Oh Dear

From an article on SMH:

"Dr Jensen said the US church had made genuine attempts to express regret over global tensions but it was missionary-like in its position on human sexuality."

Maybe they're having a dig, maybe no one was paying attention. Either way, it's a little amusing. Immature and a pretty lame way of paying us Anglicans out, but it did make me giggle.

What Dr Jensen actually said was:

"The powerful individualism of American culture, and its triumphalistic belief that it leads the world in civic freedoms has captured the church. The new faith is a missionary religion. America is a missionary country, with its version of human freedom to export throughout the world."

From here and here.

Bible Happy

I wrote a Bible study on Luke 1:5-25 last week and it wasn't very good. It was simple and boring and badly put together.

Today I had to do it with my seniors (I did it with my juniors on Friday) and I was determined to make it good. So we did it and I put a lot more effort in giving back ground and pulling out connecting passages and I had lots of fun. I'm not sure how the rest went, one of the girls fell asleep, but I thought it was cool. Actually come to think of it one of the guys fell asleep too. That makes it two thirds of my small group fell asleep. Gosh.

But, ignoring the narcolepsy inducing tones of my voice, I felt it was a positive experience. We covered salvation history from the time of King David to the End of the World. And we looked at prophesy, and Elijah and the work of John the Baptist. I think we looked at Luke, Mark, Matthew, Acts and Malachi, which I thought was pretty impressive.

So I don't know how the study went in comparison to others, but I'd hate to think what it would have been like if I just did the one I'd written last week.

I hate the feeling that there are so many people around you having a hard time and you can't help them.

Snooze

We had an audition today for the new production, and then I had a party to go to tonight. In between I had a few spare hours so I had a sleep on the floor of my office. It was wonderful. I slept for an hour and a half. I'm not sure why but sleeping on my office floor for a substantial amount of time, on comfy cushions is one of the most relaxing things to do. To wake up in my darkened office after a long nap...bliss. Probably because my office is where I work. So to sleep there just heightens the relaxation.

I know I've been a rather bad blogger. At least by my standards. Yesterday was too big to blog today. Not enough time. Soon though.

Dad bought me Union Jack boxers from the UK and I'm wearing them today for the first time. I love them. I'm sure wearing the Union Jack as underwear is making some statement about our colonial past.

Speaking of colonial past, I watched The Proposition with Ryan the other night, it was well done. And it wasn't as harrowing as I thought it would be. So many well written characters. Nick Cave can write good depressing music and good depressing films. Is there any sort of depressing writing that man can't do?

It is Finished

Well I'm done with my assessment on Job. I tell you, this is the latest I ever want to hand an assessment in.

But at least it's done. And I actually quite enjoyed doing this assessment.

Dear Spammers

Incest doesn't excite me.

Not even if it's Russian.

George Says

"We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America."

George W Bush's response to being asked what he would do about global warming shortly after becoming president.

When Ari Fletcher (George's press secretary) was asked if George would ask Americans to drive their cars less, he replied

"That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one."

From here (pages 159-160 to be precise).

Angus Draws Pictures

My friend Angus made this while we were at College together. I like it, he's got talent that man. Check it out.

The day was good. The weather was cool. The rain was drizzly. I did a mail out and enjoyed myself.

I like the silly conversations in life. And I had majority of them today.

James is the Man

Ryan, Jem and I just watched Rebel Without a Cause, it was wonderful. James Dean is so cool, awesomely. Like Aragorn cool. The kind of cool where you just think, I'd love to be that person's friend, and hang out with them and feel my self-worth increasing because Aragorn and James Dean are friends with me. It's the kind of cool where he could do anything, say anything thing, make any face and you think "Wow".

You should see the film. It was tops.

We also ate at Anna Thai. 10 points for Anna Thai.

I Grope Grooms

First Jon...



..then Howie.



I just can't help myself I guess.

Visit

Some of the people from church came and ate dinner with Ryan and I at the pub tonight. They came to me which never happens. They were a long way from home. It made me feel loved.

Ministry Opportunity

Sometimes people like to help us poor folk who work in ministry by blessing us with material possesions because we can't afford much.

So if you feel like ministering to someone who only earns $40,500 a year and is the second highest earner in his house of 6, please consider supplying me with some of these basic needs:

- A Toyota Prius (I'd love to be able to save the planet, if only you'd give me a hand)
- An iPod (Preferably U2 and preferably 80GBs
- A new digital camera 'cause my last one died
- A big fat video editing computer packed full of juicy software

Please pray that the Lord makes you generous.

I'm really getting into "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" at the mo. Is that song cool?

My heart could take a chance
but my two feet can't find a way - Scissor Sisters

The Big Question

Nathan asked us last night "If you had to go live on a deserted island for four years and you could take one person you know, one person who is alive today but you don't know, one historical figure and one fictional character, who would you take?"

So I said:

Person I know: Ryan, because we're friends, we don't fight and he's single so he wouldn't be leaving anyone behind.

Person I don't know: Natalie Portman (obvious reasons)

Historical Figure: Esther, because she was beautiful and nice, and chances are, if there was just one girl Ryan and I would both fall in love with her and things would get rather awkward.

Fictional Character: Gandalf, because he's just awesome.

Anyway we were talking about it at dinner tonight and everyone was talking about bringing people who would challenge them intellectully and people who they could learn from and people who were concerned for social justice. And they were all making me feel rather shallow.

But I reckon girls would be important to bring because 4 years is a long time. I think it's a legitimate need. Or if not need, desire, because girls make life more fun, even if you're not attracted to them. But I'm rethinking the Natalie Portman idea. The whole celebrity thing isn't really attractive. Perhaps I'd take her character in Garden State, because she's cool. But then I'd have to get rid of Gandalf and I reckon four years hanging around with Gandalf would be an opportunity not to be missed. The rest of the fellowship did alright and they didn't have any females in their company.

Hmm. I'll have to keep thinking on this one.

I wish you could quote guitar solos on blogs. That'd be cool.

Iran are going to let tourists visit their nuclear facilities. That's heaps cool! I'd go.

Sketchy

I went to see Sketches of Frank Gehry with Ryan last night. He sent an email yesterday saying he had a free ticket and asking if anyone wanted to join him. And I though "Yep. I know nothing about the film, sounds fun."

But when we turned up it turned out the film was a documentary about an architect. Now I like documentaries and films and cinemas, but a documentary about an architect doesn't sound like it's gonna float my boat.

But turns out Frank Gehry designs good interesting things like this, this, and this. And it was fascinating to see the way he did it. Plus there were good interviews too. Well at least with this film director who spent the whole interview in a white bathrobe, smoking and drinking white wine. He made me giggle everytime I saw him. One of his golden quotes, while reclining in a golden arm chair was something like: "Criticise Frank Gehry? I wouldn't. It'd be like flies on a lions neck. It'd be like watching Apocalypse Now and saying 'Robert Duvall was overacting'." Yep, he was pretty funny.

Anyway, I was happily surprised. And it only cost me $3.50 for the Coke to quench my thirst from running up King St thinking we were late to the Dendy. $3.50 and 5% for the assessment I should have been doing.

