to update my blog or not to update my blog...

I'm not actually sure why i am bothering to write in my blog. I have barely written in it all year and all the people who read it are probably sick of checking for updates, only to see that i haven't updated it. Well, sorry to all you peoples.
Writing in a blog is annoying though. I mean it's not like a personal journal, as anyone can read it. So i can't really put lots of personal stuff in it. I think some people may write in blogs because they feel they don't get heard by people, and so they needed an outlet to voice their opinions on things. Or maybe some people find that because they aren't allowed to voice some of their opinions in some places, they will write them in a blog instead...
For example i read this one guys blog which was all about Christianity being evil. It was actually really interesting and the guy was very persuasive. It was actually a little scary how persuasive his arguments were. Lots of what he said were true but slightly twisted, which meant that he could form a picture of God being really evil. He was wrong however, which a Christian who knew their stuff would recognize quickly. The scary thought though was that some people who don't know what being a Christian actually means, and the people who have never experienced God, would read such a website and end up turning against Christianity. I suppose that's how it generally is anyways. People are given one picture that doesn't include all the details and skews other details, and they build up a false image. Really all that is needed is the truth to be shown, and the whole truth. Good thing we follow the truth then hey? *grin* "I am the way, the truth and the life." Good old truth :)
Anyways... I wasn't intending to go on that little tangent their. Just got carried away. Fingers started typing without actually thinking first. Doesn't matter though. What is a blog for if not for writing random meaninglessness? :)

So the end of the year is near and there are still so many assignments to do. I just completed another one today. Only 5 to go! Thankfully the assignments are actually really interesting. THe one i just completed was for apologetics. so interesting. At the start of the year i thought learning apologetical stuff would be really important coz i wanted to be able to defend what i believe. The more i study it though, the more i realise that arguing someone into the Kingdom of God just isn't likely to happen. They need to experience God. So really the other subjects like Christian Spirituality and Mission are actually more useful in that respect. So i'm no longer frantically trying to learn apologetical stuff but i still find it really interesting and worth learning. Actually, i just thought of a quote which i used in a previous assignment. This theologian/historian was asked whether knowing the facts about the historical Jesus strengthened his faith. His answer was really good and i think the same strengthening thing can be applied to apologetics. I will find the quote...

It’s like this: if you love a person, your love goes beyond the facts of that person, but it’s rooted in the facts about that person. For example, you love your wife because she’s gorgeous, she’s nice, she’s sweet, she’s kind. All these things are facts about your wife, and therefore you love her.
But your love goes beyond that. You can know all these things about your wife and not be in love with her and put your trust in her, but you do. So the decision goes beyond the evidence, yet it is there also on the basis of the evidence.
So it is with falling in love with Jesus. To have a relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing the historical facts about him, yet it ‘s rooted in the historical facts about him. I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence, but my relationship with Jesus goes way beyond the evidence. I have to put my trust in him and walk with him on a daily basis.

I imagine it's the same with apologetics. It should add to your faith but shouldn't be the thing that your faith relies upon. It should have a strengthening effect. Which it has done for me at least :)
Woops. There goes another tangent.

Wow i can't believe i've just written so much on basically nothing. When i came on to write in my blog i was intending to talk about some of the things i've learnt this year. I wanted to reflect on how the year had went now that the year is nearly ended. However, it is now getting close to dinner time so i will just post what i have written and write again later.
Sorry if the post is more boring than usual. I really shouldn't have started off the year with such funny stories. It kind of set a bench mark which i've had to struggle to reach all year! Oh well. No use moping about it...

Until next time...

Assessment

So get this right, for one of my assignments i have to do a presentation on a Gospel passage.

Before i presented it, though, i had to exegete the passage to find out the context and stuff behind it, which i have now done. It took forever too. I have read soooo many comentaries over the past few hours lol. 

But anyways, for the presentation i can either do a slideshow, a letter, an email, a blog entry, a web page, a song or poem, a short video, an animation or a drama. Guess which one i chose? How convenient that i already had a blog with so many people reading it who would just love to join in on my assessment tasks :)

Let the presentation begin...

So lets talk about Pharisees. We all hate them right? I mean they were rule freaks and had a big role to play in Jesus' crucifixion. They totally missed what God had been trying to tell them. I mean sure, they were part of Gods chosen people, but if i remember correctly, didn't Gods promise to Abraham go something like this... 

I will make you into a great nation,
   and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
   and you will be a blessing.
 I will bless those who bless you,
   and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
   will be blessed through you.

 (yes i may have just copied that off biblegateway)

Note that God ends his promise with "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you". Ah, doesn't this mean that through Israel all nations should be blessed? Somehow i think most of Israel missed that point. I'm pretty sure they swung the other way, holding all other nations in total contempt and saw them all as sinners. 

Another we all know the Pharisees managed to miss... its not about following laws. These guys were the biggest goodie-two-shoes law-keepers ever. They made laws about laws to stop them breaking the original laws. They had reason to be afraid of breaking Gods laws, they broke them time after time and got punished over and over after all. But they managed to miss the heart of it...

Ok. Now that we have established that the Pharisees were mostly lame lets talk about one of Jesus' most famous parables. At the time he told it the Pharisees had been complaining amongst themselves about how Jesus hung out with all the tax collectors and "sinners". His story went something like this... (please excuse the copy and pasting from biblegateway... )

“There was a man who had two sons.  The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

    “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

   “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

   “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

   “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

   “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

   “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

   “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

   “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Wow. You guys are all thinking "Wow" right now arent ya. Wow is right! lol. This is for definitely my favourite parable ever. It's full of so much, and studying it has been absolutely amazing. But, for now lets just zone in on a bit of it, more specifically, the bit about the older son.
The older son (a.k.a. Pharisees) was always always with the father, a.k.a God. He never left home, never "rebelled" and always followed the rules of what he thought was expected of him. But he missed the point! He made rules where there were no rules and followed expectations, not out of love, but out of a self proclaimed righteousness that would allow him to get the prize he deserved. The father says "...you are always with me, and everything I have is yours..." and he meant it. Quite literally in fact. He gave half of everything to the youngest son, which leaves the rest belonging to the oldest. The older son literally had everything that the father had.
The older son missed it.
Like the Pharisees.
Like us?

