day of fun

hello there old friend.

it has been a while.

lack of internet time and sleep time and think about blog time has meant that blog has been neglected.

but today was blog-worthy.

nic, georgie, the ostapos and I went to Ocean Park. Lots and lots and lots of fun :D

The ostapos (ostapovich) consist of dad, mum, hilary (15), zoe (12) and leanne (8) except mum didn't come today. and georgie is 13. we met up with friends of ostapos and dad and leanne went with parents and their kids so nic, hilary, zoe, georgie and I were left to do our own thing. which was lots of fun. we started at the raging river (log ride. slow mostly and one drop at the end where you get wet) and went on that a few times, i think only twice for me and nic and maybe three times for the girls. then we went on the mine train twice which is only the second rollercoaster I've ever been on (bush beast being my first about 3 years ago). then we headed up to the other rides and me and nic went on the abyss (absolutely freaked me out seeing as i'm afraid of heights - closed my eyes almost the whole ride) and then all of us did the pirate ship ride - pitiful compared to the one at wonderland. then it was on to the dragon which is a rollercoaster with three loops. me and nic did it first and i closed my eyes the whole way, but it didn't go that fast at all. the second time hilary and georgie came on too, and i opened my eyes and it was sooo much better, especially the loopiness. and so we did it again. the third time me and nic were in the front and it was so much better because it'd look like we were going to crash into the top of the loop when we were heading for it. and then just before we'd get out of the loop the back of the train would slow us down so we'd almost stop before we were upright again.

so after that was the abyss again because hilary and georgie wanted to do it so the four of us were going to but 'cause of lack of seats the three went on and i waited with zoe and she decided she wanted to do it, so the next time her, nic and I did it. better the second time i think.

then i think we had lunch and after that went to the atoll reef aquarium and saw lots of fish and sting rays and a few little sharks and turtles and that was fun. then we did the flying swings and then took the cable car over the mountains to the lowland rides (little kids stuff) and walked around and got back on the cable cars and went back up. then we went back to the river rapids and me and nic did them twice and the girls must have done them about another 6 times. so eventually we decided to go home so we caught a bus and got off at admiralty but instead of busing back home we went to the mtr station and trained to tst and had dinner in chung king mansions at an indian restaurant. called khyber pass mess hall. yum. and then bussed back home. and now i'm writing this. all in all a very fun day hanging out with the girls. and mr nic.

i think that's all.

work tomorrow. tired. need sleep. love you all. see you sometime in the future.

rumour has it...

i'm alive! what do you know. very busy though. having lots of fun :D

and that an election's been called. i'm sure if i was home there would be lots of talk and news and debate, but being here means i don't really care or hear any of it.

rumour also has it that i've changed my flight to the 27th of november. in the morning, so i'll be back at night. and probably very tired!

that means i'll be 4 weeks in total doing what i'm doing, and another 3 weeks having fun in HK :) (not that i'm not at the moment :P)

...and the rumours are true.

stuffs

i leave tomorrow!!!!

yay!

that's mostly all i wanted to say.

except that i don't think i'll get much (or any) internet access for the first 2 weeks (france) so i probably won't be blogging. so this may be my last before i leave. and i linked my flickr account so when i get the chance to put up photos they'll be on there. and i may blog to let you know ;)

adios!

If i stayed up for another 4 hrs 45 mins I'd have been up for a full 24 hours. eek. but today was oh so much fun. well it actually started last night at oneYouth and continued today at oneYouth conference.

so i'm not gonna say what we did... although most of you won't know what oneYouth is. basically it's the five youth groups of turramurra combining for youth on friday night, and this time they decided to have oneYouth conference, which ran all day today (saturday).

So this morning we had worship and seminars and then headed out to tuzza high to fix it up. basically gardening, landscaping, cleaning and painting chairs and tables and whatever they needed.

