This morning I slept in.
James scared me soo bad. I was typing away at the computer, and heard footsteps and water running. I got really scared for a minute. Lazy James not going to school, just as bad as his sister.
Another thing this morning was this bird. It flew into the back room and got stuck. There's lots of windows and it just kept flying into them, over and over again. I watched for a while thinking it would work it out and just go out the door, but it didn't. Got a bit stressful. I opened windows and tried to move him out with the vacuum cleaner pole thing. That didn't work either, so I went outside and hit along the window where he was flying until he flew his way through the open one. Poor bird. Such a stressful situation. I'm glad he didn't die. I think birds and other smaller animals can die from stress or fear.
I had conflict today too. I don't like conflict but its sort of good this one happened cause it was in our group task thingo for tafe, and we needed a conflict to write about for a connected assessment. So goodie. Didn't feel so good at the time. I was way out of it. I almost wanted to cry, which isn't normal over something like this. I was so confused and lost, I got myself too worked up. If group tasks were easy or fun, I don't think they'd make us do them. It's silly cause no group task in the real world is as annoying as these ones. Maybe they will be in the future, maybe I should not get a job where I have to work in groups. I could work all by myself, yeah good idea, people are over rated.

How good is hospitality Sunday?
about 50 hundreds goods I reckon.
So much fun.
I was definitely the token young person. There was 4 and a half married couples, and me, and some kiddies. Guy was rude to me, as usual. I'm pretty sure Guy has been rude to me since the day I was born. Its his style. He asked what table if I was going to sit at the adults table or the kids table. humph.
But lunch was so good, and so yummy. People told storied about how they met, very romantic, and sometimes very not. You men are funny creatures. I listened a lot. Sometimes I talked, only when I was asked to though. That's weird, I'm not normally quiet. I knew lots of their kids, so we could talk about kids even though I don't have any of my own.
I say more hospitality Sundays.
now to youth group. I still have to write a briefing paper before tomorrow morning.... hmmmm

Today was a bit of a depressing day. 4 whole hours on suicide, neglect and abuse. Not something one generally wishes to focus on.
unfortunately we haven't finished covering it. Once we finish it in this class, I still have a whole 8 weeks of child protection next term and it pops up in other subjects too. yukky.
Ignorance really is bliss. Not that I'm not ignorant still, but pretending all this stuff isn't there is far more pleasant. Far more detrimental to the people effected though.

I don't think I have been sick like this since january. I remember feeling like this in Armidale and in Poatina. yuk. But in conclusion, this means it isn't the coke fast. That is good. I'm still looking forward to drinking coke again, maybe not to the same extent though.
mmm coke.
I found a note the other day that I had written to someone on the Uluru bus months ago that told a story of when I had asked someone in a shop for a coke and it didn't come out coke, but something a little rude. That was embarassing. oh all the fun coke memories...

I have a confession to make. I am totally addicted to spider solitaire. Its really bad. I'm always playing it, and when I'm about to go to bed or go somewhere, I'm always like 'just one more game, just one more'. Its got to be a disorder by now. When I go to sleep, I see the cards as I drift off, sometimes they are in my dreams too. Oh dear.

I drove the Hannah van home and no crashing! yay
minded Hannah this arvo too, before the pub. She was is a funny mood. Laughing at absolutely everything. She thought the hi-5 DVD that was a bit broken was the funniest. I tried to change it cause it kept skipping and doing weird things but she got upset, it was too funny to change.
pub was fun. I'm off in my own little world when I'm feeling sick. Maybe I'll be better tomorrow, yeah, that'll be fun.
happy birthday Robert. Hannah was saying birthday lots today, maybe she knew it was his birthday too.