How about an example of two different types of Christians. We will call them Will and Jake...
Will has a quiet time for half an hour in the mornings. He says grace before meals. He prays before going on long car trips for safety. He tries to never miss church. He supports a World Vision child. He gives a tenth of his earnings on Sunday. He invites workmates to church. He provides for his wife and children and sent his children to a Christian School. He prays before bed. He shakes his head when he hears stories about the lives of other church members or at their ragged clothes. He goes to the occasional hyped church service and leaves feeling alive, ready to take on life. He does everything right. He wonders sometimes, though, when he says he loves Jesus all he really feels is duty...
Jake goes to church when he can too, wearing his ragged cool jeans and singlet shirt. He saw a sunset the other day and ended up spending 10minutes taking pictures and marveling at how amazing God is. He gets in a quiet time when he can, loving the time he spends alone with God. He talks to God idly through the day when something catches his notice. At work he loves sharing with his mates about what God has been teaching him lately or about how he has been blessed. His job is mediocre but does his best anyways. He sometimes feels guilty or shame at the sin in his life, but he always reminds himself of Gods truth and his promises. He is overwhelmed by the fact God wants a relationship with him. He wants a relationship too. He is loving learning how to live in a loving relationship with God.


When we think about what living a Christian life is like do we think more of what a Christian does or what they believe? Have we made laws without realizing it? Which man do you identify more with? Which do you want to identify more with? Why?

I was a Pharisee. I once followed because of duty, because i was doing what was right. Now i follow Jesus because i know that he loves me. Anyone who loves me that much and wants a relationship that badly i love too. At the beginning of the year i was talking to a very wise man about following out of duty and wondering why i didn't feel anything towards God really except obedience. He told me that i should try to live loved. I had to live like i believed God loved me and that i loved him back. He suggested that maybe, just maybe, the feelings would follow. And they did.
Another piece of advice i heard once was that i should pray that the reality of Gods love will be shown to me each day and that when i'm finding it hard to trust God or i feel distant from him to ask God "What don't i know about you yet? Teach me what i still don't know about you and your love." So i've been doing these things. Nothing happens straight away, its not a magic formula to have a perfect relationship with God, but slowly the reality of Gods love is changing me...
I'm learning to live loved.

How do you live?

The Belated Update

Ok so i'm caving into my guilt. I'm sorry that i haven't written in my blog like at all this year like i said i would. It's just so annoying! But everyone keeps mentioning it when they see me and the guilt is just too much... so i will tell you a little bit more of what has been going on.

I have no idea what i last mentioned so i will just compile lots of random events that have happened in the not too distant past...

Chickens
As you may or may not know, we have chickens that provide eggs for all the students at the center. And, because they are for us, it's our responsibility to feed and care for them. Unfortunately we are pretty bad at remembering them. We each have one day a week to go down to collect the eggs, feed the chickens their dry food, feed them food scraps and replenish their water. We usually remember to do it but their is generally someone who forgets during the week to feed them and so the next person finds the poor chickens with like no food and water left.
Anyways, i think it must have been on my mind lately, because the other night i had a crazy dream about our chickens. I went down in the dark to collect the eggs and i noticed, upon entering the first chicken coop, that all the chickens were gone! The roof had somehow been opened and they had escaped. I was wondering to myself how they could have escaped when i realised that two of the chickens had stayed behind. Now it seemed that these chickens, which looked more like ducks in my opinion, were stupider than the other chickens because the conversation they were having was pretty primitive. But, from what i could understand, they were talking about how the chickens had had enough of being subjugated by us humans and had decided to take over. I was a little bit worried about this when i first heard it, but i disregarded it eventually thinking that chickens are too stupid to do that and they probably got out of the coop by chance. So i went over to our second chicken coop to collect the eggs from their. And it was then, while reaching down into their eggbox, that i realised that i had found the escaped chickens. They had came into this chicken coop! I looked up to see all the chickens staring down at me from perches above my head. I had a moment to think "oh no" before they all flew down at me in attack....
Funnily enough though, the next morning Phil told us after focus that we had to be more careful of the chicken coop because we were tearing holes in it and the chickens had started to escape...
Coincidence? I think NOT!

Ski Trip
A couple of weekends ago we all went on a ski trip together. For most of us it was our first time and for a fair few it was also our first time to the snow! So we were pretty excited. And you know, it actually isn't as cold as you'd think it would be...
We actually skiied for two days and it was amazing. The second day was definitely the best though. Coz on the fist day all we learnt to do was snowplough when stopping, which actually is a really ineffective way to slow down, let alone stop. basically you have to put your skiis in a V shape so that your "plough" will slow you down and stop you. This does work alright on a gentle slope but, as you get onto the steeper and funner slopes, you will find that it gives you hardly any control over your speed at all. On the second day we learnt how to parallel ski and stop by turning parallel suddenly. Way more fun! Once you worked out how to do that skiing became the funnest ever!
Here are some stories from the trip...
At the beginning of the second day the instructor for our lesson got us to snow plough down the easiest slope to make sure that we could do it, so we could progress. Well it didnt go so well lol. He got us to stop half way down the mountain with our snow plough, so i made my way down and ploughed to a stop. Carmel slides to a stop next to me and we look up the slope to see where the rest is. We then see Ken coming towards us, a little too fast, so we yell out "slow down Ken!". He then proceeds to slide right on past us, so we yell out "Ken we have to stop now" but he keeps going so we yell "Ken! Stop! STOP!". Anna then pulls up next to us and we're like "Ken just went right on past us without stopping". Anna then laughs and says that because of his legs he can't make his snow plough wide enough to stop. So, laughing, we all watch as he, in vain, tries to stop with this tiny little snow plough lol. By this time almost everyone else has stopped beside us but, on a head count, we realise that another person is missing. So we kind of look around to find where they are and i start laughing when i find her. This older lady from our group had managed to snow plough right into a group of 5 and 6 year olds having their lesson! All the little children had crowded around her and were trying to help her back up again, but she couldn't get back up lol. It was so funny to watch. But anyways, moving along in the story of our skiing lessons, we later learnt how to parallel ski and so we tried practicing on a harder slope. I managed to not stack the whole way down and so arrive at the bottom going "Yeah! I didnt crash!" and then i promptly fell over in front of everyone. I didn't remain embarrassed too long however, because a few seconds later we hear this "WATCH OUT!" and we see Wally come flying down the slope and crash right into out instructor. Amazingly though, the guy just stood there like a rock! He didn't even sway. Wally, however, crumpled to the ground like she'd hit a brick wall. Looked painful. Highly embarrassing. I felt better then :)
At another time, i was skiing with George and Chris down a blue run (medium difficulty) and i accidentally crossed my skiis. Now, when you cross your skiis, you lose like all control. I did manage to not fall over. But i did run into something. I kind of zigzagged down without control and hit a sign. I managed to end up with my arms and legs totally wrapped around it... and i couldnt get off it again. My skiis were crossed again and i had to sit down and pull my legs out before i could get off of the sign. I did ask George for help. Instead she took a picture. Some friend she is :)
When skiing you kind of expect to stack. Because you stack a lot when you are a beginner. And i did stack a lot, which i didnt mind. What was the worst though was when you managed to stack in front of other people you know. I had this one stack where i ended up with arms and legs flung totally out and then slide down the slope on my back for 10m, snow going up my jacket. Then, to make things worse, you have to try and get back onto your feet, which is one of the most ungraceful and awkward things i've had to try to do. Then you look up to see your friends all watching and laughing you as the go up the slope beside you on the Poma lol. How embarrassing...
 The ski trip was amazing though. I totally am going to go back again. I would recommend it for anyone. You have to go for at least two days though and get the lessons. It just isnt worth it to only go for one day. Don't even bother.

