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Tuesday, 28 February, 2006

The C.S. Lewis Today conference site is just about ready—I just need to get the final details sorted out with the rego form (which my very clever husband helped me create) and then we can proclaim it throughout the world and invite people to come. I agree with Ben A; Textpattern is a bit strange but I'm getting used to it and, even though it was a bit of a wrestling match to bend it to my will, I am quite pleased with it. I am especially pleased with CARP, the RSS parser I installed on the right hand side of the page, and my random C.S. Lewis quote generator.

God has been very good to us. I have been learning/been reminded of many things while editing Phillip and Tony's book on prayer and one of them is that there is nothing which is too hard for him and no detail which he isn't interested in (compare Jeremiah 32:17 with Matthew 10:29-31). At one point in the text, the authors ask, “Is there anything in your life which you think God can't deal with?” (my rough paraphrase since I don't have the book in front of me to quote from ... I actually want to put a quote from it up on this blog but I won't do it until April when it will be published). So the other week I was sitting at the breakfast table, praying and worrying about money because my counsellor was costing $60/week and Ben's counsellor was costing $110/week and I hadn't budgeted for either and I thought, “Nothing is too hard for God,” and I started talking to him about it and asking him to provide some sort of solution to our problem. God's answer came and when it did, it surprised me a bit. Firstly, Ben was able to get the government rebate or whatever it's called by getting something from the GP which means he can claim back a portion of up to ten counselling sessions from Medicare. And secondly I'm somehow being paid more for work I've already done (that transcription work last month) because the PhD student I'm doing it for didn't know that the university had a standard rate for transcribers which was higher than what I had agreed to work for. God is very good to us in looking after us in this way.

The weekend away with 2nd year was lovely. We went to Waterslea in Nowra which is a beautiful conference centre with a lovely pool that I was longing to try but since I was a bit sick, it probably wasn't a good idea. Ben and I didn't end up going for Japanese food because we left late (my fault; I wasn't very organised this time around and left the packing to the last minute, which meant I forgot to bring a mozzie zapper and a hat). And we had to pick up Ben's keyboard and amplifier from two different locations so we compromised and had fish and chips at Bouffler's in Wollongong.

It was lovely to see everyone again, although I have to say I was a little saddened by the fact that so many of our year hadn't come so I didn't get to catch up with some of the people I had been hoping to catch up with. Most of the pregnant wives had now given birth and there were little bundles of joy all over the place—many of them extremely cute. But I heard all sorts of motherhood stories over the weekend that made me think that I am so not ready to be a mother yet. (Maybe you never are. But I think I still have to come to terms with the total life revolution that is baby a little more. For example, all these new mums complain about the waking up in the middle of the night and the continuous fatigue and I think, “My goodness, I'm not even sleeping well now. How am I going to cope if/when I have kids?”) Parents who say to me, “You don't know the meaning of the word ‘busy’” aren't really helping me in this department.

It was a pretty relaxed weekend. Because of the accommodation arrangements, all families with kids got their own rooms and all married couples without kids were split up. So I got to meet a girl who is joining Ben's year this year because she slept in my room. We had talks on 1 Timothy and ministry and its various aspects by Martin and Jo Trottman who are from Armidale. I found them very interesting, although I have to confess that I fell asleep in the last one because I was so knackered. I taught some of my college friends to play mahjong (simple version, no betting) and a friend taught me and some others to play this really fun card game called Bohnanza. (Why is called “Bohnanza”? Why isn't it called “Beananza”? It's all about bean-growing. Hey, Games Paradise has it for $29.95; Teresa was telling me you get it normally for $60.) On the Saturday night a group sat out on the verandah and sang songs, accompanied by two guitars. Ben was dancing around waving his arms and looking very happy.

On the Sunday there was no lunch so we left at around 11 am and drove back to Sydney. I slept all the way in the car. We got back at 2 pm and Ben went straight to bed. I started doing C.S. Lewis things and stayed home from church because I was still germy and rundown.

On Monday I went to work and Tony told me I did a good job on the book on prayer (yay!) I edited Briefing stuff and Short Steps for Long Gains (Family Edition) (you read it with your kids). I started on Daily Reading Bible 7 but was then told that there had been a mistake with Daily Reading Bible 6 and could I come in tomorrow? I rang Greg and arranged to come in in the afternoon.

So today it was work in Kingsford as usual. I parked near MM, said hi to Anna who was confused as to why I was heading away from the office, caught the bus up to High Street, dropped off the invoice to get paid extra for transcription (I hope it goes through ... isn't it terrible when you're crossing your fingers and praying that university administration doesn't stuff you up!), said hi to some old work colleagues, went to visit George who is looking splendid and was the first person to tell me that she likes my hair shorter and went in to New College to do stuff for the conference, only the server was down and we couldn't access the internet which made bringing in my laptop a total waste of time. But I did manage to get some stuff done on the database and I learnt how to generate email lists and stuff like that. I went and had lunch in the dining hall (so weird dining with New College students ... a guy at my table had an old Campus Bible Study T-shirt on and maybe I should have talked to him and his friend who were talking about going to the CBS meeting today but I was feeling rather lazy and anti-social). And then there wasn't much left to do so I headed off to MM and spent the rest of the day cutting and pasting Daily Reading Bible material on Ephesians for Volume 6 where I discovered that there was no introduction. I pointed this out to Emma.

“Write one,” she snapped. I groaned.

“I knew you were going to say that,” I said.

“You're the writer!” she responded.

So that's tomorrow's job. But now I'm going to go to bed and get a decent night's sleep. Goodnight.

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