Monday night was made for TV.
This Given Sunday
It was my first Sunday back at Church today and it was a good one.
I was commissioned to tell a story before the sermon this week. Originally Beck had been asked to do a drama about a military camp, but that evolved into me telling a story about my male science teacher in year 8 who I thought was pregnant. It was a little weird, I stood up and told a story before the sermon. It was kinda like Sally had outsourced a sermon illustration. Oh well. People seemed to like the story. Especially the 10am crew.
I went to lunch with the Young Marrieds (and soon to be marrieds). They're a fun bunch. Smart, mature, funny. I enjoyed myself, and felt rather young.
I went to the Pub before Church tonight with Matt. It was good to have a pre-Church beer. I think I might change the location for youth group to the Pub. I'm sure its popularly would soar.
I did my story for Sally again at night in Church. I also got to do the announcements. I'm never sure if I do a very good job at telling information, but it's a good chance for a bit of silliness, and what's church about if not silliness?
Sally preached well today. Both services.
After Church I visited Maccas with the youth. The great thing about being the Youth Minister is that you get to hang out with the youth. They're all good fun. Maccas with the young people is always a highlight.
I'm looking forward to the year.
"Violence is the last resort of the impotent."
Many have said it. I wonder it it's true.
I doubt it.
Munich
I went to see Munich with the boys.
It was a good movie. The movie was rather brutal. It was violent and it wasn't dressed up and polished. It was mostly un-Speilbergish. It was shot quite gritty with a lot of handheld, high contrast shots. Unlike his usual squeaky clean style. Although I like Spielburg in all his forms.
It was nice to see Spielburg asking questions, and answering them more quietly than usual. There was plenty of time given to the Palistinians as well as the Israelis. The terrorists were humanised. And the Isrealis often seem just as terrible as the Palistinians. There was one bit where the Prime Minister said: "Every civilisation finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values" which led Israel on a trajectory of violence, assassinating the people who hurt Israel. Israel would not compromise on having its power threatened, but it would compromise on the values that give legitimacy to that power.
I found it interesting that in the last scene of the film was shot across the river from the UN Headquarters with the building in the background while the characters talked in an overgrown playground probably symbolising lost innocence. And the very last shot was of the twin towers. As if Steven was saying “We need to work towards peace because violence just gives birth to violence.” Really he wasn’t saying anything new. But as is often the case with truth it gains more currency when you have gone on a journey to find it.
“We are supposed to be righteous.”
From Joshua
I just got this email from a person called Joshua:
Hi there lovely,
I was searching the net few days ago. I am new to this thing.
and saw your profile. I decided to email you cause I found
you attractive. I might come down to your city in few weeks.
Let me know if we can meet each other in person.
I am attractive girl. I am sure you won't regret it.
Reply to my personal email at nice@free4mail.info
I don't want to meet any attractive girls called Joshua, especially with such bad English. Joshua might steal my kidney.
Happy Birthday Sister Jo for yesterday.
I said it to her yesterday, I just didn't blog it.
Bad Brain
I used to never forget appointments. In the past five weeks I've forgotten to turn up to a store I volunteered on, forgotten a production team meeting in Chatswood, I've almost turned up to a camp meeting on the wrong day and I forgot to turn up to a Kid's Club meeting today and took the day off instead. I don't know what's wrong. I used to do so well. Now I'm flaky and keep letting people down.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I figure it has happened ever since I started using my organiser. Now I put meetings in my phone and so I don't put them in my head. If I don't put something in my phone, it doesn't happen. Bum.
Quiet
It's been rather quiet in the office today, which has meant I could make it loud. I've spent most of today listening to music. It's been nice. I do like music.
I've also managed to send 17 emails which could be a record for me. Probably not for others though. Not for email freaks. My office is also looking even cleaner than yesterday.
Hi Ho, Hi Ho
I have to go to bed soon because I have to go to work tomorrow. I went to work today too. Wow, two days in a row I'll be at work! This full time work thing, I don't know, it's like being back at school. After 6 years it feels like the holidays have finally ended.
Or maybe it felt like this 4 weeks ago before I went on holidays. Not quite sure, it all kinda blurs into one.
Yesterday I did manage to spend most of it lying around. I finished my book Preaching Without Notes which was mostly a waste of time. For all you budding noteless preachers out there, I'll sum up all 132-pages for you in a few easy steps:
1. Write Lots of Notes
2. Write a Sermon Outline
3. Memorise it
4. Rehearse it
5. Preach it
Anyway you can borrow it off me if you want. The people who visited Amazon liked the book, so that's ok. I'll let them like it.