Church
Cornerstone ran the Anglican/Uniting church service the other weekend. We all had to do some part of the service. Except communion. Communion was done by Jono (the minister) because they do their communion an interesting way. It all went pretty well though. I wasn't going to do anything originally. So Wally and Coralie, who were doing the kids talk, asked me if i could help them out by holding stuff up and things like that.So i agreed and went along to their meeting with Jewels to organise it all. Well, i ended up doing the majority of it in the end. Which i didn't mind really because i'd done kids talks before, but it's a shame they didn't get the chance to do it. It was pretty fun though, and by the end of the service everyone knew who i was and what my name was. I had heaps of the old people come up and greet me by name, because i had introduced myself to the kids in front of them.
The response of the congregation to us was amazing! The impact we had on all of them, without really doing much, was incredible. They were so friendly and were really encouraged to see and talk to us all. I haven't received such warmth from a new church before. And i thought that, even though the way they did their service was very foreign to me, i could totally go to a church like that. I think i will start going to the church regularly. Even though i will be like the only young person in attendance there lol.

Yeah i definitely remember why i don't like writing in my blog. Making a post is so time consuming. Sigh. Ok what else can i tell you about...

Mini Muster
Oh i should probably tell you all about mini muster in Newcastle...
It was pretty fun. It was great to be able to meet all the different cornerstone people living in and near Newcastle. The talks done by Les and Mike were really good and so were the discussion times after them. It was really great being able to spend time with all these people that we kind of new but didnt really know... if that makes sense. I also re-met a whole lot of cornerstoners i knew when i was younger which was nice.
The food was amazing.
Oh! The Miskovitche's (ok i totally spelt that wrong but i have no idea how it is meant to be spelt. I just wrote it how it sounds lol) have to be the most hospitable people i have ever met! They had us all set up in their garage/tv room and they went and bought us all hot water bottles from the shops so we didn't get too cold. We then got to keep our hot water bottles. So nice. And breakfast! Man breakfast was amazing. We got up to see the table totally decked out with breaky stuff. They had a table cloth, china looking dishes, real coffee (not instant), tea from a tea pot, pancakes, omlettes, cream and jam on little china bowl things, milk in a little jug, etc. Amazing! After visiting their i had to seriously think about how welcoming i am when i get visitors. I think i need to be more hospitable. I don't think that means that i should go all out in filling their every need and even more, but after visiting their i realised that their is something amazing about being welcomed into a home and feeling like you are totally welcome and at home yourself...
We also went for a walk out on this massive path thing that went out into the ocean... i dont know how to describe it or what to call it. Basically it was this wall of rocks and stuff that went way out into the ocean with a path along it. Anyways, we went for a walk along there. A group ran ahead of us and so when i got there, i saw them all sitting on these massive cement blocks watching the massive waves come. We had been warned that the waves often are really large and can wet you if you arent careful, but when i looked at them all they all looked dry, so i thought where i was standing i was totally safe. Then, turning towards the rise of rocks against the ocean, i see this massive wave crash onto the rocks. The wave shot up into the air, a wall of foaming water above me. On seeing it i yelled and turned my back towards it, thinking of my phone in my front pocket, and was smashed by the wave from behind. It was so COLD! I stood there in shock for a few seconds, totally dreched and look up to see everyone else, also wet but significantly less so, laughing at my stunned expression. The walk back down the long path was freezing. It was so windy...


Two Weeks
We ran a two week program during the uni holidays so uni students, and others, could come and work with us to earn money, while experiencing a bit of what we do here.
(I'm getting really tired and i still have to pack for our Strath trip tomorrow so i will quickly write down some points from Two Weeks)
I was partnered with a guy called Josh every day for pruning. We were amazing. One of the fastest pairs.
The lectures were amazing. A lot of the afternoon ones were ones we had already heard, as they were aimed at the Two Weeks guys, but they were still really good.
We had a bonfire (which was amazing), had a bushdance (yeah!), ran a Midnight cafe, had a Feast of Stories (i told some of our more amusing stories from the year), had a board game night, and we watched the State of Origin on the projector (we lost...)
Aly made us all pumpkin pies and brought them to work some day, as a reward for working well previously. So yummy.
All together there was like 50 of us i think. So many people! Meals were amazingly loud and the lecture room was totally packed full of people. So much fun having so many people. So exhausting.
At the end of Two Weeks we were all pretty much dead. We were all really tired and most of us ended up getting sick a week later. We just totally exhausted ourselves. It was totally worth it though. We were all really sad to see them leave and it felt really strange for the next few days after they were gone. So quiet :)


Ok i think that will have to do for now. The half of us that didn't go to Bendigo for a team visit are travelling down to Strath tomorrow morning. We leave at 8, travel 6 hours or so to Swan Hill where we will stay overnight. The next morning we then leave early, drive 7 and a half hours to Strath to arrive in the afternoon, where we will launch straight into activities. I'm pretty sure i'm running worship that night. We then stay in Strath for a week, and then make the long trip back again to start work the following Monday. It should be really fun, but we are going to be totally exhausted. I hope we can sleep alright in the car...