I have had such a fantastic day apart from suddenly becoming sick.
I woke up feeling bit dodgy, but I was too excited to take much notice once we got to Auburn. So cool. Such the best place. I was so excited when I got home I tried to tell my mum about it but all of the sudden I couldn't quiet manage to string sentences together cause my head went funny, so I went and had a power nap for a few hours. Still feel ergh but ok.
Anyway, today was the bomb! We went to Auburn migrant resource centre and the ladies talked to us about what they do for a few hours. And they few us yummy biscuits too.
Then they took us for a walk to the mosk round the corner. Even walking down the street was fun. So many different languages, and food shops! Daniel and I found the best bread from a Turkish shops - so good I even went back and bought more to take home.
Anyway anyway, enough about food already. The mosk was so big. We got there just as a funeral was ending. Hundreds of crying people were spilling out onto the street. It was rather overwhelming.
After they disappeared, this guy with a camera and a girl with a boom came and asked us if we were the tour group, we said yeah sure and so they followed us around on our tour filming us asking questions and stuff. Rather funny. There is an open day on Sunday so they were making a film of a tour for then.
A nice lady who I have forgotten the name of took us round. She showed us lots of cool fun things. So big. So pretty. We took our shoes off and put our headscarfs on (or the hood of my jacket), and went inside. She told us lots of stuff about Islam and being a Muslim. She was really interesting. The film crew kept asking us to ask more questions. I had so many questions that I'd never felt in an appropriate situation to ask before. And - It's ok, non-Muslim women can read the Koran, that's not offensive, even Muslim women can read the Koran. We kept chatting and chatting. I was having a ball. We went upstairs too and saw where the women pray.
After we had run out of time, the film crew cornered us and asked for some of us to do vox pop thingos. Everyone scampered away, but I wasn't fast enough. I can't really remember what I said. They got some others to do them too. They got a guy in my class who is a Buddhist. I thought that was kinda funny, a Christian and a Buddhist advertising tours in a mosk...
The mosk visit started so much discussion. People are seem so much more open to Islam then Christianity. Its very strange. A couple from my class were asking me the differences between Islam and Christianity on the way back to the car. That was fun, I got to talk about grace and Jesus.
Such a fun day.
Spent so much time talking to so many fun people.
I want to move to auburn.

home again home again.
what a long weekend. wasnt as long as last weekend. i think someone smart said last weekend was the longest weekend ever, and i agree.
i excited about tomorrow. we are going on a field visit for tafe to a migrant centre and then to a mosk. how fun. apart from the assessment i have to write about it.
i think i would prefer to study other religions then to study christianity. i wonder if thats good. christianity is good and all, but thats my life, i much prefer looking at what other people do. its new and interesting and different.
its easy to get annoyed and be mean when you're tired. i should sleep more to avoid extended effort in this area.
I'm always saying i need to sleep more. i dont tend to do anything differently to mean i get more sleep. i am getting used to it though. i reckon give me a few more years and my body will be able to handle 5 hours night. i hope bodies work like that. or ill just move to some magical place in the country.
howies sick! again again. and he is on a bus. poor man.

last night sarah and alyssa came round before we went to the party. i was bit stressed and still didnt know what to wear or what to go as so i just threw on a variety of things - a tie, black shirt, some pants that werent jeans or cords and off we went. i had my glasses on too so the girls said if anyone asked i could be a school teacher or a secratary. but when i walked in and the boys asked me what i was, they said i looked like one of those girls you avoid at uni, a feminist. i laughed and said sure. from then on i was a feminist if anyone asked.
it was a weird party. lots of old people, but still good. lots of speechs. i think ill aviod having a 21st so in order to avoid speeches. how embarassing.
happy 21st ben

ooops i missed a class. but only 1 class out of a whole weeks worth. ..plus the half a class i missed on monday
either way, good job jo!
my head feels full and mushy today. too much unpleasent information.
i have a 21st tonight where you have to dress up as someone you wanted to be when you were younger...ive got no idea what to go as. ive got a few hours to work it out.
im over dress up parties. normally they are fun, but my creative juices in dressing up have severly decreased.
hmmmm.
munch munch its lunch time

blerh

sometimes you think you've got it all under control, and then the rules suddenly change.

HAPPY 700TH POST!

and thanx tom for fixing him.

still raining. my backyard is mush. does rain in belrose help the drought much?

What is wrong with my blog???
my blog fix it man is away, so it'll probably stay broken for another week or 2.
stupid blogger.
I've made it to all my classes this week so far. Just got to get to all of Friday and then I would have achieved the 1st full week of tafe for the semester. No more bludging. I'm feeling a bit better about it all even now that I've gone to just these classes. I do not enjoy occupational health and safety. Today we got to do something 'dynamic' to teach the rest of the class about volunteers, contractors and visitors. Was a bit of fun being silly. Tripping over pretend ladders and what not. We finished out advocacy class early cause our teacher was sick, so I'm waiting around till 130 for one of our group assessment meetings. Trying to stay away from the canteen as I've been eating myself into bankruptcy today.
rain is fun. But its the funniest when you are in your bed with millions of blankets and doings. Nice and snug. The sound of the rain is nice then. mmm I want to go back to bed.
:(