I went back to TCBC last night. It was fun. I felt rather comfortable, except hot. I missed my church though, going to church makes you miss church. I wanted to go to maccas and hang with all the youth.
I almost didn't go to church last night because I was feeling lazy. It occurred to me "Sometimes this is how people who don't work for the church feel." I felt almost like a normal person.
During church the guy beside me said "Is this your first time?"
To which I replied "Second"
"Well you're onto a winner" he said
I think he thought I'd joined the church. Or perhaps it was his subtle way of getting me to join. A good try too. Unfortunately my church will pay me a couple of thousand dollars more to attend theirs.
After church we played a bit of Balderdash. And I watched the cricket. I got rather excited. I'm not sure I could sit through a whole day of it, but 30 mins worked quite fine, even if we did get demolished.
Today at work I had lots of meetings, tried cleaning my offices but made it messier, and a had a planning meeting by myself which made me appreciate that planning with another is more fun than planning alone.
Which reminds me Happy, Happy, Happiness to Helen and Jon for their lifetime ring exchange program. Well done! I look forward to coming over for vegetarian barbies!
Lazy Days
Today I've decided to have a sit/lie around kinda day. I'll read books, type stuff, eat stuff, listen to music. And tonight I'll go to church.
It's the last day of holidays so I figure I should try and do very little.
I watched the making of Batman Begins (what a cool movie) today. That's a good dvd that one. So much juicy bits. I throughly enjoyed myself.
I'm so happy to see summer has come back. Hooray for the sunshine!
Dancing after Breakfast
Dancing after breakfast should be done regularly. You look stupid, but it's good for digestion.
High Productivity High Country
I'm off to Katoomba today. Mitch, Graham and I are going to visit Gus the Animator Newsagent Manager.
I've had a very productive morning. I rang up about getting deaconised, rang my Big Sister Big Brother case worker and applied for an ABN. And now I'm off to eat a lonely lunch in the food court before Graham arrives and we head for the hills.
The great thing about going on long drives is that I've developed a habit of burning mix cds for the driver. The driver may not like it, but I have a good time.
Sometimes life feels like many small victories and big defeats. The defeats are always with you, but the victories you must look back to find.
Yesterday Hannah and I went to Hungry Jacks in Dural for some afternoon tea. She thought it was lots of fun. We had the whole restrurant to ourselves. It was good but the food wasn't.
Perhaps today we'll go up to the park and play with my remote control car.
Actually while I'm on the topic of movies, I'm real excited about X-Men 3. Wolverine is just the coolest. Who wants to be his best friend? Me!
I watch Murderball tonight. It was cool. It's about Wheelchair Rugby in North America. Most of it is pretty sporty and macho, but they followed this one guy who was a new paraplegic to show how he coped with it. He wasn't too happy until he was given a chance to have a go in a rugby wheelchair and his face lit up. He was so happy to find something good about his new life. It warmed my heart.
I'm not actually quite sure what a "dirty ripper" is, but I like the saying. I think I might use it. Except perhaps it sounds like "dirty stripper".
Chris told me a rumour last night that Peter Jackson is planning on releasing two more Kong films. It was a rather depressing idea.
Thankfully I Googled the web high and low and found nothing about it except for a few fan boys having an intense discussion on discussion boards (who would have thought!)
But now I have gotten to the bottom of it. Here is the source. My old friend Harry. Harry at Ain't it Cool used to be a daily read for me. Now I'm rarely there. Anyway, notice the date of the post and then you'll understand the reason for the rumour.
In other news The Superman Returns Video Blog is a dirty ripper. It's fantastic. I want to make films!!!
Camping
Going on camp with a youth group who you don't know is a little daunting. Especially when they all know each other. You feel a little like the odd one out, which I was. But it was ok.
The camp was fun. The young people were all aged between year 8 and 11. They were a good bunch, fun and friendly.
I did a series of talks which were adaptated from the series I did in June last year (which I am about to start posting on the Preaching Blog). People seemed to be happy and challenged. It was hard adapting for a smaller group (about 30) as you have to be less note reliant. So I spent a lot of time speaking from memory.
On the Sunday Night we had our Gospel night. On Sunday afternoon I felt like I should prepare a new talk instead of doing the one I had planned. So I quickly put it together using old stuff and new stuff. It was a little stressful, but I felt calmer about the talk when I had done that. I guess that's what you call listening to the Spirit.