So goodnight everyone. I hope you enjoyed my long post. Sorry again that i havent regularly written in my blog. I will try and get better at it... maybe :)

Holidays

Sorry! I haven't written in my blog for forever. It seemed like such a good idea at the start of the year lol. I'm glad i decided to do it, i just wish updating it didn't take so long. oh well :) now, holidays....

Plans
I had amazing plans for my holidays. Catchup with all my friends and the family in Dub-Vegas, then go to Sydney for a few days to see Sydney peeps and go see Mary Poppins! Well, plans are great things to make. Its a little sad when they fail though. I did get to catch up with lots of friends and people in Dubbo, but my Sydney plans failed pretty bad. My fellow traveler's up to Sydney got sick, meaning i had to find a lift with someone else. Then, when i did get offered a potential lift i had already made plans for all the days that i would be gone! I couldn't back out of the plans coz i had promised to do stuff with Dubbo peeps so.... i didn't get to go to Sydney. So sad. What a shame :)

The Show
Dubbo show just happened to be on when i was home. Convenient right? So i went with Sam (fellow first year) and Jenna. It was pretty fun. I regret going on the Cha-cha with Sam though. I ended up in the inside seat and so with every turn Sam was slammed into my side. He weighs like 200kg and i thought my ribs were going to break. Seriously! Well he was actually only 80kg or something but i for serious was concerned for my ribs. he thought it was the funniest thing ever but I'm telling you, if that ride had gone any faster he would have smashed my ribs into my bodily organs and then i would be dead. I nearly died! on a children's ride! nothing is safe anymore :)
We also went on the Crazy Coaster. I don't know why i went on it. I mean seriously, anything that has been put up and taken down that many times cannot be safe. these type of thoughts hit me right as i went shooting towards a very sharp corner on the ride. i was sure we were going to be flung off lol. we weren't, but i still think it wasn't the safest ride...
One of my favourites was that Twister ride. You lay against the wall and it spins you around really fast, forcing you hard against the walls byt he force of it. So funny. Jenna was screaming beside me for a while but then she suddenly just cut off. Then, after a few seconds of silence she was like "I can't even scream! Its pushing against my lungs so much that i can't even scream!" lol. I then looked over at Sam lol. He was facing straight ahead and his eyes looked like they were popping out because his face was all being forced backwards lol. It looked so funny that i started laughing. But laughing hurt coz of the pressure on my chest. And poor Jenna looked hilarious with her face kind of squished sideways into the wall, which made me laugh even harder. So basically i spent the ride in serious pain because i couldnt stop laughing at how funny they looked! i would laugh and say "ow" then laugh and say "ow" etc. Such a weird experience. im so glad laughing doesnt normally hurt. how bad would that be! it would be terrible.

... i can't actually remember what else i did during holidays really. i went to the movies with friends a few times which was nice. we don't have cinemas here. so lame. when a movie comes out that we really want to see, we have to drive to Orange. I'm pretty sure most of us are planning to drive up to see Harry Potter when it comes out. Can't wait! i hope they dont ruin it. the last few harry potter movies have been a bit disappointing. they are good movies but they keep changing key stuff from the books. such a shame...
Anyways, apart from the movies i basically just hung out with family and friends. read a few books. it was a nice time away over all. it was very strange being home alone for most of the days, after living with 18 people. it was nice having my own room again though. Tim always goes to bed before me so i have to creep in silently and i can't read before bed coz im afraid of waking him, so it was nice to be able to control when the lights go out :)

and.... that's the end of my holiday blog i guess.

Easter and Stuff

Ok, so once again i have been slack in updating my blog and i have a build up of events to record. how annoying. sigh. which means i will now be dedicating the next half hour of my life to catching up... :) ok. lets begin

