At College I didn't seem to be registered on any of the computers, and I haven't got my student card yet, so I went to the office and asked them "Can you tell me if I exist?" People laughed. They said it was an odd question. Apparently having an existential crisis is not as common as I thought.

I then proceeded to ask them lots of questions about what a part-time student can and can't do. They told me some of my assumptions were wrong because I'd been reading the prospectus which is only for Full Time students. I asked them if there was a book of rules for the Part Timers. They told me "No".

I think that Part Time people must live under grace rather than law. Or perhaps we are meant to be working from the law that is written on our hearts. I'm finding that a little difficult at the moment, I can't find any of my assessment tasks or their due dates written anywhere near my cardio-regions. But, of course, if I don't exist no one will notice if I don't hand in any assessments.

I can't wait to figure out what's wrong with me,
So I can say this is the way that I used to be - John Mayer

The End is Nigh!

I caught the 11:53pm train home from Central last night. It was a crowded train. I sat down on an empty three seater, the only one left and a man with a lot of baggage came and sat next to me. I had seen him earlier at Town Hall preaching into a mobile PA system. I like a good street evangelist and here was one sitting next to me on the train, a real, live street preacher.

I sat there trying to work out if I could have a chat with him. I was interested in how a effective a street preaching ministry is, As I sat there on the train he put a tape on on his PA system (I think it was Benny Hinn worship) and started doing a Bible study.

Suddenly during the Bible Study he turned to me, looking me straight in the eye and said “There’s been two earthquakes you know, in Indonesia. God’s judging them! He sends a warning, then he judges”

“In Indonesia?” I asked

“Yeah, in Indonesia, and in Sydney. We had a $2 million hailstorm because Clover Moore wants to be a Mayoress, and she wants to have her poofter parade, and we’re going to rain on the their parade, me and Jesus. We try and give them unfavourable conditions but they still keep doing it. God’s going to send earthquakes to Australia, lots of them, because he’s warning us. You know there are cards in your mobile, they call them smart cards, and they’re linked to the German bank. The bank also controls all the credit cards. They want to control the whole world. The worst two things in the world are credit cards and mobiles. They’re all linked to satellites and soon their going to freeze everyone’s funds and then they’re going to take over the world. They wanted to earlier, but they can’t because there are too many Christians in the world. There are 1 billion of us. But soon the anti-Christ is going to rise up. The German bank wants to start World War Three…”

He went on for a while. I learnt that the man next to me had stopped the Bosnian War by flying with Jesus and binding the demons and ending the war. I learnt that he and Jesus had also got the Australian troops into East Timor. He had rung up John Howard to tell him that. I learnt the anti-Christ is going to be Hitler resurrected, the German bank is going to bring him back to life. I learnt that Bush and Blair are making all the Middle Eastern Muslim countries invade Israel. They’re all going to invade but God will send acid rain and all the enemy will be killed. Then Israel are going to use the tanks and weapons for firewood for seventy days because apparently they’re all made out of a top secret material developed by the Russians that isn’t metal, it’s wood. All the tanks in the Middle East are made out of wood.

I learnt lots of other things too. I’m all set for the apocalypse now. As much as I wanted to say something I didn’t get one word in till the man got off the train. The only thing I said to him was “In Indonesia?” He talked all the way from just past Redfearn to Strathfield. At Strathfield the man walked backwards down the isle, carrying his PA system and pointing his finger at me, warning me of the impending doom.

As soon as he got off the train the whole carriage burst out laughing. Everyone looked at me in awe for having to put up with the man, for maintaining such a polite look on my face the whole time. “That guy there had to sit next to him!” “He had to listen to the whole thing.” “We should pay him for that! Where’s my wallet”

I was an instant celebrity on my train. I felt a bit bad for the guy, everyone was laughing at him. I thought I should do something.

“At least he was passionate” I said

“Yeah, he can have his view” The man behind me agreed

“That’s true” someone else said

“Yeah, he’s alright.”

“You should be a psychologist with a view like that” the woman behind me told me.

I turned around to look at her “You know what,” I said “I’m actually a youth minister, I work for the church so I get on with people like him. I don’t agree with everything he said, or most of what he said, but that’s ok.”

“Yeah,” said the man behind him “He’s not hurting anyone.”

“It’s people like him that make me happy to be Australian.” I said. And then with a laugh we all went back to our train journey, most of the train had various discussions with each other about the John Farnham and Tom Jones concert they had just seen. I started reading my book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I hoped no one read over my shoulder just in case they thought I was as crazy as the guy who had sat next to me.

I have found myself with a few free minutes here at work so I thought I might take this opportunity to blog. I have to go to small group soon but right now I thought I’d take a break from the strenuous work of youth ministry.

I lost my internet at home again yesterday, but that was due to the painting. We had to disconnect everything so the lounge room could be painted. It’s so sad how often recently I’ve lost my internet.

Yesterday I went to a lunch at Grandpa and Valentina’s house. Upon arrival I discovered the unit was populated by 5 of my relations from New Zealand. I’m not sure how I’m related to them, but it’s at least good to know they’re around just in case I run into monetary troubles in the future and have to call upon that blood bond.

It was a lovely lunch. There were three boys, who may or may not be 8th cousins of mine, who you could classify as “Youth”. They were fun, it was good having people around who dress similar to me. Valentina made me a cake that was tops. It was a birthday cake. It was my first birthday cake this year (apart from the one at staff meeting which I shared with Belinda, so I won’t count it because it sounds better if I don’t). I think it may have been my last too. This is in stark contrast to last year when I got, on average, a cake every fifteen minutes. I think people’s love for me must have substantially dropped since last year.

I watched Ray the other day. That was a good film. I saw it during the day on Tuesday. What a fun time to go to the movies. I was in a cinema full of old people. They talk all the way through the ads and the credits “Oh isn’t Robert de Nero looking old?” “Who’s that woman, looks a bit young for him?” “Ray Charles was black, oh my.” Things like that. They were a very different audience from the young adults who seem to populate my usual screenings. I guess cheapo Tuesday and film without guns brings the Senior Citizens out in droves.

When the film finished I had to go to the toilet, so I got up to leave during the credits. I looked around and realised I was the first one to leave. The rest of the cinema was glued to the screen. I felt like a bad, uncultured (nekulturny) person. It was a change from usual when I’m the last to leave because I may watch 20 seconds of the credits (I have been known to stay right to the end.)

The film itself was very good. Ray Charles makes good music. Jamie Foxx makes good Ray. Taylor Hackford and friends make good film. Yay for them.

I had my first preaching class last night. It didn’t inspire me hugely. There wasn’t much wrong with it. But it didn’t give me much passion about preaching, except a story about Polycarp, Eusebius and a monk who cut out his tongue. That was good. That stirred me.

Although I did get inspired the other night when I started creating my own lecture on preaching in my head. I’m sure it wasn’t really what all the good Sydney preachers of today would like. But I enjoyed it. It really appealed to me. Funny that.

Now it’s time to be off. Yay.

What I hate is when you send an sms, an sms that should get a reply, and then the person doesn't reply. And you wonder if they hate you, or if they've died, or something like that. You wait around for hours racking your brain for what might have gone wrong. Or if the person is laughing at you for sending such a silly message. And you go to bed that night wondering if this is the end of a wonderful friendship. And when you wake up in the morning you check your sent messages you realise the message was never sent. All that worry for nothing.

Well sometimes I don't reply to messages, so I guess it serves me right.

I spent today doing lots. But really ending up with not much to show for it. I spent most of the day writing a Bible Study, with various conversations, official and not, along the way.

I do like to drink water. Especially bottled water. And tap water. And Coke. That's mostly water.

I just cooked my dinner. I didn't really need dinner, but Dad had it all laid out for me to cook and the chicken would go off if I didn't so here I was cooking a stir fry at 11:30 in the evening. Lucky I can sleep in tomorrow.

The internet has returned to my home. Yeah Baby!

It is embarrassing reading my blog in internet cafes (I check it for comments) because people may look at me and wonder why I am looking at pictures of myself.

Still no internet. I'm in the Hornsby Internet Cafe, "A great place to Surf". I'm sitting at the computer directly across from the front desk. It's a little scary like having the teacher watch over you as you do your work in class.

Greek last night wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. There's a lot to learn but it's making a little more sense now. It's not as scary anymore. I can read some of the letters and I can write my name phonetically. I'm not sure what the real Greek for Thomas is, Diddymus?

On my way walking up to Hornsby today a woman walked into me (or I walked into her) and I dropped my water bottle on the ground. The water went everywhere. She kept walking and looked back at me with a look on her face as if to say "What do you think you were doing walking along with a water bottle in your hand?" I can still feel those disdainful eyes piercing into me.

I'm sitting at Strathfield Station right now and I'm paying dearly for forgetting my book today. I have only Robbie Williams and the rest of my cds to keep me company. I guess I could read my text book for college but that doesn't excite me. It's just depressing that I have so much learn. I'd rather live in ignorance. I think I may just fall asleep when I get on the train. That is a little risky. I could sleep all the way to Newcastle but at least that'd kill the boredom.