The night went really well. After a night of worship, speaking and contemplation, of the young people that were there all but one of the them came down the front for prayer. By the end all but one or two of them were in tears. It was a pretty special experience, you can't ask for a much better response (not that I'm claiming the credit!) I felt privleged to have been there.
The camp had high ropes and a giant swing. They were lots of fun. I'd like to do more high ropes and go as fast as I can. That'd be cool. Perhaps I'll build my own high ropes course with all my fantastic construction skills.
The youth group had been to Soul Survivor last year. It was funny, some of the campers were pretty impressed that I was Donny Jaffa. When I sat next to one of them at breakfast they said "I'm sitting next to a famous person." I enjoyed that. Although I don't think she really thought I was all that famous. One boy asked me "If your famous, how did they get you to come on this camp?"
Now I'm home and happy.
I was going to blog well tonight about the camp but now it's late and I want to lie in bed.
I did watch The Contender while having an extended stint on the couch tonight. It was fun. Boxing reality tv show. That's what we need more of. Apart from the silly "drag a log up a hill" challenge I enjoyed the show. I would have liked it to have been more documentary and less "reality" (it's funny how reality means gripping music with people doing things they would never really do in a hyped up American-network TV way). I would have liked to have seen the full fight rather than the edited highlights, with lots of Rocky-esq slow-mo. Anyway, I shouldn't complain, I enjoyed it. I like boxing.
I'm home from camp number 2 now.
I'll probably fall asleep on the couch now and be buzzing later. Then I'll blog.
Big Spiders Break Legs
A 19-year-old leader on a camp at the campsite I was at last week for Dirt Bike Camp has broken his leg trying to kill a Huntsman Spider. He said it was the biggest spider he's ever seen. SMH worte a story about it.
I saw that spider, it lived behind the exit sign in the Dining Room. It was big, it scared me. We all put in effort to keep the thing alive. But now it's dead. Poor spider. I hope the guy's leg heals.
I don't know why we need a news report about it.
Library, Bullet and A Collapse
Ryan and I went to the State Library today to work on my new website.
I've had a plan to create a website for a few months now. I've often found that I'm at work and I have to find a speaker for an event but I can never find a speaker, or if I do find one, I don't know what they're like. So to solve that problem I've decided to make a website. It's a site that Christian Speakers will sign up to and upload a sample message of theirs. Then people who need to find speakers can go to the site, read their profile and listen to the sermon. If they like it, they book the speaker. It's like online dating except for speakers and people who need speakers.
Anyway Ryan and I sat in the Library (an Gloria Jeans) all day and did that. He did all the technical typing, I sat next to him and read magazines.
I bought Green Day's Bullet in a Bible today with a gift voucher. It's fun.
On the way home from the City a man in my carriage collapsed. I was in the front carriage and it was packed full. At Milson's Point station I noticed a commotion behind me and I looked down and saw a man's arm on the floor and thought "This train is so packed, it's a bit rude to take up space sitting on the floor like that." But when I looked better I saw a man very uncomfortably sprawled on the ground. People started saying "Stop the train! Stop the train!" So a few of us jumped out and started waving at the guards. They looked at us funny and closed the doors. We kept waving while other passengers held our doors open.
A man who was sitting on the platform said "Should we get the driver?"
I thought "That's a good idea" and ran to the driver's window and knocked. He got up out of his seat and opened his door. "A man has just collapsed in our carriage!" I said. He came out to have a look but by this stage the man was being helped off the train. He was sitting down while people were crowding around. He was saying "I'm alright, I'm alright." At this point a lady who had been on the train with us offered to stay with the man, he kept saying he was alright, so everyone piled back onto the train. I was the last on the train and the guard closed the door on me. My bag got squashed.
Diaspora
My holidays haven't been all that holiday like. I've been spending most of my time doing work for camp or being on camp.
But when I have had time to do things with firends it's been hard to find friends. Hornsby is has leaked lots of my friends to other suburbs, cities or countries. Meeting up with firends takes a lot more effort. So when you think "It's 9:20pm I might go and see a movie at 9:30" There is a lot less chance that I'll have friends around. That's why I'm moving to Newtown.
The last week of the year was easy to find friends though. I think people were on holidays and around. It was good. Did I mention that I saw 52 movies last year. I managed it. That last week had 5 movies in it or something, but it was good. I made it.
Right now I'm burning a cd of all my iTues songs so Howie can have them on his lappy.
I managed to find more things to do today.