Easter!
Easter. Wow. feels like forever ago now. Well, over Easter the center has a Passover and then, on Sunday morning, we have a Sunrise Service. I will begin with the passover...
We were told to wear white for the meal. Don't ask me why. We asked several times where the white tradition came from but we didnt really get an answer. I think its to symbolise the white lamb? or purity? or something? i don't know. But anyways, regardless of not knowing why we were doing it, we all wore white for the Passover. It was kinda fun. We just piled on all the white clothes that we owned, no matter how ridiculous it made us look, and then if we still wanted more white we got sheets and table clothes and wrapped ourselves in them also. It was pretty funny. Timbo wore his white sheet like a nappy for a little while lol. I wrapped one around me as a robe type thing. It looked pretty cool but the long dragging sheet was so annoying! i don't know how girls wear dresses at all. It gets in the way! you try to walk and step on the robe! gah! i ended up picking it up and kinda tucking it into itself while i served myself dinner. So frustrating. Ah... what else happened that night. Oh. lol. Our two hosts (oldest people at the passover?) had to read out all this stuff and we had to answered. Anyways, at one point our hosts had to light the candles in front of them, but they couldnt do it. The matches kept burning them. And so they kind of just launched the burning matchsticks into the large candles lol. But, because the flames then didnt go out but kept burning, the candle burnt, not downwards as it should, but out the side! the wax all melted in the middle and across to the side until there was this huge hole that slowly went down the candle. Which meant that the wax just poured straight out of the candle lol. Eventually, there was this massive pool of candle wax beneath the candle holder things onto the table cloth! I didnt notice this at first however. It wasnt until i saw the hosts and the people around them kind of panic and try to catch all the wax falling. When i saw this, i of course realised what had happened, but i dont think they realised what how it had happened.  I heard them saying "oh no! whats happening?" and other general noises of befuddlement. Lol. I decided to leave it. Unfortunately, now there is like a ban on candles on tablecloths because it was announced that the tablecloth was stained and we couldnt use candles anymore without little plates or anything beneath the candelabras. I realise now that they didnt realise that it was their own fault that the candles leaked. But seeing as the new rules are pretty common sense i havent bothered to say anything. putting a plate or something underneath seems sensible enough to me.
I still enjoyed a chuckle when i realised their reasons though :)
On Saturday we did like a Walk of the Cross type thing. (i dont know what else to call it). Basically we had different stations we went to , and at each station we would read part of the story of Jesus dying, from Gethsemane to his resurrection. It was really good. We went slowly, individually, to each station and had paper to reflect on each part of the story and what it meant to us. It really struck me how much Jesus went through. He didn't want to die but was willing to, his disciples didnt even stay awake, he was betrayed by one who he had lived and laughed with, he was hated and accused of fabricated crimes, he was tortured and mocked, abandoned by his disciples and denied three times, hung on a cross beside two thieves, etc. Terrible! But what stood out most to me, was how he acted throughout, despite what he was going through. He healed the mans ear, he refused to be baited by their accusations, stood firm and willing to do what God had asked him to do, he loved so much that despite being in pain he thought of his mother and John, and im sure that when he told the man he would go to heaven he took joy and felt gladness. What type of man can go through that and still act the way Jesus did!? Amazing. Imagine, that we are called to be Christ-like...
For the Sunrise Service, Milly and I had been asked to do the sermon. (AHHH!) Despite saying that i would do it only as the last resort and i hated speaking in front of people. Anyways, Saturday night Milly and I spent hours sitting there thinking and brainstorming on what to say. We had to speak about the resurrection and what it means for us. And we had lots of good thoughts on it, and lots of different things we would like to say, but our thoughts were just all over the place and we were getting nowhere. Thankfully, James agreed to give us a hand when we rang him, begging for assistance. So we went over to his place at like 7 that night and he helped us work it all out. Thankyoudidnt use her notes and forgot to ask the crucial questions that the entire sermon hinged on! She tried passing on to me saying "Mark has some thoughts on this" and in the next few seconds (longest seconds of my life!) i was frozen in horror! Everything i had to say relied on the questions and i could think of no way to ask the questions myself coz the entire point was that they came from her! It was terrible! I quickly prompted her though, and she did ask the questions, but oh my goodness! i thought i would die right there for a moment. I couldnt believe that she did it to me. So stressful.
In the end, the sermon went alright i think. They were a terrible audience. They were dead silent the whole time and i said "Umm" lots and lots. But overall, it was ok.
Such a relief to have it end :)
We then had a pancake breakfast and chatted and had fun. It was a nice Easter :)

Ok. I made that Easter post way too long. I can't be bothered to delete any of it though so i will just make a mental note to be more brief in the next sections. I am aware that long boring chunks of writing is tedious to read :) Sorry lol

Pulling Plastic
A new job we have recently acquired is pulling plastic up. Sounds fun hey. Yay for plastic! lol.
When they grow the watermelons and pumpkins they lay plastic down in rows to deter weeds. Unfortunately for us poor workers, the plastic then needs to be pulled up and tied in bundles to be disposed of. Which means mud hands and clothes, dirt everywhere, dust in your eyes, and sore muscles. As a job its one of the better ones but it still takes it out of you. One day Alf asked us to record how many rows we could do in a day, so i went totally flat out and smashed everyone. What i didnt realise though, was that after that i was then expected not only by Alf, but by everyone else and myself, to be an amazing plastic puller who goes at least as fast as the fastest other worker. So, basically, now i get totally exhausted every time i do it lol. Oh well :)

Dubbo Visit
Home sweet home. All the guys got to go to Dub-vegas to go to a Communication Workshop with James. It was so good! The talks were great and i loved the chance to catch up with the Family and sleep in my own bed! (emphasis on sleeping my own bed!) I also got to see Toby! I miss him lots and lots. It was so good to have him running around my feet again lol. (for those that dont know or havent guessed, Toby is my dog who couldnt come to cornerstone with me). I got hardly any time to catch up with people though, and i ended up exhausting myself trying to find the time to. The weekend was good, but i left more tired than when i arrived.
When we got back, we found that the girls had attacked our rooms. All our stuff was moved around, post-it-notes were stuck everywhere, cauliflowers hung above our beds, glitter flung around, etc. And our bathroom was made amazing! They put photos and quotes and drawing around everywhere so that now our bathroom looks totally cool. Oh, they also gladwrapped the toilets. Thankfully we noticed though.
It was pretty funny overall. It was meant to be payback for when we put mayonnaise in their shampoos. Overall i think we got the better end of the deal. :)

Sickness...
I'm not sure who gave it to me, but after being so tired on the weekend i got sick. The symptoms appeared Monday morning when i went out to do lettuce. I was coughing and felt weak and dizzy all morning. a couple of times i almost fell onto the lettuces because of a wave of dizziness hitting me. Thankfully i never passed out, although i came close several times. I considered saying i had to stop work, but i knew that if i left it would be harder for the others, and i think i was feeling a bit stubborn and felt like rebelling against the others suggestions to sit out, and so i managed to get through the whole day...
Since then though, i have been pretty miserable. I had Thursday and Friday off and now am stuck at the center all weekend to try and recover for Monday. Its terrible. Everyone else got to go to Dubbo this weekend for Members Conference and get to see everyone and have fun and party and enjoy themselves while im stuck at home, on the couch, with my tissues, vix, vitamins and water. Terrible. Feel sorry for me :) lol. Im on the mend now though. i should be able to work Monday

Mice... I HATE mice!
Before i end my blog, i have to add in this last part. The other night, while i was sleeping, i had a mouse crawl into my hair! MY HAIR! and then i had one crawl up my back as i was sleeping. DISGUSTING! *shudder* We have now blocked off under both of our doors and have set the traps. I think we have got rid of most of them now, although i think we have one still in the room. It wont be there long though. I plan to kill it! I will teach them to dare touch me with their filth while i am sleeping!

Ok. I actually had more that i was going to blog about, but it takes so long to write this stuff down! Way longer than half an hour. Ive been sitting here for at least an hour. Admittedly i have been talking to Jess who is also sick on the couch beside mine. But still!
Never mind that though. I will end here.

Farewell fellow peoples! Think of me and pray that i will get well by Monday :)

WAR!

