For Brenna: Your Next Clue:

"And his black and white cat"...

Update

Well, Debs (Hi Deb!) commented on my last blog, asking if I'd gone back to church yet. Well, I hadn't really stopped going to church, just gone less frequently and with less enthusiasm. However, I have been going back to church more often of late. In Tonga I went to church a couple of times, and even though I really couldn't understand any of the services, for some reason they really made me want to go back to church when I got back. So far it's been good. I have some REALLY good friends at my church, and I love seeing them. The worship music is awesome and I've really been enjoying it. It's nice to make space like that in my week just to spend with God and other Christians. I feel good that I've been going. Everything I said in my last post is really still true, except since then I've found that my other friends at church feel somewhat the same way. I don't know, it makes me feel better.

I'm exhausted. Just totally exhausted. Studying is so hard, keeping everything together is so hard. My resources are really stretched to breaking point. I had to cut down my hours so now I've even less money than before. I'm broke, tired, sick and overworked. But going to church makes me feel better now, so that's good.

Ah consumerism. It's what gets me through.

I honestly dont know if I'm going to publish or not

Although now I suspect I will.

I am totally at sea about church. I really feel totally lost. I've been maybe 5 or six times this year. Maybe more. Maybe more like 10-15. I love Elim. It was the first place I went that I wanted to belong to. I really did. There are such great people there. I want them to like me so much it hurts.

But I have changed so much sometimes I barely recognise myself. I was obssessed with church and serving God. I never missed a service. I loved doing youth stuff, I loved going to church. Then it all came crashing down in a way that makes me feel physically sick to remember. I remember when it finally broke me, when I stood with Amy in a toilet cubicle, sobbing, because Alan had resigned. It really broke me.

And it changed me too. I can't get attached. I wandered around churches for a while which was so healing for me. Then I went to Elim and I wanted to settle down, to start to belong. But I've just never gotten in. I have some REALLY good friends at Elim. Helen is one of the coolest people I ever met. But I still feel on the outside. It's really my fault maybe because my attendance has been so sporadic. But sometimes I think its more. Maybe they feel like I look down my nose because I'm educated or something. Maybe I do! Maybe I'm too liberal, too feminist. I don't know.

I love the Pentecostal church. I really can't imagine going to back to the Baptists or any other denomination. I really love the passion, I sense the rightness of the acceptance of the gifts of the Spirit, of the way the Pentecostal church worships the Spirit. Other churches seem boring to me, I can't connect, they seem superficial. I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying...well that I'm a pentecostal at heart. I like happy clappy. I like half decent music. I like passion and I like it simple.

But I hate the prosperity doctrine and I voted for the Greens. I supported the so-called 'anti-smacking' bill. I supported the civil union bill. I do oppose abortion and I'm definitely not keen on the prostitution reform bill. GAH!!! Where oh where will I ever fit?

It scares me, it really does. I feel kind of lost, adrift on a sea of uncertianty. I believe in The Church. I believe it's important for me to be a part of it. But, right now, even when I do have time and I'm not writing 8000 words on Monitoring and Evaluation until 3:00 in the morning on a Sunday night, even then I still don't to go to church. Because it makes me tired. It really tires me out.

Me and Simona sing this song about once an hour at the moment when we're studying. This is really all I have room for right now.

Could I just sit here a while...know that there's nothing that I need to say....safe in the knowledge that you know my ways and love me completely...no need to hide a thing.

I want to go to church. I want to want to go to church.

Recipe

Fish and Chips, with Coleslaw (for two)

400 grams of fresh, skinned Hoki fillet
1 Heaped Tablespoon Flour
About 1 Teaspoon All Purpose Seasoning
1 Table Spoon Garlic Margarine (Optional)

400 grams Birds Eye Shoe String Chips (The Lightest and So YUMMY).

Red Cabbage
Normal Cabbage (does it have a name?)
Carrot
Red Onion
Light Coleslaw Dressing (Signature Range is effectively free)

Preheat oven to 230C. Lay out chips in single layer. Cook for approximately 10-15min til brown. Turn once while cooking if you can be bothered.

Mix flour and seasoning. Rub onto one side of fish. Melt Garlic Margarine (or use spray oil) in large frying pan, set to a medium-high heat. When hot, lay fish seasoning side down in pan. Cover and cook until the fish begins to break apart. NOTE: don't turn the fish over, it will fall apart. Not turning the fish cooks it perfectly and means it's lovely and brown on one side. For the last few minutes, turn the frypan up to high if you like your fish a bit crispy.

