I hope this explains things some...
I'm haven't posted for quite a while...not like I expected. I was planning on giving you guys a big "update" post as soon as we made it home from Sydney. Well, this is the first I've checked my e-mails in the last five days. I just copy and pasted this out of an e-mail I just wrote to a dear friend,and I hope it helps to explain things some...
~~~~~~
I'm so sorry it's taken me this long to get back to you. I ment to reply as soon as I got home...but as soon as I got home my whole life kind of went upside down and through the blender. For starters I wasn't expecting my body to crash so badly. I slept for 12 hours and all I ended up doing after eating was going back to bed. The next morning I had such a bad sinus headache, sore throat and runny nose that I just had to have caught the flu. Then that night Mum and Dad told us that Grandpa had died early that morning.
I guess, I hadn't really been coping with just being extra sick on top of the usual. I had already dropped to depression level, and then to hear Papa Doug was gone....somehow it still seems so unreal, yet so real as well. Logically I know I won't see him when I see Grandma next, yet the image of him standing beside her is still there. Could you please really pray for me? I feel I really need it at this time. I feel so sick and depressed, and I wasn't even able to face unpacking my bag neveralone Grandpa dying. Somehow, I'm not sure I'm even really grieved yet...I've cried some, but I think the worse of it will come later when I'm physically coping better. The last few days I've just spent trying to live the day through, escaping in books and movies.
I'm sorry this is a pretty down e-mail...After having a great time down there, I was the last person expecting such a deep valley waiting for me when I got home. I'm still trying to smile--but I guess, you know how hard that can be sometimes, hey?
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I've decided to start a new section on my sideline called "collection". A place to put links to stuff I've written. If you'd like to take a peek, I've put up two of my latest so called "writings". The night I learnt Grandpa had died I wrote
Grandpa of My Heart. Then, two days ago, I wrote
When Walking In the Valley when I was at my lowest point. There's a few other titles under "colletion", but I haven't made up their pages yet. Hopefully they'll be up soon, though. Or...who knows...one day. I'll be sure to let you know when, dearies. :)
5 Days Since an Update
Whoops. I'm not really ready to do one now...BUT we did get the film from my camera developed today, so as soon as I've got them scanned onto the computer when we get home, I'll have this woppa big post (or two if it comes to that) with wonderful photos and long captians ;)
You know, right now Josh, Tach and Hannah have hopped down to Hurstville (the suburb down from this one) on a mission to find and buy crazy hair dye. The plan is to dye Josh's hair with purple and green streaks just for the evil pleasure of getting a reaciton from Mum. *giggles evilly* I just hope they can find some...
Also, I've been re-inspired to jump back into Riven, the computer game, and see if I can win it before Matt does. It's such a brain-twister, and even Mum and Matty (that's the one in Zambia, not the brother-in-law) couldn't fully figure it out with the cheat sheets. lol Like, they did it but I think at some points they weren't exactly sure why they were doing it. They were just following what those words on the printed out sheet of paper was telling them.
Anyhow, as I was originally saying, the updates coming. We have the whole 15 hours train/bus/car trip back tomorrow, then the next day I might be able to do it then. We'll see....there's still the unpacking, sharing all our great buys and photos, and sleeping (in my soft, soft and warm bed! I'm so in love with my bed. he..he..), eating (I'm going to miss eating all of Tach's yoghurt on her), and talking-a-mile-a-minute with Mum sos we can catch up on each others week to come first.
In This Latest Editon of "Adventures in the Big Smoke"
We bring to you the scary, the stand-your-hair-on-end, the bizarre, the send-you-hiding-under-your-bed revelations of:
* How I attacked an old lady with a loaf of bread.
* How I got a $1 dollar ice cream (with waffle cone!).
* How I was a passenger in a car driven by a Bug-Eyed Meanie Monster.
* How I tried on, chose, and bought my FIRST set of makeup in under 1/2 an hour.
* How I drank a frozen mango yoghurt smoothie straight out of the blender
* And how tonight I'm off with four other members of my darling family to go see ROTK for the second time.