Scrap That

I'm not enjoying buses so much anymore. I just waited at the bus stop for 20 minutes. There should have been about 5 buses in that time, but instead, there were just two. One drove straight past the bus stop and the other which was full. So now I'm driving to work I guess.

I get real joy out of the fact that T comes after S in the alphabet. And it always will.

Idea of Goodness

I had an idea to enhance my Outback Hippies Experience next year. I'm going to download on iTunes as many of the songs that they regularly play as I can and then I'm gonna learn the words. Then when everyone's singing I can sing along and not feel like an idiot 'cause I don't know the words. Plus it'll make me the WSFM boy too!

So far I've got:

All Along the Watchtower (Hendrix not Dylan)
Sultans of Swing
Brown Eyed Girl
Johnny B Goode
Blue Suede Shoes
I Shot the Sherriff

So the question is, what else do I need to get?

Healing

I do like public transport. I'm really enjoying buses. I used to be scared of buses. But I've been healed! Praise the Lord.

Actually I probably haven't been healed. If you told me to catch a bus from Kensington to Marrickville for instance that would freak me out, and I'd be scared the Bus Driver and passengers would laugh at me because I didn't know what I was doing. But at least when they did I could yell at them "Shut up, at least I've got a TravelTen!

I think I did a rather good job of letting people down today.

Bum.

"I don't belong here"

I'm home from Stump now. I've been home for a while actually. But I watched a DVD, ate some Pad Thai and watched some internet videos for a while.

Stump was good as always. I managed to get to a bit of music Revive, Intone, Sons of Korah, Ruben Morgan, The Valley. Perhaps some others. Sons of Korah were fantastic as usual. Warm your soul they do. The Valley were hardcore, one of those screaming bands (listen). I went 'cause Sal had a friend in the band. But I'm pleased I went because now I can say I've watched three songs of proper metal live and understood none of it.

I went to the Outback Hippies again last night. They kept me up till 3:30am with all they old school rock. It was great. It took a little while to get started this year, but everyone got into it by the end. I live my yearly dance.

I saw Mike because he was speaking. I got to apologise to him for my inappropriate comments at his church in July. He wasn't fussed but I wanted to say "Sorry" none the less, it's about rightness. It was good to see the Soul guys briefly. Actually it was good to see all sorts of people. I liked the whole catch up thing at Stump. While I thought it could be horrid at first I only had a few awkward conversations with people whose names I had forgotten. I did enjoy myself most definitely because of the people. Of course, it's obvious I like people. But I had fun camping with 5,000 of them. And I enjoyed the 15 or so that were in my site. Chris and nicks are good camp parents.

I did decide that if there is anything that Black Stump needs to improve on it's the whole teaching from the Bible thing. They have plenty of good people teaching things at Stump, but not many teaching from the Bible. I think I'd like more of that. I do love the Bible.

On the way home today Ryan and I had long chat about relationships and all that. It seems that both of us are scared of becoming creepy, middle-aged, single men. Please let us know if we become them. Actually, let us know if we just become creepy, at any age. I think the middle-aged bit is un-avoidable unless you do a James Dean, and the single bit will probably be pointed out to us enough whether we want people to or not.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to Stump we go. WooYeah!

Nothing to Do

I'm in a rehearsal for a Black Stump tomorrow. The dancers and actors are having dancer and actor meetings. And me being on a tech team of 2, well I don't get a meeting. My other tech team member is reading his tech notes. I on the other hand have none, so I have nothing to read. So I'm making something for other people to read. I think perhaps though, so I don't feel like I should be meeting with the other tech man, I'll call myself the Multimedia Department. That means that I'm the only one in my team. In this case then "I" is team.

I'm looking forward to Black Stump. It's always fun. I realised that I've don't really go to Stump for any particular reason anymore other than that it's what I do. I used to go for the bands. But they don't excite me as much these days. I guess I could go because I'm working on the production. But really, that will take up a few hours of my four day weekend.

I think I just go because I do. Every October long weekend I go to Stump. That's what I do. It's fun, it's good, it's what I do. Why do anything else?

It's DVD time again. Late nights, Premiere, probably crashes.

If I was smarter, I'd write Haiku.

Kim Says

"Can I tell you one of my underpinning principles in politics: don't comment on the wives of your colleagues, whether they are your opponents or your supporters" - Kim Beazley

Good to see Kim has something important and foundational underpinning his politics.

From here

People make the world worth living in.

Today my drama group decided it would be fun to soak me with water. So they did. I had to walk into a baptism at church soaking. I felt a little mischievous. I was wet almost all day. But it was worth it. 'Twas the day to be soaked.

Fully Hectic

I think I like the current usage of the word "hectic", I'm worried it might enter my vocab and I'll feel like a try hard, 'cause I'm not as cool as the people who properly use it.

I had to get up early today to go meet my new friend, my little brother from BBBS. I finally have one and today was our first "hang out". I met him and his family on Tuesday. I liked them a lot. He's 11 (I think) and a very fun guy. We went to the local park and played touch footy for the majority of our 2 hours. I taught him how to throw a frisbee too. I think that could be one of the most important parts of knowlege that I'll impart to him in our whole relationship.

Then next it was off to church so I could take my small group slot car racing. That was more fun than I thought it would be. Racing little cars around a big track has a feeling of simple fun. I was thinking that if I didn't hang out with 12 year olds on a regular basis I wouldn't have nearly as much fun as I do.

When that was done I came home and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up and went to see I am a C which is a production put on by a bunch of Wesley and ex-Wesley students (I think). I went with Jem. I was a little nervous going to see it because I knew it involved dance and I knew that there was only going be an audience of 8 people per performance. But it was good.

The show was set as a tour of a Bible college. The college was a little creepy and surreal with preachers on TV who preach damnation and an art exhibition of many copies of one colouring in Sunday School picture.

Anyway the show was full of diffent projectors and lights and we got taken from room to room to see differnt parts of college life. There wasn't a lot of dance, but it was used well when it was there. I did enjoy myself. And it was good to see people doing performance art differently.

Jem and I ended our night eating Pad Thai at Gray's place. I don't know Gary well, he's from Jem's church, but he's good fun to be around.

Now I might go to sleep to make up for lost sleep.

Everybody Move

I went and saw Michael Franti and Spearhead last night. Pwoar! Soddin' Brill! It was probably one of the funnest concerts I've ever been too.

The band was funktastic, so many solos, and Carl on the bass was just cool. Franti was the jumping giant of musical fun. And they sing about things that are worth singing about. If Michael Franti leads a revolution, I'll follow. I'll yell "Fire, Fire, Fire" and light up my lighter! (Actually I don't have a lighter, I had to hold up my mobile last night, which is almost as inspiring.)

I jumped, and danced, and sang, and waved my hands in the air like I just don't care, all night. Well almost all night. It took me a little while to warm up, but I found it difficult to stay still with such awesome cool happening on stage. Yeah, Yeah.

When he's back, I'll be back. And so should you.