At Canowindra Cornerstone there is a war in progress. Lives have been lost. Possessions have been plundered. Families have been broken. This war isn't obvious, in fact you could almost say it was hidden. Everyone is fighting in it, though they may not know it. Our side is greatly outnumbered but we have superior weaponry.
My name is Mark Albion and i am a fighter in this war. The allies are my fellow students and various staff members.
My enemy, everyones enemy, is.... MICE!


Encounter One: All Wars Have a Beginning...
The day i realised that i was fighting in a war, was the day that i first found evidence of the enemy encroaching on our land. I sat down at my desk, ready to focus on our daily lectures, when i spotted it... POO! i made a loud exclamation of outrage and ran to get a cloth. and it was then, while cleaning my desk, that i realised i needed to take a more active role in the war i was in.
After making this decision i found my second piece of evidence. The rodents had been behind the allies lines. i found mouse droppings beside where i kept my toothbrush. i threw the toothbrush swearing vengeance.
i knew what to do...

Encounter Two: Skirmishes...
We sat, the allies and i, on the lounge, watching a movie to bond and grow closer together as a unit. But, just when Danielle was about to kiss Prince Henry for the first time (Ever After), we found ourselves under attack. We spotted the first mouse as it sprinted across the back of a couch. At first we tried intimidating it with stomping and loud noises, and for a time it seemed to work, but we soon found that they werent so easily intimidated. The second mouse appeared on the arm rest. The nerve! Sergeant "Wally" Jess, Private Alyssa, Captain "Granny" Amy, Lieutenant "Cantle" Jess and I rose as one, a unit prepared for battle, and took up our battle posts. I grabbed the hardcover Aristocats book, Wally a pillow, Cantle prepared to lift couches, Granny went to her lookout post, Alyssa armed herself with a pillow, and we all went at it. Granny would shout and point when she spotted a mouse, Cantle would lift the couch to expose the critters, and Alyssa, Wally and I would go at it, flailing our weapons every-which-way and direction.
The mice, in the end, escaped however. They were too fast for us and too crafty in their hiding.
That was when the brilliant suggestion was made...
"Traps..."

Encounter Three: Booby Traps and Ingenuity...
We booby trapped the entire centre. every room, every nook, every cranny. Mouse traps were set, bait applied, and we settled in to wait...
We werent kept waiting long
The amount of enemy troops caught were amazing. The dead came in floods. At first i felt regret. They were so cute after all, and they couldnt help their nature. Finding a mouse on my pillow quickly changed that!
General "Boof" Tim was the one who set the traps in our room. And it was his ingenuity that has kept the enemy numbers in our sleeping quarters down. He found the place where all the enemy passed through on their way into our room, and so he set an unbaited trap right in their path. It worked like a charm. Mice don't survive long in our room now!'

Encounter Four: Why Didn't I Pack My Night Goggles?
Somehow, the enemy found out one of our big weaknesses. We are terrible fighters at night. And so they began their nighttime skirmishes...
Rustle rustle, rip tear, squeak, skuffle. These are all the noises of enemy activity. We know by these noises that they are there, but at night we have no will to fight, and can't see enough to be any use anyways. So we lie awake, listening to their noises, picturing them eating away at your clothes, peeing on your socks, running all over your floor, and there is no way we can get to sleep.
Boof our trusty general, however, has  learnt how to battle while sleeping. We allies call people with this skill a WalkingSleeper (also known as SleepWalker) and we are fortunate that General Tim has such a skill , however effective it may be. When the noises start, he gets up out of bed, still sleeping soundly, and prowls the room, rustling around in our stuff, trying to scare/find the enemy. When you ask him what he is doing you will probably just get strange murmuring and sometimes you hear the words "mice" and "find". So you know that he is trying to find the mice. He has never found any while Sleepwalking yet, but someday maybe he will...

Encounter Five: Reflexes like Greased Lightning!
The other night i walked past the office where Private Janet was studying. As i passed she says that she believes she saw a mouse run into the paper in the corner. And so, without hesitation, i dive towards the paper. Then, when i see movement as the mouse goes to make a dash for freedom, my hands jerk with lightning reflexes downwards onto the piece of paper above him.
Gotcha!
The next part was easy. A flick of the wrist, a squeak, and then silence and stillness. Another of the enemy is dead.

Encounter Six: Getting Sloppy...
We must have been wearing the enemy down because they began to get sloppy. Maybe they were just getting desperate. Whatever the case, i managed to kill another of the enemy purely by chance.
I had just finished eating the days daily rations and was headed to the boys dorm. I openewhen i took it by surprise. As you can imagine, the shock and unexpectedness of finding a mouse beneath my foot was quite substantial. Needless to say i jumped in fright, like any soldier would. But i had killed it. Fear me, enemy of mine!

Encounter Seven: "Ratatouille - sounds like rat and patootie... who wants to eat a rat patootie?!"
We allies are required to work for a set amount of time on local farms each day. And on this particular day we were working on the Gallea farm. They were also part of the war. They fought alongside us on a different front. We helped them out where we could though, sending allies to help keep enemy numbers down.
Well, we discovered on this occasion that our enemy also had allies. Rats! And they are a lot bigger. Thankfully, though, they arent nearly as fast as their little cousins. Kinda evens things out a little bit. So when they first joined in the battle, scampering across our feet as we picked pumpkins, we jumped in fright and horror. Surely we couldnt combat such a large hideous beast! And, to rub it in, they left poo parcels all over our pumpkins that we had to pick. We were forced to wipe of the nasty things to keep the Galleas happy. Disgusting.
Eventually though, we discovered their lack of speed. And so, at the end of our work day, when "Granny" Amy and i spotted a rat, we took off after it! We flew across the field, jumping, stomping and cornering until we finally caught up with it. It didn't take much after that to kill the beastie.
Big allies you might have oh enemy of mine, but we are still bigger!


We are at war here at Canowindra Cornerstone. Losses of life, possessions and dignity is to be expected. The war is being fought behind the scenes, not noticed by all, but nevertheless everyone is participating. Superior numbers, outweighed by strength and brains.Who shall win this war? Nobody knows. But we can always hope...
The enemy - Mice

A List

Ok. First thing to do is write out a list of topics to talk about....