I'm so reliant on books.

My internet has been down at home. It's so sad. So hard.

You feel like you're getting millions of emails, and people are just blogging away, and you can't check. I didn't even bother turning on my computer this morning. It's like I'm depressed. I'm not though.

I'm in the city at the moment. I had a break between classes so I came here to use the net. I don't have access at home. I have Greek tonight which I'm not looking forward to. I don't feel smart enough for it. I'm struggling to feel smart enough for any of this college at the moment. The challenge is fun, but tiring.

I left my book at home today, it's rather depressing. I listened to sermons on the train on the way in, I'm not sure what I'll do on the way home.

I'm not doing very well at doing my job at the moment. I finished this weekend feeling like I'm doing a bad job. My talks have felt very average, and I feel like I'm not making things all that interesting. But it's been really cool to see all the young people again. I really like the youth. I know I say that often, but my thoughts haven't changed.

I went to a barbeque on Saturday night and spent almost the whole time talking to people I didn't know. It was amazing. I rarely felt awkward, and I was kinda social. Perhaps I grew a little on Saturday night.

I think I might go find some dinner (I know it's early but I'll eat again when I get home), then find my way back to college.

As I ate my breakfast this morning I read about modern embalming techniques. There were needles, paints, chemicals, injections, extractions, creams, pins, dislocations, holes, cotton wool, rubber wedges, fake limbs, flesh cuttings and more. The perfect breakfast time reading.

Happy Birthday Thomas

I got a phone call today, during staff meeting. I ignored it. When I called my voicemail I only heard "Hi Tom" before I accidently deleted the message, thinking I had already listened to it. Having no idea who it was, I decided to call the number that had come up on my phone. When I did that though Optus regretfully informed me that the number I had called had been disconnected. What's up with that? It had been connected an hour before hand, when they called me.

Julian told me it could be an outbound only number. That could be the case. Whatever it was, I may never find out who it was. I decided at the pub tonight that it was probably either Norah Jones or Natalie Portman. I'm sure they'll call back.

The storm today was the coolest.

I was driving home from College and it rained, it hailed, it flooded, trees fell down (although I only drove past them after the event), and traffic lights went out. I had so much fun. I would try and describe it well, but I couldn't do it justice. It was just fun. It felt dangerous, but it probably wasn't that bad.

Before the storm, when the world was dry, I saw a guy get hit on the head by one of the first bits of hail. It was big, and he rubbed his head, then looked at the sky with a kind of bemused look on his face. It made me laugh.

I finished reading Sean Astin's book about the making of the Lord of the Rings today. It was an interesting read, but I'm glad I'm done with it. I got a little sick of him. The book was pretty egocentric. Sean spent most of the time telling me what mood he was in each day of the film making process, and how fat (or skinny) he was in just about every period of his life till now. He also told me on every second page that Lord of the Rings was a $270 million production and that he wants to be a famous director. It got a bit tedious.

Since I finished that book I started Tell Me No Lies which is a collection of investigative journalistic pieces from 1945 on. John Pilger edited it and he introduces it with a biased attack on the mainstream media saying it is the puppet of the governments. Or perhaps that the governments are the puppets of the media moguls. Or something like that. He seemed a little like an intellectual Michael Moore who doesn't make jokes. I'm enjoying the stuff after the introduction though. I'm feeling like I'm getting educated.

Am I getting picky in the books I read? I used to think you couldn't get any better than Tom Clancy.

Because I like to know when I'm famous, I found one guy who linked to my blog who said: "One guy has a poofter-ish looking photo and finds it uncomfortable watching topless women dance (bit like me, really) but it turns out that he's just religious. Oh well. It's a fine line, sometimes!"

I know people don't really like the photos of me on my blog, they say they're a bit scary. But I can't see the homosexualness in them. Not that there would be any real problem if they did look gay. Who cares if I look a little camp? Not I.

Anyway, I read a bit of the guy's blog, it was interesting. I think he's a dancer. Maybe Helen has run into him at dancer dance things. They could become friends.

The whole upstairs of my house smells. I think we may have some hidden dog wee somewhere.

My Weekend (evolving into a rant about church unity)

I've sat here for a while composing the first few words of this post. The options I have floated to myself have been:

"I don't..."

"Do Do Do Do..."

"I wanna be Kate!"

But none of them seemed right.

A lot has happened lately. I was on a leader's weekend away this weekend. It was good to hang out with the youth leaders for this year, they're good fun.

I also went to the opening service for College (the old one). It was a good chance to get a bit of closure and see some of my old friends. In the service I had to pray up the front. It was a little worrying because I was praying in front of a few Sydney Anglican big wigs. Like the Bishop. I spent most of the service trying to compose the prayer so would have the theology right. Then I realised that it is silly composing your prayers too much because you aren't praying to Sydney Anglicans you're praying to God. And so I just prayed. Once I finished though, I started analysing the prayer again.

I said at the end something like "And I pray that God continues to use this College to show the world his gospel and his glory." And I had visions of people coming up to me later and saying "Tell me, what is the difference between God's glory and his gospel? Wouldn't you say that the gospel is God's glory?"

And then I would disintegrate under the stares of the some of the world's most influential conservative, Evangelical theologians.

Ok, so I might be talking them up a bit (Uncle Pete wasn't even there), but it does sound good. I have never been quizzed on my theology by a Bishop, College Dean (except for tuitional purposes) or anyone else before for that matter. Except perhaps that kid in Canberra who asked me what the one thing that made Christianity different from every other religion was. I quite like Sydney Anglicans. I am one. And while I acknowledge that we Sydney Anglicans have been known to be a bit arrogant, too conservative for our own good, or just a little forgetful of some important bits in the Bible, there is a great heart for the gospel in us. And I don't think it's all as bad as everyone makes out, we just have failings like the rest of the Christian world.

We discussed church unity in staff meeting last Monday, and I’d been thinking about it a bit lately. I’m a little sick of all the church bashing that goes on amongst Christians. We seem to ignore how important unity is, how much Jesus values it. It was the last thing he prayed for before he got arrested, but we don’t seem to remember that, we just rip into each other in the name of the right way of doing Christianity.

It’s just silly. It seems to me that we Christians spend so much time trying to get the speck out of each other’s eyes, that we don’t notice that we’re bashing Jesus around the head with the planks in our own eyes. Everyone has something to accuse someone else of. The Evangelicals accuse the Pentecostals of putting too much emphasis on their feelings and experiences, the Pentecostals say that the Evangelicals worship the Bible. The Liberal Theology people accuse the Conservatives of being bigots, the Conservatives accuse the Liberals of being soft. The Social Justice people accuse the Conservative Evangelicals of forgetting the poor, the Conservative Evangelicals accuse the Social Justice people of forgetting the gospel. The Anglicans accuse the Hillsong people of teaching prosperity doctrine, and I don’t know what the Hillsong people say about the Anglicans, I haven’t asked them.

I’m just sick of it all.

Sure there are problems. We all have problems. But why do we have to expend so much energy tearing each other down. We all love Jesus, we’re all doing our best. While I’m a Sydney Anglican I’ll do my best to keep urging us to be good teachers of the gospel, lovers of the poor and marginalised, and followers of Jesus (with all that that entails). When I join Hillsong, I’ll do the same, when I join the Uniting Church, I’ll do the same. But until then I want to do my best to encourage my brothers and sisters from other churches.

I haven’t quite figured out where we have a responsibility to encourage each other to a biblical faith. After all, we are not really defined by our denomination, but by our faith in Christ. So in some ways I do have an obligation when I see my brother or sister, of any church, doing something which I think is not in keeping with the Bible to encourage them adjust their behaviour. I do believe that we should all keep each other accountable.

I think perhaps the key is in who you talk to about problems. I shouldn’t spend my time telling all my other Anglican friends how much I don’t like the Baptists (actually I quite like the Baptists). Sometimes I should keep my mouth shut, or if I really have a problem, I should go talk to the Baptists about it. It’s hard to do that, it’s so easy to engage in the verbal bashing of other Christian groups. There’s no risk when you’re amongst friends and it makes you feel righteous. I’ve done it way too often.

If we really are to have unity, I think we need to get better on this one. I can’t think of an easy way to fix the problem, so I’ll just keep plugging away and asking others Christians to join me in doing the same.

Love Wisdom

"I say hurl. If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours. If you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be." - Wanye Campbell, Wayne's World

I watched the Tennis tonight. I've never really watched the Tennis before but the Australian Open has got me. I've become a fan I think. I was so tense watching Fedora and Safin. Too tense. It should have finished so much earlier, and I had to stand in my living room (I was too nervous to sit) and make funny noises ("yiiaayaah") I'm just like my dad. I wanted Safin to win though. I think because he wasn't meant to. Good stuff.

I’m not fully in the mood to be blogging but I do want to get rid of my photo off Blogfeed. I’m not particularly attractive in that photo.

Yesterday was a fun day.