But what I really wanted to write about is what impacted me about the day. it was so awesome everyone coming out to do something for the community, and not just that, but the sense of community between everyone that was there was so tangible. you could go talk to anyone, or ask anyone to do anything, and guaranteed they'd be happy to speak to you and help you out with whatever you needed for the task you were doing. and it didn't matter that we were all from different youths and churches - it just made it all the more fun. so many new people to meet and interact and work with, and half the time you didn't even introduce yourself; it just felt like you already knew eachother and were already friends. God's kingdom - the ultimate community. nothing awkward, just friendly, beautiful people who are all in for loving others with their actions.

even though tuzza high has gone through a pretty good transformation in some parts (although there's still a lot left to do - next year?) it's not the end result of what we can see that made it worth it, but seeing the youth of this area giving up their saturday to come together to enjoy the day with eachother, and ultimately to worship God by serving others - not so that they could get the credit and praise, but so that other may know the love of Jesus that is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling that makes you feel all nice inside; but love that is so passionate and real, that it gets its hands dirty doing things for others, and desires deeply to see others' lives transformed. I hope that the youth go away from today with a desire to continue to serve others, to show love through the way they live their lives in the everyday. We don't need our youth leaders to organise special days to give us the chance to serve - we should be looking (and praying) for the opportunites everyday to show the world the amazing love and hope we have. And it doesn't take something big.

I like this quote, and I think it sums it up pretty well:-

"We can do not great things, only small things with great love. It is not how much you do but how much love you put into doing it."Mother Teresa

And in the end, that's what it's all about.

the countdown continues...

ONE WEEK!!!

phone just rang... we've been 'randomly selected to receive a florida holiday' said the recorded voice. funny, i remember being 'randomly selected' for the same thing last week.

oh, and

you know what sucks? knowing you've hurt someone. but not being about to do anything about it. but wanting to but the only way to make them not-hurt is by doing something that would inevitably hurt them more in the end. and would be stupid and unwise. just have to hope they get over it. 'tis really the only answer. apologising only goes so far. but is all you can do :(

leaving

it's fun when you're going away. people tell you how much they love and appreciate you and pray for you and give you stuff. it's all very warm and encouraging. though some stuff can be challenging. but in a good way. like in an 'i know you can do it, step out and give it a shot, because everyone wants you to' kinda way. and then you get to go and have fun in other places! sucks when you're the one being left behind though. but finally it's my turn :D though i will miss people here at home. and definitely will miss the church fam and homegroup buddies. but i'll be back soon :) this is making me miss them already. doesn't help that i'm listening to 'if your gone' by matchbox 20 :P feeling an anticipatory excited/nervousness. but mostly excited.

8 days! yay.

picture this...

3 indecisive females in a cafe that is known for primarily selling chocolate stuff.

that was me, ree and mum in max brenner on saturday. dad sat down after not much time. took us much longer to decide on what we wanted :P oh but so good.

8 days and counting...

because i can...

16 days til i leave!!! yay. excitement. although according to my facebook countdown it's actually 15 days and 13 hours (til my flight leaves).

except that i realised that i've got a bit to do before i leave... hm should make a list. to add to all the other lists i've made... hm.

was thinking about it tonight. the past few weeks seem to have gone really quickly, so i've been kinda just assuming that the time overseas will go quickly too. but thinking about all the stuff that i'll be doing (at least for the france bit) and not knowing what a lot of that is, and knowing that the un-sightseeing (and downtime) stuff is probably going to be somewhat out of my comfort-zone stuff it could potentially seem like a long time, especially for the first time going overseas without family. and then there's my tendancy to get homesick. which hasn't really been a problem in the past few years but i haven't travelled that far away for this long before. shall be interesting. i think i'm fine as long as the people i'm with are good friends who i'm close to and can talk deep stuff with and who know me and can pick up on how i'm feeling... that last one will probably not happen so much (seeing as my family tend to be the ones that do that bit well) but is annoyingly probably the most important in not being so homesick. i think i need to work on communicating better...

mum and dad (and me kinda) are watching 'under the greenwood tree' on the abc at the moment (series based on the thomas hardy book - i tried reading it last year for extension english wide reading but gave up because i didn't have that much time and the language was ridiculously old school). but really all i was going to say is that one of the characters is rather good looking :P seen him on something before... watching it makes me start thinking of all the paradigms and stuff from last year... oh the fun we had disecting everything and over-analysing :P

anywho. twisted plot - everyone likes the one lady (miss day)... she likes the lower class guy (but of course can't be with him 'cause he's under her and can't support her). he's also the good-looking one. and now this other guy thinks she likes him (and proposed) 'cause of what the other guy (who also likes her) said in drunken stupor 'cause she turned him down and saw her talk to this other guy and assumed the person she loved was him. confused? hehe.
oh and the plot just got more twisty. speaking of food i've eaten rather too much this weekend.

that's all. oh and i'm working at dh tomorrow. and really hoping i get more work than just one day.