Everyone deserves music, sweet music
Even our worst enemies Lord, they deserves music, music
Even the quiet ones in our family, they deserve music
So I pray for them and I'll play for them
So I pray for them and I'll play for them - Michael Franti and Spearhead

Woo!

I'm going to John Mayer!

He's not a girly man. So neither am I.

Dressing Down

Today I got in trouble from one of Australia's foremost Old Testament scholars.

This morning I missed the shower a few times. And every time you miss the shower it adds about 15 minutes on to your morning. And this morning I meant to get up at 7 but I didn't make it to the shower till 8, the time I need to leave for College.

So I went to college about half an hour late. When I arrived I was debating whether or not to go into the lecture. We had a visiting lecturer today who I have found to be rather uninteresting in the past so I considered just going straight to the Library to study for my assessment. But in the end I thought "I'll go to the last 20 minutes, they might be useful."

So I walked into the classroom and everyone turned to look at me. The lecturer (who, did I mention, is one of Australia's foremost Old Testament scholars) looked at me and said "What's your excuse?"

I wasn't sure if he was being friendly or not so I said "Everyone was in the shower."

The class laughed but he didn't.

"That's no excuse." he said.

"Oh," I replied "it's all I've got."

Because that annoys me when people ask for an excuse and then you give them one and they say "That's no excuse" and I think, well actually it is. And I can't give you a better one because I don't have one, that would be lying.

He said "Well you look alright without a shower. You should have just come."

Which I decided to take as a compliment so I said "Thank you"

He replied "You can sit down"

About 5 minutes later another guy rocked up late. His lame excuse was that he had a baby to look after. The lecturer replied "You've got a wife to look after your son, you're here to come to college and you must be on time." Then he went on a tangent about how there is a grace period but the two of us had missed it and he should have locked the other guy out and anyone else who turned up late would be barred from entering for sure.

Then we got on with the lecture.

Until the end when he told us that Proverbs was speaking to people just like us who needed to come to class on time.

And then he dropped it.

Until the end of the last lecture when he told us again that he was sorry to have got us in trouble but we needed to come to class on time. We have to be punctual or our ministries will suffer because people think that we have no integrity.

By that stage I had decided I was glad I went to class because getting busted was much more interesting than doing study. Plus the lecture were pretty good too, he gave my brain a work out.

Job Well Done

I knew the discovery of the 5% a week loss of marks for assessments at college was going to hurt me. I have an assessment due in on Friday that I haven't started. And chances are I'll procrastinate my way through the next two weeks and only register a 10% blip.

If only they took off 10% a day like most student hating colleges. Then I might actually have some respect for this due date. But at the moment the due date seems more like the "if you feel like it and have nothing better to do" date. And I don't feel like it and I have plenty better to do.

But if any of you feel like answering my question for me...

Is it possible to justify God's treatmentment of Job?

Grrr

I didn't have to teach scripture this morning so I slept in, then got distracted by Snopes.com for an hour. How annoying. That's an hour that could have been spent doing something else. It was like I was procrastinating from having breakfast. Who does that?!?

Robbery Number One

We had our first robbery from our house today. Sometime this afternoon while Ryan was studying upstairs someone walked into our house and into Mil and Martin's room, picked up their laptop, unplugged the charger, plugged in their bedside lamp and walked out. All they took was the laptop and charger.

How odd.

Sadly Mil has a big assessment on the computer that's due on Wednesday. Poor Mil.

I think I'll save the planet.

In Stitches

I was just looking at my teeth in the mirror and I noticed a little bit of blue thread poking out between my teeth. I gave a little pull, there was a funny feeling in my mouth, and out came a stitch. It turns out the dentist left one of my stitches in my gum. It only came out week and a half late.

I love the smell of spring. It smells full of possibilities.

It's not hard to fall
And I don't wanna lose
It's not hard to grow
When you know that you just don't know

Damien Rice

Matisyahu is like the Switchfoot of Jewish Reggae. He's way cool!

Johnny

John Mayer is coming to Sydney! Yip!

He's playing at the Enmore 3rd November! Woohoo.

What a year!

Jamie
Coldplay
Franti
Mayer
U2

Life is good to me.

United 93

I went and saw United 93 today. I thought it was good. The whole thing is shot like a documentary and some of the actually people involved (who didn't die) play themselves. It's interesting to see how disorganised the US was to handle an incident like September 11. The film didn't seem to be overly righteous about America. The only bit that really urked me was when the passengers were preparing to storm the the terrorists the filmmakers juxaposed passengers praying the Lord's Prayer with the terrorists praying in Arabic. I'd rather Hollywood didn't perpetuate the idea that the War on Terror is a war between Islam and Christianity. As I see it it's a war between the rich, imperialist West against angry, murderous extreamists. Perhaps those fighting the war see it as a religious war, but I'm sure if the West was better behaved there would be no jihad. But what would I know?

But apart from that the film was good. I got nervous even though I knew what was going to happen. Maybe that increased my nerves because it brought back September 11 so well. I remember that day, it was weird, it felt like the whole world was about to come down. I'm happy it didn't it's just slowly pulling itself to pieces, but when has the world not been doing that?

Zap

The electrictian came today to fix the problem we've been having of loud pops, bright sparks and smoky smells coming from the ceiling of our kitchen.

This is what he found:





The wires have been chewed through by rats and the others are completly metled, singed and burnt through. I'm most happy to still be alive.

What did I say about the electrics?

Sunday

I think I'll blog yesterday tomorrow. I'm feeling a little sleepy at this stage.

Today however was nice, and is simple to blog. It was the usual Sunday biz (Drama, Youth, Church) but today Dad came to church for lunch. So we went to a local cafe spent 2 hours there. I rarely spend that much time alone with my Dad and what's more he probably spent 60% of the time talking. He talked so much that I finished my meal before he did! That was cool. I liked hearing what my Dad had to say. He talked about his work and the tension between trying to get the company to be good ethical members of the corporate community and not wanting to be seen as pushing his Christian agenda. I'm pleased with my Dad.

With youth group we went to the retirement village today with a record number of people and there were very few people there. But the ones that were there were fun. We had one lady who organised most of us into a big game of charades. That was cool.

The Day

It's Wedding Day.

Hooray!

I hope the food is good.

As I was driving home tonight there was a palm leaf on the road. I drove over it. I felt like Jesus and the HannahVan was my trusty donkey. I hope I don't get crucified this week.

Wet

Yesterday night I was driving home and it started to rain. But I beat the rain to my house. So I went and got some clothes off the line for today. Everything was dry but I was just lazy. I didn't figure there'd be too much rain.

In the last 24 hours there was more rain in Sydney than there has been in whole month of September since 1884 or something like that. And it all fell on my clothes.

Dam it. (Pun intended)

Pod

What annoys me is that Triple M often talk about their podcasts on the radio. And they say "Podcast this show at TripleM.com.au". And I think "No! We don't podcast it, you do. We subscribe." They could say "Get our podcast" or "Subscribe to our podcast" or "Go stick your dirty cyber-hands all over our hot podcasts!" but they shouldn't say "Podcast this show". It's wrong. It's bad grammar.