~Thursday~
The incident with the old lady and the loaf of bread--in my belief--actually made her day. It was one of those "whoops" situations. Tach had sent me off in search of a loaf of bread, and after idly debating between the whole-grain (Tach's favourite) and the wholemeal (my favourite), I flicked the whomemeal loaf off the shelf with what was probably more energy than needed. The naughty little loaf then went flying around my side and went "smack!" into the head of this really short old lady who had unwittingly managed to stand right to the side and a little behind me. "I'm so sorry!" I'm babbling, whilst this lady actually stood there laughing and patting me on the shoulder with a, "I'm fine." Which, though I was walking down and out that aisle as quickly as possible, made me feel better. Looking back from the end of the aisle, I saw she still had an amused smile on her face--left me wondering if I should attack little old ladies with loaves of bread more often.
The $1 dollar ice cream is all tied in with the free ice cream I told you Baskin 'n' Robbins was going to be giving out last night. As it turns out, it actually ment that if you put in a gold coin to this organization that helped kids, they'd give you an ice cream. So, in went my one dollar and they handed me the most delicious berry swirled scoop of ice-cream with chips of chocolate in it. It was soooooo good. The perfect ending to our quick late-night on the shops. Which, where I actually got this cool $10 buck shirt! It's this chocolate kind of red with 3/4 sleeves, a widish neckline, and this white design with Kensington University written around it. Tach fell in love with it too, and seeings as it's not like we're living in the same place together anymore, she bought one too. One size larger of course. We have a pair of pants that we did that, also. These beautiful brown moleskins. She's got a size 12 (as far as I know, your American sizes are different to our Aussie ones. A 12 for us is average whilst I believe it's kind of on the stocky side for you), I bought the size smaller.
Now the bug-eyed meanie monster....*giggles* the guy Tach married, Matt, is one of those extroidinary people who can do the most varied range of accents and voices. One of them is this character he made up for a story he once wrote when he was 17. They're the bad guys, The Bug-Eyed Meanie Monsters who are the wildest drivers this side of Mars (in the story they kid-nap the main character and end up terrorizing drivers on the free-way...). If you've ever seen Lilo & Stitch, the Bug-Eyed Meanie Monsters sound just like Stitch. That cute, high-pitched "hsss...we goes faster we do. Fast! Fast! FASSSST!" Well, what happened Matt was driving the car with all of us home from our shopping/ice-cream eating spree last night when somehow we got him playing the role of the Bug-Eyed Meanie Monsters. You can imagine that at that time of night we were all so tired we just about killed ourselves laughing.
Then way, way late last night after my shower I started to get hankerings for a smoothie. With just frozen mango yoghurt, milk, and a banana I ended up with the most delicious frothy, thick smoothie. The first 2 cups I just ate out of a cup with a big desert spoon (for some reason I love this method...makes more mouthfulls ;-), then the last half cup or so I was like, "man, why not just drink it straight out of the blender?" They have the spout and all....try it sometime, it's hygenic (if you're the only one in the kitchen) and gives you a thrill of having "stepped out of the box" he..he..
~Friday~
Today, after all of use had slept in, and manged to pull ourselve into some resemblance of order, we jumped on the next train and headed into town. My main goal was to visit The Body Shop. I'd begun thinking lately that maybe it was time to start dabbling in make-up. The looming sweet 16 of my next birthday started me thinking...lol Anyhow, The Body Shop is a great place, and they give you a free try of anything you want. So, with the help of this great girl, we fiddled with a few different colours in the foundations, blush, and lip gloss, and in no time we found the perfect colours. So pretty! I love 'em. They're subtle enough that I don't feel like I'm blaring out "I'm wearing make-up", yet they give me just the colour I need. I kept getting "oh, you look so pretty, now!" so I take it, it's all good ;)
Anyhow, my free hour is like one minute off of being up, so I better run. We're off to eat and then go out for a late-night showing of ROTK. Can't wait!
