Post-Reloaded
Monday, 08 March, 2004
Now back from ECU Reloaded and all I want to do is turn into a blob in front of the television, eating processed squid from the Asian grocery store. Well, I did blob around for a while this evening but I didn't eat squid. I finished off episodes 11-13 of Hellsing (is there more?) Matt seems to like animes featuring men in long flowing red coats with enormous guns. On Wednesday we ate Thai food with Arts/Creative Arts students and went to see “An Evening With Job” at our church which was a dramatic presentation of the Book of Job (not all of it but most of it) by two girls. I enjoyed it, though I was disappointed that, halfway through, they had to pull out their scripts because they didn't quite know the whole thing off by heart. I was somewhat surprised that they interpreted Job to be quite angry against God. I could understand Job being angry at his friends since they keep telling him he's sinned when he hasn't, but against God ... On Thursday Tracey did a study on contentment at girls' meeting, I led my first Bible study group for the year, I found a cool secondhand black leather jacket for $40 and a beautiful birthday present for Hannah at the Market Day stalls, we re-learnt the Greek alphabet (lowercase and uppercase), Amanda and I read through the whole of Ephesians in the NASB and we had church Bible Study. On Friday I did the laundry, accidentally melted one of my laundry baskets on the stove (thus causing white plastic goo to splatter on some of my clothes, near ruining one of my favourite jumpers), I forgot to call someone I had promised to call, we had a meeting for main meetings committee, I went to Bible study again, I copied posters and main meeting outlines for Week 3, I went into work for a secretariat meeting that was not as helpful as it should have been, I caught the bus home and spent the afternoon sweeping the balcony, the porch and the garage, and weeding the backyard, Ben and I went to IBM where Ben preached on John the Baptist (Luke 3), then Ben and I went on a mini date to Hungry Jack's for dinner and then we came home and I watched more episodes of Hellsing than I should have—should have been packing instead. And sleeping. On Saturday I got up at 6:30, hurriedly finished packing which was a big mistake because I forgot to take a heap of things, we were 15 minutes late in picking up Dennis and we drove up Macquarie Pass to Fitzroy Falls for commencement camp which, this year, has been dubbed ECU Reloaded. There were around 50 students who came. A lot didn't make it because of illness or perhaps because of the rain (and it rained ALL weekend!) Peter Hughes gave some awesome talks on Wisdom from the book of Proverbs. The band, interestingly enough, consisted of acoustic guitar, a cello, a saxophone, a trumpet and drums. During faculty time, our group made sculptures out of fruit and vegetables (had to top the potato prints from last year). This resulted in some awesome photos which I do not have the time or the energy to blog. During Organised Fun time, Pete So 'n so got put into a cardboard box and Lil had to drink coffee mixed with Pepsi max, salt and pepper. Each of the faculties had to go away and come up with a musical about another faculty (these were designated). Arts/Creative Arts got IBM and did a round the world tour, culminating in, “There's no place like IBM! There's no place like IBM!” and “We will we will rock you.” And even though it rained, people still went on the giant swing, or wrestled in the mud (resulting in more amusing photos which I wish I could instanteously blog but I can't so I won't). It was great watching people learning things, growing in confidence, coming out of their shells, etc. One lady, who is quite a bit older than the rest of our cohort, said she felt quite overwhelmed but, at the end of the weekend, she told me that she was glad that she came and that, before the weekend, she had been thinking of quitting Uni because it was too hard. I had the privilege of honing Peter Hughes' skills in mahjong, but despite his and my previous experience, Little Rach still beat us to a pulp with four or five consecutive wins. On Sunday I was so exhausted I fell asleep during time with the Chin Factor (ie. Richard gives a talk from somewhere in Matthew). We all ate a hurried lunch and attacked the orderlies jobs. Of course, on our run, the dishwasher wasn't working properly due to the lack of hot water so we did most of it by hand and then Hannah and I mopped the floors. I was worried about coming down Macquarie Pass given that we had swapped Dennis for Simon's amp and guitar and we were also carrying Ben's keyboard amp, keyboard and our luggage (which, I suppose, is nowhere near as scary as last year when we were driving Valerie, Simon's panel van, which is the total opposite of our car in every possible way except for the colour and has chronic blind spots, with half a drum kit, a keyboard, a guitar, two amps, luggage and $2,000 worth of books in the back). But God was gracious and the pass was dry; in fact, it was shockingly sunny as we came back into Wollongong and I was so not used to it, given the fairly cool conditions of Fitzroy. We stopped at home for an hour, during which Ben collapsed into an exhausted heap and I fiddled with my Sunday school crossword. Then I had to go teach Sunday school and it was my first week with the boys and it was a bit of a nightmare. They are so naughty compared with the girls and it is so hard to get them to actually do anything. Funnily enough, they shut up when you're telling them the story, but when you try to get them to do the craft or the activity, they refuse and ask if they can do it at home. I was talking to a lady from 5 o'clock church who is a teacher and who is going to help us out a bit and give us some feedback and training and she said that she had those boys over summer and they are hard to manage. She told me that I need to practise a lot more discipline and positive reinforcement. I groaned inwardly when I heard that; I hate doing that sort of thing. She gave me some helpful books on how to tell the Bible story which I haven't had a chance to look at yet. I had to go and write prayers for church before church began but I kept getting interrupted and then, during the service, they asked us all to move to the front which was very irritating and I got upset and plonked myself right in the front row in the service leaders' seat. I think I was upset because I was tired. After church we had supper in the hall and some people made us soup which we could purchase for $1. So I had a lovely dinner of soup, a bread roll and Sunkist, and spent some time chatting to people at church (often very hard to do; these people are not very trained in the art of conversation) before Ben and I finally went home to sleep. Which is probably what I should go do now ...Posted in:
Powered by Expression Engine 1.7.1
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
|
|
Disqus comments
Other comments
Just bump in to say Hello. I enjoyed your blog. You’re a beautiful girl.