Caught up with Analise yesterday for lunch after church. I was rather excited when Laura told me she saw her car out the front. I guess I’ve missed her good natured company more than I’ve realised. She and I ended up at LaPorchettas. Ate too much food and had a good chat/catch up. Uni’s treating her fairly well. She’s going to do some church hunting though as the AOG up in whatever little town near Wodonga she’s in, isn’t really her thing.

Had a really good chat with Jess this morning coupled of course with some Dionne Warwick. Beats Bollywood soundtracks that’s for sure.

My one 1hr lecture today was entirely useless. Basic basic photoshop. I snoozed and watched the people out in the hall to pass the time. Jen was sitting behind me (I came in a bit late). Good to see a more familiar face even if I don’t really know her that well. Deakin’s parking sucks. Every second car was parked illegally, our bowling alley carpark was full (Bah to Luskie who got a spot!) so we ended up braving a park in Red Rooster up the road. They have a half hour limit there. I’m waiting for a message back from Jess to let me know if we managed to avoid a fine. Hopefully.

I finally got my concession card all sorted and was just in time to grab the Belgrave train from. Had to get off at Ringwood so in the spare 15 minutes I ran most of the way through Eastland to the other side where Teds (the photo/camera shop) is. Bought some film. They didn’t have any 55mm lens caps so ran back and just got back in time.

Had the funniest train ride then, whereby the whole of my end of the carriage was watching this guy who was asleep on the seats. He half fell off and got back on, still entirely out to it. Moved around, curled his legs up and rolled over and moved some more. His head and half his body was hanging of the side. A school girl was sitting nearby quite unpreterbed and slid across whenever he shuffled his legs and spread further out. I was laughing (silently, as you do), more grinning and ‘sharing the moment’ with a few others. It took him a good while, but he finally fell off the seat entirely with a massive thud and woke up. Mumbled something to the girl and a couple of guys asked him where he was getting off, “Glenferrie”. “Uhh, you’re on the wrong train mate.” Quite amusing.

I decided quite on whim to get off at Croydon and check the Camera House place they have there and found the cap I was after. Then another wait for a train and then home.

Dropped by Sam’s place on the walk home and she came down for dinner. Dinner was absolutely hillarious. Namely due to the conversation that followed the exposure of our very disturbing (and ridiculous) ferret calendar that lives in our bathroom. Laura and I have surupticiously been graffitiing “Dumb Ferret” messages across the pictures for the past few weeks and we intend to leave a pen stuck with blutac to the wall to aid the process. I don’t know who is responsible for buying the thing but it has the most random and stupid captions. I laughed til I cried and Sam couldn’t breathe so I think she was nearly there. Conversation degenerated therein when ‘bathroom’ became the subject. I have a crazy family.

My little 15 year old sister has a gig! Her highness has been asked to sing (solo) for one of her friends’ sisters wedding. Not at the reception as entertainment, but as she’s walking down the aisle!!! Hannah is of course freaked that she’ll screw it up, but I think is rather excited all the same. We all are I think, but like we’d let her know. So I think we’ll be hearing the jazz song, “At Last” a lot in the next few weeks. She has a very curious voice the old Hannah. Not very typical.

And that’ll do for now. Hazzard Perception tomorrow. Still have to work out where to get off the tram. It’s about time Rebecca!

I’m am always rather pleased and often surprised when God presents me with an extrapolation of something he’s been showing me. Take the sermon this morning. Despite being entirely distractable I did not fail to miss the pointed stab that proceeded from the ‘Unsafe God’ post I made of my scrambled head a day or so ago.

Peter Downes was preaching (with minimal visual aids again, which helps to lose me really fast) on John 6:25ff.

25When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Very roughly paraphrasing on something that was said, “Look beyond the physical (here being the miraculous signs) and instead look at who Jesus is”. Throw everything onto the scales of humanity and weigh up what’s important. What is most important?

I think in a round about kind of way I’ve been too long looking at or at least focusing on finding myself and seeking to understand how and why God would love me (as one example). I came across something I’d written in a New Testament class last year and the focus was distinctly there. However I don’t think that I’ve been exclusively devoted to that in this past while as I’ve found journal evidence otherwise. I’ve been trying somewhat unconciously to look at the flipside – How to know/love God etc… Who God is. I think I actually set out intentionally to do this some time ago (progressively through the other stuff YES, but more specifically) but I’ve been feeling around a bit in the dark. Just stuck. I think.

Not sure how clear that is in relation to the other stuff, but it made perfect sense at the time. What that means for me now I’m not entirely sure. I can only pray for God to show me more of himself, which isn’t a new prayer really, and maybe you’d be kind enough to ask the same for me when you consider it yourself.

Huzzah! New bookshelf for Bec, about double the size of the last one. Sad thing is it’s already full. Shows just how many books have been sitting around on my floor or in inconvient spots in my room for the past few months. Big fat theology books finally have a home instead of being stuffed up the top of my cupboard out of the way. Kudos to Dad who built the thing and fixed the network so I can print from my room!

I have yet to work out what to do with the bigish picture thing of different trees from Central Australia (Took the photos and put it together back in 2002 – my thats a long time ago now) as the space is now covered up. It looks like I might just have to throw some hooks into the area above my desk and above every thing else.

