Random Stuff

Last night me, Dan, Kerridge and Tim D watched an old movie called 'High Society' in the Glory Hole. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is great watching old movies and I hope that we will be watching more. After studying Greek all afternoon it was just what I needed to relax and enjoy the evening. I must say that the turn out of people was a bit on the low side. So next time we will have to round up more people. That's a plan.

Yesterday at lunch we had a delicious array of food, which is pretty good for a Sunday lunch. I must say it is the best Sunday lunch I've had here so far. We even had cheesecake for dessert!! So big ups to Kerridge who prepared lunch and anyone else who helped. (mmmmm......not that they will be reading this post........oh well......) During lunch we managed to have a discussion on the topic of 'should women be preachers?'. That was interesting. A general consensus was not reached as it was more of a discussion of differing thoughts and opinions. Good to think through issues with people. Iron sharpens iron. Must do more of it. Good on Phil for provoking discussion.

Today after chapel I studied Greek ALL DAY!!!! And tonight my lecture is Greek for 3 hours. I am turning into a Greek geek. That's fine by me though because I enjoy it. So I will be thoroughly Greeked out by the end of the day. Fortunately I have something to look forward to after my Greek lecture. Lower Wallace girls are having a 'jelly belly lower wally' party. We're gonna eat jelly.................................and other stuff too. Fun.

Church on Sunday was good again at ST James. Will be sticking here for awhile at least. I can't be bothered looking around at millions of churches and this one is good. It's also just down the road so it's handy for me. It is great going to church with Tracey. She is a great gal. She is someone who I can be very silly with and not feel self conscious. It's great. We have loads of fun together all the time. I will probably be on the singing roster for the 5pm service, which I may get to most of the time.......hopefully......... we'll see. I really need some down time where I can just relax. At the moment I don't have that time allotted in my weekly schedule. Must do that this week.

Next week my first assignment is due in. I have to do a preaching pyramid for 'Intro to Preaching'. Must get onto that this week. I also have a Greek Test next Monday!! Yes, life is busy, but I thrive on busyness (well sometimes I get sick if I work myself too hard). Today I have a sore throat. This is not good because I am singing in Principal's Hour on Wednesday. Mmmm.....must get rid of sore throat this week.

Well, I could keep writing but I have to go and do dinner prep. See ya'all later.

Weekend Happenings

Life at the moment is busy and routine. Last night I went to work at Kip McGrath in Parramatta. I am really getting into the swing of working at Kip McGrath now. So far I am working on Friday and Saturday at Parramatta and Thursday at Burwood. Hopefully once there are a lot more children enrolled I may be working mostly at Burwood. That will be really good for transport because today I waited for two hours to catch a train. You would think that the trains coming through the station would match up with the timetable. That would be a fairly logical conclusion I think. But alas it was not to be the case today. So I waited and I waited and waited some more. And then I waited some more. And after that I waited even longer. So after one and a half hours I decided to catch a train to a different destination. Then once I got there I was finally able to catch a train to my originally planned destination. And then I ran home because it was about to rain and I didn't have an umbrella.

But when I got home a group of us went to a Lebanese restaurant called Jazmines. This was a great way to unwind from a hard day at work. Nice food, nice conversation, nice food, nice conversation, nice food...............yeah. So after this we came back to college and I came straight onto the computer to write this post. And now I am going to go and find my keys to Wallace House which I have inconveniently lost!!!

Tomorrow I'll be going to church and hanging around college doing whatever. Good night.

Greek is Great

Now that I have changed my course from the Diploma to the Bachelor I have started learning Greek. Because I missed two lectures I had to catch up on three chapters of work. So all this week I have been spending a lot of time in my room learning Greek. Now, you might think that this sounds very dull. However, I am finding it highly enjoyable. Thankfully this is the case or I might just go mad with the amount of time I have been spending in my room. Another thing to give thanks for is that I am catching onto it quite quickly. This is good because otherwise I would be spending way more time on it. And I just don't have the time to do that.

I think that Greek is great and I am having a lot of fun learning it. I can't wait until I can actually read parts of the NT in Greek. That will be very exciting!!

Well, I've done enough talking about Greek, now I am going to go back to my room and learn some more Greek vocab. See you later.

Valentines Day

Yesterday it was Valentines Day. All the girls got a single rose in their pigeon hole from the guys. I must say that I was very impressed with this chivalrous act. Chivalry is not dead!! In the morning when we woke up there was also a little heart chocolate outside our rooms with a bible verse attached to it. Along with this there was a chocolate freddo. Nice one.

Nothing Much

Okay......I am struggling to think of something to write about today. So this post won't be very interesting I'm afraid. On Wednesday night we had the first Wednesday night supper of the year. Each week we have supper in the Glory Hole. The guys and girls take turns every week putting it on. Since it was Chinese New Year we tasted some delicious Chinese delicacies. I happened to choose a tasty looking wrapped sweet. Unfortunately my taste buds did not appreciate it. It turned out not to be a tasty sweet but instead it was a gross plum lolly thing. But in the spirit of Chinese New Year I chewed and swallowed graciously......well almost graciously.........apart from a few minor words of complaint.