I awoke early (8am) because Jo was having her birthday celebrations here. It promised to be the annual filling of my house with all the many people that my sister loves. Sometimes she decides to hold this event in the morning. In the days preceding this morning I am often struck by this horrible fear that people will arrive early and decide to hold the party in my bedroom. I know it’s an irrational fear, but on any day I don’t like meeting people in the morning before my shower, so it makes sense that I would be worried that Jo might decide to hold the party in my room so I wake up surrounded by pancake eating strangers.

Anyway, that whole paragraph is really just to establish why I got up so early. As it happened I got up early enough to avoid the hordes of early morning revellers seeing me in pre-shower “bler”.

At around nine people started arriving and they hung around till about one, eating yoghurt, croissants, muesli, and fruit salad. They talked and laughed and generally enjoyed each other’s company.

Once they’d all dispersed Howie and I headed off to the food court for a well earned meal of dodgy food.

After an afternoon nap, it was time for Third Day.

Chris, Howie and I journeyed out to Castle Hill to see Third Day play their music.

Upon arrival at Hillsong, we decided to have a competition to see how many people were there that we knew. (I think I won by the end of the night with 16) The line to get in was massive, but happily upon arrival I got a message from Erin who was let us join her closer to the door.

We got inside in good time and managed to find ourselves sitting with a bunch of people we knew. It was happy camaraderie.

Rookie (one of the support bands) were very fun. They made us laugh, worked the crowd. Musically they were a little too Pop/Punk (I think that’s what we call “Ponk”) for my tastes. But they were good performers.

Third Day were good. They played like seasoned performers. They worked hard to make the show about Jesus, not about them. They were fun. It wasn’t an awe inspiring show, and it was turned up too loud to be a good corporate worship session. Their music was solid, although they didn’t deviate much from what you hear on the albums. I knew most of the songs they played, which may say something about the popularity of their latest album (which I don’t own). But Third Day was good, I’d be quite happy to go see them again. They kept saying “Aussie”. Things like “Come on and sing it Aussie”. No-worries, they are American, we’ll forgive them. We’ll forgive Americans lots of things.

Hair

The first thing I did this morning after I got up, the very first thing, was take a photo of myself so I could preserve my hairy state.




Today I got a hair cut. I hate hair cuts. This afternoon I was sitting in the living room and Howie woke up and came out of his room. We looked at each other, I laughed and he said something like “Bastard”. We had both gotten hair cuts on the same day. It’s annoying when this happens, we look too similar and people laugh at us. Oh well.

Marriage

I decided tonight that if I would be so excited if I married me because I've got a really good cd collection. I like almost every cd in it.

I just talked to the Dean of my college and told him that I wouldn't be continuing with them this year. I didn't like doing that, I felt like I was breaking up. He said he understood and he thought I was making the right choice if I'm going to get to work on my degree. But it is very sad.

So may I say publicly that Youthworks College is fantastic. They teach good Bible, they give you good foundations for a life in ministry, they love their students and they love God. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Youthworks, not just because they made such as huge impact on my knowledge of the Bible, and how to teach it, but because it is a place that genuinely cares and wants the best for you. Go them!

I just shaved of my month old beard. I have now learnt that it takes a long time to kill a beard when all you have is a disposable razor. I went through one and a half of them. Now I look 16.

Happy Birthday to Jo my fabulous sister!

Hey Now, Hey Now, Don't Dream it's Over

My holidays are almost over. Tomorrow it's back to work.

The sad bit is that I don't get to sleep in anymore, I don't get to do whatever I want with my days and I don't get to go traveling all over the nation.

The happy bit is that I really like my work and I'm looking forward to this year and doing ministry, hanging out with people and being silly in the office. I'm am looking forward to going back. If only I could work and be on holidays at the same time.

Today was a quiet day. I woke up late than had a really late breakfast with Jo.

Tonight I went to church with Chris. It was a good experience. I like visiting other churches. They were a friendly bunch and the pastor seemed like a good guy. It seemed a little like Hillsong Lite. It was a like a big penty church without the bigness. I had fun.

I went home with Chris and Chris (the housemate) and hung at their house. It was good to see Chris. He's a good chap.

And that's all I have to say.

Inspiring Church Sign Quote of the Week

"Today is the tomorrow you looked forward to yesterday."
Found outside a Church in Katoomba

What can I say?...

Freedom

I just read Bush's inaugural speech.

It was a very good speech. He has good writers. It sounded like a sermon. There were lots of biblical illusions in there. I would have enjoyed giving that speech.

I found it hard to read though and not feel a sense of irony in what he was saying.

“We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.”

I wonder how those in Guantanamo Bay feel about their chains. I wonder how many Iraqis still feel that they are living at the mercy of a bully.

“Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling.”

Again Iraq seems to mock this statement as she continues in violence, and so many oppose (both violently and peaceful) its upcoming elections. Perhaps they want the right to vote, but do they want it now, and at this price?

I found the speech worrying because it seems to be proclaiming America’s God-given right to impose freedom on the rest of the world. How can you enforce freedom anyway? Isn’t that oxymoronic? I know Bush said people must chose it, but do they chose freedom before or after America invades their country?

Perhaps freedom, at least political freedom, shouldn’t be the primary goal of every society anyway. Perhaps a quality of life, and a higher standard of living should be first on the agenda. Perhaps education, clean water, the irradication of preventable deseases should be America’s highest aim in its foreign policy. Perhaps many of the people in the world would give up their rights to vote in a second if it meant they could keep their children alive and free from a life of fear.

Perhaps America could achieve more for freedom, true freedom, by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and healing the sick, than by enforcing democracy through guns and bombs. When they do that, how much more leverage will they have to free the oppressed?

John Stott once wrote (while discussing nuclear war, although I think it is still relevant in this context): “In the end, then, we have to decide which blessing we value the more: social freedom, though at the cost of losing our moral integrity…or moral integrity as a nation, though at the cost of losing our social freedom…If this might one day be the option before us, I hope we should know which to choose. It would be better to suffer physical defeat than moral defeat; better to loose freedom of speech, of assembly, even of religion, than freedom of concience before God. For in his sight integrity is even yet more valuable than liberty.” (New Issues Facing Christians Today, 1999)

I think that America, and we her allies, no longer have the moral victory, we lost it long ago, and continue to loose it. It seems we are erroding our integrity daily.

Don’t hear me saying that I don’t value democracy. I do, and always will. I love the freedom I have in this country, I love that I can stand up for what I believe in. I love that I can vote for which ever person I want to. But I think that democracy is not the starting point of freedom, but an end point. And, as Stott said, ultimate freedom will never be found in a society, but in our hearts, before God.

I love catching express trains at night. I love being in a brightly lit carriage, as it races through stations. I love the way the lights flash past, and you see glimpses of suburbs, and then you're in the dark again. I like the way you can rush through so many people's lives, the places of their realities, and no body knows that you were there, just a loud noise, some rushing lights and you're gone again.

I spent most of the day on my own today.

I went to the city to wander around. There was nothing on at the right time at the cinemas so I meandered slowly towards the Botanical Gardens. I thought it might be nice to sit in the shade and read, it was such a stunning day.

I got distracted by the State Library. I’ve never properly explored the State Library. Or in fact figured out how it works, but it looks fun. I decided today wasn’t the day to try and understand it, to make sense of its marble floors and intimidating bookshelves, so I looked at the photographic exhibition upstairs. That was very interesting.

By the time I made it to the Botanical Gardens the sun had disappeared never to return. While I had planned to read my book, I found that I also learnt about why there are no roses in the Rose Garden and which are the best grasses for playing fields and to survive drought. If you want to keep Buffalo Grass healthy you must keep it at least 50mm in length.

I finally found a bench and read for an hour or so.

When the sky started to look threateningly grey and turgid, I decided to head for home. I caught a train from Town Hall back to Hornsby. In Hornsby I ate some dinner and read my book in the Library.

I only left to break my day of solitary hermitness to watch Alexander with David. Boring. Not David, the film. It was three hours of Colin Farrell staring longingly into the eyes of every waxed legged soldier in his army. Anthony Hopkin’s character just droned on and on and on. Even the fighting was dull. I didn’t care about any of the characters, just how much colder it was getting outside for my walk home with every extra, excruciating, minute of the film.

Now, thankfully, I am home, and I no longer have to watch Colin Farrell stare at anyone, or hear Anthony extol the greatness of Alexander’s golden, deity inherited locks or whatever it is he was nattering about.

Tomorrow I head for the hills, I’m going to Katoomba.

These days when I pray I usually start by saying one of two things. Either "Thank you God that you are good" or "Here I am Lord, I don't understand". I guess that's because those are two constants I can rely on.

These days have been pretty quiet.

Yesterday I decided to try and get my life in order and figure out what I will do with all the time that I’m not working this year. I rung a Bible college, looked up jobs and researched volunteer positions. I then went to the Library and read the paper.

I bumped into Jem after the Library and hung out with her for a bit. At night I went to Commy Dinner. A nice day, nothing spectacular, but very pleasant.

