Thursday, January 31, 2008

Snowkid

Major respect to this kid. He could charge for entry and retire by 15. I wish I was an inventor. All I can do is Lego. Oh, and Technic. The day I first finished one of those... I became a man. The day I grow my first chest hair... I'm having the biggest party of all time.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

PEN15

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to apply for the much-respected and sought after position of member of the PEN15 Club. I believe I am a very worthy applicant. I work hard, I am loyal to the death, and I am a good team player.

My past achievements include Captain of the "Highlighting Rude Words Like Vagina In The Dictionary And Then Leaving It Open In People's Tubs" Team* and a Pen License by the end of Grade 3**. I am brave and willing to go out on a limb, as demonstrated by my membership in the State "Shouting Out 'Penis' In Public Places" Team***.

I am also adept at inserting the words "poop", "fart", and "bum" into sentences. EG. (see above) My past poops include Captain of the "Farting Rude Words Like Vagina In The Bum And Then Pooping It Open In People's Anuses" Team and a Fart License by the end of Grade Doodle.

A long time passion of mine has been the art of using "Your Mum" as the basis of my whole humour. Clearly people that can do this are amongst the highest intellectual percentile in the country... nay, the world****.

Please consider my application. I think I have much to offer to your society.

Your (mum's) friend,

C. Mywilly

PS. What exactly would I do in this club? I'm not sure of the required actions, just of the club's prestige. But seriously. I'm in. I would get PEN15 tattooed on my forehead. That's how down I am. Please like me?

*... I actually used to do that. It was very amusing to see them freak out and try to hide it so nobody knew their dirty secret.

** Untrue. I stole my Pen License and forged my incompetent teacher's signature. She did not know.

*** I never played this. Just shouted out other words to try and fit in. But some Year 10s were playing it on my bus today and hence, this blog.

**** Being aware that sarcasm is the supposed lowest form of wit. I'm fairly sure "Your Mum" is lower... "Your mum's the lowest form of wit."

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Skin

I have skin problems. I've had them all my life. I'm always in pain, because it's...painful. I'm always itchy, because it's...itchy. Basically, I have a bit of eczema, a bit of hayfever, an ever-changing list of things I'm allergic to, bad reactions to heat and stress, and so on. The list is probably longer than the list of magnetic people in the world*. Because that list is not very long. Obviously**.

One list that is possibly larger than the problems with my skin is the things that I have to do or use to combat the problems. Since I can remember I've used about 100 different creams - most of which I am now immune to. Making them useless. I've also had to use different things in the shower, baths, eating different things, taking weird pills, all sorts of junk. I also went through 'phototherapy', in which the idea was to pretty much give me a major sunburn, and it would kill my crap skin cells and grow back new good ones. Bad idea. Made me about 10000000% worse.

I have always been extremely self-conscious about my skin. It's red, it's ugly, it's broken, it falls off, and I hate it. There was a time when I always wore long sleeves and collars to cover up as much as possible. Now don't get me wrong. I don't want this to be a 'I'm so helpless, give me some pity please, my life sucks' blog. I don't want no pity. I'm writing this (I started writing this last year and didn't - mainly because of the self-consciousness) because it's one of the things that brings me down the most, and I feel that by getting it out there, I can ignore it more and move on with life. Plus, when I weigh up all the positives in my life and all the hardships other people have to deal with versus my little skin problems? I have not much to complain about really.

Over the last year, I've learnt to stop caring so much and realised that other people - at least I think - don't really seem to care either. I talk about it openly now, and even make jokes about myself. I told K that if I ever committed a murder, the forensics team wouldn't even have to bother searching for fingerprints. They could walk in there, collect up all the skin, and by the ridiculous amount, get me straight away. Gross? Yeh probs. Whatever, I'm down with the reptiles. We go on shedding trips together.

So that's that. We all struggle with something, and my skin is my daily struggle, and it has been for all 19 years of my life. It will probably always be. I still have bad days, when it gets me really down, but at least I don't hate my body as much as I used to. If beauty is only skin deep, I am the ugliest bastard you have ever met. Luckily... I have a very attractive bone structure? ...Crap. End.

PS. I've never actually tried praying consistently for it. You'd think, or I'd think maybe, that I would have given that some thought. It's probably because I'm really bad at praying consistently at all. Somebody recently told me to try reading a certain bit of the Bible - Psalm 91 - that is supposedly a healing prayer. A younger me would have grouped that in religious weirdo stuff category, even though I believe in the religion. But I'm giving it a go. It's good so far, because afterwards I'm in the mood for praying anyway. So now you know. The Real End***.