Whilst cooking, finely cut cabbage, grate carrot and cut the red onion very fine. Mix and add a heaped tablespoon of dressing (to your liking).

Total points: 6.5

8000 Words

30+ pages.

That's how long my dissertation proposal is.

My dissertation is only supposed to be 10,000 words.

So I guess I'll have three months to write 2,000 words.

Or not.

If you want to hear me on a total rampage, just ask me what its about. Poor Danielle, she didn't know what she was getting herself into.

I've become SUCH geek. But at least this time around I kind of like it.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

4x5

It was a great day!

I was aware, when I was walking, of all those who've graduated before me.

I thought about all the women who struggled and braved hardship so that today I could graduate.

I thought of all the support I had during my three years. From my Dad. From my Mum. From Simona, Danielle, Shaun...

Thanks be to You, always.

Angels

Well, my bloggings have been sporadic and crappy now haven't they! What to say, what to say. I was reading back over my blog and found the one about how happy and balanced my life was.

Well, those days are gone.

Okay, not totally, but studying at this level is hard. I didn't really expect it. I kind of thought it would just be like third year again. But it's not, it's way harder. It's way better, but it's also harder. I wasn't sure if I'd like postgrad. People always said 'oh if you didn't like undergrad, you'll like post grad'. Well, I loved undergrad! But postgrad is better. What do these terms mean? Undergrad is everything until you get your degree. When you have a degree and you keep coming back for more, then your postgrad. Or certifiably insane. You choose.

So life is weird at the moment. Let's not indulge all the gory details, but suffice to say, things take unexpected turns and it's hard to know how you're supposed to feel. I've been through guilt, sadness, hopelessness, happiness and guilt again. I feel agony one moment and total disconnection the next. I get sympathy and I don't feel like I deserve it. But then I feel so much pain again....and I think, yeah, bring on the sympathy!

I'm not sure anyone reads this anymore anyway, so I'm just blabbing out my feelings. I've not blogged for ages because mainly I was scared I'd end up talking about good old Section 59. Which I'd rather not! Poor Brodie, he has banned me, Danielle, Shaun and Simona from discussing it because he's so bored of it! Lol. He's right. I think public discussion is good, but lets keep this blog a family show and let sleeping dogs...sleep. I have enough stress.

I bought my first size 8 top. THE EXCITEMENT.

I've gotten heaps of assignments back and done really well except for one errant B+. I know, I know, it's still a good mark, but it was 1 mark short of an A- to keep my perfect no B record. Outrageous.

I am becoming more and more of a geek. I find so many things interesting. If someone talks to you about their interest and they're really into it, it becomes interesting. So far I have become fascinated with New Zealand Salmon, high country land tenure review processes and once a day milking. I am a geek people, I really am.

I've also become a travel geek. My latest obsession is going to Cambodia. I watched this documentary about it. There was a city there that, whilst London had a few hundred inhabitants, was home to 1 million people! It was 1000 square kilometres which is extremely low density. Which is why it collapsed eventually, because they farmed to much and cut down all the trees. Lessons to learn here people, lessons to learn.

I really love environmental stuff. One of my papers is about the theories of environmental and resource management. It's so fascinating! I hope I can indulge this passion in my career.

Love Where Is Your Fire

I don't know how to explain my feelings, but Brooke does:

Love, where is your fire?
I've been sitting here smoking away
Making signals with sticks and odd ends and bits
But still there's no sign of a flame

Imposters have been passing
Offering a good-feeling glow
But I'm holding out for what you are about
An inferno that burns to the bone

Some urge me to be temperate
Lukewarm will never do

`Cos I wanna blaze with you
So I'm holding my heart out to you
Holding my heart out

So I stand, handing out torches
Speaking words that are lamps to their feet
`Til the time when you come and I'm whole and we are one
And the fire in me is complete

Some tell me to be moderate
But lukewarm will never do

Now I know I'll blaze with you
So I'm holding my heart out to you
Holding my heart out

Then a doubt comes to lie at the back of my mind
That I'll offer you me and you'll politely decline
So I hasten to mute it
I'll shout and rebuke it
Away, away, away, away, away, away....

`Cos I wanna blaze with you
So I'm holding my heart out to you
Holding my heart out

Why I Am An Idiot

I am an idiot because I forgot about applying to graduate, and now I'm too late. By one day.

I mean, I'll still get my certificate, but I miss out on wearing the pretty gown thing.

GUTTED.

Rehab

I am sitting on my lounge chair in the kitchen. I am surrounded by crunchie bar wrappers. I am still typing my assignment at 11:32.

But I also had the best worship ever at church tonight and then I went off to the Lantern festival. It was so cool! I love lanterns. (There's a joke in there for you Helen).