Random Poet

We had a man knock on our door tonight while we were eating dinner, walk in, sit down at the table with us, read us a poem he wrote, then leave the way he came.

It's moments like that that I love about this house.

Quiet

My scripture class was well behaved for the first time ever today. It was great!

I gave them a competition to complete while I read them our book and they were quiet the whole time. It was fantastic!

I went to the city to get my stitches out and missed my bus back to work so I ate lunch and bought two cds. That was goodness too.

And I had drinks with Phil and Megan. Also fun.

So I think I'd give today I high score on the score board of days.

Sermon's up, if you're interested.

Steve Irwin's Dead

How wierd is that? Poor man. Poor family.

From here (but here first).

Too much

It was so packed this last 48ish hours I wouldn't know where to start. At least not when I want to go to sleep.

But I did preach the tricky sermon tonight. I was working on it here and there all weekend. When I got to preaching it I was rather nervous. Felt a little awkward to me. But I came off feeling ok. Not overjoyed, but ok.

But people were happy with it, so I felt good. The ministry time after was great. Karen got people to come up the front to share about what they were involved with that was meeting the needs of the community so we could support them and maybe get involved. It was like an impromptu ministries expo. It was cool. It was one of the most practical ways of doing ministry I think I've seen in a long time. Yeah!

I haven't eaten pad thai in ages. I think this has been good for my bank account.

Brain Strain

I've been trying to write a sermon this week. And trying especailly hard today. From about 3pm till now I've been thinking about Sunday's sermon but it hasn't been working. The passage is probably the hardest one that I've had to do a sermon on I think.

Only about 20 minutes ago did the sermon actually "click". Up until then I'd just been staring at a blank word document and listening to boring sermons on the passage. I wish it had been one of those easy ones that just happened. But alas it is not.

Site Arrived

My baby, ChristianSpeakers.com.au, is finally finished and running. Hooray. Now all we need is some speakers and the site might actually be useful.

Thank you Ryan and Chris who made it happen. Yous are tops!

Goodness Me

Jem, Mil and I are going to try and spend the whole day today without using "Good" as a descriptive word. It will be hard but a helpful challenge. We want to have better vocabularies.

Monday

Today (Monday) was an interesting day. Helen was back on board which was fun. I like having her back. Office productivity has gone down and time spent at lunch has gone up.

We had the lunchtime group at school and one of the guys shared his story about becoming a Christian. He used to be a "bad boy" (drugs, alcohol, violence) but went to a local youth group, became a Christian and now he's on fire. It was very cool to see. I loved seeing someone so passionate about Jesus.

I created a Bible Study about the Bible, which was fun. I had lot's of curly questions in it like "Is it ok for the Bible to be self-authenticating?" and I was really looking forward to a bit of vibrant discussion on the whole thing. But when it got to small group everything was rather quiet. I'm not sure why. So I'm not sure what people thought. I found it hard because I didn't know what people were thinking so it all felt a bit flat. And when you ask curly questions, and then try and give good answers but you don't get much feedback you worry that maybe you've just destroyed people's faith or something.

Anyway I hope everyone went home a Christian.

At home I had very nice chats with house people. Jem and I spent ages sitting on the couch discussing vulnerability (again) and commitment and other important things.

I do like it when people become Christians.

I wonder if the internet is dying. There are so many websites that aren't working tonight. I makes me want to go to bed and read a book.

Infact, I think I will!

Pow

The Nurse at the Periodontist gave me some mouthwash to use so that my gum doesn't get infected. It's pretty potent. It tastes like 2000 mint slices without the chocolate. It burns. I meant to keep it in my mouth for a minute but I cough it out at around 10 seconds. It contains ethanol. I'm hoping to get better at it though. I don't want to be a mouth wash pansy.

Grusome Photos

If you want to see my bloody, screwed up mouth, click here and here. And this is my face. Aha!

The Tooth is Out There

So I lost my tooth again today! But this time it was done by the Dentist. Today was implant day. At least day one.

I got up early. 6am. So early. I went and hopped on a train and arrived at Dentist's door at 7:32am. Can you think of anything worse?

Anyway the dentist saw me and took my fake tooth out so that the Periodontist could put the implant in. He scrapped all the resin off my teeth and buffed them up. I now have nice smooth teeth for the first time in almost 6 months!

When he was finished, and just before I left, the Dentist had a go at me because the insurance company hasn't paid a single fee to my Dentist. He told me to get the money to him fast or else. At one stage appealed to his philanthropic personality by saying "I'm not getting anything out of this you know." Which then caused me to wonder where all the money went when he charged me $90 for him to take digital pictures of my mouth. But I didn't bring that up. I just nodded and tried to side with him not the insurance company. I figured that was safer.

Once that was done I headed out into the world of Chatswood missing a tooth. My first real experience in public with a missing tooth. It's funny what a missing tooth does to you. My self-confidence plummeted. I went to Boost Juice and Coles to buy stuff and when I spoke I mumbled, opened my mouth as little as possible, kept my head down and couldn't look the shop people in the eye. I wanted people to see me as little as possible. Plus having no tooth gives me a huge speech impediment, so I don't want to talk at all. I'm sure this is teaching me about something that is good to learn.

Anyway, I caught to train to the city and visited Dr Periodontist. They put me in the chair asked me how I was then walked out of the room. They came back in asked me if I'd eaten any breakfast, walked out again. Came back in, handed me 5 pills, told me to take them, walked out again. Came back in and said we just need to get some paper work, walked out again. I fell asleep in the chair. The Dr Perio came in and said "We've been talking to your insurance company and they said they'll pay for your treatment. But that was only a verbal agreement so if they don't you'll be liable to pay for the surgery. Are you happy with that?" I nodded and fell back to sleep. He left. Came back and stuck lots of needles in me then left again. Then a nurse came in with the actual paper work and I signed to say that I was willing to pay $3300 to give someone the privilege of putting a titanium rod in my skull. I thought "Oh well, it's either a tooth or a car" and I fell asleep again and dreamt about savings. Finally I was woken up by the Periodontist saying outside my door "But he's all ready drugged up!" And he came in and did the surgery.

Well, it was special. To know what it feels like to have someone drill a whole into your upper jaw, you need to have some one drill a hole into your upper jaw. It was pretty cool. He was drilling straight into bone and it makes your whole head vibrate. I think I enjoyed that, I felt like I was in some bizarre science fiction movie where crazy scientists drug people and drill holes in their head.

And then it was done. And now I have a metal screw in my mouth.

I caught the train back to the dentist again who did an impression of my teeth and had given his secretary the job of following up the insurance people so he was no longer threatening cement boots. We were friends again. He sent me home to have a rest.

So I went home. Watched some Desperate Housewives and mooched around.

Now my jaw hurts. I'll go back to the dentist tomorrow to get a comsmetic tooth put in. Yip!

David has Landed

I went to Commie dinner tonight. I found myself in Hornsby with nothing to do so I went. And aren't I happy I went.

We were sitting around having a chat about my love life and in walks David through the back door bringing wine and Tim Tams. It was rather surreal. David is meant to be in India. He isn't meant to be home till Friday. But there he was. It took my brain a while to figure out why it was odd that David was there because it seemed perfectly normal for him to walk in the back door. But my brain caught up eventually and there was lots of screaming and hugging from the women folk. I gave him a pat on the knee.