• Wog Night
• Winter Clothes
• Dan and Allee
• Scripture Easter Service
• Celebration of Disciplines
• Snakes
• Samson's
• Lettuce
• Birthday Party
• Balloons
• Games

There is something satisfying about writing lists. It makes you feel so organised. I should write more lists...
Now, to begin the expansion of dot points...


Wog Night
So a fair while ago Millie and Jane decided to have a "Wog Night" where Jane would cook us all her Maltese dishes and we would stuff ourselves silly and maybe Vince will tell stories about Malta and we would generally have a good time. Oh, and we would wear red and white (Maltese flag colours). Well anyways, we did have a Wog Night, and it was amazing! It was like Christmas where you stuff yourself silly on all the amazing foods, and then you have dessert! Amazing. We ate pumpkin pie, pastry puff things, rabbit (shot by Tim), maccaroni-pasta-cheesey-goodness, ice cream cake, truffle, malteasers, lollies, amazing apple pie!, custard tarts, etc. AMAZING! Stuffed full of yummy goodness. And we did wear white and red. Some of us looked pretty ridiculous. We basically just put on and white and red clothing we had, which meant lots of clashing bizarre clothing lol.
It was a good night. Lots of fun. It was nice to spend time with the Galleas in a non-work atmosphere. Plus, they have an incredible house!
Winter Clothing
It's getting colder. Funny how that happens. One day its warm and toasty like a sauna, the next day you are afraid your fingers are going to fall off from frostbite. Unfortunately i was ill equipped for winter and so buying winter clothes jumped from being last on my To Do List to the very top. The "I MUST GET THIS DONE SOON OR A MIGHT DIE" part of my To Do List. Thankfully we had a Cowra trip due. S,o as soon as we got out of the bus in Cowra, i powered over to the Op Shop. Man on a Mission. I ended up buying a flanny, a warm vest, an amazing jacket for work, work shorts and running shorts. I would have bought more clothes but the shop closed 5 minutes after we got in there. Lame! I got some stuff at least. I didn't get to look at the book section however. Even more lame!
By the way, our Cowra trips are only once a month and we are only given one hour to do all our shopping. All your shopping in one hour! Which, in my opinion, is totally stupid. We should get two at least. Shopping at the moment is just stressful lol. You should see us, we march to through the shops. No browsing for us Cornerstoners. We are Disciples on a mission, getting supplies to survive the next month. Supplies like chocolate, breaky juice, fruit, books, chips, .. you know.. the essentials. :)
Dan & Allee
So turns out Swan Hill got their holidays way earlier than we get ours. Theirs was last week and so Dan and Allee came to visit us, to to rub in the fact that we weren't on holidays yet... nah just kidding. They just came to visit us all i think. Just for the day type thing. It was pretty nice of them. Rosemary (Georgie's mother) also came to visit so George got to catch up with her and Allee over coffee in town or something. Got to hear some of the stuff going on over in Swan Hill. Sounds like they are having fun. Oh! And make sure you wash your fruit always. i didn't know that you should and was freaked out when i heard about the yuck chemicals they put on the fruit. In Swan Hill they were dipping their peaches in chemicals that can stop you having babies. how bad is that lol. good reason to wash your fruit!
Scripture Easter Service
For the last week of Scripture we had an Easter Service thing for all the kids in the church beside the school. We basically just winged it. Like always. I played the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem and had to crawl up between the pews to the front of the church. Yay. Lol, the little boy playing Jesus at first went to crawl along the ground beside me. I had to explain that he had to either lead me or sit on my back. Naturally they decided to sit on my back and pull my hood lol. Then he didn't want to get off. I kind of just got up and let him slide/fall off.
We went through the whole story with them briefly and played games at the same time to keep them interested. And we sang songs between each section as well. They loved "Lord I Lift Your Name On High". The Scripture teachers didn't know the actions so us Cornerstoners had to teach them. I hadn't done the actions for ages and couldn't remember them at first but i just visualised those times leading Kids Church songs and i remembered all the actions lol. The kids loved it. Georgie, Anna, Jewels and I all went up the front and led in the actions and so i got to see them all getting right into the song lol. I love teaching little kids :) So much fun.
We also provided easter eggs for them all. Jewels and Anna bought eggs and cellophane, and Georgie and i made little easter egg bundles for them all. We made 130 bundles in total. Nice round number :) Well anyways, i thought we only needed 100 so when Helen said the next morning that she forgot to get eggs for her class, i offered her the 30 extra that we had. Unfortunately i got to the car and was told that we needed 150 lol. So i had to race over to where Helen was pulling out of her driveway and knock on her window to get her to stop. She was laughing as she wound down the window and she said straight away "You're going to take your gift back arent you?" lol. I laughed and said yes and apologized. She didnt seem to mind. Thought it rather amusing for some reason...
Turns out we only needed 100 anyways. Oh well. Sorry Helen :)
Celebration of Disciplines
At the moment i am reading the best book! It's called Celebration of Disciplines (hence the subheading in bold) and is about Spiritual Disciplines (hence the book title :) ). It's so good! It's easy to read and really engaging. I reckon everyone should read it. Buy it from Koorong. I dare you :)
But yeah its been really good. The introduction was talking about how we often try to fix ourselves up by our own wills, trying to fix us from the inside, which is impossible. It's God who changes us from the inside out. All we can do is change our outsides. eg habits, the way we act, what we read, etc. and these things are all good to change if they are unhelpful, but trying to change ourselves, our real selves, our insides, is actually wrong. the book even went far enough to say that it was Will Worship. like worshiping our wills. its really confusing to explain but the book was really good. you should read it. but anyways, the point it was making was that we need to let God change us. And the Spiritual Disciplines are like a way to put us in a place where we allow God to change us, inviting Him to change us, sitting at Jesus' feet like Mary, etc. They don't change us in themselves but are tools used to help us connect with and learn from and deepen our relationship with God, and so letting Him change us! ... ok im not sure if that made sense at all to anyone but if you read the book you will understand. if what i said sounded wrong and you disagree with what i wrote then you will just have to read it yourself :) so ha! if you like the sound of what i wrote, read it! if you didnt, read it! lol. its a good book.
you dont actually have to read it if you don't want to, but i encourage you to do it :)
Snakes
I was bitten by a snake!
