/karen/

Collaborative efforts

Sunday, 08 October, 2006

Saturday was Word by Word. Ben was feeling pretty smashed, plus he was sick, and didn't want to go. So I went by myself and got the food and the milk and set everything up. We were a small group—only eight of us and one of the presenters had emailed to say he was sick. And despite the fact he'd emailed me, I completely forgot that Matt was coming (oops!). Guan taught me how to use the coffee machine so I can now make Tony his morning coffee (not that I will; it's just now that I can!)

We normally start with a devotion which I usually get Ben to do but since he wasn't there, we read all the way through Lamentations as a big group. Then I gave them a writing exercise: they had to think back to the time when they were in love and write about that period of their lives—describing what they did, what their environment was like, etc.—but without mentioning the fact that they were in love. The results were quite interesting. I am trying to work out whether it feels different to be in love if you are a guy as opposed to a girl, and so far there doesn't seem to be much of a difference. (But if you wish to correct me, feel free; this is all research for my comic.)

Toby then gave a seminar on collaboration which was really awesome and I wished more writing group people had been there to hear it (oh well, they will get the notes at some stage). It struck me that a lot of what he said could also be applied to workshopping as well.

Then we broke for lunch. After lunch, we workshopped one of Andrew's pieces and then spent some time doing some writing ourselves. I managed to do another page and a bit of my comic. We shared what we had just done with the others and then closed the meeting.

I drove home and watched some TV with Ben. At six we drove to my mum's place for dinner. My cousin and his family came for dinner as well and it was good to see them and their kids. And my brother was there and finally gave me his birthday present for me: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Today I slept in until noon (I'm also trying to shake a cold) and then had to do some grocery shopping (yuck). Ben and I watched television in the afternoon and then went to church for band practice. We're now in the proper church building—the renovations are mostly complete and the whole thing is soundproofed against the planes. The government spent 2.4 million getting that done. Baz, the minister for the morning congregation, talked about what had been done to the building. He had even made a slideshow photo essay of the whole process. It's a little weird being in the church church—it's one of those old ones with the soaring roof, wooden pews, giant organ in the corner and stained glass windows. The band is kind of hidden and I couldn't really see the congregation while I played (and I was playing on a cool new keyboard which boasts a stack of different sounds so I could make it sound like a violin or a choir). It will all take some getting used to. Dinner was in the hall as usual though, and we even had candles.

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