Stella and Annie were arriving so we suggested David hide himself from them. When they arrived home he jumped up and ran to hide downstairs, slipped, and fell down them instead. We all thought it was pretty funny, till David swore and said "I've cut myself!" and indeed he had. He landed on his chin giving it a nice, juicy gash.

So I was privileged enough to cart him off in the HannahVan in search of a doctor. I was hoping not to spend another night in an emergency ward, as I'm feeling that activity is wearing a little thin. But we found a medical center which got him into treatment in the same amount of time it took me to call his Mum and ask for his Medicare numbers.

The Nurse and the Doctor were a bit of fun and we were all rather jolly. David got four stitches, then went back to Commie dinner to have his dinner.

It'd great to have the man back. And it's wonderful to see him make a grand entrance.

Holy Wisteria

Tonight with my Year 11 and 12 small group we did a Bible Study on Desperate Housewives. It was pretty fun. We watched the Pilot and talked about the themes and message of the show and how we interacted with it as Christians. I'm not sure what the group thought of it. I had fun. I like the opportunity to give more indepth thought to films and TV. Usually I just watch and enjoy. But I like thinking about what makes them tick, what images they use, what the characters are like, what's driving the action. It was cool.

It did make me wonder though, is there significance in the fact Mike lives at 4356 Wisteria Lane? Does the out of order sequence say something about his character? And how do you get 4356 houses on a lane anyway? That's a big lane.

Tonight we sat out on our roof and drank Baileys. Special.

Call me Geek

At night, before going to bed, I've been reading a "A Short History of the Early Church". I'm enjoying it.

Lost and Lost and Found

I didn't end up finding my way to work today till about 3:15pm. It was wonderful. I got to sleep in and mooch around the house, stuff up the website, and hang out with Ryan and Jem. Nice.

Tonight I went on a race with the junior half of the youth group. It was rather fun. They were given a location many kilometers away to get to and a series of tasks to complete along the way. They got points for the tasks and lots of points for getting to the location first. They had to read a street directory and guide their driver the whole way. It was fun, although people in year 6 and 7 find navigation rather difficult I have discovered.

We arrived at our location (West Ryde Maccas) but one of the other cars failed to materialise. I called the driver but there was no answer. I called again, no answer. I called every 5 minutes. No answer.

It was a little worrying. I had vision that they'd gotten so lost they crashed their car into a ditch or in to a tree in some deserted wasteland near Sydney and there was this lonely mobile ringing in a car full of dead or unconcious young people. Or perhaps they were in an ambulance being transported to hospital and the ambulance man was ignoring the mobile because he was doing cpr or something.

In the end we had to leave McDonald's and just hope they'd headed back to church. I drove back wondering how to explain to a bunch of parents that their children have disappeared and we have no idea where they disappeared to.

When we got back to church the car wasn't there either. All the young guys jumped out of the cars and ran to their parents to say "We won" and "We lost a whole car". It makes you feel like a competant youth minister.

But finally the missing car turned up full of happy girls. They had gotten very lost and the leader had left her phone at home. Happily no one was dead. But needless to say, they lost the race.

This is cool. 55,000 fireworks in 5 seconds. Oh gosh. I want that job!

I've been flossing regularly. I'm a dentist's pet.

Ouch

I went and saw a play tonight called "Peribanez". It was about two peasant newly weds who have a few issues when a Count (perhaps) falls in love with the wife and decides to have her. It had a really good set, I'm not too sure what I thought of the play. It ended with plenty of murder if you like that kind of thing.

I made me think that it would be unpleasant to have a man courting your wife even if she wasn't falling for him.

Wisdom

I spent most of my day sitting around with people drinking Coke and Chai Latte. During one of those sits Matt said to me (quoting some other guy) "The destination is sure but the road is always under construction." I think he was just looking for a quote to sound wise.

But I reckon, bugger that, why spend your time building your road to the destination when obviously someone else has been there before you, otherwise how would you know the destination was sure? Just follow their track and you'll save a bundle of effort.

Gosh that was a long post.

I dropped off the suits from the wedding back at the hire place today and parking cost me $20 for 9 minutes. That hurt.

I went to a wedding on Saturday. Helen and Jon got themselves hitched. They're friends of mine. Jon was kind enough to ask me to be a groomsman. Which meant that I got to wear a suit and stand up the front of the church.

I woke up bright at early on Saturday morning and drove out to a convent in Kensington where the Hannahvan was on lone some people who like to holiday in convents. I drove up the drive way and very excitedly, and a little fast, executed a three point turn in the car park drive way. I think one of the Nuns must of heard because she poked her head out the door and gave me that angry look that only angry nuns can give.

Anyway I swapped the little gray Pulsar my parents lent me, for the big white van my parents gave me. And drove back to my house.

At home everyone was away and creating breakfast. For the last time ever the whole house was in one place together, making a wedding day breakfast for Jon. It was way fun, there was fruit, shoe shining, music and dancing. It was a lovely way to see Jon off. We all got to pray for Jon too, which was special. It's a special privilege getting to spend the wedding morning with the groom. Plus everyone's so excited, you can't contain your joy. It must be let out with loud talking, laughing, silly jokes and lots of kitchen dancing. The best sort because who cares about looking good on the kitchen floor.

We were planning to leave at around 11:30am, so at 10:30 I figured it might be an idea to go and get the van washed because it still had a bit of egg residue on the side and you can't have a wedding car with egg on the side. This seemed like a good idea, until we were still sitting in the car wash place at 11:10 and they still hadn't finished washing the car. Jo and I went over to get the car back and the man who was washing it abused us for having a dirty car. I thought perhaps he must be new and not have realised yet what the purpose of a car wash was.

I got home at 11:22 and raced upstairs, apologised to Jon, who was getting dressed, shaved and cut myself a few too many times, raced to my room, threw on my suit, raced to my mirror and did my hair in 15 seconds and raced out the door. I think I took about 10 minutes all up. Take that bridesmaids!

We loaded up the Hannahvan with all the Groomsmen and headed off with a quick stop at Helen's to pick up her luggage and so Jon could put his wet washing in the dryer, then it was off to Wedding Land. It was fun driving the non-locals who were amazed at the amount of traffic. It made me feel like an experienced Sydney-ite, able to negotiate even Sydney traffic. Not that it's all that hard.

We arrived at the church and people kept thinking I looked, dapper, cute or funny. It's funny, you get all dressed up and people laugh at you. I was expecting people to faint and stuff but sadly none of that. I decided that would come when I ripped it up on the dance floor.

At the church we got out photos taken, prayed of Jon, then stood around waiting for the ceremony to start. It started pretty close to time I think. And what a start it was.

It was great. The procession was led by a beautiful wedding dance by some of the Helen's dancing stars. And they danced good. It was pretty special. The bridemaids came next wearing their turquoise dresses (or were they teal?), whatever their colour they were looking good. And then came Helen looking wonderful and bridal, and all smiles. I don't think I've ever seen Helen so happy. The whole procession would have moved me to tears were I a person who was capable of expressing emotion. I did get a happy lump in me throat. It was very special.

