Month: <span>May 2006</span>

Are You a Coffee Addict?

• Do you consume more than two cups of coffee, tea or cola or chocolate in a day?
• Yes
• Do you feel fatigued on and off during the day?
• Yes
• Do you go through massive emotional mood swings during the day?
• Not really
• Do you suffer from frequent headaches?
• Not frequent, but sometimes
• Do you suffer from constipation or are you dependent on tea or coffee in the morning for clearing your bowels?
• Erm, no
• Do you suffer from acidity or heartburn?
• No
• Do you feel a generalized pain in the neck, shoulders and back region and a sensation of discomfort in the legs, hands and stomach?
• Only stomach when I’ve been staying up too late and thats just because I’m hungry
• Do you suffer from a burning sensation, fatigue and heaviness in the eyes?
• The latter, yes – when I get tired
• If you are a woman do you suffer from premenstrual syndromes?
• You shouldn’t ask those kind of questions
• Do you have difficulty in going to sleep?
• Nope, I aim to wear myself out before I get there
• Do you wake up in the morning feeling dead tired?
• Sure do
• Are you easily irritable?
• Some may say so. Definitely not all the time
• Do you suffer from irregular or rapid heartbeats?
• On the rare occasion, but I believe thats a family thing and hardly ever
• Do you often feel dizzy?
• Interesting one. Because yes, like the time I keeled it at work, and standing up to fast often gets me is probably a blood pressure thing
• Do you have high blood pressure problems apart from anxiety problems?
• See above
• Do you have ulcers?
• Nope
• Do you have problems concentrating without your regular cup of coffee?
• Sometimes
• Do your hands tremor?
• Only when I am hypoglycemic which isn’t very often any more
• Do you feel dehydrated?
• Nope

If you have answered five to six of the questions with an ‘yes’ caffeine is part of your daily system, reduction or removalof products laced with caffeine from your diet will improve yourhealth considerably.

If you have answered seven to eight of the questions in the affirmative, you are a caffeine addict, and need to reduce or eliminate caffeine from your diet. Before caffeine causes any nutritional imbalance or disorder try and be conscious about what you eat and drink.

If 10 to 12 – well, you’re stuffed

So, I need to work out how much is sleep deprivation, how much is caffeine induced… and run from there.

No I’m not a hypochondriac.

If I’m going to do a ramble about my day I might as well leave the boring bits out. Which means you won’t be hearing about uni today.

It being a Wednesday, we found ourselves – a large group of about 25 sitting around the fire discussing evangelism. Odd, or really not, how it comes up in light of the post I made a few days ago, we also contemplated some ‘kindness’ evangelism which was something Jess was trying to drum into me on the way home today. Curious indeed. I think we aim to go from uni to Terry’s Tucker and so fit something useful and beneficial to others into our week. I wouldn’t mind investigating the kids part of Terry’s.

Jess and I have an interesting friendship that errupts every six months or so due to me getting frustrated at her or she totally misinterpreting what I’m on about. It’s ALWAYS a miscommunication issue – we spend a lot of time with eachother and I’m surprised we don’t grate further. It got a little on that side this afternoon, some words were spoken in a slightly unnecessary tone with some stoney silence to follow. There is only so much I can take about hearing about movies. It is her passion, she does love to talk. I do however need to watch it.

I am rather dissatisfied with myself. I was being slightly ‘stand outside thine-self’ tonight and quite annoyed at the way I do often amuse myself with the poke fun (in jest) at people comments (for things like Jess’s movie obsession). It’s not the best of ways to respect people, it’s not necessary nor helpful. Find other ways Rebecca.

Macca’s after. Items of various food bits (ie: chips and sugar packets) were being thrown around. I got a little sick of it and almost (I did contemplate it a little) without thinking opened a packet and tipped it into some surprised hands. I usually ignore such food wars. Half way through tipping the packet I realised that perhaps it was not such a smart thing to do. I turned back to the conversation I was having and promptly got my face blown full of sugar. I got most of it off and later was showered another two times from the other side of the table via a spoon missile.

Wednesday car movements:
Car moved to a 30 degree angle from my original good park, with the back now about 1cm close to Jess’s car. It took some skillful manouvering and some careful instruction to get her out. Thanks to Tim and Geoff. No thanks Dan and Cam…. until next wednesday when the adventures of Fred the Red car grace these pages again.

Go to bed!

I haven’t said it excplicitly here before but I’m taking the week off caffeine. This is a small endeavour to realign some normal sleeping habits and work out when I actually get tired, in truth it was more of an impromptu thing on Monday morning when I was about to pour the hot water into my cup. Here’s to a shocking character flaw of following ridiculous ideas through because, ‘it might be good for me’.

Whatever non-existant sleeping habits I do have – which strayed in the the 2am’ers multiple times last week, have been shot to pieces as I am totally flat by about 11:30. I didn’t think caffeine had that much effect on me, particularly as I simply drink coffee or tea when I want to (besides the wake up thing) and not always after 8pm.