*Number 6. They're all pretty incredible, but the craziest ones have to be 2, 6 and 7. 1 is pretty awesome too. I don't respect 4 and 10. 4 because it's stupid. He began eating weird things as a child? After you manage to survive one bottle cap, you consider yourself lucky and stop. You do not then try to eat a whole Cessna 150 aircraft. 10 is just because it's not that super, just a bit gross, and I've seen it too many times on Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

** This is one of my many new favourite games. Or, things that I do in my head to never let myself get bored. I just say things that are ridiculous, but cannot be argued with. Eg. During Beach Mission: "Wow. It is hotter than a Russian Winter." "That car is more red than a thousand yellow MnMs." (Although I've been argued with that one thousand yellow MnMs could be used to make a fairly decent red. I think that's ridiculous, and I'm not going to bother trying to prove them wrong.)

*** Except for the stuff underneath The Real End.

**** Extra stars.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Running Waters/What Matt Really Meant #1

Hoorah! Matt Waters' blog is re-born! Namely, I just posted a blog on his behalf. For the rest of the year, while MW is off being a soldier in the Australian Defence Force, he will be sending me blogs through SMS, which I will then post on his blog. Make sure to stay tuned to all his shenanigans in the army at waterspiel.blogspot.com

In addition, on this blog, I will begin commentating his blogs. He also knows about this and endorses it. So, with no more delay, here is the first edition of "What Matt Really Meant":

I'm completely scared. I've actually already changed my underwear three times today. Sitting on the bus, there is a sense of foreboding; but more overpowering is the smell of my pants. This is the beginning of some tough work, but what should be very rewarding in the end. I just hope I don't die after a week. Tonight will be my first night in 19 years without my comfort blanket. Pray for me. At the moment it's feeling a lot like a school excursion: everyone on a bus, all excited for what's going to happen when we get to our destination, and me... down the back, with stained pants. I'll probably update once or twice more, and then give up again. I'm so scared.

Exhilirating stuff. Will Matt survive without his blankie? Will he become a stronger man... with a stronger bladder? Will he be drafted instead to the navy and revive the Village People? Find out next time on "What Matt Really Meant".

PS. I'm in the process of labelling everything. Be patient.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Beach Mission '08

Well I'm back from my second year at Peninsula (formerly McCrae*) SUFM. Just as with last year, and most things of this nature, there are some really great bits and some really big challenges.

For pretty much the whole year, I haven't been sure why I would go back to mission, apart from the very weak reason that I didn't want to be 'soft' and quit after just one year. For the last month leading up to mission, I just was really reluctant to even think about it. In the final week before, I still didn't want to go.

The mostly negative feelings were there for the first half of mission. I think I was even going out of my way to find reasons to not like being there. I definitely had some struggles that weren't just self-inflicted, and some of these were the same as last year. Personality clashes are something that come with working in any team. I think, being the idealist that I am, that it gets to me more because we're meant to be living in a 'Christian community', but still can't get it right. I know that that's a very naive thing to think. You just seem to forget that when you are not thinking properly about it.

On one of the days in the middle, I hit the point of getting past all the rubbish and starting enjoying myself, and working out better ways to face the challenges. There was one day when JV and I were just play fighting against all the little boys and then some of the ones who were in my small group last year arrived and were really excited to see me and remembered me. That was an encouraging moment, which was also followed by a great teens program that night.

I feel that teens was a good move for me. I got the feeling the day after last year's mission that if I was to get more out of, and more importantly, give more to mission, I would be better suited for teens. I'll tell that story in another blog. There were four of us leaders, and we made a great connection with one teen in particular, but had quality interaction between all the teens over the time we were there. The real challenge for us is to make sure it's not all lost and forgotten about for the rest of the year.

Another thing that I really enjoyed about mission this year is the structure and organisation of each day. My usual day is extremely unorganised and I do things mostly at random. It was really good to schedule in things, especially specifically making time for God. I loved being forced to read the Bible everyday and having alone time (in which I would do physical things, as a balance for the 10 days of spiritual things). I want to try and make myself be more organised this year, and in doing so, make many aspects of my life healthier. On a physical level, I was worried how my skin would react to mission, since it was 10 days of stress and heat - things that usually flare me up - but it actually improved there, and I think it was partly to do with being organised and knowing exactly what I was doing at all times, and having scheduled time for myself or for relaxation or reflection.

That's about all I can spew from my head at the moment. Tomorrow I'm going to being my trying to be organised. There is some more stuff that I will write about later this week. Peace.