The ceremony was nice and traditional. All the usual prayer book, with a commitment from the congregation to support Helen and Jon thrown in. I couldn't see any of what was going on because all the groomsmen in front of me blocked my view. All I could see were blackcoated backs. I even missed the kiss. It was going to be the first time I'd ever seen Helen and Jon kiss (apart from a conservative peck) but, sadly I had to wait till the signing of the register. You give up a lot to be a groomsman I tell you.

After a creative reading involving actors and photos and a not so creative reading, involving a sister, a Bible and a lectern, I was called on to give my sermon. It went down pretty good I felt. I only stuffed up a few times. I said something about how I'd try and get a better view next time. Which was embarrassing and sent me digging my way out. I think I made it out ok but not without a lot of digging (David I'll upload the sermon for you, I want a prize!). But I was happy with it and people said nice things to me.

Not much happened after that. They signed the register, we were blinded by the flashes of excited photographers and we processionaled out to "Everlasting Love" Jamie Cullum style (except it was Matt, guitar and band).

We had the cake cutting in the kindy which is always a spectacular location for a celebration. I can't really remember much of that. But it was nice enough. I think I was a little dazed to take it all in. I couldn't see the cake getting cut, too many people in the way. Story of the day really.

Then it was off to photos. I loaded up the Hannahvan with Groomsmen (minus Groom) and jumps in the wedding convoy behind the Rolls and the Jag. The Nissan looked hot man!

Photos were mostly just standing around drinking Champaign. I'm sure Helen and Jon did more than that, but I was very rarely called upon to present my face to be photoged.

And then it was reception time. We were in the Harbour Watch room at the Sebel. It was pretty swanky. You can see the Harbour Bridge. I'd been there before for my cousin's wedding, but it was the day after the tooth loss so I didn't really feel like being there.

The reception was a lot like other receptions. You float around and talk to people. The Best Man said the bridesmaids made "good decorations" which I think was him fulfilling his duty to compliment them on how they looked. The Uncle of the Groom gave a long rather funny, but useless description of Jon's family tree. The first dance was lovely. Helen danced like a dancer. Jon danced like an actor. Jo and I danced self-consciously when it was the wedding parties' turn to dance. But I hung around the dance floor after that and danced for a whole 5 or so songs. I think that's my record at a wedding. I'm virtually a dancer now I reckon.

Eventually Helen and Jon left after hugging everyone in the room, and we all potted home too. I had the privilege of driving the presents home. Our living room looks like Christmas with no tree now.

I went to bed and slept well. At least well until I had to get up again for Church. but that's another day.

Hooray for John Howard not getting his un-compassionate way!

If our house burns down, blame it on the electrics.

I probably shouldn't write that incase the house does burn down and people think I did it and I just wrote that to throw people off the scent. But the electrics do suck, and I have nothing to gain from burning the house down. I'm not insured and we'd probably lose our deposit, not cause it was our fault just because we didn't leave the house in as good condition as we found it.

The Day After the Day it All Began

I think that blogging about the wedding would be good. And I want to be in the running for some of David's fabulous prizes. So I'll hold off on that one.

But the day after the wedding, well that was today, and I would have loved to have slept for the majority of the first half of it. But I had to go to church.

We went to the retirement village today and it was lovely. The residents were ready for us today. We had a record number of young people, for this year at least, and it was great. I really do like that ministry.

I also had a nice conversation with one of the senior girls who said she'd come to youth group to serve the younger people in the youth group. I thought that was good. I love it when people come to serve. Yay for them.

I think my tiredness gave me a looser tongue today. I did the announcements at church tonight and managed to tell everyone that we were going to burn down the church at the church working bee, that God would be angry at them if they didn't come, and that the Holy Spirit couldn't work if we didn't have the banners up in the church building. Then when asked by Steve I told the whole church my gift's in preaching were all because of my gender. I think most people realised I was joking, except the man in front of me who kept giving me greasies.

Soon I will sleep I think.

I don't like John Mayer's hair at the moment.

He's still good though.

Abdul, Abdul

We went out for Jon's Buck's night on Wednesday night. It was lots of fun. We went video game playing at Galaxy World first up. I always love a good Daytona race. It's funny, that game is so old (1994), yet still well loved amongst all the latest, more boring amusements. I played a game of air hockey with Tim and he won. Embarrassingly my right arm now hurts from all the exercise I gave it.

After clearing the place out of all it's good stuff (Chris won an iPod Nano in one of their skill games) we trekked off to a wonderful restaurant called "Abdul's" that'd I'd found on CitySearch.

Abdul's was the best. All 19 of us we put in this pokey cushion room, where we were served by the great Abdul himself. As Ryan said, I've never seen a restaurant owner with more disdain for his customers. Abdul would wander around and grunt at us. When he brought out food he'd just mumble what it was called at us. I found a candle stick under my cushion and put it on the table. When Abdul saw it he commanded the guy next to me to put it on the shelf behind us then told us "Look. Don't touch!" It was rather special.

We ended the night with Jon dressed as a fairy in a roadworker vest and a blue dress in a pub somewhere in Surry Hills. You can't get much better fun on a Wednesday night. Actually you probably can, but please excuse the hyperbole.

Going to the Chapel

I'm writing Jon and Helen's wedding sermon at the moment. It's fun, exciting and scary. I think I'm the only part of the service that hasn't been planned and designed by the happy couple. So I'm hoping I get up to the standard.

But as I just told Jon, if this sermon doesn't make their marriage perfect, nothing will. I have a lot of faith in myself.

I just called the local retirement village to talk to the guy I always talk to about the youth group visiting, but when I had to ask for him, I totally forgot his name and the receptionist had to help me. It was very embarrassing. Oh well.

I went to the Laundromat before with bags full of wet, heavy washing because our washing machine has given up the ability to wash. It can still fill itself up with water and empty itself again, so I think we can still classify it a machine, just not one of the washing variety.

Anyway, I went to the Laundromat and it was 10 minutes before they closed so I wouldn't have time to wash my clothes. But when the woman who works there saw me she said I could put my wash on and come back to collect them in the morning. She said "I don't want you to have to walk all the way back with those heavy bags." She was very nice.

I got a hair cut today. Hair cuts still scare me. Every time I go to get a hair cut I have to walk past the hair dresser a few times before I pluck up the courage to go in. It's sad but it's true. None of them hair dressers have killed me yet. My hair dresser today asked me what I did for a job. I said "Youth minister" to which he replied "Great! You're doing a wonderful job!" I'm not sure how he knew but I welcome the encouragement.

I Like Mondays

I think Mondays are my favourite day of the working week. I think it's because they're pretty easy usually pretty nice. After Sunday's they're a really good come down.

I usually sleep in till about 10. What a wonderful way to start the day. I arrive at work around 12ish. I go to the High School, where I help with the Christian group. I don't run it, just help. That's rather stress free.

I eat lunch. I like lunch.