Sonrisa! :)
1st Day in the Big Smoke
And I'm one happy lil'le girl eating yoghurt! I love the stuff, but we have to make our own at home and had run out of the needed ingredients, so before we left home I put Tach under strict orders to have some in the house (as well as TimTams. Coz' according to our dearest Hannah, she had never eaten TimTams before! *gasp* One thing that's going to get rectified along with many other things this week...). She did have yoghurt :D We got in about ten o'clock on the train last night. I was so knackered. I'd only had like an hour and a halfs sleep the night before. I did sleep a bit on the train but it's not the same. So, we got back to Tach and Matt's flat and I ate yoghurt, and this morning I'm eating yoghurt, and tonight I plan on eating more yoghurt, and then....*contented smile*
Tach took Hannah and Josh out on the town. Left me to sleep. When I woke up I figured it must have been like eleven o'clock or something. The clock in the lounge room read quarter to 1:00. I guess I really must have needed the sleep. A whole 12 hours of it. And I'm glad I did get it. I feel "normal" again, and ready to hit the shops tonight. Yay! Baskin 'n' Robbins, apparently is giving out free scoops of ice cream tonight as well. Even better *grins*
Hmm...I wonder how they're doing. Hannah and Josh have never been to Sydney before...Hannah's face was just the greatest when we hit Central Train Station last night. It's just the hugest maze and confuddle of human flesh there. I remember when I first saw it, I was like: *mouth moves uselessly like a fish in water* the next thing I was thinking "How on earth do you know how to get out of here, Rach?" My lil'le head was in knots trying to take it all in. Looked like Hannah went through the same thing. he..he..
No, I Didn't Die...
...the computer did. Ok, half did. Well, actually a "little bit" did. It was crazy! lol Ok, now that I'm finally here, and now that I'm about to leave, and had a bad day. ANYHOW, to start at the beginning, blast throught the present and then describe the future.
A few days ago, our computer got hijacked. Not the little man on another computer type but actually this search engine/spy-ware cookie planted inself into the very guts of our computer. Every time we opened a new internet window it would send off hundreds of little messages to it's "parent" and spyware to all our friends computers. On top of that it brought up a search bar on the bottom of our screen. Nasty, nasty little thing. Drove us nuts and in the process was costing us heaps of money becaue we were the ones paying for it to send out all those little messages. *mutters unintelligent threats at spy-ware companies*
After a long haul Mum was finally able to find help on the net that walked us through the very dangerous process of worming our way into the very heart of our computer to delete this little hijacker. Mum got paranoid, however, and then went through all our internet options turning every nob to "high" security. What she didn't realise was that this prevented us from signing into anything on the net (e.g. hotmail, yahoo, blogger, and even some search sites). We were all about to die. :S I have never been banned from the computer like some kids get, but two days was enough to make me realise it must be the absolute pits.
After alot of banging our heads on the keyboard and sending out pleading e-mails to our internet provider, Sonlight forums, hotmail and everyone else, Mum finally had this great recollection of changing all our internet options in her panic. And now here we are. lol Often we wonder if these kind of things only happen to our family...
In the other news: I'M LEAVING FOR SYDNEY TOMORROW! Yay! I would have warned you guys about this days ago, but as the above explanation explains...
My darlin' sis, Tach, and her hubby make their sweet home in Sydney. Josh and Hannah (11 yrs) have never been down to visit her in the big smoke since she got married last year, and now that they're "big" they're all set to make their debut trip without Mum and Dad. Of course, however, they need their widely-experienced jet-setting sister to chaperone them. And of course, I didn't complain about any excuse to pop down to Sydney to visit Tach and go shopping *grins wildly at the possibility of spending more money*. Espeically since after a close examination of my bank account in January told me I coudln't possibly think of making another trip down until at least July.
I'm still broke (whilst Han and Josh are Mr & Mrs Rich-O), but somehow I managed to scrounge up enough work hours to be able to afford it. Even if I hadn't I think Han and Josh would have seriously thought of paying my way for me. They're so keen to travel *alone*. lol They're so cute.
We're going for a week. Leave tomorrow morning at 6:00am *groans* and get into Sydney tomorrow night at about 9:00pm. It's a full 15 hours; a long day, but at least we get all our travel over in one day. I think the worse is when you have to sleep over at some point. Can't stand that.
....this is seriously turning into an unintelligible rambling. Ah, well. I'm exhausted. I felt sick to my stomach today. :S And considering all of my sleeping hours happen between 3:00am and noon, I have no idea how I'm going to survive tomorrow. I'm taking a pillow...
The whole week should be interesting, with me falling to sleep here there and everywhere. he..he..but it'll still be great fun. I haven't seen Tach since Christmas, plus it's going to be great showing Han and Josh all the sites. We're even going to walk across the bridge (that's Sydney Harbour Bridge) and pay $6 bucks to climb up one of the pineslines (sp?)!