On Monday I went and saw Broken Flowers with Ryan. It was my first movie of the year. It was good. As Bill Murray has gotten older he has certainly done the wine thing on us. It was a funny movie. It was slow too which meant that I had plenty of time to contemplate the symbolism and stuff. Made me feel smart.
I'm doing a really bad job at doing anything today. It's 2:30pm and I haven't eaten breakfast yet.
I have installed some programes and mooched around on the net. But other than that, I've been a bit of a disappoint really.
In a few weeks I'm moving to Newtown. I'll move out of this house that I've lived in all my life and into a 5 bedroom house with 7 other people. I think things may change a little.
I'm also going to get my first car in the next month or so and I'm going to start my first ever full time job (or at least go full time in an old job).
I haven't had this many changes since puberty.
Dirty Week Ended
I'm home from Dirt Bike Camp. Pwoah! What a camp. It was one of the most full on camps I've been on. We were in a meeting at 6:45am every morning and we didn't stop until about 10pm every night, no breaks. Spending that much time with boys in years 5 and 6 is a very long time.
Actually I had some breaks. There were days when I would take a session (3 hours) off to work on my talk. But it doesn't take 3 hours so I would have to sleep to fill in some of the time. Although I didn't get to do that too much.
There was lots of dirt bike riding. About 3 hours a day each in two sessions. My job was usually Crowd Control which means that I sent riders of from the waiting area to the bikes. It was fun. My conversations with the boys would usually go something like this:
"What do you want 80 or 100?...80...You're a 100? Ok... Right you take the 100...No you can't take the CRF, take the XR...Take the XR! Go!...Get yourself a helmet then you can go...You take that 80. Go!....Oi! Come back here. Did I say you can go? Sit down!...Now you can go...Ok. There's an 80. You want an 80? Go!...Who here wants a 100?...Get yourself a helmet than you can go!...Go take the 100! Now, Go!"
It was fun. I may not have had the most highly skilled job on the course but I reckon I had on of the most mentally challenging. Everyone else just had to ride a bike or watch a track. I had to juggle everyone's bike preferences, watch the bikes, mediate in the fights, discipline the people who misbehaved on and off the track, have conversations with the kids, mediate between kids and leaders, and make sure everyone got on a bike in as swift, orderly and safe fashion as possible. I enjoyed the challenge.
I did a little bit of riding. On Sunday I learnt how to ride for a few hours. I wasn't very good, the whole clutch, gears, throttle, hands, fingers, feet, brains things didn't quite gel with me. But I got better.
On Tuesday I rode a second time. I was up to a Level 2 track by that stage (out of 6 levels) and I wasn't doing very well. By the end of the session I had the track pretty much down. I decided to have one more circuit before I moved up a track. I was doing a hair-pin bend in what I thought was 2nd gear but turned out 3rd. I put in too much throttle. Instead of going around the bend I rode straight off the track, up a dirt wall and into a fence. I put the front wheel of the bike straight through this wire fence. The bike got stuck completely in the fence. When the rest of the riders found me they laughed profusely at my feat and the head bike man told me he had never seen a leader ever do that well with crashing a bike before.
I didn't ride after that. Not cause I was scared ,more because I was lazy. I was too lazy to have to learn how not to ride into fences. I figure I'll do that later.
Bikes are a little dangerous. We were very blessed we had so few injuries. Only one kid finished the camp with a broken arm and finger. Other than that it was just a few scrapes, grazes, bruises and sprains. I cut my finger too.
The weather was terrible. It was so cold some days. After Sunday's scorcher, it was freezing. I was wearing two jumpers on some days. It was like winter. I wanted my money back.
My talks (which is what I was there for) went pretty well. I put in effort to make appropriate illustrations for young boys which meant farts, poo, pus, cars and crime. They seemed to like that. And they seemed to respond well to the serious bits too, which is more important.
All up it was good. The kids were great. There were times when I was reminded of Lord of the Flies and was very glad that we leaders were around to stop another Piggy incident. But mostly they were just fun. Lots of very friendly guys who I enjoyed hanging out with. It was great to have an all male week with lots of macho stupid stuff, silly jokes and 12-year-old guys trying to beat you up. Out of all the leaders I certainly felt rather un-manly being unable to ride a bike properly and the only one still on a lower bike skill level at the end of the camp than the majority of the campers were. Oh well. They were a good leadership team.
I'm glad I did the camp. Maybe I'll learn to ride properly this year. That'd be fun. Right now I'm stuffed.
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