nah im just pulling your leg. we do have a brown snake at the center though. it's living under Jons office we think. So far i have watched Sam try to catch it 3 times. And by "catch" i mean "find and catch". He hasnt actually found it to be able to catch it yet. He plans to relocate it to some place way down the road and not kill it. He's a snake lover :)
I'm also now very seriously considering buying a python. Sam has two Children's Pythons here and they are so cute. They only grow to a meter so i don't have to worry about it trying to eat me or anything. And they are totally cool. I think i might get one. What do you think? :)
Samson's
I worked at the Azapardi's the other day and we were doing Samson Pumpkins. (also called Queensland Grey's). Think big, grey, pumpkin. And we were picking and washing them. Picking them is alright. You just snip the stem with the secateurs and put the pumpkin on the conveyor belt. The washing, however, is EVIL. Chris and I alternated unpacking them onto the belt and packing them in boxes. So basically how it works is one of us unpacks the Samson's from big plastic crates onto a conveyor belt ads fast as we can, they travel along the belt and through a washed where four girls stand and scrub them as they go past, and then they move along past the other one of us who then packs them into massive cardboard boxes as fast as they can. It is so exhausting!
Lettuce
If melons are evil, and pumpkins are the evil twins to melons, lettuce is the evil stepmother for sure. They are terrible. It's cold, it's wet and it's very fiddly. I now dream of lettuce cutting. You have to cut the butt's low enough, keep them clean despite the mud, take of bad/dirty leaves, but not take off too many leaves, etc. It's like impossible to do perfectly right. It's sooo stressful. I have been dreaming about lettuce's. Jane even yells at me in my dreams! Then, in my dream i was all of a sudden a amazing lettuce cutter and they were coming up like perfect every time... and she still yelled at me! So stressful. I do it wrong even when i'm doing it right in my dreams. *shake head sadly* why do i even bother?!
We cut two types of lettuce. Iceberg Lettuce and Cos Lettuce. Cos is the easier one to cut by far. Iceberg (the round lettuce that you normally buy) is the bad one. I'm telling all of you now that you need to stop and appreciate the next lettuce you eat because some poor worker (like me) has put up with stress and yelling and mud and cold to get it to you lol. I have a new appreciation for fruit and vegetables since working here. So much work goes into it and i'm very thankful that people are willing to do it :)
Birthday Party
So, the other day it was Oli Wagstaffe's birthday party and i was asked to help out with managing the many kids coming for an hour or so. It meant i would miss out on some of lectures but i didnt mind really coz i got to spend an hour or so playing with the kids lol. Anyways, i ended up going down there right as pass the parcel was commencing, so i just sat down in the circle and joined in lol. I don't like pass the parcel very much because there are always some kids who think that it wasnt fair because they didnt win the big prize or anything. It was pretty funny to watch though. This one little kid would start opening the parcel every time it came past him. I don't think he ever caught on that he could only open a layer if the music stopped on him lol. Poor guy. It was very cute. I think they enjoyed it though. One little girl felt like she should have got another chocolate though lol. Oh well.
After the game it was afternoon tea time! So i got to sit there and chat with all the mothers while eating all the amazingly yummy party food. Jewel's is an amazing cook. We had homemade sausage rolls, fairy bread, butterfly cakes, homemade lamington's, chicken nuggets, chips, lollies, drinks, etc. YUM! I'm totally volunteering for any future parties lol. I ate so much party food. There was way too much for the kids so i just got to eat and eat lol. So yummy.
After eating our fill, the pinata came out! That was fun. Calvin was very funny. He decided he wasn't going to have a go hitting the pinata because that way he could be the closest when the pinata broke open, meaning he could quickly grab lots and lots of lollies when they fell. I laughed when he explained. He said it so logically that i couldn't come up with any argument. In the end though he didn't end up the closest to the lollies. The bag broke but didn't burst, so Tim threw the lollies up into the air and let the kids go for them like a bunch of chickens with scraps :) lol. A few kids had to be convinced to part with their excess and share with other children with less, but generally i think they all left content with their prizes :) I love pinata's
Balloon's
The other weekend we had our balloon festival! Not little boring balloons that you hold, but the big type that you can fly in. The other day at work i looked up from picking butternuts to see the air filled with all the hot air balloons flying past. We even had some land in the paddocks beside us. It was pretty cool. We kept stopping work to wave back to the people in the baskets. Lol, at one point Sam and i were cutting ahead while Saerom and Eungeong cut the roadway. One of us kind of wondered aloud to the other "I wonder how the Korean girls are going" and we both looked around to check their progress. And what we saw was both of them jumping up and down waving and yelling "Helloooo!" to a balloon overhead lol. It was so funny. We kind of laughed together and went back to work... But yeah. It wasnt the most productive work day. Balloon's are just too distracting.
We also went on Saturday night to see the Balloon Glow. Basically masses of people all came and gathered on the ovals to buy food grown locally, and then watch all the balloons light up and flash on and off to music playing. It was pretty spectacular. They glow like massive coloured light bulbs. And one of the balloons was a great big kookaburra! They were pretty cool. We all had a great time taking pictures. Looked amazing. Unfortunately children kept running in front of us and didn't take the hints when i loudly commented "I hate it when kids get in the way while you are watching something" or when i said "Children, can you please move. You are in our way" or when i said "Do you MIND?" or "Move children MOVE!". They just stood there and played in front of us. It was even worse when the adults then came and stood right in front of us to have a yarn. You'd think people would be more considerate! Poor Jess W kept taking pictures with peoples heads passing in front of the balloons lol. Oh well. It was still fun. And i actually wasn't that bothered by the kids. They were more amusing than annoying really lol.
Games
Speaking of children, i just love watching the center kids playing their make believe games together! lol it is so funny. One morning i had an amazing few minutes watching Calvin and Reid having a lightsaber duel on the road. Reid had the red lightsaber so i assume he was the bad guy. But anyways, they had this epic fight before Reid finally slew Calving with his saber. But then, somehow, Calvin managed to kill Reid as he fell. I assume he used the Force lol. I couldn't see because he fell out of my view. I just saw Reid suddenly fling back and die lol. It was so cool. I felt like clapping lol.

Here ends my list of topics to speak about.