I'm not sure when I'll be able to post any updates. It mightn't happen until we've been home a couple of days and I've been able to sleep 36 hours straight. No matter how it happens, I hope y'a'll have an awesome week like I know us three will. And I promise to show you heaps of photos when we get back ;)
You Know You're a Writer When:
* You feel betrayed, let down, or in need of vengence when you think of better plot twists or endings than the author.
* When the words 'Passive Voice' and 'Sentence Fragment' make you scream and swear at your computer.
* If you have bought a journal, been inspired to write a book by the journal, but never actually put anything in the journal because you were too afraid of ruining the beauty and possibility of all those empty pages
* When you start laughing for no reason and poeple ask you what you were thinking about and all you can say is you 'read' it somewhere
* You annoy people watching a movie with you by saying out loud what you think will happen next.
* And more often than not are right...
* And so end up having the other person annoyed at you for "spoiling it" for them.
* You refer to your charachters as if they're real people.
* If you check out people on the bus/train, for random characteristics you can give your characters. Also to build your characters' wardrobes.
* You obsessively sit real close to the TV screen whilst the credits role "looking for cool names for my characters."
* You're always on the lookout for baby name books.
* And all the members in your family are, too...
* When you constantly speak in metaphors.
* And then have a really hard time of it trying to explain it's complexed meaning when the other person's face goes blank.
* You pronounce words wrong in verbal conversation because that's how you thought it was pronounced when you read it.
* You come out with great sounding long words when writing (and even know how to spell them perfectly), but then can't for the life of you remember what they mean. You just *know* it's the perfect word.
* You make references to obscure information, and it takes you a minute to realize it isn't common knowledge.
* You think of something you want to tell someone, and then you think what you reckon they'll say back, and then you end up having this extensive two-sided conversation with yourself, complete with fully described actions and facial expressions.
* You get upset with your characters because they go and do something that totally ruins the whole play-out of the plot.
* You read a book, and a simple phrase can make you say, "Oooh! Story title!"
* When you find yourself watching movies and analyzing how the movie-makers used tension and raised the stakes to make it more exciting. And then you start wondering how you could apply this to your novel.
* You can't talk or do speeches in public, but you could write it over the internet and feel just fine.
* You find yourself naming your pets after your own characters, or give them hard-to-pronounce foreign names that "have great meanings!"
* You would prefer to sit in the middle of the mall and be entertained by the unsuspecting passing multitude then go see a movie.
* And think of detailed hobbies, hates, loves and family predicaments for certain individuals who happen by.
* You save MSN convos containing halarious recounts by your friends for further refference.
* And then wonder if you really should have admited to that in public.
* You read through 6 forum pages of people sharing their YKYWW , related to 95% of them and then composed a list of your own...
Selfish in Our Faith
I'm not sure I could really write anything about this right now and have it come out remotely understandable. It's been in my mind, but in a swirl, and so when I read this small passage from Josh Harris' (the guy who wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye) Blog, I had to cheer.
~~~
Some people say they’re wary of organized religion. My childhood predisposed me to be suspicious of organized anything. My dad was a self-taught entrepreneur who had dropped out of high school and built a successful career by self-motivated hard work. He never went the normal route; never did the group plan. He figured things out himself and taught me to do the same.
When I turned 6 my parents decided to home school me. Back in the early 1980s home schooling was brand new and an almost subversive endeavor. It was cool. You felt like a rebel. Public school was something scary like the Imperial Death Star. Big yellow buses came to the neighborhood, swallowed up children and took them away. I didn’t need a school. I could learn on my own.
Like many Christians my faith was often two parts Americanism and one part Christianity with a good dose of self-esteem thrown in. The poster on the wall of one Sunday school class read: “God made me and God don’t make no junk.”
I received the subtle but pervasive message of independence in my faith. As one writer put it, my faith was about Jesus and me, not Jesus and “we.”I remember being told that if I had been the only sinner in the world Jesus would have died just for me. Now I treasure the fact that God loves us individually and that Christ died for me. But it seems that even this truth can be twisted into a celebration of self at the expense of the fact that God’s amazing plan has always been to save for himself a people. Since the days of Adam and Eve there have always been at least two sinners in need of saving. Today millions have been saved through faith in Christ and yet with our rugged individualist tendency we find a way to make God’s great plan of salvation mostly about ourselves.
