Story: 25/8/08-31/8/08
Tuesday, 23 September, 2008
Monday 25/8/08
I couldn't sleep because I'd slept so long the night before, so I turned the light back on and finished reading Persepolis. Despite falling asleep late, I still got up at 6:45 and drove to work. I got petrol, parked and was in the office by 7:30. Within one and a half hours of sitting at my desk, I felt really stressed because I realised my thinking was out and I was actaully a week ahead of where I thought I was. I had thought that today would be Briefing thinking day, I'd have two or three days in which to do the second draft of my children of divorce article, along with some stuff for The Daily Reading Bible (Volume 17), and then I'd start editing the October issue on Friday. But no; Briefing thinking day was the Monday before, and according to my schedule, I shoulve have started editing last Friday. Furthermore, we were going to layout the following Thursday. I quickly saw I couldn't do it all, and started to despair.
I dealt with email, pulled together Briefing thinking day material, then moved onto working on the layout. Fortunately it was a fairly straightforward issue. I ate lunch, met with Elsie, then spent the afternoon cleaning up all the files. I missed my 15 minutes of fame with Tony because he wasn't feeling well so he went home. And I made myself leave at four and play with Wii Fit for about half an hour. I had a shower, made dinner and did the laundry, then watched the rest of March of the Penguins off the hard disk recorder (I worked out how to watch stuff while it's recording). Then I went and edited and marked up Sola Panel entries from the last two weeks so that everything would be more or less tidy for when I dumped the content into Microsoft Word for the October Briefing. I also dealt with two weeks' worth of Faithful Writer correspondence (there wasn't much), then went and read in bed until 12:30.
Tuesday 26/8/08
I was up at 7:15 and in the office by 8. I spent most of the day transcribing Lesley Ramsay's talk from EQUIP 2007. Then Tony and I met up to talk about the October Briefing plus other matters. The meeting went a bit long as we worked out my priorities for the next two weeks (Briefing first, The Daily Reading Bible (Volume 17) second, e-news third). Ian, however, was doing a Father's Day special and couldn't wait that long for e-news so he ended up doing it himself.
Bec and I met up for lunch and to go through the Faithful Writer feedback. It was mostly positive with a few criticisms—mostly emailed later. It's funny: she and I are rather similar in that we tend to remember the negative comments instead of the positives, but we ought to keep things in perspective and not let those comments overshadow the positives.
In the afternoon I was feeling rather sleepy. Guan was in so I caught up with him for a bit and whinged about stuff. To wake myself up, I went out for a walk to get Easyway, then came back feeling somewhat refreshed. I collated the feedback I'd received on my children of divorce article, edited two articles for October, and left for home around 4:30. I played with Wii Fit for about half an hour, then heated myself some leftovers. Ben went off to Bible Study. I watched taped So You Think You Can Dance? (US) and then went to bed at around 1:30.
Wednesday 27/8/08
I woke late. It was hard to get out of bed but I did. I played with Wii Fit for about half an hour, then had a shower, ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed. I got stuck into work around noon, and spent the next six and a half hours working on the second draft of my children of divorce article. I cut around 600 words out of it—tweaking and improving it. It was hardgoing and almost traumatic because I found myself reliving stuff all over again. Eventually around 5:30/6 pm I reached my limit. I felt emotionally exhausted and decided to leave the rest of the trimming to Guan who said he'd edit the article (Guan is an awesome editor). I made dinner. Ben went over to visit the Fords who had just had their baby. He came back and we ate together, then watched taped NCIS, Spicks and Specks and Australian Idol. Then we went to bed.
Thursday 28/8/08
I woke up at 6:15 and was out the door and in at work by 7. I ate breakfast, then dealt with email and The Sola Panel, and got stuck into the second feature article. I cut it down by 6,000 words but I was still nowhere near the 3,200 it needed to be. I kept slicing and dicing. Bec and Guan persuaded me to come out to get dumplings for lunch, and we ate honey chicken and handmade noodles. In the afternoon, I pressed on. We had Bible study and prayer at 2, and I finished making another hat. In the afternoon, I finally finished the feature article and sent it off. I then edited the second Bookshelf review and sent that off. Then I left at 4:30 and went to the shops to buy fruit and vegetables, fish, and groceries for the Engage conference.
Back at home, I carried everything up the stairs and put it away. I played with Wii Fit for 45 minutes, then had a shower and then made dinner. We watched Australian Idol, then more Idol, then Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and I learned to appreciate the benefits of the hard disk recorder. Afterwards, I did a bit of packing, then went to bed.
Friday 29/8/08
I was in at 7. I signed up with del.icio.us and then tried to get the Facebook application working but it wouldn't. I dealt with email and Positions Vacant ads, then went over Guan's edits of my children of divorce article. Then I got into the main business of the day. But server and internet problems started driving me crazy and made it near impossible to work. Plus I was feeling a bit sad. So I stopped and had lunch.