By gaining the shelf, I was forced/inspired, maybe divinely so to clean my room fairly decently. The desk was the worst bit. My room is fairly neat in comparison to many I’ve seen, but bit of random paper end up stacked along one side and sorting them all out is a royal pain. I rediscovered where most of my work payslips had gone to, which was good. Filled up the rubbish bin, and managed to ressurect four cacti from my once populus collection. Spike lives on. Considering that particular one has survived for no less than six years and has hardly grown it’s quite impressive.

So I’ll just continue sitting here in my room for the time being getting slightly high on the varnish smell that will probably linger for at least another week.

Last night saw 83.3% of us (That being my immediate family minus Emily) at an 18th. Philip and the rest of the Coombes have been family friends since before I think Laura and I were even born. They eventually somehow ended up in the same country as we did, which is fairly strange considering the great appeal *sarcasm* and size of the Solomon Islands in the vast map of all the places Wycliffe sends people.

I knew it would be a different 18th. Firstly, it’s a missionary family which immediately drops a bomb the size of difference from 30 feet up, secondly – it’s the Coombes. They aren’t exactly typical.

Phillip Mellow aptly put it thus, “Philip was born in the wrong era”. Somehow he managed to say it kindly and I’d thank him for it if he ever read this because I was thinking somewhat along the same lines but couldn’t find a way to word it nicely, so didn’t.

A bushdance. It was very spread out. Lots of little kids running around, young families. And most wearing some form of red as indicated by the invite. It was a bit awkward and funny and lovely all at once. Kanagroo Ground (where the Wycliffe centre is) is my second home. Many furloughs have been spent there. We’ve pretty much stayed in every kind of residence on property, which is no mean feat. I am always glad to take opportunities to go back and re-explore.

I had this keen sense of how we change and we grow and get older and we ever so slowly move on and don’t realise until we return to somewhere that was once common ground.

It got vastly more comfortable when the Mellows arrived. Which meant company that wasn’t run off their feet organising things. Wow I love those boys to bits. I had a good chat to Heather then Greg about uni and ‘new stuff’. Then got to catching up with Kevin, Leon and Phil.

I avoided the first bit of bushdancing. It’s a funny thing to do. It’s so utterly daggy, but if you get something good and fast it’s a fair bit of fun. Laura and I did the heel and toe, which is probably the easiest and known by almost everyone.

Fingerfood. I grabed enough to keep me going, ate it and decided to desert the festivities in order to catch the sun going down (with my camera) and a walk alone.

Wandered down Graham Rd. The place has changed a little, as it has every time I come back. I watched the sun go down over the reserve, it was beautiful. Came back around the outside road (in the centre) and found the kangaroos. There are far less of them now. I didn’t see the albino one.

I timed things to perfection, which means I arrived back roughly just as the last speech was concluding. Shoot me if I ever have to suffer long speeches at a 21st. My parents wouldn’t be so cruel or so eager. Time for cake. More bush dancing – Leon obliged me (or I him :P) so we had a bit of fun.

Had a brief chat with Rachel at the end of the evening and met a girl from Chad (well MK) who’s just come back ‘for good’ and having to do the settle into a real school. I was fairly surprised to hear that Philip had finished school (I shouldn’t be really) and doing preapprenticeship for building at Box Hill, her last year also. Looking at going into childcare or similar. They’ve done things so differently to the way Mum and Dad helped us slide back into Australian culture. I am grateful for the way things are. Naomi has grown up heaps. I envy TJ, as he gets to head back to the Solomons for a while.

The Pijin dedication should be happening (hopefully) in 2008. It will see each of us B’s girls scrimping every dollar for a flight over there. I think Dad will take a team (missions trip) over and I’m sorely tempted to get some friends coming along, so they can see where I grew up – 🙂 bit selfish. It’s a big ask, because it’s not cheap. I don’t know how easy going back would be but I’m going to do it.

I bought Photoshop today (CS2 suite). Got to love student prices. Should hopefully arrive in a few days. It’s about time I own the worlds most magnificent computer program. I’ve used it so much and I’ve missed not ever having it at home.

I also decided today, after looking at the times Mitch (Deakin photographic equipment guy) has his ‘store’ open that I would go and find myself an analog (film) SLR to save me the utter pain of borrowing one every few weeks. ALL his opening times are extremely bad for me. So I now own an old (1980’s) Minolta X700 that I’ll hopefully be able to work out as it looks horribly confusing compared to anything digital. I think I have chosen something appropriate, and the lens on it looks okay. If not, I have 30 days to work that out. So that impromptu trip to Cash Converters set me back $45. Which is not too bad. Hooray for there being 30% off. Biggest problem is that it did not come with a lens cap, which is rather inconvienient but I dare say I can find one on ebay or similar. Quite exciting really. I get this thrill out of holding new (well old) technology – particularly when it belongs to me. Something about cameras can strike awe even into the clueless.

Of course my bank card is still in the process of returning to me by means of replacement so it looks like I’ll have some debt repayment.

And no, of course I haven’t forgotten about needing to buy a car! :S