They talk about the dreaded cut-it-cold-turkey headaches. Which haven’t been really that bad but I think may have been at least present some time yesterday.

It’s a difficult thing to not cave to the craving when you’re at uni and the weather is typically Melbourne – freezing, and your considerate (not that he knows) tutor is drinking proper coffee in front of you and there is enough left in the pot for whoever student happens to get in first, and those who don’t can simply go and make more. (Studio for my course comes with a kitchen which we stock, which means free coffee and tea for us!).

To be honest I’m actually feeling more awake in the mornings which is probably more due to the longer hours in bed than the actual ‘No coffee/tea’ thing.

Yesterday afternoon my lecture on Compression *yawn* finished early, so instead of waiting 5hrs for Jess, Connex did the honors. This means my car is still at Jess’s. I’d intended to be dropped there this morning, when I find out Jess isn’t going to uni until later. That’d work fine, except her Dad happens to be tuning my car today (which is there) but I have the keys. Jess arranges with me to pick me up (nice girl) and I’d come to Knox with her where she was meeting Sharon and then get the bus from there. “I’ll come at 7:40”.

7:40, no Jess, 7:50 no Jess. I call her, “I meant 8:40”. I take the hint from the circumstance to carry out my already brewing plan: wag the tute on Compression – which will be a waste of time. “I’ll come to yours after mum drops Em/Han at school”

And so here I am. Up earlier than I need to and feeling quite all right for it. Still wouldn’t have minded the extra hour sleep-in, but hey what can you do?

I want some coffee!

This is worth some thought. Persistance is something I admire and it’s interesting I came across it this afternoon after reading this on Hannah. Yes there are times when the answer simply is no. It’s a good thing to still have hope, God’s plan is for good and not harm.

Interestingly, though Christians today speak of doors that are closed, Scripture does not. The need for open doors certainly implies the existence of some that are closed. But that doesn’t seem to be the mentality of Paul. If he were sovereignly prevented from pursuing a plan, and yet the plan itself was sound, he simply waited and tried again later. He did not view a blocked endeavor as a closed door sign from God that his plan was faulty.” – Friesen (Decision Making and the Will of God)

Day #1 without Caffeine (of the coffee/tea sort)

On the drive to uni this morning _ and I had a rather long, involved and quality (I hope) discussion around the difficulty of ‘doing the God thing’. How can we simply not just be good, moral, upstanding people but be living according to God, particularly when ‘God time’ gets pushed to a lower and lower priority. ‘Quiet times’ become rapidly obsolite in light of more interesting things and we start living in this static guilt cradle of, “I’m really sorry God, I should be spending more time with you.” Where in reality, the sorry changes nothing, except perpetuates into the sorry being all the God time is about. It may be quite easy to say, “I love you God” but how can you live it? __’s concerns were all very valid and I’m only sharing them because I’ve had (and often do have) the same questions myself. I offered what advice I could and thought about how I do the ‘incorporate God thing’. For really incoporating a God who should be the centre of well, everything, is throwing a human damper on it all before you even get started.

We wound up at Tabor at the end of the day and were having a chat with Rowan. It came up again and he had some great advice, pointers and wisdom beyond what I had this morning. It was directed at her but I still found it both encouraging and interesting.

Quiet times aren’t all they are cut out to be. I do know this and its a massively good thing they aren’t the be all and end all or else (picture more flailing ninnys here).

Living in step with the Spirit (Gal 5), being imitators of God (Eph 5). This in some way is the only way we can ‘love God’.

Rowan gave _ a book (if she was interested). I promptly stole it off her, because it’s short and I’d have read it and returned it before she even got around to starting. Turns out (As I thought) it is old enough to be available online. So The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

So I was sitting reading this tonight – took me about half an hour, it’s really not that long. I tried to keep in mind the basic principle Ro’ said it outlined – the constancy of God in our lives and spotting him in what he’s already doing. It was difficult in a way because the book had some moments where I was more than entirely willing to leave it in disgust. There was very much an emphasis on thinking on God at all times, unfortuantely any other thought he seemed to dismiss as ‘wrong’ and put the priority on Love.

I like to remember that with the, ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind’ adage (verse even) that we don’t leave off the ‘mind’ at the end. I like using my mind. I’d be sorrowful piece of skin, bone and a bit of blood and fingernail without it. It’s another part of me that God has created and I intend to use it.

The writing also came across as a bit arrogant, but I think that’s just because of the age. It also seems highly more possible to think about God all the time within a ‘monk’ type situation. I mean sure he had dishes to do and meals to cook, but hah, today is distraction city. It was still a very interesting quick read just some minor mental adaptions needed to fit the generation.

God shouldn’t be he whom we intergrate, but instead he who we realise has been there all along and doesn’t depend on our ‘set aside times’ to interact with us. Stuff I know, but stuff worth remembering. Living the presence of God as if it really was here all the time (and it is) would be flippin amazing and so extremely difficult.