Tony was in after lunch and we touched base on Briefing things. I pushed on and finished the Pastor's brief, then left at 3 which was later than I intended. There was bad traffic on Gardener's Road (later Elsie told me it was because there was truck parked in the left-hand lane just before the intersection with O'Riordan, which meant all traffic had to merge into one lane). I decided to take the back way and was home in around half an hour.
I ran around like a mad thing, trying to finish the packing. Then Elsie came. It took us half an hour to load the car and check that everything was in working order. Then we were away.
While stuck in traffic on Parramatta Road, however, I realised I had forgotten the electric frypan and the netted spoons for steamboat. I felt like an idiot because I had prepared for packing so carefully (I keep a master packing list on Remember the Milk). Elsie called one of her housemates who hadn't left yet, and I called Sarah. The battery on my mobile was dying despite me trying to charge it the night before (double grr). We spent the rest of the drive to the mountains listening to Sia, Birdwood Snape and Katie Noonan. We reached Katoomba at 6 pm and went to the Katoomba Family Hotel for dinner.
Unfortunately our dinner took 45 minutes to arrive. I think they were seriously short-staffed. Instead of dropping our stuff off at the house, we went straight to the convention centre. I'd forgotten what Katoomba Christian conventions are like. In my defence, I'd only been to one before—Women's convention in 2003 or 2003, which I had hated. Ushers in bright orange reflective vests ushered our car onto the oval and told us where to park. We hopped out the walked up the mountain—up all those stairs. I received a call from Guan and realised I'd left all our tickets at home (triple grr!) Fortunately KCC reissued them for us at $5/ticket. We exchanged these for our orange rubber wristband and program. Ultra efficient ushers got us inside and made sure every seat was filled. The logistics of it all impressed me; I'd hate to organise a conference for 2,500 people!
We ended up in the middle of the hall just behind the middle screen. I tried craning my neck to see the screen but it was just easier to watch the ones down the front. Strangely enough, we were near George and other Wild Street folk. The singing and the music was fantastic—both in terms of quality and enthusiasm. (The songs were boring but let me save that for my own rant about Christian congregational music another day.) I had an empty seat in front of me so I had a great view. And I liked the video interviews they did with various young people.
Mark Driscoll spoke on John 1. He didn't tell me anything I didn't already know but he preached the doctrine of regeneration very strongly, which I appreciated. Afterwards, we caught up with people: Haoran and Sarah (who were about to break their big news when Gary beat them to it), George and other folk. Some of our party were keen to go, however, so we didn't stick around too long but headed for our accommodation.
I had booked The Blue House pretty much a year ago on Jess G's recommendation. It could sleep up to 10 people and board was only $450 for the weekend. We had eight in our party: Haoran and Sarah, Guan and Mary, Bec, Elsie, and me and Ben. We arrived at the house and wasn't quite sure how to get in (it's not close to the street). Then Guan and Bec arrived and helped us unload (Mary hadn't come to the evening talk). Haoran and Sarah arrived not long after so we helped them unload. Inside, it was smaller than I expected and they certainly didn't have enough chairs/lounges for the eight of us which was surprising. But it was still cosy and warm. We set up stuff, then broke out the cheese and crackers, and drank tea.
We were all pretty tired so turned in for the night fairly early. Unfortunately I didn't sleep too well; I wish I wasn't such a light sleeper because every time someone used the bathroom, I woke up.
Saturday 30/8/08
I got up around 8, had a shower and then started feeling more normal. The rest of our group were already up—Guan, Mary and Bec had gone out for a walk, but Haoran, Sarah and Elsie were inhabiting the lounge room. I had toast for breakfast, then sat on the porch for a bit with Bec and Guan when they returned, drinking tea.
Then we got ready to go, and made our way to the convention centre in two cars. We parked and walked up the mountain. The ushers were giving out free copies of The Sydney Morning Herald, and people were gathered around drinking coffee (or queueing for coffee). We waited for the coffee drinkers to get their fix, then headed into the hall. We were in the middle of the back third this time. Mark Driscoll preached on John 4 (the Samaritan woman at the well) as well as more on regeneration. It was great stuff! We were also pleasantly surprised to find that the Engage team had put all this free stuff on our seats: a canvas bag filled with a Mount Franklin water bottle, chocolates and other snacks.
We had a five minute break in between sessions, and then everything started up again. Driscoll was supposed to preach on something else but he decided that we needed a brain break, so a Q & A would be better. We were asked to SMS in questions which I thought was rather clever. He answered the questions well, but also demonstrated his particular bugbears which probably arose from issues in his own congregation. Oh, and the thing about his daughter made me (and a few others I knew) cry.
We didn't realise that lunch was being provided that day (there were these big tents in the plaza labelled “BEEF”, “CHICKEN” and “TURKEY”). In any case, there were no gluten free options, so our party opted to head home. Plus Bec wasn't feeling too well. Back at the house, we decided to change around our plan for meals and have steamboat for lunch instead of dinner, given that we would not have that much time to eat dinner before heading out to the evening session. We had way too much food, and ended up cooking some of the surplus to have a leftovers.