I feel like Erin brokavich today.
for a tafe assessment we have to choose a community issue and then form a delegation and go see a local member. Actually he is coming to us, but the ideas the same. Anyway, we chose what the council plans to do with the land that was beacon hill high school before they shut it down. We thought it might be a good idea if they kept the land, or at least some of it for community purposes, like a sporting centre, adult education, youth centre, etc etc. I got the job of ringing different people who have been involved so far in this issue and people who have services into he area. These beacon hill people are soo passionate and annoyed! I think ive spent 4 and a half hours on the phone today. Not just to beacon hill people, spent a while on the phone to woothworths too. If you are getting together people to go out and get signatures on a petition, should you get the permission of the organisation the petition is about/against first? Seems silly to me. ive tried it from lots of different angles, all of those angles have said no so far. hmmmm. Stuffs up Sundays plans. Its silly but cause no one is selling fair trade stuff so its not like we would be taking business away from them! Might give them more eventually. grrr. Stupid politics and big business. I hate being transferred to another department!!!
I might call more people on my beacon hill list, they wont transfer me, they are nice and on my side.

I feel as if I learnt a whole pile over the weekend. Such a bummer to go back to tafe and be stressed and annoyed again. 15 assessments so far, most duein the next 2 months. Oh dear. Got so much to do tomorrow. Have to call all these people. Tomorrows the only day I have business hours free though. Such a shame, cause I was going to have lunch and beers. Stupid student blerh. I was so looking forward to lunch and beers. Maybe ill finish it all really early and still be able to do something.
I almost cried at my teacher today. I think everyone is feeling stressed and confused. In our morning class our teacher was trying to demonstrate how to run a focus group but she asked us to talk about how we were feeling about our workplace and assessments. Everyone went crazy! Lots of angst and upset and anger was voiced. Poor teacher, I don't know if she was expecting all that. I don't know if anything will change though, I'm not sure what can. It would be great if something would.
I should sleep so that I wake up with plenty of time to do some portion of this massive chunk of tafe work.

As I was walking into tafe this morning, a bird pooed on my shoe. So strange. That's never happened to me before. Actually I don't think I've ever seen that happen. Took me by surprise. I went to the bathroom and washed it off and went to class.

How good is the body of Christ?
I had such a fantastic night tonight. I loved meeting all these new people who came from all over. I love my brothers and my sisters.
so many mishaps too. Which I think made it all even a better night. The power went out in an important part of the evening, but it made it even more powerful I reckon. Maybe, I felt it did. Everyone seemed closer together listening to Jestina.
anyway. Was fun. I got really excited and energetic. I met a fun oxfam hippy lady. maqs didn't come. We ran out of room to put extra chairs. We ate yummy Ethiopian food. We clapped. We listened. All the little kiddies sat down the front at the end section and they were cute. I jumped. I hugged. We mingled amoungst different nationalities, backgrounds, denominations, beliefs, values, ages...So good. I wish all of life was like that.

Finally got to speak to howie. Happy 1 year to anniversary to us. I miss him.
enough sop, had an interesting evening. Not worth blogging about really. Tomorrows going to be massive. massive good and massive long. No complaints really, ill just be sleepy. I should move to the country.
I rang the council this afternoon, I spoke to 6 different people and still didn't get hold of anyone who had the answers to my questions.

I spent the last 2 days not venturing our of my house further then the letterbox. I went to church and helped put up some banners and posters and stuff tonight though. Its starting to look really cool. Linda and I started talking about all the different world cafes we could do. This ones mainly African, but how cool would an Asian or middle eastern world cafe be? Very cool I tell you. I'm so excited and amazed and it all. Such a mammoth effort by so many people, I cant believe it actually might just come together. yay for Linda. She is such an amazing woman.
after pinning and gaffing and hanging, I went to my dads. Had an alteria motive for visiting as I had realised it was cold and wanted a lift home, but ended up staying for about 2 hours drinking strawberry and apple juice with James and talking about refugees, Alice springs, George bush, old family friends, the ridiculous amount of money spent on the Iraq war, voting, and the 'shock estidford'. The voting was particularly useful as I was feeling a bit lost about the whole ordeal. I just have no idea what to do or who to vote for, but I didn't know how to work it out, but good ole dad has re-instated some faith in the world and I think I'm going to be ok. He is good at that, making sense of stuff. I always get annoyed and crazy angry, but he knows all this stuff that explains things, and then it is no longer this unexplainable evil, but an evil or misguided or silly thing with people and reasons and other circumstances around it. Makes me go - oh, perspective, context, not so crazy anger, understanding bit better - yum.
I promise to go to tafe tomorrow.

this is one of the websites he showed me - costofwar
still makes me sad and crazy angry, even my dad couldn't explain a way out of that one

I'm getting there. I don't suck, but I've got a ways to go.