I do a few odds and ends. And then I have my senior small group at night. And they're good fun, and I don't have to keep telling them off. And that's my day. It's tops.

Trippin'

I went on a road trip last night with my year 11 and 12 senior small group. It was good fun. After much indesiciveness from the group we ended up in Penrith. It was a good place to end up, except perhaps for the bunches of boys that would drive past and whistle at the girls in my group. I don't think guys should whistle at girls. I'm not sure that it makes the guys very attractive. But I'm not a girl, so maybe they like it.

We went to a Chinese Restaurant and I became the waiter's best friend. When he asked if we wanted entree I replied that we'd already had chips in the car. He thought that was very funny, and he spent the rest of the night rubbing my shoulders whenever he came to our table. It's nice to make new friends.

Oddness.

The Night Andrew Bevis Came to Tea



Andrew came round tonight and asked for a mention on the blog. Chris and Mike came around also. It was Pad Thai night. Mil and Jem cooked us all Pad Thai. Ryan was there too. He just ate it I think. Martin came later. Oh and Jon ate too. It was real fun.

Having Andrew here from the UK gave us all an excuse to watch some of the old films we made back in the youth group days. It was embarrassing at times, rather funny and quite shocking. I forgot what a badly behaved youth group I went to. Some of the things that we did in youth group then, I'd lose my job if I did them with my youth group now. And for good reason. We found a poem that some of us wrote together that was the most offensive thing I have heard this year. And I'm not exaggerating.

I realised that these days, though I regularly feel like I say stupid and offensive things, I'm much better than I used to be. I'm a bit more boring too, but at least I can keep my job.

The Hannahvan got egged last night. Only by one egg though, I think.

Genesis

I had small group tonight and we were studying Genesis 2. We got distracted by the inconsistancies and scientific problems of Genesis. I'm not sure if the group was interested in the distraction, but I saw it as a good opportunity to go for a bit of digging and challenging of the status quo.

We spent a bit of time where we tried to reconcile the issues, but we never came to anything statisfactory. At least not for me. I sent us all off to discover what we could about the whole thing and how we could understand Genesis. How do we reconcile the fact that things in Genesis 1-3 (and I reckon up to 11 at least) don't really work with what we see in science and history? And how do we figure out why things in Genesis 1-2 just don't match up?

Whenever you talk about it everyone has a different theory. There are all sorts of ideas that people have, some of them are good, some of them seem to be just clutching at straws. What I love about the whole discussion within a teaching context is that it challenges us to keep the Bible as the Word of God, even when the it doesn't seem to be fitting in with our ideas about how infallible history should be written. I love the offensiveness that it just doesn't seem to work. The challenge to look deeper, keep questioning, because the answer isn't apparent at first reading. I love the mystery that we may never be able to answer the questions of creation, yet we still can come to the Bible with faith that it is God speaking. It creates a healthy distance between we who are seeking answers and He who gives them. It keeps us on our toes, it makes us stay alert, we can't just take it at face value. The truth comes to us but it doesn't come without our searching, asking and trusting. Genesis asks us to give up our need to have the exact answers to the beginning of man, but instead it shows us where man begins.

I guess I'm rambling. But as you may be able to see, I really like what Genesis does because it doesn't work the way we want it to, it works the way God wants it to.

Hungary

These are the Hungarian photos. This is the fruit of a free afternoon. I know there are a lot. I hope you can cope. I'll do Austria and England later. Maybe next week.



The Car we traveled to Hungary and back in. The hottest car eva bro!



Our flats in Budapest. Pretty swish. We were on the right-hand with the balcony but our windows were around the corner.



The stairwell in our units



The memorial for the Jews who were shot into the Danube in World War 2



Jo, Valentina and Grandpa on a bench outside the Hungarian Parliament House



A building Budapest. Lots of them were still like this, a bit decrepit and filled with bullet holes from WWII and the 1956 revolt.



Grandpa



Dancing on Margrit Island



St Stephen the Angry



At Statue Park where they keep all the old Communist statues.



Who knew Communist Statues could make me look so good?



At Lake Balaton, Hungary's premiere holiday location!



The view was always good in our car

Lag

The jet lag hasn't been too bad. It just tends to hit me every now and again and I fall asleep like a small bout of narcolepsy. But then I wake up and I'm all good for a bit.

Ryan and I bought a big sound system for our house yesterday. It's fun to have, but I haven't really got to fully love it yet. I guess when I to hang out at home with it I'll love it. Especially when we hook it up to the computer so we can play iTunes through it. That'll be spec.

We hooked up our computer at home to the sound system in 1998 and I remember that playing SimTower through the sound system was wonderful. I just loved the sound of those noisy elevators turned up loud!

Going back to work was fun. I liked seeing everyone again. People make my job good.

Now I should leave because I have early morning 21sts tomorrow. Actually just one so that's a rather fallacious pluralating "s". Sorry.

Russian Photos

These are the last of my Russian photos. Only Hungary and England to go. Sorry there's a lot. I hope you don't have dial up.



This is a church in St Petersburg. It's built on a piece of ground where one of the Tzars got assasinated on his way to getting the new constitution signed. His carraige got blown up.



Inside St Issac's Catherdral



Sexy Russian Attire



That's 9:53pm.



At Peterhof. Built by Peter the Great, the man who loved spurting water.



Summer fun in the Baltic Sea.



Jo, Valentina and Tanya at Peterhof



Waiting to cross the St Petersburgian road



A grave at the burial place for the 1941-45 siege. There were fields and fields of mass graves like this. So sad.



Jo's bored of planes

Pad Thai!

I'd been craving Pad Thai since I was in Budapest. And last night I had it for dinner. And this morning I had it for breakfast. Oh yes. It's good to be home, if only for the multi-national cusine. But that's not all. There are people here that I like. Lot's of people.

And there's my bed.

And there's my new t-shirts.

And there's cable internet.

So I'm pretty happy.

I didn't go to college this morning because I didn't want to. And found out from a letter that I opened before breakfast that I passed college last semester with a credit so I felt like going even less.

And the plane trip? Well it was long. I slept some, ate some dodgy food, and didn't get a window seat. We had a two middle seats all the way from Vienna to Sydney which was a different experience. The only advantage being is it's easier if you want to get up and go to the toilet or chat up a flight attendant.

There was a man sitting near me who looked like the music teacher in The Simpsons.

I'm Home

Ok so there were no airport blogs because everytime I got of a plain the next one was boarding so there wasn't much chance.

But in KL I did leave my angry airport authoritarian captors to find free internet, but the computer didn't work.

And now I'm here and I'm trying not to fall asleep. But I'll write more later. But not much more because there's not much to say about being stuck on a plane for 24 hours.

Leaving Soon

We're leaving here at 3:15am to drive out to Heathrow. We fly to Austria, then KL then Sydney at 3pm Wednesday. My brain's going to be wasted.

Anne has steep stairs in her house that make you feel like you're in the Ministry of Silly Walks if you take them two at a time.

She also has a shower head that falls off mid-shower and attempts to knock you unconsious. I shower with one eye on it the whole time just incase it leaps off the wall at me, sly bugger.