* It should be spelt McRae. Or McRay.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Resolution

So it's a new year. As always, I've found myself wondering whether or not I am going to have a resolution, and if so, I refuse to have a crappy, stupid, material one. This means that if I do actually get one, it'll either be a good genuine one, which I might not even write up here, or it'll be a token 'good-natured' one. Most likely.

I might do some thinking out loud here, to deliberate over this most exhilarating of topics. (I've actually been in a massive blog avoidance/slump/rut lately. Many many many saved drafts all half written and then walked away from, usually in the hunt for Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.) To start, let's have a recap of how the years has been for me.

  • Started uni. Passed uni. Win. I really enjoyed the new challenge of uni and actually doing some work, sometimes. Usually two nights before it was due, meaning I'm making very small improvements. Added to that, the best part was the people, which is generally the case with everything I do. I've made some really good friends and it's been fun having social interaction away from the usuals who generally occupy most of my social interaction. Nothing against them. I just need some space sometimes. Also, uni means I have had a lot of Cold Rock. Yesssss. I can only look forward to more of the same next year. And maybe choosing another flavour at Cold Rock to have for once. And maybe stop using these incomplete, run-on sentenc...
  • Driving... HA. As if. 32 hours...ladies. Hopefully license sometime next year. Although, I did tell Mum today that it only expires in 2016. Which means, 12 hours a year to make that 120. Therefore...I'm ahead of schedule.
  • The Garage. 2007 saw me leaving leading at Club Sunday, and stealing all of the boys (nothing. suss.) for the Garage. Along with MW and JC, and with the late addition of JV, I led the Garage this year. I really struggled with it in the beginning, as we went through the paces of building relationships and trust with the boys, and they went from acting up to actually believing that we were doing something cool. However, by end of year, I was loving it. Having different chats with the boys and having them so much more excited about being there and talking to us outside the Garage was really encouraging for me. From time to time, I had struggles with the leaders as well, but that's expected from any ministry or job or anything really. Next year MW/G.I. Joe leaves us and it will be interesting filling his gap. I hope the Garage only gets better, as we build further on all the progress made this year.
  • Another year with K . That officially makes it 2 years, 4 months, 13 days. Let's go for another 2413. Decades.
  • Friends. New ones. Some really good new ones. Breakdowns of some, with op for re-building obviously. Requires a mutual effort to fix those ones. I feel bad for not trying enough with my school mates, since I let distance and a general stereotype of what would happen be my reason for not going. I want to do better there.
  • Youth internship. Loved working in the office and around the church with SA last year. Challenge for next year is to make sure I do more work pretty much.
  • Faith. I'm not sure what happened with my faith last year. I think it wasn't as drastic a change as the year before, but that's because that year was the first year I ever actually bothered trying. Of course I slipped off at times then, and did again in 2007, but this year I would really like to schedule myself or try to be really intentional in not just being involved in ministries, but finding time for my own exploration, reflection and questioning. I am looking forward to a new small group, whether with new people or the same or a mix. I also think that being part of the new Veta group, and while helping them, also studying everything that they study, will be really good. It'll be interesting how it goes with my little brother in that group.
  • Work. None really, apart from the delivery route (forever finished), two plumbing jobs, and a brief stint as an integration aide, which will hopefully continue next year. I also have another job lined up, which I will write about soon.
  • Sport. Hardly any. The working out challenge I've been doing all year. (I might publish those pictures later. Maybe.) Apart from that, nothing, and that sucks. I need to get into a sport. Definitely a resolution for this year.
  • Health. I've struggled with my skin of late, and I'm writing a blog about this that will be posted soon. I hopefully will have less problems this year, because I've started trying to eat healthier and look after my body more.
  • Africa Aid. I am absolutely stoked with the way Africa Aid's gone this year, in how far we've come (granted, only four of us) together. We've made major steps towards rebuilding Africa Aid as a functioning and efficient group outside school. We still need to work on our school team, but that's already underway. We face a big challenge this year in not only raising the $30,000 but letting people know where we've been for a year, and getting the whole team working without constants instructions etc. I'm excited/scared about this one.

That's about it, I don't think I'll try to resolve anything really. It's too hard to predict how a year will go. These are just the things from last year and what challenges I face in continuing/stopping them. The exciting things that you can't predict will come later, and I'll (hopefully) blog about them. Happy New Year, I hope yours is a safe, awesome one too, and that any resolutions/challenges you set for yourself are met well.

PS. Minor resolution: Blog more? Ha.