see! I'm not that bad

Rach and I met for lunch today. We met outside maccas but agreed with each other that we should be healthy so we walked down to the sandwich shop.
Once we had got there, Rach said to me "does this look pretty?", I said yeah its alright, then she subtly suggested it didn't look as pretty as maccas. I agreed and we walked back to maccas.
I love McDonald's. And Rach is fun too.
We went to the kindy after and handed out balloons again. Oooh little kids are cute. I want one. No one quiet understood why we were handing out balloons, but seemed to be happy. The kids certinaly liked them. Ah well, I wasn't too worried about telling them what world cafe was and why they should come cause they have probably been hit 50 ways with information about it. Banners, shopping centres, newsletters, or maybe they are on that magic email list that maqs sent out.
I'm excited about world cafe. Only a few more sleeps.

Something wrong is going on with my emails.
We aren't doing my schools program for tafe anymore, instead we are doing a schools program about sex ed. Should be interesting. I'll have to remember to wear my Christian hat (cause that's what I am), but really try to sound non-judgmental cause often you can sound like that when your talking about sex, but still say relevant things. I think sex ed is a bit shonky these days, its good that kids get lots of facts, but I think there might be a bit more to it.
Anyway. I hate being a leader. No that's not true, but it stresses me out. I always worry that someone else wants to be the leader, or that I shouldn't be the leader, or there is a quiet person who isn't talking cause of me, or that leaders just suck and there shouldn't be any at all. We are doing soo much group work at tafe at the moment, little class tasks but big assessments too, I feel like I've got typecast as a leader. argh stress uncomfortable. I used to think leaders weren't;t necessary but they always happen, even in tiny tasks. Groups are fun apart from leading, different people and ideas, always good, just give me a facilitator from somewhere else.
I feel like I am missing something important at tafe at the moment. Something key. I can't work out the purpose for some of the stuff we are doing. Usually its all very practical and understanding straight away, though usually I have had more sleep.
Hung out with Haley after tafe yesterday too. She is so kind and generous and thoughtful and fun. I wish I had seen all these good things in her before. Actually I wish I would notice the good in people more in general. She wanted coffee so we went to Gloria jeans, she ordered a vanilla shakey thingy, and I got a oreo shakey thingy. I got a shock reminder that I don't like coffee when I took a big sip. yukky. I thought it was some chocolate drink ewww.
Does anyone know if howie is dead? Or jenny? Or any other fusion workers? Haven't heard boo. Its only been a few days I guess.
I saw a 'lovers at Versailles' last night at the play house. It was very sweet and romantic but also frustrating and annoying at the same time. It had that similar feeling you get when you watch meet the parents. I hate that movie. You know how he is so stupid and keeps on doing stupid things and you just want to smack him in the head and it is soooo frustrating to watch? Well similar to that this play was, except she wasn't stupid, her family were just mean and disfunctional and continuously emotionally manipulating her. But love wins in the end, that's always fun.
Well that's probably long enough.

Such a big weekend! I'm rather sleepy, which has meant running late for tafe. ah well, I'm going so thats ok. To long a power nap.
Filming was fun, it was long, but fun. I was very impressed I got to be clapper girl, that was very cool. All the people were alot of fun. It felt like we were there for years with all the laughs. Bec's cooking is incredible. Jemma and I are experts at cow moving (17 from one paddock to the next), Lesley and I got to know the chickens a bit too. It was sucha beautiful place. I fell asleep lying in the sun on the grass, and then after lunch on saturday. I fitted in a few power naps, still need more!
There was lots of laughing, I can't think what else we did - oh yeah the film. And eating, lots of food. And talking, we talked alot, helen and I talked way to late.
I got to know some people better and spend some quality time being silly and having fun.
We got back just in time for Ernie. You could tell all the leaders were wasted from sleepout or filming. How come the kids are never tired? duracel bunnies or something.

I think Howie's illness is stress/not enough sleep/and bad food related. Same as Tom's a while ago I reckon. I am suprised (but thankful) I haven't got it yet. It would be better I had it then howie since he is off tarveling the world tonight. That would be cool if you could swap illnesses with people. Poor howie, how much would that suck bad on a plane?
goodbye for a weekend. Off to Berry for filming so bye blogging world.
Off to kindy first though. Should be fun apart from the fact I am handing out 60 balloons by myself cause some one is sick.
Have to prepare for small group too, oh and pack. oh yeah, I will probably need to pack aswell.