Today I went to visit the Bible College to talk to people and see if I can start my Bachelor or Theology this year. I figured that could fill in the idle hours. The problem is that if I do that I’ll probably have to leave my current college. That would be sad because I love my college, nice people, good teaching, friendly staff. Oh well, I guess I’ll have that figured out by the end of the week.

Tonight we had our first pub of 2005. Quiet, but a nice little bit of sitting around.

I should go to bed soon, but I’m not sure I want to. I wish there was something on TV. Foxtel costs too much. It just seems to be a black box that sits on top of my TV to give me the option to give away hours of my life watching noisy, colourful nothing. Then I just feel depressed when I turn it off.

DVDs are good though.

I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 the other night. It was interesting but not all that good. Michael Moore’s biased reporting made me switch off and not listen to any of what he was saying. I came out thinking no less of George W than I did before.

And all the George W shots that were taken out of context reminded me that, whatever I think of George’s policy, I think he’s a funny guy. Not someone to laugh at, but he can actually make a joke, and joke about himself. If nothing else, I admire that about him.

I watched The Village the night after. That was good. I heard that was a comment on America following September 11. If that is true, it was much better at making me think than Fahrenheit 9/11 was. It was interesting to consider a society that used fear as a legitimate tool to maintain its good ideals. I wish I got to listen to the directors commentary on that one.

I also watched the second series of The Office. That was as brilliant and dreadful as the first series. It really is one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in a long time, and it is probably the most painful show I have watched. The people are just so pathetic. And when you watch them and see your own foibles in there, it’s even worse. I don’t think there will be a third series but I wish there was, they really are top quality television.

The Office is on Foxtel I think, I’ll give Foxtel that.

I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow…

I spent almost all day on my couch, sleeping, reading, praying, watching and eating. It was marvelous.

Well I’m home now. I’ve come a long way baby. 4,826kms in the van to be precise. Today we drove about 400kms.

I’m not sure what to say. I wouldn’t mind going to bed at some stage, reading my book, perhaps watching a DVD. Who knows?

I could write about the past few days, I may write about the past few days. We’ll see how this post pans out.

I had a great time on our road trip. The Great Lower Quarter of Australia Road Trip was a stunning success. Being back in Sydney is a little strange, I’m not sure I want to be here. I don’t want to have to deal with Sydney life, I want to be away when all I have to worry about is what to do that day, or how far to the next driver change over and petrol refill. In Sydney I have to sort things out, sort my life out, organise my year, become a better person, on the road I can just stare out the window.

Melbourne was tops. I didn’t really do much. After breakfast in the City (and a dodgy night in the F1), I caught a tram to the city and sat by the Yarra reading. I am reading The Purpose Driven Life. I never really planned to read it, but it was on the shelf and I wanted some structure to my God contemplation. It’s not bad. I’m a few days behind. I wasn’t very good at having quiet times on this trip. It’s hard to find time alone when you’re always travelling with 6 or 7 other people. Oh well I’ll catch up. I’m only three days behind.

At night we went to Soul Survivor for the night. It was good. Hugh Evans spoke and spoke well. He was honest and passionate. It was good to see how much he loves God, and how much he is intent on searching God out.

It was fun to catch up with the church crew. They’re a lovely bunch. I went to say “Good bye” to a bunch of them and told them to drive home safely because if they died driving home I wasn’t going to their funeral because I’m on holidays. It was a joke but it sounded pretty dodgy. I meant nothing of the sort and drove home kicking myself, because it wasn’t a funny joke and just sounded, um, bad, Scrooge-ish?. Oh well. We all say stupid things some times. My stupid mouth…

Over the past two days we drove home from Melbourne. It was a much quieter journey, there were only 7 of us (Jo left us in Melbourne) and Liz was sick. I think we were tired too. Last night in Genoa (just near the Victoria/NSW border) we realised both cars were almost out of petrol. Genoa had nothing open that would give us anything resembling petrol, and we didn’t have enough to make it to Eden the next town up. We had sudden terrifying thoughts of getting stuck alone in our cars in the wilderness having to have Breakfast Club-type conversations where we all shared our deepest secrets while we waited for the NRMA. So, fuelled by our fear of intimacy, we headed off down some mostly ignored road hoping to make it to a remote costal town that we found hiding on the map in the hope of finding petrol. We arrived in this town and found had a surprisingly large amount of people in it. I wondered where they all came from, and if they ever left. It felt a little like we were explorers like Captain Cook in dire need of water and had discovered an island somewhere in the vast, empty ocean with a colony of natives no-one had ever heard of before, who were most probably cannibals.

As we drove into town it felt as if everyone was staring at us. We drove past a long abandoned petrol pump on the way in, and hoped that wasn’t the only one. There was an Ampol, but that was all locked up for the night. In fact every petrol station was closed.

We were saved from a night spent in our petrol free cars warding off the hungry locals, by the owner of the Shell, who was cutting lettuce in his yard adjoining the station. He kindly opened his pumps again so we could fill our cars up. He said he didn’t ever do this but he did it for us because we’re tourists. He told us to be quick otherwise the locals might notice and then they’d want a piece of the action. At the time I thought he was talking about after-hours petrol but on reflection it was more likely he was protecting us from their appetites.

We spent last night in Bega. The people who live there are very friendly. I’d recommend the Pizza shop on the main street to anyone. Mainly because they have the friendliest pizza shop owner I have ever met.

Today we drove and thought of Sydney. It really is a lovely place this. The whole trip was pretty un-eventful (although I did pick up my first ever hitch hiker, a lovely Czech girl called Mishalandavlvofvaoiviavfkvkvich). We ate lunch in Ulladulla, perhaps not the classiest little seaside town in Australia, but certainly not lacking any tacky charm. It had what we needed (a parking spot, toilet and food), except for my friend James who has gone AWOL. Shame. I’m sure he’ll turn up. At least, I’m sure he’ll turn on his mobile again.

We drove into Sydney at around 3:30pm, with a cheer and a smile. I started to feel like I was back home as I drove to the city at the speed limit and everyone else was driving faster than me. In the rest of Australia I’m a bit of a hoon. I’ve noticed that in most of the places we’ve been people stay about 10kms under the speed limit, in Sydney everyone stays about 10 over. I guess we all balance each other out.

So now I’ve seen more of Australia. I like this country, and I like these people, even the cannibals and the people from Dandenong. I think next time I’d like to drive to Perth. I wonder if the van would cope.

I have less than 2 minutes left on this computer. We're staying in a YHA in Melbourne. Last night we were in the Formule One in Dandenong and it was pretty dodge. More dodgy than usual. Doubt I'll be going back there.

Melbourne is good fun. Bigger than Adelaide, much. Harder to get around too because, well everything is further away.

We're in Lorne at the moment. Somewhere on the Great Ocean Road. We've been driving it since this morning. It's a wonderful road, lots of ocean and pieces of limestone sticking out of the sea. We'll be in Melbourne tonight. But first, in perhaps an hours time, we'll be at Bells Beach to watch the sunset. Famous Bells Beach, I've wanted to go there ever since I watched Point Break.

I'm sure I'll find myself an internet cafe tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to read my book by the beach.

I was just reading some blogs here at Adelaide Airport and I got told "Less reading more blogging" so that's what I'm doing.

At the moment there are bushfires in the Adelaide Hills, but not near us. No excitement with fires tonight. Shame.

I was just reading some blogs here at Adelaide Airport and I got told "Less reading more blogging" so that's what I'm doing.

At the moment there are bushfires in the Adelaide Hills, but not near us. No excitement with fires tonight. Shame.

Second last full day in Adelaide today. I'm having fun here. It is a good city. I haven't done much touristy stuff here. I'm a bad tourist. But I'm having fun. This city is so small. You can walk anywhere.

Today we dropped the van at the Nissan service place in the North. We put it in because the breaks were shuddering when we went down hills at high speeds so we thought it might be good to get it looked at so it doesn't kill us on the way to Melbourne. I'm hoping it doesn't cost me thousands of dollars.

Yesterday was Sunday which means church visits. We only made it to two. We went to Pilgrim Uniting in the city in the morning. It was very much like what I expect a Uniting Church to be like. The people were very nice but the service didn't really do it for me. Still I like to see people expressing their faith, and the tea and coffee room afterwards was lovely.

I came home to sleep for a few hours because I was buggered from the night before. We had managed to stay out late enjoying the night life of the local area of our YHA. I think I got about 6 hours sleep the night before( that's small for this holiday, a luxury the rest of my life) so a sleep did me good.

Once I had awoken from my slumber, we headed off to Paradise Community Church to see what Guy Sebastian's spiritual home was like. It was fun. The had lots of screens with Media Player visualizations projected on them, and a band that played well. It was exactly what you can expect from a big Penty Church.

The preacher was a visiting guy from the US. He sounded exactly like American preachers do, it was cool. He shouted and often seemed like he was going to cry. He was so over the top it was hard to not think he was putting it on (I don't think he was). I did have fun.

Whenever I go somewhere like that I usually try and figure out what I would do I if I were preaching there. I wrote half a sermon in my head while I watched last night. I doubt I'd be nearly as energetic as this guy was though.