Maybe that’s why we love to talk about having a “personal relationship” with Jesus. It’s a wonderful truth—but do we misuse it? Hey, it’s nice to know that no matter how annoying other Christians might be, we can go into our rooms, shut the door and have our personal, exclusive relationship with Jesus. If other Christians let us down we can make it on our own.
But can we really? And were we meant to try?
~~~
....posted by Josh Harris
It's something that has seriously disturbed me. So many of the P&W songs on my CDs are all about the author praising God "for all You've done for ME". And that's great! He did die for each one of us individually, but from looking at just how many songs centre on this one little thing, it just shows how wound up this western world is in that attitude.
That selfish attitude.
God did die for me. But he also died for the 1 billion brown-skinned Chinese that live in China. Shouldn't we be celebrating and praising God more for His infinite love for all people and not just for our own salvation? How is it that we could be so self-centred that we don't?
In the Night
Yo ho...it's been a few days since I've posted. Things have happened: I've had a small scare, been given a new nickname, had a historical moment with my dear Daddy, but have also been really tired too (surprise, surprise).
I was sleeping real well there for about five days. I was taking my tablets at 2am, then sleeping solid 'til about noon/2pm when I had to take my tablets again. Which is the whole reason for my newest nickname...
It was actually around 4:30am (I hadn't fallen asleep yet, and all because of the most wonderful book. I'm sure you all know what that's like :P) when Dad's cheeky grin came around the door post. That was our "historical moment" simply because despite living in a crazy routine which leaves me living half my life in the dark, everyone else in my family had stumbled across me on some night or another, but not Dad. It was rather funny. I chatted with him as he ate his breakky, then as he went off to start work, I went to bed.
Before he left though, he was like, "You know, we should start caling you 'owl'. You sleep all day and are up most of the night." Then continuing he mused, "Hmm...what about Barn Owl?"
I was still laughing...
Then he was like, "Mopoke. A little Mopoke Owl." His silly little grin just got wider, liking the sound of it, and in a sing-song voice went on, "Mopoke. Mopoke. Mopoke." lol So there 'tis, the name that now greets me everywhere. I'm actually not minding it. It sounds kind of cute when it's said, plus it's just down-right funny.
I think it was that day, actually, that I got my scare. I got up as usual around 2:00 o'clock, ate, had a shower. But I was feeling kind of "drugged". It was like my only goals were to drag myself to the next possible means of supporting furniture to collapse onto. That wasn't all that bizarre. I often feel like I've been drugged or something. Because of it I just lazed around in the bean bag reading (the next book in the series that is ;)), and so it was totally weird when I started to feel my heart racing. Just sitting there, and it's pumping wildly as if I'd just run around the house five times.
I know that if I over dose on my medication I can over stimulate my body which means my heart will start racing, and all my thyroid symptons will just get worse (like my hands and feet will suddenly get so cold it's as if they've been sitting in a bucket of snow), and I can seriously get the shakes. And all that was happening. But the thing is, I haven't changed my dosage for over two weeks now. There'd been no increase that could have brought on an over-dose.
Mum and I tried to take my pulse rate. I'm not sure how successful we are as nurses, seeing as she came out with 80 per minute and I 100. Going on either of them it wasn't racing so bad to be life-threatening. It was just bizarre. We figured we'd just wait until the next day and see if it was still acting funny before we did anything.
It wasn't. The next day I felt great. So, we've just decided to add it to the bizarre-but-unexplainable-list.
Right now, I'm thinking I can't wait until Monday and all my dear siblings have to go to bed early and are doing school quietly in the morning when I'm sleeping. Last "night" (if you can call from around 6am to lunchtime that) I didn't get much at all considering they all woke up abounding with energy this morning. Ah, so I'm a total zombie today, but I really can't fault them, I guess. They're sweet enough now, as it is, in how careful they are not to come badger me when I'm resting.
I think I've become somewhat spoilt though. he..he..seeings as on weeknights I have sole possession over the computer and TV remote. Then when the weekend hits and they're allowed to stay up as long as they like, I find myself having to suddenly *share*. lol
Bring on Monday and a good nights sleep....