Then we cleaned up, and I had a chocolate, before a bunch of us set out for a walk to Katoomba. Sarah and I visited the vintage emporium, and I found a black velvet hat I liked for $25. There was also this beautiful white armchair there—the kind that made you want to curl up in it with a good book—but that was $900 (why am I always drawn to expensive things???) We poked in a few shops, but then Guan and Mary were tired so they headed home. Sarah and I continued on to the op shop (got a Paula Danziger book for $1.50) and then the Hattery.
Then Sarah started feeling sleepy so turned back. I went on to Coles to get a few supplies, then walked back via Café Expresso to see Angus. I bought a chai latte for Bec off him, then walked back to the house. By this time, I was feeling rather tired. I sat in the lounge with the others, knitting and drinking tea.
Dinner was all over the place, with everyone doing their own thing. I had steamboat leftovers but most people weren't too keen on them. We left at around 6 or 6:30 to go to the convention centre and make our way up the mountain again. In the hall, we were split up, with Ben and Elsie having to go onto the row behind us. I was not thrilled about this. But I did get to sit next to Ali.
Don Carson preached on Matthew 11. I've never understood the second half of that chapter so it was good to hear him explain it. Afterwards, I caught up with Ali, Becky and Sal, and I finally got to see Little. The others were tired and set off for home, but Haoran, Elsie, Ben and I stayed behind. I met long-time Hippocampus Extensions reader Drew for the first time (his blog seems to have been hijacked by advertising), and talked to him, among other things, about his PhD.
We left for home. The others were still up, and we settled down with our various teas and hot chocolates. Some went to bed but others stayed up and played Chrononauts (a time travel card game), which had been a birthday present to me from Matt and Larissa. Both Haoran and Guan are games people, and it always helps to have games people around when you're learning a new game. They interpreted the rules, and we started off playing open-hand, but then realised that wouldn't work as we needed certain things to win (I, for example, needed the crown of thorns). But Ben beat me to his objective and won. Then we went to bed.
Sunday 31/8/08
I slept way better than the night before, but woke up feeling like I was on fire. I went downstairs to wash my hands and said a bleary hello to everyone else who was already up. Haoran made us a yummy hot breakfast. I meant to watch because my own skills at doing bacon and eggs and fried tomato are quite woeful, but I was distracted by the logistics of us packing and cleaning and leaving in time for the first session. So following the eating part, we packed, we disposed of the leftovers or packed them for lunch, we cleaned, we put out the garbage, and we paid and left.
Somewhat predictably there was a long queue to get into the conference site. The poor ushers were trying to hurry us along but there were so many of us and the ground was muddy. We made our way up the mountains, ignored the newspapers and the coffee and filed inside. We were seated on the left in the second third part of the hall. The singing was in full swing by the time we had sat down, and we sang something which sounded, to my ears, like the chorus to Guy Sebastian's Elevator Love. (The quality and banality of most of the songs we sang slightly depressed me but I suppose you just have to appeal to the common denominator if you're going to write congregational songs.) Carson preached on Psalm 40 and it was awesome—so good, so comforting. I should really buy that talk and listen to it regularly.
We had a 1 minute break in between sessions (during which we consumed more of the goodies left on our seats—more water, chips, and bite-sized brownies). Then Driscoll did his final talk which was on John 10: “I am the good shepherd”. His message was very simple. During the last part, he tried to get us to re-appreciate the cross by going into great detail about the crucifixion. I thought that was quite unnecessary: echoing Ben's point about The Passion of the Christ, the Bible doesn't spend that much time on Christ's physical sufferings, so why should we? (All it pretty much says is “And he was crucified”.) I actually tuned out for that bit and focussed on filling in my feedback form.
Then the conference wrapped up, with thankyous and goodbyes and “Drive safely!”s issued from the front. Guan, Mary and Bec said goodbye. Haoran and Sarah had already gone. Ben, Elsie and I left together, and hit traffic pretty quickly coming out of Katoomba. As we drove towards Sydney, I regretted that I had left my lunch in the esky in the back, so we pulled over and I got it out. At the first McDonald's we encountered, Ben ordered his lunch and we swapped drivers. I took us all the way back to our place and it didn't seem to take that long at all. We helped Elsie get her car out of the driveway, went up and unpacked, and then I left for church.
I was really out of it. Bec had stayed home (she was, quite understandably, exhausted) but George was there. Rod preached on 1 John 2—the second half. I found it really hard to concentrate but I think I got the gist of it. George and I had a really long deep and meaningful afterwards—talking about Driscoll and his anecdote about his daughter, children of divorce stuff, and being stuck in a rut. She gave me some very good advice about owning your feelings, and doing something to help yourself to deal with being sad.
I didn't stay around for dinner, but drove home and ate something while watching March of the Penguins and a pseudo-documentary in C.S. Lewis that Ben had taped for me. Then I had a shower and went to bed. Ben came in not long after.
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.
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Thank you, oh gracious generous friend.