After the service we visited the Guests Lounge where everyone who we met asked us the same questions. At least they were welcoming us. I liked the hospitality of the Uniting Church more though, they were less slick, but seemed a little more genuine.

I like being a Christian, there are so many other Christians out there doing their Christian thing, and we all know we're related to each other. It's tops.

I'm watching the tsunami telecast at the moment. It's a good idea but I'm a little sick of all the self promotion from the Australian celebrities. They could have twice as much singing and half as much talking and it'd all be much more enjoyable.

Sometimes internet cafes are great because you are away on holidays but you can connect with the world at home. Other times internet cafes remind you that there is a world at home and it just kinda intrudes on your happy, ignorant lifestyle.

Blogging so often makes me think that things should have changed since the last time I blogged but they haven't. At least not much.

Yesterday afternoon I only made it back to a park to read my book. That was great.

Last night we watched Breakfast at Tiffany's in the Botanical Park at the Moonlight Cinema. It was very cold. We hid under our rugs and leant on each other for warmth. I didn't really watch a lot of the movie, I spent most of the time listening to the sound and staring at the stars. I watched a satellite make its way quietly across the sky. I wonder if anyone else was paying attention to it.*

The movie though is a tops movie. Audrey really is something special.

Today we have come to the beach. Gelnelg is where we are. We caught a bus to the city from a little town/suburb down the road from where we live called Sterling. We caught a tram from the city to Glenelg. The tram was cool. Old fashioned with uncomfortable seats.

The beach here isn't very interesting. There is no surf, there's rocks instead of sand, and it's not like the beaches back home. I am an arrogant Sydney-sider and Glenelg is a poor excuse for a beach. But still it's a lovely place. I think it'd be a great place to eat an ice cream and read a book and I'm looking forward to doing both.

Today is Saturday which means I am almost half way through this Great Lower Quarter of Australia Road Trip. I really am having a tops time. I think mainly because I'm not in Sydney and I'm living with 8 other tops people. We laugh more than we should and sing more than we need to. There's much joy about.

Tonight I'm hoping to have a beer in a local pub. If you ask for a Schooner here you get a Midi. If you ask for a Pint you get a Schooner, tis amazing. "They come in pints? I'm getting one!"

*I thought if I was being melodramatic (or Picoult-ish) I could have written "I watched a satellite make its lonely way quietly across the dark night sky. I wondered if anyone else was paying attention to it as it weaved a straight line between the stars. Sometimes we all make our way through life, doing our thing, wondering if anyone's watching. We slowly go about our business, just a speck in a sky full of shining lights. We keep going around, and around, not because there is any choice in it, but we can do nothing else but stay in orbit." But I wasn't being melodramatic and so I didn't write that. But I did write it down here though because I thought it'd be fun.

Today is the "Do Adelaide by Yourself Day". This has led me to wander around the city by myself, as I tend to do when I'm alone in Sydney. It is one of my more exciting past times.

Last night we watched The Neverending Story. I hadn't seen it since I was about 7. It was very fun. When I was seven I didn't pick up the overt imperitives from the film makers to have good self esteem and fight depression. It was all pretty blatent which made it all the fun.

In the boys room last night we created a fortress out of our beds. Each bed (except David's) has its own light prevention system which uses blankets to enable each individual to put their bed in a cacoon of complete darkness. It's very effective, I woke up at around 9:30am this morning and it was so dark I thought it was somewhere around 3am.

My time in the city today has been tops. Time alone means lots of time for introspection. Often I enjoy doing it, but it never really changes. I'm always kinda similar to how I was last time.

I've read, prayed, and read again in the Botanical Gardens today. My book has very small writing and it isn't all that easy to read. But I'm enjoying it. It's not very pleasant. At the moment there is a man who is living in a really crappy marriage. Most of what he talks about is making money and how crappy his marriage is. It's a stream of consiousness. It's pretty depressing, but I think that's the point. I really don't want to have a crappy marriage, but this isn't giving me much hope. I hope the book gets better. We'll change characters soon.

Since the park I have eaten in Hungry Jacks and walked down a street. I discovered the William Street of Adelaide. I'm always facinated by the seedy parts of town. I'm not sure why. Probably because I spend all my time in un-seedy Christian land. Although as facinating as streets full of tatoo palours and clubs called "Pleasure Land" are, they are always kinda depressing too.

Now I'm in an internet cafe. I'm not sure if that defeats the purpose of having a day on my own, reading about everyone else and chatting in MSN, but I'm having fun.

I have to decide what to do next. I may go sit in a park again. Or see a movie. I can't decide. Or as I suggested to myself, perhaps I'll go visit the Scientologists.

Well Adelaide rolls on.

We went to Hahndorf today which is meant to be a quint little German town in the Adelaide Hills. I didn't like it very much. It was full of tourists and quite fake. It was prtending to be German, but really it was just making a buck. We went into one quaint little pub for a buffet which turned out not to be quaint or little but just a facade that led to a pokie filled, gaudy decored, RSL type club. But it still was that place I wanted to eat. I like gaudy.

Once that was done we escaped on the O-Bahn (which was cool) from the city to a Westfield. Felt like home but now I'm itching for a game of frsbee or something.

I'm really enjoying sleeping in. Our days haven't started before 12 yet. It's great.

Tomorrow we're having "alone day" this means you explore Adelaide on your own. I think I'll read, sleep, internet and perhaps visit the church of Scientology.

Should be good.

I once looked at my world it all made perfect sense. I knew why things were the way they were, why things had happened the way they had, and how things were going to be. When I looked again it was gone and I wondered if I had ever seen it in the first place.

I had a sleeping the park, met some drink guys, read my book and Bible. Fantastic. This is what holidays should be like.

Some Photos

This is us leaving from Campbelltown. I'm standing in front of Ryan.


Jugiong


The Mighty HannahVan on the Hay Plain (perhaps)

Trippin'

We're in Mildura at the moment. We entered Victoria about an hour ago. Tis good fun this place. So far we've probably driven around 1000km now. I could convey the wonder of this journey in many fantastic words, but sitting here in this internet cafe has sapped my brain of the desire to make my writing seem good.

We left very early yesterday morning. It was about 6:30 when we left but it seemed later because the sun was up and the air was warm. I think that may have something to do with summer.

We picked up Jo in Campbelltown and did breakfast and Church in Mittagong. We then drove for a long time.

We've been swapping around cars every two hours or so to make sure we all get to talk to different people. Sometimes there's sleeping, sometimes there's deep conversation, often silly jokes, mostly inappropriate.

We stayed last night at a pub in Hay, the Old Crown Hotel. It's about 760kms away from Sydney. It was a the best pub. Kinda country, kinda quaint. The boys got given a flat to stay in which had a lounge room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms. It was luxury pub style.

We ate and drank in the beer garden, it was very fun having a restaurant and a bar so close to your bed. At 10 o'clock the manager came out to tell us they we would have to stop drinking as their license on Sundays only went till 10. We thought that was funny seeing as most of us had only had one drink and were only planning on having one. We aren't big drinkers. Too Christian I guess.

I'm not too sure why I wrote my last paragraph like that, probably to let you all know we didn't get drunk. I wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea.

Today we've driven through lots of flat outbackish land. Red dirt and all that. I'm feeling very much like an Australian.

I think it may be time to head off now. The girls aren't really using the internet much so I figure I should be off. We'll be in Adelaide tonight, that'll be fun.

Next time we go on a road trip, you should all come.

Farewell Sydney!

Yeah Baby!

I forgot to celebrate my Blog's second birthday. Shame.

New Years Eve 2004

2004 was a good year. I can't really bothered to reflect much. It was fun, people were good, God is best. 2005 should be tops. Here are tonight's happy snaps...





















Happy New Year to you all.

Yesterday was massive. About nine of us watched all three extended edition Lord of the Rings movies in a row. Pow!

We started at about 10am and finised at 10:40pm, with a few breaks in between discs and films. It was good though. I fell asleep for about 10 minutes in every film making it a little bit more relaxing.

As I was driving home listening to music every lyric seemed to relate to something in the films. I was composing montages from the Lord of the Rings to go with The Joshua Tree.

They are top notch films. I don't know if I'd do it again. I feel like I spent all of yesterday in the dark (I did), but it was good.

Sad Macro, Lovely Micro

I'm on holidays, I'm having a wonderful time, and I'm feeling a little guilty about it. Every time I open my browser SMH is there. It's always showing me a new number. 22,000, 26,000, 30,000, 50,000, 60,000. It's like a Keno jackpot going horribly wrong. There's nothing I can do.

Most of me doesn't want to know what's going on outside my microculture. 60000 people? What can I do with that? Don't tell me about the horror, I can't help. I don't want to see pictures of dead people, I don't want to hear stories of people getting swept out to sea, I'm not useful.

Yesterday morning Mum and I went and saw a film. Before the film we were sitting in a cafe eating breakfast and a woman with her daughter walked in and said the the Barista: "Guess where we were going on Sunday? Phuket. Lucky it didn't happen in a week. We're wondering where we'll go now. We'll get a full refund on our plane tickets."