On Thursday I had lectures all day. Thursday is my busiest day of lectures. I have lectures until dinner time. Yes.......mmmmmm.....so that was Thursday.

Today I had two lectures. Then we had our mission meeting. I am going to Mt Druitt. This is a suburb out West Sydney not far from here. It is about 45 minutes from college.

After our meeting I went to work at Parramatta. I did one session of tutoring. Then I came back to college.

The End.

Touch Rugby

Today a group of us headed down to Enfield Park and played a decent game of touch rugby. With no subs we played for 1 hour and 20 minutes. It was great!! I was feeling tired by the end, but a 'good' sort of tired. Because there were so many of us we had two games going. Apparently this is a weekly event which I would love to participate in. Unfortunately I am most likely going to be working at Kip McGrath Education Centre at this time each week. This is not good. One day out of the week I would love to play sport for a couple of hours for the social aspect as well as the fitness aspect. I might have to see about re-arranging my work schedule. Mmmmm........somehow I think that might be a problem.

The game was fairly fast-paced (with emphasis on the word 'fairly'). I managed to score one try near the start of the game and then thought I would do the servant like thing and let everyone else score tries for the rest of the game. I thought it wouldn't be good sportsmanship to keep possession of the ball for most of the game so I shared it around with my team-mates.........now for the real story.......I did score one try and it was a good one too. But that was it for the rest of the game. Everyone played hard and played fair. It was a great game all round.

I think Mondays or Tuesdays might be soccer. Maybe I'll have to go for one of those days instead of Wednesday. I'll keep thinking on that one and let you know what I decide. Au Revoir.

God Answers Prayer

Today is turning out to be the most amazing day ever!!! Every turn I take I am seeing God answer my prayers. Chapel this morning was so uplifting. The message was tops. My course change has been fully worked out. My job situation is sorted. I finally received my eftpos card in the mail (just at the right time!) and I have received encouraging notes from some of the girls in Wallace. I am also getting a car!! How exciting. God is GOOD!!! He truly is the provider of all my needs. Not only physical, but spiritual and emotional. God has brought me through a really tough time last week when I was missing home so much. But He has given me people to talk to here who have patiently listened to me and encouraged me. I am also thankful that he is providing for me spiritually. He is encouraging me through my times alone with Him. He is also challenging me through Chapel times and prayer times. God never ceases to amaze me. All praise and honour to Him.

A Big Decision

Today I made a big decision. The decision was to change my course from the Diploma of Theology to the Bachelor of Theology. The biggest implication of this decision is that I will be here in Sydney for three years instead of the two years I had originally planned on. All this is very exciting and very scary. But I am confident that I have made the right decision and now I am glad to know what course I am doing.

I Miss N.Z.

As life starts to get busier and the pressures of lectures and real life begins I am finding myself missing home. Home would be defined as my family and my friends.

Life at college is awesome and there are so many benefits to it. There are so many amazing people to talk to. At the same time, however, it can also feel slightly overwhelming. Every day you have a million conversations where you ask the same questions over and over to different people. Now, I love talking to people, but the volume of people makes this task slightly tiring by the end of the day. So you really need a bit of time out to yourself away from college. I have been out running some afternoons to escape. However, this doesn't compare to going out with friends who are totally unconnected to college life. This is what I need at the moment - some friends who have nothing to do with college who I can hang out with when I need a break. I haven't really been here long enough to develop these kinds of friendships so I will just have to hang in there and be patient.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I'll be heading off to St James Anglican Church down the road. Last week I went to Ashfield Presbyterian Church. The minister there has since sent me a letter and also rung me to see how I was doing. I was encouraged by this and may go back there again. Then it will be Monday and I will be straight into a full week of lectures. I am looking forward to getting into routine with lectures and work.

Today I worked at Kip McGrath at Parramatta. It feels good to be working part-time again and it will be good to have some finance coming in again. At the moment I am trying to make my money stretch while I am waiting to pay the remainder of my fees.

That's all for now. I have to go and do some mundane chores (unavoidable). See ya next post.

Orientation Week

This week is Orientation Week. This is where you learn all about the ins and outs of every aspect of college life. Yesterday we spent most of the day in the main lecture room. It started off by meeting all the lecturers and staff at the college. We met with all the people in our individual courses and heard from the course co-ordinator. Last night we had dinner and a commencement service. During the commencement service I was interviewed as a first year female student. Thankfully everybody laughed at my answers and said I spoke really well. Phewwww!!!!

Today was much of the same. This afternoon we had to complete our subject registration and get our student ID cards. Tonight we are having a bbq picnic and then a scavenger hunt. This will be followed by a showing of Princess Bride in the courtyard. I'm looking forward to that. So I am now starting to get into routine and life will start getting more busy I imagine.

Today was the first day I actually felt overwhelmed with the amount of people here and having to talk to people all the time. Don't get me wrong, the people here are top notch. But I went for a run to clear my head and have a bit of alone time. It proved useful. I think I might also need an early night sleep. I will have to be disciplined to do this.

Tomorrow is a free day before lectures start on Thursday. I am looking forward to that. I might even sleep in. I have a library tour at 10am but that's it. Take care everyone. Until my next post. See you later.