I'm home. Said goodbye Howie. We had dinner in this try hard posh place in the city tonight. It was like a poshed up bistro with costumes. I enjoyed my food though. It was good to catch up with Howie before he left again, hadn't really got to do much of that since he last got back, and now he will be gone again. I had a good night. Howie even said it was a romantic night, but I don't know if we can actually say to other people we have romantic nights cause our version of romantic might not be so similar to everyone's else and then everyone will think we are off having candle lit dinners and buying each other flowers and stuff. But it is ok to be different, no use being normal if its not you, quirky and funny has lots of value too, and if we think that we are romantic then that's all that really matters. Bye Howie, will miss you.

I went and found a nice spot in the sun to eat my lunch today, most of my usual buddies were away from tafe and others were on computers and doing productive things, so there i sat on my own. enoying the sun and the peacefulness and my toasted sandwich. Then these 3 girls who were studying real estate came and sat with me. I thought that was rather bold and out of the ordinry as people from different courses don't really interact. They were nice. One girl gave me lots of advice. She was a very secure 19 year old, as she said she was. They were like no one I know, that was cool. And then I went back to class.

Long day of goodness.
Woke up bright and early for breakfast in woop woop, was good. I made dodgy pancakes, which I prefer to call creative - they were fun shapes you see.
Then went home. In retrospect that was a silly idea. I had it in my head that I really needed to go home to send emails and make phone calls and get my head back into gear with a few rather urgent world cafe bits and pieces. But I got home, sent 3 or 4 emails, had a shower and came back to hornsby. It probably would have been more worthwhile to go have a nap somewhere in Horsnby, but no matter. I didn't mind doing all the travelling I did today, cause I almost read a whole book on an introduction to Islam (its not that big a book).
So back I went to Hornsby for some Hannah time. She didn't really want to play with me today, so I had a cup of tea and watched her jump while listening to John Mayer - whom I'm not too sure takes me fancy just yet.
Jane got home and off I went back to Belrose for a leaders meeting. Had a few delimmas in chatswood, but I made it only 15mins late.
Leaders meeting was interesting. We had special training tonight which was rather useful. Stuff I don't want to think about cause it just makes me feel guilty and headachy with angst. All about being an oar or picking up and oar or something (oar stands for Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility)...either way it was useful. I won't get to stressed - baby steps baby steps.
Homegroup got cancelled so I was productive and went for a driving lesson. And no near crashes tonight! I even learnt how to reverse park. I was excited. I'm rather impressed with my dad as a driving instructor actually.
This was one of those boring 'what i did today posts' , but you get that. I'm in a good mood, I'll blog what I want and how I want cause its mine!!!
I hope tom has factored in alot of sleep time on this weekend away of filming, cause I would like to sleep. Doubt it, but its worth a wish.

yay for world cafe!

a journey from africa, connecting with your global community...

7pm

14th August

16 Lockwood Ave

Belrose

Fun, african food, sudanese and ethiopian music, rep's from lots of organisations working with refugees, stories, and fair trade food and fun.

come!!!!!!!

It's also advertised here

This blog might be short as I have to kept watch for library ladies who will tell me to stop using the course related research computers for email and blogging. I'm a bit scared, there are so many notes all over these computers - ah well.
I've been dreaming up this schools program for a while now, and we are going to do it for one of our major assessments which is exciting. Not actually do it, just plan it. This group work might not be too bad aswell, good group. We get put in groups for another assessment this arvo too, that worrys me a little cause we don't get to choose, I'm sure it'll be ok though. It's very cool being able to do this program, like planning it properlike with some smart people. tops.
Might go back to class now

Productive meeting my bottom! oh but was it fun. Laughing till you cry is just the bestest medicine in the book. I think Helen, Louise and I should have more creative arts meetings and laugh and not do any work. yay. Man I'm sleepy, probably the reason so many inapproriate things keep coming out of my mouth. And such fun out of a photocoping experience. I do hope Lauren goes really well in her HSC just for the record. Helen kept saying I was drunk, but no, just happy and silly. Very pleasant indeed!

Today was long. To be honest I'm rather pleased it is all over, not another august 1st till next year - few. I spent alot of the day just wanting to run away and cry for a while, don't even know why. I really don't like feeling so emotional, especially when your in the middle of things. I'd like to go hide too, but I feel as if I don't need to cause I'm already a bit hidden without meaning to be. Maybe I just didn't get enough sleep last night - which I didn't. I love talking about the things helping the poor and fighting against injustice - which is what the whole service was about. But it just didn't do it for me tonight, that excitedness just wasn't there as much...hey where did that go? I'd like it back thanks. I had a good chat with Rach at maccas but, that was good, refreshing too. And a well needed massage. I think I might go make an appointment for a massage or few, thatd be good, fix me up. Enough for today though, going to sleep and even going to go to tafe tomorrow.