For a record, and although I dare say I might get something at the end of the year with all of our names on it, it doesn’t hurt to familiarise you (and myself) with who I’ve shared the year with. Seeing as I am procrastinating and I might as well do it efficiently.

YITS people as follows: and in no particular order, I might attempt to put a word or two down to describe them (3 words perhaps Dave :P) lets hope I can be honest without being too mean.
What I call them (alternatively in the brackets)

NB: these are my perceptions which fall far short of all these people, they are quite amazing each to his own.

Jessica W (Jess)- I went to school with her, Laura’s best friend, Driver: Actress, over-analyses, movie obsessed, needs lots of affirmation, we sometimes clash rather badly due to misunderstanding on the whole I think she’s great I just don’t ‘get’ her 😛 Expressive, Analyst, Generous

Samantha (Sam/Sammy)- I went to school with her, lives on my road, travels with me everyday: see her blog here (permission to share with my blog readers) NB: hey Sam, now that Laura has your blog link please please don’t link to this, sorry but there’s some stuff I’m not ready to let my sister know. Easy-going, Humourous, Artistic

Joanna (Jo)- Accountabilty group person: words of affirmation girl 🙂 finds it extremely hard to make descisions, kind, makes me laugh. The true Beef B 😀 the false borrower of the 31 girl book. Loving, Indescisive, Encouraging

Katrina (Katie/K of the T)- Accountability group person: quiet, we are companionable introverts, can be quite open, smiles when she means it, I appreciate that, encouraging in a very Katie kind of way. The false Beef B, the true borrower of the 31 girl book. Friendly, Honest, Reserved and (Punctual :P)

Natalie (Nat)- Musical, Responsible, Strong

Dawn – Enthusiastic, Impatient, Amicable

Tom – Clever, Charismatic (not in the Relgious sense), Changeable

David (Dave)- Entertainer, Creative, Pleaser

Jessica C (Jess)- Quiet, Melancholic, Caring

Tracey (Tracey-Malacey) – Mature, Funny, Humanitarian

Jessica H (Jess) – Flirty, Compassionate, Earnest

Alecia – Gracious, Cheerful, Responsible (She’s the one that knows Tonks)

Elyce – Modest, Supportive, Careful

Laura – Artistic, Cultured, Kind-hearted

Kerryn – Exuberant, Wacky, Encouraging

Mark – Kind, Resolute, Dependable

Michael – Funny, Enthusiastic, Distractable

Rachel – Peaceful, Sociable, Quiet

Clare – Organised, Sensible, Friendly

Iain – Lazy (and he knows it :P), Cheerful, Stout-hearted

Matt – Nonchalant, Intelligent, Unpeturbed

Darryn – Introverted, Musical, Joker

Jessmyn – Musical, Earnest, Variable

Katerina (Kat) – Non-conformist, Outspoken, Open

Sara – Cheerful, Open, Listener

Emma – Content, Independant, Considerate

Alice – Outgoing, Headstrong, Sanguine

Ben – Persuasive, Honorable, Independant

Jane – Reserved, Pleasant, Messy

Amy S – Blunt, Extraverted, Naive (but she’s still great, just the kind of person you have to use strong adjectives for)

Amy B – Shy, Smiley, Coy

Amey – Spontaneous, Detached, Competitive

Nathan – Down-to-Earth, Serious, Dependable

Kym (Kimmy)- Cheerful, Optimistic, Loud

those who know, tell me if I’ve forgotten any and if there are any words you’d particularly dispute 🙂

And 3 words for myself? Well I don’t know if it’s fair to do that – I’ll leave that up to you.

1 year since I finished school

2 years since I worked out I had to actually start living with more intention

3 years today since I joined Gush

4 years since I left the Solomons

5 years ago on Fathers Day I got baptised by my dad, alongside my three siblings

I am always curiously intrigued by the way that my thoughts are followed by something that is relevant – a class or a conversation etc…

Love
Tim Heinz came and did one of his ‘famous lectures’. As Tom said, “It feels good tohear truth – it sits right.” (paraphrase)
This love lecture was predominantly on love between you and a future partner. ‘That’ kind of relationship. He gave a definition of love borrowed from M. Scott Peck (and some book title I can’t remember).

Love is the will of extending oneself for the purpose of nourishing another’s spiritual growth

The word spiritual within the context of holistic: will, emotion, physicallity etc…

I was silenced with words I knew the fundamentals of entirely pleased at what was presented and grateful that it opened more areas to scope.

Alecia was a little disappointed in the fact it took a lot of the fairytale out of it. In some ways it did. He did not delve/look much into the romance side of things, maybe he missed that because he is male – no harshness in generalising but it’s a fairly important concept for most females.
However what he did say was good.
Love is a choice, it requires work and courage, love promotes growth in the other (telling the hard truth).
Love onesided wont work – quite obviously.

My mind started partially tripping out when I realised how some of the friendships I have are amazingly true expressions of this kind of love. I am privaliaged to know these people. Honored by the depth of truth they speak into my life and I hope I somehow return or add something to their lives.

The diagram used:

Me You

And when the two individuals grow they meet – reach the point where the me and you touch, the fingers of our lives in anothers.

Marriage puts a closing ring around this. Covenant. When the ‘falling in love’ have faded it contines, this much stronger underlying value.
One but still two individuals. No ‘I complete you crap’.
Freedom in love.
This is what I want.

I talked to Elyce about there being ‘only one’ as she was challenged by this: about praying for her future husband and minorly concerned by the potential many.
Even without this context (one)it still works. Despite free choice of any number of men of one I could/would like to end up married to. God still knows my choice before I make it. A good thing. God stands outside of time, not forced choice, but he knows.
We can still pray.

The Complicated Nature of INTJs Explained to Normal People.