Now, do some yoga, go to bed.

Find out what smells and get rid of it first though.

Ugh.

Rubbish bins.

I’m sorry that you turned to driftwood...

So anyways, about my dieting. Many of my regular readers know I’ve been dieting since about the 4th of April last year. Between April and December I lost 25 kilos. I then took a break of a couple of months over summer, in which term I gained about 3 kilos. I figure every summer I’ll gain a couple of kilos over Christmas/New Years, and then loose it in the new year, so I didn’t regard this as any great worry.

Getting back on the dieting wagon was pretty hard – VERY hard actually. But last Monday I climbed back on for real and lost a happy two kilos. This, combined with the one I lost on some much less serious dieting, means I back at the lightest I’ve ever been. Another week is nearly done and I’m fairly confident I’ve lost another. I only have about 10 or 11 to get down to my goal. This should occur somewhere in May/June.

It really creeps me out that in a few short months I’ll be skinny. Like, actually skinny. Not horrible bony skinny, just nice, cute, petite, skinny. My entire adult life I’ve been the fat one. Now I’m pretty much a normal size, and then I’ll be little. Wow, it’s such a mind-blowing thing. It just goes to show you can do whatever you set your mind too.

I can’t wait to write my “I’ve arrived” blog post.

Early on in my dieting career I discovered yoga and I’ve rediscovered the joy again! I’m okay at most physical things – I can run around and swim and bike all right, but I’m never good. But yoga, well I’m good at yoga. I’m naturally really flexible, and it’s just so nice to do something you feel like you could be really great at. I’m doing some reading about Christian yoga and I feel like this could be a life long hobby for me. Lots of the aspects of mediation and quietness from the Psalms can be incorporated into yoga techniques to make it a cool spiritual exercise simultaneously.
I’m really feeling nice and balanced at the moment – studying, exercising, eating really well, spending time with my friends, reading the bible and going to church – everything is going really sweetly at the moment. It’s nice.

Lent and Everything After

So, again, I am lenting. Last year, soft drink, this year takeaways. Now some of you unprincipled cynics might think that’s because of my dieting, but NO. Well, obviously it makes it easier to diet when you don’t ‘take away’, but seriously. I’m not that desperate.

Why do I do Lent? I do Lent because I believe in spiritual discipline, and because I love participating in tradition.

Firstly, I regard spiritual discipline as an important part of any spiritual life with God. It’s a way of remembering that relationships don’t just happen – they require effort and commitment. It’s a way of focusing on what’s really important. It’s a way that I take control over my body and my choices rather than just submitting to my superficial desires. It’s a way of identifying with the sacrifices that Christ made for me. It’s a way of showing my love, an act of loving if you will. It’s a sign that I am set apart, that I set myself apart. It’s part of submission – it’s a small act that symbolizes my submission.

Secondly, it’s a part of the Christian tradition. It’s a thing Christians have done for hundreds of years. It’s a way of stepping into the line of Christians that stretches far about behind me, and also before me. It carries it on. I am part of a Body of Believers across time and space. I feel more connected when I join them.

So, Lent has come and I am craving Indian. And doing something precious and valuable and unique.

Hallelujah Song

Oh yeah, I just got a great new job. Well, it's like a few hours a week and I still have to work at Smelly Ballys, but hey. I have prospects! I have more money! I have a real grown up job! Kind of.

OH YEAH! I'm stoked.

Feels like home to me

Yep, I've been in Okains Bay for four beautiful days. It really does feel like home - I've had upwards of 6 holidays there. Some with my family - some with Simona's, some with my friends.

For the last three mornings I have awoken to waves crashing, birds singing, children screaming their way down the flying fox and, okay, once some animal trying to chew through my tent. Oh and a terrible Maori welcome impersonation this morning.

I really had a holiday. I let my insides relax. I ate - well terribly (sorry fellow weight watchers). I only have six days of actual work left.

Even World War 7 can't get me down.

Plus I have a new top.

I love shopping.

Nature enter me

So Waitangi day is almost upon us in all its cringing glory. It sparks conversation even here in the paragon of white New Zealand – Ballantynes. And my co-workers were discussing Treaty claims along the lines of “if the Maoris (sic) had been treated like the Aboriginals in Australia, they’d really have something to complain about”.

And I mean, who can argue with this logic? I think all white New Zealand should give ourselves a big pat on the back for our moral fortitude in not perpetrating mass murder upon the Maori. I mean, how dare they complain about a little land theft, when we magnanimously left them with their lives? Well, ya know, mostly.

