun watching that unfold. And campfires are just good fun. All the wood the camp site gave us was full of nails, so I didn't let any of the youth build the fire as I didn't want to have to take anyone to hospital for tetanus shots at 11pm. The young people didn't like it much, but Curt and I then had responsibility of building the fire, and I can't say I was upset with the task of burning stuff. I've decided I want to run a themed camp for pyro-maniacs full of blowing stuff up and burning stuff. I reckon it'd be pretty popular too. I'll just have to find someone with the gift of administration to look after the insurance.

And that I think it my camp run down.

Now I shall recover with some sleep.

About this time every year (like here and here) Spring makes it's happy presence felt and I think "It's Black Stump weather."

Oh how I love Black Stump. It's not really the actual festival I love. That's seems to hold less appeal every year. But I've been doing Stump ever since I was 5. And it was always the happiest time of the year. It brings back memories of years of excitement, fun and flirting. And I don't think I've ever had a bad Stump. So I'm excited. I've even dreamt about being at Stump 3 times in the past two weeks. I sat in class this morning day dreaming about when lectures finish in two weeks time and I'll be able to go to my car, hop in, and drive to Black Stump. Oh what joy it will bring.

But there's still two weeks between now and then and lots to do. I have a camp today and I'm pretty excited about that too. I have sermons to write and preach, essays tow write and hand in.

Still, the sun is out and t-shirts are beginning to make a comeback. So hooray for Spring I say.

We're off on Youth Group camp again tomorrow. I feel like I'm always going on camps.

I think I counted this year and I'll only go on seven camps this year. But it feels like I do it more regularly than that.

We have less people than usual going on this camp. In some ways it's nice because we'll get to hang out with the ones that come more. In other ways it's kinda frustrating because I'd love to have more people. Camps are always way fun and good chances to connect with the youth. But we managed to pick a week in the middle of many people's exams, overseas trips and other things. So that was a bit of a whoops.

Still, it'll be fun to do the camp because I like youth group camp. And for some reason I'm feeling really relaxed about this one, sweet.

In other news, Sal came over to dinner tonight and that was fun, because we all like Sal. She brought Oreos so I mashed them into my ice cream and put Milo on top. It was pretty special. The great thing about being an Adult is you can do the things you wanted to do when you were a kid but your parents wouldn't only let you do as a treat. Now I can have treat whenever I want. Sick!

I think blog worthy is the news that I have been running 4 times in the past eight days.

I finally got around to getting myself fully kitted out for my Nike+ iPod kit last week and now I go running. The kit is really fun. It measures how far I run, how fast, it plays me music, tells me how I'm doing, and graphs it all on the internet. It's lots of fun.

It's the gadget incentive to make me become fit. I'm having a good time.

I woke up at 10am this morning and there were more people asleep in my house than there often is at 3am, and I was the only rent payer home. So I have no idea where everyone was actually sleeping at 3am. I doubt we have the beds. My room was probably one of the only rooms in the house with one person sleeping in it.

Perhaps someone slept in the bath. This is why we love community.

I would have blogged more but alas, the internet has been a bit flaky, as have I. But tomorrow is a public holiday so maybe I'll have something to say then.

I was lost
when I met you on the road
to Larissa
the straight road between the cedars

You thought
I was a man of roads
and you loved me for being such a man
I was not such a man

I was lost when
I met you on the road
to Larissa

Leonard Cohen

Welcome to Australia.

I'd come welcome you, but there's a big fence in the way.

Try not to start any wars while you're here. And if you want to stop any, feel free.

We did just watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High which I have been wanting to watch for years, seeing as it's a classic and all.

It seems to me that the teen comedies of today owe a lot to that film. Although I don't know my film history well enough. If my instincts are correct, this is to American Pie what The Beatles are to Jet. It was smarter than most teen films. It had good thing to say too. Sean Penn's character was great. I liked. I'll give it a place in cinema history.

I'm not sure how I feel about APEC.

I'm kinda excited about the chance to see lots of motorcades. And I really want to see snipers on the tops of buildings and stuff, but I doubt I'll see that.

I think the whole heightened tension between the Government and hippies over protesting is annoying. I wish our government encouraged protests, rather than tried to make them work the way they wanted them to. The people in the democracy want to express their opinion, hooray! Our MPs should be out there saying "Yes, keep at it, it's people like you who give my job it's value!"

I reckon I might go do some protesting. I hope I don't get sprayed with a water cannon. I'm not planning on being violent (especially not considering my last post) so I should be alright. But you never know I almost got squashed by a horse at the last protest I went to and all I did was march next to some people holding lanterns.

I'm not sure what I want to protest. I figure there are so many things to get upset about when you have Howard, Bush, Putin, and the Chinese guy in town it's like trying to figure out where to start at the Sizzler buffet.

All the fences and traffic changes are kinda annoying. If you're going to have a meeting why do you have to have it at the Opera House? It's there for Opera, not meetings. They could hire a posh conference centre in the Hunter Valley. They could see the beauty of the Australian bush and they wouldn't need to inconvenience 6 million people.

But I am all for the public holiday. I think we should have an APEC public holiday every year, no matter where in the world they meet. That'd be cool.