In the afternoon Rach and I went driving to get her hours up. We drove all the way to Stanwell Park. We parked, bought a Coke and walked to the beach. There were hangliders flying off the cliff above and landing on the beach. The ocean was rough and looking angry. It felt like the water might be trying to tell us all something.

At Community Dinner that night we were all in good spirits. There was the usual laughing and stupid jokes at everyone's expense. The night only got sad when someone brought up the tsunami and we prayed about it. I wanted to move on. We did, desert was very nice.

Impotency sucks, but when I'm not thinking about the rest of the world I'm having a great time. I bought a new cd today, did shopping with Mum, watched DVDs, hung out some washing. If I stopped opening my browser my holidays would be perfect.

When you hear that 22,000 people have died what do you do? I have no idea.

Well, I haven't been a very good blogger lately. Too much has been happening.

I finished my book today and I didn't like the ending. I also didn't really change my mind about it all, but I may read another one by Picoult.

David came home the other night. That was fun. We walked back to the car past security zones, over busy highways and abandoned bridges, it was way cool. We ate pizza in Newtown till late and regaled each other with stories of the past six months.

On Christmas Eve, I got to do the talk at the family service and people were nice to me. I had spent the afternoon building Hannah's birthday present. A pink bike. I sat on the floor surrounded by nuts, bolts, washers and tools. I felt like a Dad building the bike. I decided that I look forward to having kids so I can build bikes and Ikea furniture for them. The pinnacle of fatherhood.

Christmas Day started at my old Church where the new minister bowed down to me and called me a legend. True. I think he was joking, but it was funny to go back and find that I've joined the ranks of all the ex-youth ministers before me.

I got lots of books and gift vouchers this Christmas, yipee.

I had lunch at my cousins house. Christmas night I spent sitting on a couch watching The Panel and Almost Famous. That was a tops movie.

Yesterday I wrote my sermon, and last night I delivered it. I wasn't thrilled in it, but I'm happy it's done. At church I heard a rumour that I had stolen someone's girlfriend. I thought this was funny considering my romantic history. It all turned out to be, well, nothing really, and everyone's friends, so that's nice.

When Church was done, I was on holidays. Many of us went and saw The Incredibles. What a great film. I laughed. Pixar are just the best.

Today I woke up late and went a saw Blade: Trinity with David. That too was a good film. Actually I don't know if I'd say good. It was fun. There was lots of fighting and cool stuff. Guns and chases and the like. The music was cool too.

Tonight I watched John Safran Vs God with Jem and Ryan. Funnies.

So that's my life in dehydrated form. I'm going start reading my next book in about 10 minutes. That'll be fun.

In the space of about 20 minutes my mostly empty week has filled up into a mostly full week. Fantastic.

I went for a drive today to write my sermon for tonight. I needed a place alone where I could talk out loud so my car was the place. I drove for a while north up the freeway and when I got to the end of the sermon I decided to turn around. I took and exit did a u-turn then headed back towards home.

I started my sermon agan and as I drove I noticed things I hadn't noticed on the way there before. I dove over a brige I didn't remember and saw water that looked out of place. It was only when I was 70kms south of Newcastle that I realised that I was still heading north. I turned around properly this time and headed home. It took me a while to get home.

I was reading an article the other day where Dominic Knight (whoever he is) called Christmas "everyone's favourite pagan-made-Christian-made-pagan-again holiday."

It's common knowledge that Christmas was a pagan festival that was appropriated by the Christians thousands of years ago to help the simple folk celebrate Christian things rather than non-Christian things. As far as I can tell from my extensive research Christmas was originally a festival to the Roman god Saturnalia. The festival was to celebrate the solstice (21st December). Jesus wasn't born in December, it was probably around March. But instead of creating a whole new holiday to celebrate the Christians just used an old one. Why build a new house when you can just renovate an old one?

Anyway my thought was, we Christians stand up and declare that the real meaning of Christmas is Jesus birth. It's not about Santa or shopping, it's about the incarnation.

But by that same token Wiccans can stand up and say, the real meaning of Christmas is not Santa and shopping, it's not babies and incarnations, it's the about the Sun and the god that Saturday is named after. It's just as valid, or perhaps more valid than most of the Christian talks that happen in churches and Christmas assemblies all over the western world.

I think the real meaning of Christmas may be that humanity likes to get together, eat food and give presents. We just like to chuck different names and ideas behind it but they're all just an excuse to bring out the best and worst in people.

But don't let me be a spoil sport. I love celebrating Christmas. And I think it's a wonderful excuse to talk about Jesus and God's gift to us. I'll celebrate at the drop of a hat so Jesus' birth is a wonderful excuse for a family get-together.

So Happy Christmas everyone. And when you've forgotten what you ate for lunch today, and you've forgotten what presents you've been given, remember that God's visit to planet Earth is just as wondrous on Christmas Day as it is every other day of the year.

Christmas, Ooo.

I'm procrastinating.

Procrastinating would be great if there were no guilt attached to it. Oh dear now my cd has finished that was my marker for when I should start doing some work. Goodo.

I had a day full of meetings. Meetings, coffees, morning teas and beers. And meetings pretending to be coffees, morning teas and beers.

But I got a lot done. I had lots of discussions. Normally having this many meetings would make me annoyed. But I know I am having this many meetings so I can go on holidays, the hope is sustaining me.

Harry Potter 5 is coming out on July 16th 2005. That'll be fun.

And if you want to hear something funny, listen to the techno version of the National Anthem. Bad, bad, bad. Doesn't make me proud of my heritage, but then again when does the National Anthem ever make me feel patriotic? Play me Jimmy Barnes any day.

Book Thoughts

I started reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult on Friday. I was intrigued, because I had heard lots of women talk about her, some rave about her (perhaps only 5 but that seems like a lot), but never once heard a man mention her and she seemed to come out of no where. I was interested as to why this was so. So I've started reading.

I'm eating the book up, it's a very easy read. I'm just under half way through and I really want to keep reading. She's filling my spare moments.

The story of this book is about a girl who has been born as a designer baby to be a genetic match for her older sister who has leukaemia. She was born so she could donate blood, bone marrow, organs, etc to keep her sister alive. The girl decides she's had enough of this and files for medical emancipation from her parents, she wants to be able to make her own decisions about her body. This is effectively signing the death sentence for her older sister.

The book paints a really interesting picture of a family struggling to cope with big problems. I'm really enjoying seeing how well thought out the situation is. None of the characters are black and white, there are no good guys and bad guys. And the ethics of it all are in your face, and heart, the whole time.

On the other hand the book isn't as well written as I would like. She lacks subtlety. There are metaphors strewn through out the book, but they’re easy to find because she makes sure they're at the end of a section of story. There are certain lines of dialogue dripping with subtext which she points out to you by virtually writing in the next line "That contained subtext and the deeper meaning is..." It makes me feel a little stupid. I don't want to be given neon signs to find the hidden treasure. Of course I am stupid, rarely can I read a book and figure out what they're really trying to say ("Animal Farm was about communism? Really?") But I at least like to pretend I can. Stories should be able to stand on their own and get richer with the deeper meaning.

I wanted to get that off my chest because well, it's interesting for me. She sure beats the hell out of Dan Brown, his characters are thinner than the paper they're written on, and everything else is predictable, sensationalist, dull and, well, bad. And she writes better than Clancy, but Clancy writes about spies and tanks so he probably beats her by a smidgen (except for Red Rabbit, which was a poor execution of his own well trodden formula). She beats Grisham who writes to match the price of his books (I got two for $6 but actually got them for free because they priced them wrong in Woolies). She’s not as good as Rowling who doesn’t pretend to be anything she’s not and doesn’t treat her readers like ten year olds. She isn't as good as Courtney, but at least her characters preach less. Tolkien wins hands down, his writing is like eating a rich mango (I would say peach but I don't like peaches) which is exquisite when you eat it and it hangs around, filling your life long after mango is gone; you can still taste it a year after reading it. In my view she also can't touch de Bernières, because he preaches at you for a whole book but you never saw him doing it, and he weaves words into pictures, emotions, characters and stories, leaving you enthralled at both the intricate little bits and the sum total. He un-pretentiously shows you the other half of the English language, and then makes you decide you should go find it for yourself.

So in my completely un-comprehensive list where does she fit?

de Bernières (He’s probably up there on the strength of Captain Corelli’s but the other books are good)
Tolkien
Rowling
Courtney
Picoult
Grisham
Clancy (but he’s more fun)
Brown

There are lots of other people I would love to write about (C.S. Lewis, Chuck Palahniuk, Jeffery Archer, Stephen King, David Gutterson, and probably lots more) but well, I need to go to bed.

Anyway, my verdict is she’s wroth reading (although rarely do I read a book that I regretted reading, The Day After Tomorrow, Tim Allen’s book and anything by Archer are notable exceptions). I don’t quite get why all the women love her so much. I think perhaps because the female characters are well written, better written than the male ones (which is rare, probably because a lot of the popular writers are men), and the male characters fit stereotypes that appeal to women (not to say all the characters are appealing, just the stereotypes).