I’m still extracting my fingernails out of my palms and my teeth out of my upper jaw. As Simona so wisely advises:

Word on the street has it that one should just stay out of ignorant race based discussions and explain them away with the fact that people are simply poorly educated (which is not one’s responsibility to fix)

As (co worker) Paul says “you make me tired”

I’m lucky, lucky lucky lucky.

I am.

I am lucky.

Make that blessed.

Top Ten Reasons Why I am Blessed

1. I have found my passion and can spend my life living in that.
2. I come from a loving family, and have an awesome relationship with my parents.
3. My best friend is the best friend a girl could have.
4. I live in New Zealand, and this means I get to go camping in beautiful places, with great friends.
5. I can sing and write.
6. God Loves Me and I Love Them, all Three in One (and we, all of us, know it).
7. I have really truly great friends who inspire to be just like them (and also, serve as warnings of how not to be….J)
8. I have so much to look forward to – holidays, jobs, people, music, dreams and ambitions.
9. I’ve done the coolest things – camping for a month in the NI, the Rail Trail, tramping to Lake Daniels, mini-breaks with various people, road trips with Simona…
10. I love who I am, and who I am becoming

Yep. I am blessed.

So go on, I dare you. Post the Top Ten Reasons Why YOU are Blessed. Or comment them.

I’m accepted by the one who matters most

AND Lincoln University.

Yep, it’s true. I’m officially accepted into their Masters of Applied Science programme. My particular specialization is International Rural Development.

Basically I will be learning about the process of development as it applies to the rural sector of international……well….nations.

I’M SO EXCITED! I just can’t wait to get started.

Plus, I get to go to Samoa for 10 days to visit a real live project.

The world is a good and beautiful place (even if Greenland is loosing 400 cubic kilometers of ice very year…panic stations…)

Anchor Me In the Middle of Your Deep Blue Sea

So anyways, the key word for me these last few years has been surrender. I’ve been learning to lay down my agenda and let God “take me where you will”. YOU lead ME has been pretty much my motto. It’s been a life changing thing. Learning to release my wants and needs and allowing God to meet them in his own way has been frightening and freeing. But it came from a place of knowing of his love for me.

It kind of all began at Parachute a few years ago. I was in serious pain from a year or three of battering (O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted…). I was dying inside really. I went to one of the night concerts and quite honestly, everything changed. Tree 63 was playing – I’d never heard them before. They had the lyrics up on the screen and one of their first songs literally changed my life.

It goes like this:

Can we hang out tonight underneath Your ceiling
I could stare up at a million lights and listen to You breathing
If I fall fast asleep it's just because I feel so safe in You
It won't take much to wake me up

Could I walk out to sea way beyond these breakers
We have no place amongst the movers and the shakers
Yours is the only throne I'll ever get down on my knees before
You have the whole of me

Lover come away
Come away my lover

I heard You say
You've stolen my heart with one glance of Your eyes
When I fell down You raised me up
That's gravity

Yours is the only throne I'll ever get down on my knees before
You have the whole of me

Lover come away
When I fell down you were standing there waiting for me
You picked me up, welcomed me home
That's gravity

Won't You come away
Won't You come away with me
Lover of my soul

I stood there and cried and cried. I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that He loved me and also, that I loved him.

Another lyric said “they tell me to abandon you to make all my dreams come true. Well what am I supposed to do, I only dream of you”. It was a crazy moment because simultaneously I knew that I loved him and he loved me. Real deep passionate love like oceans and skies and mountains.

Perhaps the key line in the song above was this “yours is the only throne I’ll ever get down on my knees before”. This for me totally sums up the surrender that I needed to make. The throne that I had always bowed down to was the throne of myself – my desires, my passions, my fears, wants, needs, insecurities – my agenda. But no, that night at Parachute, I sang the words from the song and they’ve stayed with me ever since.

Anyways, the big change for me now is moving past surrender into submission. For me now, it’s not enough to just say ‘here is my life’ (YOU lead ME) but to actually submit myself to him. I come to him with my feelings (most often) and I give them to him – not just to keep but also to do with what he will. Make sense?

This a bit of a random blog, but just had to get some of these thoughts out and in an order of some kind.

I have a lot of FEELINGS at the moment – some woken up from a long sleep. Good ones and terrible bad ones. Some people who’ve been out of my life for ages have come back in. Some of these people stimulate good feelings and some not so good. I thought I’d dealt with a whole bunch of stuff but here it is – stirred back up.

I thought I was over it! But no. So back to the submission drawing board, time to let him have his way in me.

YOURS is the only throne I’ll ever get down on my knees before.