Since going away I haven't showered in one shower with a fixed shower head. They've all been these silly things that you can mount on the wall or hold in your hand and spray yourself that they have in retirement villages. I'm looking foward to showers that work normal and are screwed into the wall, and if you want to spray yourself you go get the grarden hose.

I'm off to keep reading. I'll probably see you all in Austria.

Billy Elliot and the International Air Guitar Star

It's been a long time since I blogged. I'm a bad person.

I realised the other day that I don't know who won the the State of Origin. What a bad Australian. I better go find out.

Oh it was Queensland. Shame.

So I think I have to talk about the weekend. I can do that.

Friday

Jo and I headed into London. We're getting very good at all this train business. We pay through our noses and get to sit on an uncomfortable train for a while. Yay!

Anyway, we went to visit the TATE Modern which wasn't too bad. I'm getting better at the whole art thing this trip. There's lots of art that doesn't really excited me, like cubism, I skipped through that room pretty darn quick. But other things I liked. I enjoyed the Pop Art a bit, and the photography. I always like the photography. I'm so cultured now. I do art galleries.

We were going to go to the British Museum but we were stick of walking around big buildings and staring at things so we decided to give up. I went to the movies because I was craving movies. I saw an piece at the TATE that was a montage on four big screens of lots of different little bits from movies of people making music. It was pretty cool but it made me crave the cinema. So I went. So sat in a park I think.

I went and saw Thank You for Smoking at the Odeon in Leichester. The cinema was cool. It was skinny 4 level building with 5 skinny little theatres stacked on top of each other.

The movie was a bit of fun. Politically incorrect satire. Just me stuff.

After the movie I met Jo and we wandered down...

(I'm starting to get bored now, so if you're not reading this, I understand)
...to the Victoria Palace to see Billy Elliot the Musical. Apparently it's the musical to see in this town. And we had tickets, we're so special.

And it was pretty damn good. The kid who played Billy was fantastic. He could dance the socks off a dancing sock. He was great. It was worth seeing the show just for him. And the other kids were good too. The kids made the show.

Other than that it wasn't great. The whole musical bit, like the songs (music and lyrics) were rather forgettable. But that's no worries. You didn't really notice that.

If Billy comes to Australia go see it.

Saturday

Anne and I went to a big old house called Knole. It was big and old and full of old things and old people who would tell you about the old things. But it was fun.

Then we came home and sat around for a while, had dinner, then watch Billy Elliot on TV. Hooray! BBC 2 was having some kinda dance fever thing going so Billy the movie was on. I'm pretty much all Billyed up now.

Sunday

Went to church with Anne in the morning we did. She goes to a little local church in a big church building, with about 25 old people who sit near the back. There are usually more people there, but I was told not many people came that morning because the preacher is boring.

After the service we met some older men (one of whom was the preacher) who wanted to tell Jo and I jokes about Australians, New Zealanders and Jews. They weren't very funny, but we were polite enough to smile painfully.

One of the men also got on his hobby horse to talk about how terrible he feels that the colonies (Australia, New Zealand and Canada) have been left out of the EU. I can't say I'm too cut up about it myself, but I think he wanted to be able to eat New Zealand lamb.

We met a very fun Nigerian family there too. They had an eleven-year old daughter who I told about my connections to people on Home and Away and she got so excited she started fanning herself and said "Wait till I tell my friends!"

In the afternoon we went to the birthday party of some funny distant cousins who gave me Diet Coke and Mineral Water to drink. They were, well English. All the women sat inside and talked about wall paper, caravans and Cornwall and exclaimed "Marvelous" and "Delightful" about everything. The male host sat outside got a little bit sloshed and as he did he regaled the gathered guests with the wonders he discovered in Australia when he came to visit, namely drive through bottle shops and Leagues Clubs. Definitely the pride of Australia.

Once we escaped the clutches of these blood relations, we headed off to Watford to visit Soul Survivor.

Once we got to the station we caught a cab. We made the cab drop us at the top of the street, because me in my insecurity didn't want to be seen getting out of a cab out the front of the church because I thought people might judge me and laugh at me. You can never tell when these Christians are going to turn on you and attack you. And they're especially thingy about people and taxis. Better to be safe than sorry I say.

Church was good. I got to shake hands with the fellow Sydney-ites that were there. And it was good to sing songs that I knew rather than have to try and mumble out strange hymns which I have been doing for the past month.

When we walked in Mike was up the front saying "Hello" and my heart sank a bit. For some reason I thought Mike was going to be away. But he wasn't. Don't get me wrong. I love Mike, I just had the feeling that if Mike knew I was at his Church he might do something to me. A chance to embarrass Donny Jaffa on home territory. And, well, he did.

He asked if there were any visitors from far away. And well funnily enough there were. There was a guy from Nobbijukistan or something and some Australians in the corner, and "Oh my..is it?...It can't be...It's Donny Jaffa! I didn't know you were going to be here, come up the front."

So I had to go up the front and talk about what I was doing there (Tour of distant relatives), why is bacon a vegetable (Because I live with 5 vegetarians and I'm asserting my meat eating nature - that got a cheer) and what I do for a living (I'm a youth minister).

Then he said "Now something about you is that you're famous for playing the guitar aren't you?"

And so Mike got the band up and made me do an impromptu air guitar performance in front of the whole church.

He's a mean man. I had to jump around the stage and play the air guitar with my teeth, and I didn't even have my Donny suit. It was a difficult experience.

Afterwards Mike asked me if I knew Layton Hewitt to which I said "We had a falling out. I stole his girlfriend" and some how I managed to tell the whole church that I engaged in adultery with Bec Cartright be cause has kids and I like kids. It was a bad moment of being put on the spot and not having planned a joke out.

Oh well. I survived. I think Mike won that one though.

The rest of the service was good. It was like going to Soul Survivor only a little smaller. I liked it. I did enjoy being at church that felt like home.

Monday

Today Jo and I are spending our last here in London. We went to the British Museum. I thought it would be fun because it's famous, but it turned out to be a big building full of really old things. It wasn't all that interesting. But I probably needed to know my history a bit better to appreciate it. Oh well. At least I can say I've done it. And I liked seeing the Rosetta stone because at least I know what that is.

Jo is now wandering around markets and I'm at a internet cafe. Tomorrow we fly out at 6:30am. Hoi! It's going to hurt. Oh well.

Farewell fair England. You've been good.

Me too

"Don't believe me, when I say I've got it down" - John Mayer

We spent most of the day on trains again. But we managed to find where were going easily this time. I read a lot today. And we went to visit a wonderful old village where lots of the bulidings were built in the 13th century and crooked. I like crooked buildings. The house I live in is a little crooked. Which is fun, except it makes wheely chairs a lot of work because you keep sliding away from the computer desk.

My house wasn't built in the 13th century though, probably the 19th, so I'll check up on it again in 600 years to see how well a wheely chair works then!

Actually I lied.

Yesterday was only the hottest July day in 100 years. And the top temperature in England was 38 degrees.

Did you know...

Yesterday was the hottest July day on record in London?

We survived, it was like Sydney summer.