I say all this only half-way through the book and I could be wrong on everything. I might write again when I finish the book.

I didn’t mean to write this much, I think I’m just having too much fun. Writing about books makes you look high brow and educated. Either that or just a conceited fool.

It's not the end of the world. It never is. Unless of course the world is ending.

Today was going to be my day off. Then I woke up and decided that I had more chance of seeing friends tomorrow, so I decided to make tomorrow my day off. I still got the traditional day off sleep in though.

I went to Chatswood today and had coffee with Matt. He's good value. I went to HMV with $20 gift voucher wandered around and bought nothing. I must have been depressed or something normally I can't avoid wanting to buy half the cd store.

I read my book on the train, and that is always fun.

I reckon Beth is one of the best commenters around. Good on you Beth.

In two days it'll be the longest day of the year. If I was a witch I'd dance naked on a hilltop and boil things in a mini-cauldron that I bought from India Fox.

Today we had our big Christmas carols thing on at Church. It was big. I spent all afternoon doing manly work in the sun. I used a big spanner to take a fence apart and I got to carry heavy boxes around. I sweated a lot and got dehydrated. It did feel good to be working hard though.

I also got to help set up the kindy farm that the brought in for the occasion. I got to carry a lamb, then walk a sheep on a leash. I got to pull out all my "Good Shepherd" jokes. The animals were the best. There was some ducklings that I contemplated adopting. If only you could keep ducklings small and cute. But well, ducks are cool too.

In the evening I dressed up in my costume. It was in a Joseph costume because I played Joseph in the authentic re-enactment of the Christmas story in the playground of the church with Angels wearing nighties and playing keyboards and Shepherds living in a multi-coloured playset. Being Joseph I had to lead Mary on a donkey, a real donkey. That was cool. I became the donkey handler for the night and that really jacked up my feelings of self-importance.

The donkey however had no such illusions of its own self importance with his ability to defecate and urinate where ever and when ever he liked. It just made the whole authentic experience more authentic. I wish I too could have done that in the middle of the play, just for the feeling of freedom that must be.

I didn’t actually have any lines in the play and I didn’t feel like the job was all that hard. I had only been to one hour long rehearsal. After the event lots of people told me I did well as Joseph. I usually replied with “I know”. For those that were being serious it probably sounded arrogant. For those that were being silly it probably sounded as it was meant to. It didn’t occur to me till later that some people may have actually thought that I did well. All I did was lead a donkey and look surprised when there was an angel in my bedroom. No arduous task, but well, it was in front of 300 people so maybe it seemed bigger than it was.

I think I’d be Joseph again next year if I got the same deal, especially if there was a donkey around. I really liked the donkey. His name was Martin. I may name my 5th son Martin in honour of him.

I went to a family picnic today. I don't usually go. This morning Mum asked me what I was doing with my day and told me that she was off to a family picnic. She hadn't asked me and but had some how decided that I would be writing a sermon or something. Feeling very "spur of the moment"-ish I decided to go. I really hoped I wouldn't regret it. I'm always very awkward at family things.

But we arrived and I pretended I was in Youth Minister mode and I did alright. I told myself that everyone didn't hate me so I made conversations and stupid jokes. It was fun in the end. I got lots of comments about how I never turn up to anything. I told them that if they stopped having picnics on Sundays I might come, like today.

I think the point of the picnic is that when I decide that people like me I'm much better at socialising. I already knew that, but it was highlighted again.

It is interesting how your thoughts and feelings late at night, in those places you explore between turning out the light and being caught by sleep, can be so full on, so sure, so intense, but when you wake in the morning they're nothing but a shadow of the feelings they were, like the smell of ciagrettes on your clothes after a long night out. You wake in the morning and the sun has taken away your dreams. Sleep devours the passion and infuses you logic. You can change the world at 3am, but by 7 the world just works its changes on you.

Yesterday I helped my sister pick up a bookshelf for her house. She asked if I could drop it around at Jem's house. I did this. arriving at Jemma’s folded into my car as the bookshelf was so big it encroached well into my driving space.

The drop off was only meant to be about 5 minutes, but it evolved into an hour. That then evolved into a trip to Hornsby to eat lunch which later found its way into a second hand bookstore. I bought Captain Corelli’s Mandolin to lend out to people and The Satanic Verses to read myself. The bookstore smelt, but I liked it. There is something comforting about second hand bookstores, they seem to be in this twilight world, in a literary place between death and resurrection. It holds all the smells, memories and nostalgia that all old books have, but the promise and anticipation of new, undiscovered, un-read books. It’s great.

We then managed to head over to Westfield to do a bit of Christmas shopping where we met my sister after she arrived back from her day’s expedition that began just after we picked up the bookshelf. The drop off had developed into a wonderful little serendipitous affair to fill my day off.

In the evening Ryan came round to watch Return of the King: Extended Edition with me as I had bought it while at the shops. It was tops. I didn’t think the extra footage was as good as the extras in the first two, but it was still fun to see. Any extra footage is good. I maintain that Denethor is the most underwritten, one-dimensional character in the series. Even with the extra scenes he wasn’t all that complex.

Still it is wonderful film. I do love them all to bits.

Oh how the mighty blog world has fallen.

Somedays I notice how socially awkward I get. Like today. Other days I don't. Like yesterday maybe.

Today, apart from moments of feeling rather stupid and relationally gangly, was good. I had lunch and dinner in two restaurants. I did a talk. I said nice things about people. People said nice things to me. I saw Christmas lights.

In the morning I went to a primary school to do the talk for their Christmas assembly. The assembly amused me a little. My talk had a lot of toilet humour which made the kids laugh. I hope they got the point though.

We went out for a staff lunch. Fun too. We met the new staff worker and gave each other presents. It was nice to just relax.

I had a meeting and rang my small group. I also drove to Chatswood to get some videos copied.

Tonight I had a leader's celebration for youth group. I really like all the youth leaders. I think they are all tops. I got to tell all the leaders in my section how I felt about them, which was good. I really enjoyed telling them what I liked about them. Helen did the same with her leaders. Then they said nice things about us. It was very nice. I felt quite loved.

We had dinner out, and that was good. Funnies all round. The night ended with a trip the Christmas lights land. It was good but it still doesn't feel like Christmas. The year is ending soon though. Yeah Baby! I am way more excited about the 27th of December than the 25th.

I've fallen completely and hopelessly in love with myself.

Today I went to "coffee" with two of the guys from my small group. I had a Mixed Berry Smoothie. I didn't finish it so I took it to my car, put it in the cup holder and forgot about it.

Tonight I went out with my family for my parent's 30th Wedding anniversary. It was very nice, very romantic. After dinner Jo, Hannah and I took them to a 5-star hotel where we had booked them a room secretly. I moved the smoothie out of my car and into Jo's so that Mum and Dad could have that car for the morning. I put the smoothie on the front seat reminding myself not to forget it was there.

After seeing Mum and Dad into the hotel and checking out their room (I've never seen a bigger bed) we took Hannah back to the car. I put Hannah in her seat and reminded myself that the smoothie was on the front seat. Between doing up Hannah's seat belt and getting in the front I forgot about the smoothie and managed to sit on it. I got mixed berry all over my bum. It was quite funny and mostly disgusting.

On arriving home I have cleaned the car seat and my clothes are in the wash. I was going to soak them in Napisan but there are no spare buckets so a bit of Preen will just have to do.

Napisan will get rid of any stain. It's the best. I wouldn't look nearly as spiffy as I do if it wasn't for the old Napisan.

Life happens without me asking it to sometimes.

On Saturday night Jem and I went to see Team America. That was an interesting film. There was lots of very funny stuff and lots of offensive stuff. I very much enjoyed watching the film except when it got too crude, like in the sex scene and the speech at the end.

After the film though, I decided I liked it less. The film made fun of everyone. When it started I thought it might be a good satire. It was just cynical in the end. It basically said that everyone who is taking part in the debate about the War on Terror is wrong. They never proposed that there might be a right way to go about things, just that everyone was an idiot. That was my biggest problem with the film.

After the film, we spotted Hornsby RSL with dancing people inside. it looked like a fun place to be. It was a fun place to be. We left about 1:20am at that time when you start to realise the implications of your impulsive decisions on your following day at work.

The following day at work was tiring as I have commented before. For drama we just played in the park and drank Coke. My ideal drama time. The other end of the day was fun too. I had a good time at Maccas. Holidays always makes McDonald's a much sillier place to be after church and that suits me just fine.

I spent all day today working on videos and fidling around with banks. Tonight I went out with Ryan and Lesley to watch Finding Neverland. That was a very nice movie. Johnny Depp was tops as always and it made me think. Goodness movies make me think a lot these days.

We ended the night at Keith and Stella's for pancakes with Jem, Mil and Martin around too. Good times.

I'm really looking forward to the holidays. I had a sleep on my office floor for almost an hour today. My brain isn't functioning at work nearly as well as it did these days. I need my four weeks.