In the day and age where everyone wants to be classified in some personality type, there exists an especially obscure type sitting in the oddest most abstract of corners, the INTJ. Attempting to understand these rare abstract thinkers – the computer programmer, physicist, mathematician, and philosopher – is like trying to study the mating rituals of three-toed sloths at your local zoo. The following is a linear analysis to give ourselves the deepest possible understanding of these eccentric characters.

Generally, determining if you have this temperament type is easily shown by answering this question:

You walk into a room and see a picture hanging crooked. You…

A. Straighten it.

B. Ignore it.

C. Ponder the situation’s metaphoric symbolism on the humanitarian situation in Syria, and then write a poem about it.

D. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron.

The correct answer is “D” but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes “it depends” in the margin of the test or who simply blames the whole stupid thing on “marketing”.

A = Guardian
B = Artisan
C = Idealist
D = Rational

SOCIAL SKILLS

INTJs have different objectives when it comes to social interaction. “Normal” people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction:

* Stimulating and thought provoking conversation;
* Important social contacts;
* A feeling of connectedness with other humans.

In contrast to “normal” people, INTJs have objectives for social interactions:

* Get it over with as soon as possible;
* Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant;
* Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects.

FASCINATION WITH GADGETS

To the INTJ, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories:

(1) Things that need to be fixed, and
(2) Things that will need to be fixed after you’ve had a few minutes to play with them.

INTJs like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own. “Normal” people don’t understand this concept, they believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. INTJs believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.

No INTJ looks at a TV remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No INTJ can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the INTJ, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.

FASHION AND APPEARANCE

Clothes are the lowest priority for an INTJ, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met.

DATING

Dating is never easy for INTJs. A “normal” person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. INTJs are incapable of placing appearance above function. Fortunately, INTJs have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognised as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, honest, and handy around the house and not the least bit overbearing. While it’s true that most “normal” people would prefer not to date an INTJ, most normal people harbour an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing Bill Gates-like children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity.

Male INTJs reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than most “normal” men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid-thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible INTJ males:

* Bill Gates
* MacGyver

Female INTJs become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it’s a warm day.

HONESTY

INTJs are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep INTJs away from customers, romantic interests and other people who can’t handle the truth. INTJs sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of INTJ lies is stated below:

“I won’t change anything without asking you first.”
“I’ll return your hard-to-find object/device tomorrow.”
“I have to have new equipment to do my job/research.”
“I’m not jealous of your new computer.”
“I know exactly what I am doing/talking about.”

FRUGALITY

INTJs are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in efficiency, that is, “How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?” and also, “How can I achieve maximal results from minimal work?”

POWERS OF CONCENTRATION

If there is one trait that best defines an INTJ, it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment.

This sometimes causes INTJs to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a B.Sc. or experience in computer programming is propped up in a lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it.

RISKS AND JOBS

INTJs are most strongly drawn to the scientist, mathematician, philosopher, inventor, thinking-researcher type jobs. Therefore, INTJs hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an INTJ researcher/scientist makes a mistake, the media will treat it like it’s a big deal or something. Examples of Bad Press for INTJ Scientist/Researchers:
* Hindenburg
* Challenger
* SPANet ™
* Hubble Space Telescope
* Apollo 13
* Titanic
* Ford Pinto

The risk/reward calculation for INTJ scientists looks something like this:

RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people.
REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.

Being pragmatic people, INTJs mathematically evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain. If that approach is not sufficient to halt a project, then the INTJ will fall back to a second line of defence: “It’s technically possible but it will cost too much.”

EGO

Ego-wise, two things are important to INTJs:

* How smart they are;
* How many cool devices they own.

The fastest way to get an INTJ to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No INTJ can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it’s solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the INTJ off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal – a battle between the INTJ and the laws of nature.

INTJs will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem (other times just because they forgot). And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex – and we’re including the kind of sex where other people are involved. Nothing is more threatening to the INTJ than the suggestion that somebody else has more technical skill. “Normal” people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the INTJ. When an INTJ says that something can’t be done (a code phrase that means it’s not fun to do), some clever “normal” people have learnt to glance at the INTJ with a look of compassion and pity, and say something along these lines: “I’ll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult problems.”

At that point it is a good idea for the “normal” person to not stand between the INTJ and the problem. The INTJ will set upon the problem like a starved chihuahua on a pork chop.

– B.J.H., Architect, originally from The Nature of Scientists.

Is God enough?
This has been plaguing me. Because my mind’s certainly being drastically truthful in letting me understand that I am/have been in a position where I cannot say this. Oh, I want to say it, but I know I use so much more to fill or attempt to fill me that is not God.
Yes God is enough, that’s not what I meant when I questioned it but it is the whipslash on that question that frustrates me.
Understanding that God is big enough, good enough, loving enough is not entirely the issue either. I know that he is. Allowing him to fill the void instead of sidelining Him is another matter.
In some ways I guess I have grappled with this on a daily basis – I assume most Christians do, conciously or unconciously. We are very ‘needy’ us humans. Need and want, need and want. Our desires are sadly not, rarely, if ever completely God centred.

This issue stands out like red from black when, well for me I look at the lack – or percieved lack in relationships. To put starkly – love.
A want, a desire, a need? No my life isn’t without love, to say so would discredit friends, family and so many others.
The more.
I desperately want God to meet me in this. I want so badly to be able to say, “God my shepherd: I don’t need a thing” and to fully grasp that your (God’s), “beauty and love chase after me every day of my life”.

I find it hard. I wish I didn’t. I need to look more for God’s love because I know it’s there. I have seen it. I need to stop forgetting and love God with my entirity.

Psalm 23

GOD, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through
Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
makes me feel secure.

You serve me a six-course dinner
right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of GOD
for the rest of my life.