My belief in open community costs me a lot in sms-es (how do you write the plural to sms?). Whenever I decide to organise a movie watching (or similar event) I send out masses of sms. I always have the decision of deciding who to invite or who not to. I can usually tell the people who will come and who won't but I think it's good to invite anyone. Sometimes people surprise you. There are some people that you wonder if you should invite, or if perhaps you aren't good enough friends with them to invite them to go out with you. In the end I usually end up inviting them because I'd rather offend someone for being too inclusive than offend someone for being too exclusive.

I have just returned from the shops. I managed to buy 6 Christmas presents. I'm not sure who I'm going to give one of them to, so I may just keep it for myself. But the rest have homes and I'm looking forward to giving them.

I like Christmas. I really like giving people things I've decided. That is the best part of Christmas. Now I don't get disappointed if I don't get what I want, because really, I don't want anything, I'm quite content with the mass of material possessions that I already have. But I do enjoy adding to others treasure on earth. It's no disappointing when you can't get them something they want.

But yay for Christmas I say. Yay for being able to spend lots of money and not feel too guilty.

Speaking of guilt and greed (which also starts with G) this was a good article in SMH yesterday. Interestingly it was written by Matt Wade who used to work as the photo and video man for Tear Australia. If you read the article you can tell.

"I am not Pinocchio. The truth will make us free. We overcome by looking it in the eyes." - The Doctor
Captain Correli's Mandolin, Luis de Bernieres

Countries that refuse US immunity 'face aid cuts' - SMH

That is really dodgy. America is going to cut aid to countries who support the International Criminal Court but don't give Americans immunity. I don't know much about the whole thing, but in theory the ICC seems like a good idea. America just seems to be bullying the poorer countries in the world into removing America's accountability to anyone but themselves. Grrr.

Canberra and Back in a Day

So today we went to Canberra. What fun.

I picked up Jem from Hornsby at 9:20 or so this morning and drove to pick up Rach. We were going to Canberra so Rach could get her learners hours up. We managed to do that quite successfully. Leaving Rach's house 20 minutes late we headed off in search of our nation's capital at no more than 80kms an hour. This was all against the advice of our worried parents.

The trip down was fun. We had silly conversation. Many times silly conversations lead to one of us taking mock offence, but then that just seems to be the way conversations go these days. Jem and I sung a lot of John Mayer quite badly.

I ate breakfast in Berrima. It is a town full of jam, craft and old people. Our presence in the town probably brought the average age of the people there down about 50 years.

From Berrima it was straight on to Canberra. What a fine (and circular) place Canberra is. On arriving in the city we drove straight to Parliament House where we got security checked were then allowed to sit in on part of a session of parliament. It was mighty good fun. We all got to see out local members. We say Latham, Peter Grarrett, Crean, Bronwyn Bishop, and all sorts of other celebrities. I'm not quite sure what they were all nattering about, but their insults put a smile on our faces.

We left when Phillip Ruddock started a long blah about some mismangaged Labor lease agreement. We explored the building a bit looking at the paintings and historic documents (Is that the real Magna Carta? And if it is, what is it doing in Australia?).

From there is was a trip to Ali Baba. He fed us well.

We headed home, and had only just got out of Canberra, to Lake George to be precise, when we got caught in a storm. A big storm. We couldn't see out the front of the car windscreen so Rach pulled over and practiced using her hazard lights. This seemed like the best idea as most of the other cars on the road seemed to be doing the same. Soon, in a scenic spot by the Lake George (that was currently missing behind the pouring rain) the hail came. Big bits, as big as the top of my thumb perhaps. I know that doesn't sound big, but they look big. It was most exciting.

Once the rain eased we headed for home once more, and were soon in the sunshine again, with no memory of the deluge behind us.

Homeward bound was a little quieter, and tireder. Rach got progressively sicker with a cold that she had probably picked up from the Berrima locals. Jem, well, she was a good passenger, keeping up her end of the conversation nicely and encouraging us to sing carols.

Once back near Sydney, we dropped Jem off at a farm that Ryan is currently house sitting. My sister and Martin were there too. It was a nice farm although, seeing as we arrived at around 9pm I couldn't see much of it.

I drove home the last leg and we talked about the alphabet and how news travels. Twas good.

Now I have arrived home. It is good to be back in the land which is mine. I've just eaten some butter chicken from a frozen meal and it's better than I thought it'd be.

It's funny all my blog posts recently have been short. Not many remarkable things have happened in my life recently. I've spent lots of money.

I didn't wear shoes till 6:30pm tonight, it was great. I went to a dinner party thing at Louise's tonight. That was fun. We spent the whole night sitting down so if you wanted to talk to someone you had to change seats. It was a bit like musical chairs but there was no music, and people were a lot more polite. I did like my time there, the food was good and the people were better.

Last night Jo, Ewan and I went and saw Garden State. It was a very funny film. Very well made and not very Hollywood. There had been a lot of thought put into it.

I think Natalie Portman is cool. If I knew her I might have a crush on her.

Jo and I invited almost half the church between us and only Ewan turned up. Oh well. Next time we'll get more friends.

I did a talk today. 4 times.

We had scripture seminars at the high school. I didn't like my talk very much, and it's hard talking to a hostile crowd. But I got through.

I really enjoyed hanging out with the young people though. The great thing about high schools are that they are full of young people and young people are tops. Even the ones that don't like you because you're a judgmental Christian.

I went to Campbell's Cash and Carry today. Boy that was fun. A big warehouse full of boxes full of stuff. Stuff that I want to buy. Crates of Coke, big boxes of Chocolate, huge amounts of cereal, buckets of cooking fat, walls of toilet paper. Oh so beautiful, so fun. I'm sure that heaven will have some resemblance to Campbell's Cash and Carry.

Last night I said I would play Joseph in the church nativity play. Ahh! Scary. I get to lead a donkey around the church property though, that'll be fun.

Oi! Life makes me real sleepy.

Last night people became Christians at our Term Celebration, that was cool. I got to talk to one kid who I've known for two years and he decided that Jesus' death meant that he should respond. I was so excited I couldn't stop grinning stupidly at him. Poor guy he was probably scared about what he had got himself into.

Today I had plans to get Tuesday's scripture seminars ready but I got distracted by things at work. Most interestingly a website full of testimonies from people about why they stopped being Christians. Very worth reading, very challenging.

Skipping back in time, yesterday I got to go to Chatswood and buy an Air Hockey table. Fun it was. I took it back to church and put it together with other people from the youth group. I love spanners, I got to spanner that table (tighten bolts) and I felt like a handy man.

At the end of the night we had to put the table away. We needed to get it through a gate on the church property but it was too big. We ended up having to pass it over the fence. That was a good fun manly moment. We had 5 guys passing an air hockey table over the top of a two metre (or so) high fence. Grunt!

Tomorrow I sleep in...

...and then do all the rest of it.

Ahh flipity flob.

Life doesn't always go how you expect it to. Which is both a good thing and a bad one. Sometimes things just come out of the blue.

In other news, tonight I had fun. After setting up for the term celebration at church, Helen, Kaye and I went off to the movies together. We arrived about an hour and a half early for our movie so we needed to kill some time. We went to the arcade and played car racing games, which were very fun. And then created a makeshift picnic at Coles which we consumed in the deserted food court of Warringah Mall. It was a smashingly fun occasion.

With happy bellies (at least mine was) we headed off to the cinema to watch Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. I thought it was fun to watch, while nothing much more than that, it was worthwhile. And I got to see the Episode III
trailer. Yeah Baby! How excited am I? Very.

Now I'm going to bed because tomorrow I'm buying the youth ministry an air hockey table.

Cathy asked me to link to her on my blog, so here is the link.

Cathy is in my youth group and she calls me "Tomothy".

I've had a lot of conversations over the past two days about marriage and how Christian girls should dress. It's been very interesting but I'm feeling almost talked out.

My youth leader coffees have continued, I had a water with Sally at her house this afternoon, followed by a really long Vienna Chocolate with Beck. Matt messaged Beck to tell me I'm very attractive which was interesting since I had been just saying that if I was a girl I would have a crush on him. Funny that.

My meetings with my leaders recently have been a lot more about other things than about youth ministry. I've had fun though. I'm now just hoping I asked all the good questions.

Mum and Jo (sister) also talked to me about the usual subjects. I had a long discussion with Mum this morning about marriage and how she feels about being The Brady Bunch Mum. It was interesting to hear her views, but it always is.

Tomorrow I am going to college for my last class of the year. We're going to the movies. I can't afford that, but I'm sure I'll scrape by somehow.

Well, hmm. Jo and I had a meeting today. We went to the pub. We started at the President at 5pm and ended our time together at the Blue Gum at 11pm. We spent six hours either at pubs or between them. And in that time I managed to have three drinks. I'm an alcoholic I tell you. 3 drinks in 6 hours.

Anyway, we covered many topics and it was all good fun. At the Blue Gum when we met up with everyone else we had a long discussion on girl's clothing, and what their obligation is to guys to help them keep their eyes up. It was interesting.

I did other things today too. All of them involved being hot. Except for staff meeting which was held in air conditioned comfort.

Profound.