i need to write in my blog more often...

Ok so i havent written for a while so i have tried to make a list of things to talk about. Chances are i wont remember everything funny/meaningful that has happened since i last wrote but it can't be helped.
Ok. So the other week a group of us decided to go for a random trip to Cowra for something to do. Exciting, i know! We went shopping and stuff and then went to Maccas after for a coffee ( i had an amazing Latte Frappe). It was pretty fun. Just hung out and stuff. Not too interesting...
On the way back though, Tim and Millie decided to eat some raw garlic. i wasnt going to do it but there was no reasoning with them. They both just turned to me and started saying "do it Mark! Just put it in your mouth. Dont think about it. Come on. Go Go GO GO!" and so, under the strain of peer pressure, i ate a clove of garlic. it was disGUSTING! it tasted foul and burnt your mouth. after eating it i felt so sick and you couldnt get rid of the taste or smell. it followed you. we all were burping up garlic all night. so gross. it was hilarious... but so gross.
Oh! later that night i then went with Chris, George and Jess C to see some kind of opening at the art gallery. The art was amazing and everyone was heaps nice... but i couldnt enjoy it at all. you know why? coz i spent the entire time holding in garlic burps! it was a really nice gallery and heaps of people were there so i didnt want to burp up disgustingness. and do you know how hard it is to repress burps when you need to burp every two minutes?! we spent like 45minutes there and i just felt more and more sick from swallowing these burps down. And when i got out of there, i dashed straight to the sidewalk and let out the massivest, longest burp ever. then i quickly moved to avoid the smell lol. it was traumatic i tell you!
You know, the other day James came in and began his lecture with the bold claim
      "At the end of this lecture every one of you will know what God wants you to do with your life"
and so i was all like "yeah! somehow at the end of this lecture i will know what God wants me to do with my life. Like an overseas missionary, a youthworker, a doctor, a farmer, an orthodontist!" lol. or something along those lines. I was in for disappointment and a revelation though. We learnt that its true that sometimes God does very clearly give you direction in life, and at those times you should recognise and respond to God's direction, but we shouldnt just sit around waiting for God to reveal his will for us... coz he has already told us his will for us! we are told to continually strive to be Christ-like. so its not about what we are doing or where we are, its about whether or not we are striving to be more Christ-like. often people have this idea that they should wait for God to give them their calling, for God to reveal their calling in life, and dont even realise that they already have their calling! and i was thinking back, and i realised that i had done exactly that. i had this bizarre idea that like the purpose, almost, of my life would start until God told me what he wanted, and that everything else kind of led up to it. i hadnt really thought about the fact that, believing this, i was believing that the first part of my life was development, the second part was doing what i had to do, and the last part was left pointless coz i had already "fulfilled" my calling. how silly of me :) . that doesnt mean i can go do anything i want of course. it means that my attitude towards what i do with life is all about pursuing God and striving to be Christ-like. naturally choosing to do some things would be unhelpful with that and so i should avoid those things... but yeah. the lecture was kind of based on that stuff. i dont think ive actually conveyed what i learnt well really and its all jumbled and its came out wrong. the heart of it though is that we should be striving to be Christ-like :)
be Christ-like everyone! lol
ha! i have the funniest story. the other week in scripture i was sitting at these desks with these 3 five year old boys, and one of the boys said the phrase "easy-peasy-lemon-squeasy". then this skinny fella says in a lofty voice "it's easy-peasy-japaneasy". which i found amusing. and the first boy kind of shrunk into himself a little. but then the third boy comes to his defense and says, nearly with disdain "no silly. remember what Mrs [Wheelbarrow] said last year? we can't say japaneasy anymore..." at which point i kind of thought the rule was a bit rediculous. but my thinking was interupted when the boy finished by saying "... its because the lemon-squeasy people get offended" then to my great amusement i watched as all three boys kind of nodded seriously, and then went back to work. i nearly roared with laughter! it was so funny! i had to put my hand over my mouth and cough to cover my laughter. so hilarious!
oh i should tell you about Georgies party. ages ago Millie and i thought up the idea of a surprise birthday party for Georgies 18th. it went really well! i wont go into all the details, because im lazy, but it was basically a nice dinner with a disco. everyone dressed up nice, Georgies family came, we told nice/funny stories about George, played songs for her, danced the night away, etc. it was lots of fun. i helped Chris write a song for Georgie and we all sang it for her after dinner. its the funniest, most ridiculous, song in the world but it was a total hit. and it was made really catchy so we have all been singing it to ourselves off and on since. it was the funnest night. we all had a ball. and Jon is a really good DJ! he had so much sound stuff! it took forever to set up. we even had a smoke machine and a strobe! so good! and Georgie loved it :)
Ummm... whats another story i can tell you all about...? ok. the other night Wally, Alyssa and i were watching Ever After when we saw a mouse on top of one of our lounge chairs! needless to say we reacted with absolute outrage. it ran off though so we settled back into the movie... but then we saw another one right next to us! we then decided unanimously, and without consultation, that the mice needed to be delt with. so we all rose up and went about the process of catching and killing these mice. in the end we had like 6 of us in the lounge room chasing these mice. and when i say chasing i mean jumping onto, over and around lounges, tables and object. we were screaming at them and at eachother in our pursuit. each of us had our self designated roles and weapons in our chase. Alyssa and Janet directed and pointed out where the mice were, Jess C and Tim lifted the couches and objects that they hid under, while Wally and i tried to catch and kill them. I wielded a large childrens book (the Aristocats) while Wally chose a cushion as her weapon of choice. and we wernt afraid to use them! ..... needless to say we were all a funny sight. running around, screaming and wacking at things with large childrens books. it was really fun and not a tiny bit hilarious lol. eventually though someone suggested we just use mouse traps lol. how smart of them. and so we set mouse traps and went back to our movie again.
the next morning we found two dead mice. ah the sweet taste of victory!  *grin*
oh i have to tell you about our guinea pig escapades! last tuesday Millie, Sam  and i were at the Webbs for our tute dinner thing. and after dinner we found out that Liam Wagstaffe had had all his guinea pigs escape and they had bred and were now all over their back yards. naturally we wanted to investigate. so the kids led us outside to see these escapees and within a few minutes the chase was on :) Ruth and James were outside and had joined the chase soon after. and then all the Wagstaffes came out and joined the pursuit. it was very amusing. at times i was laughing so hard at everyone that i just couldnt effectively help at all. i remember one point where Ruth was trying to reach down to catch one and screaming "i can't get it! i can't get it! get them!" while scrambling through this bush. and i was trying to help her corner it in the bush but was laughing so hard that i couldnt. it was hilarious. we all took it very seriously too. i loved it. countless times i found myself shouting "DONT ABANDON YOUR POST! JAMES! YOU HAVE LEFT YOUR POST!" lol. in the end we caught three of them i think. so much fun.
oh! the other day we were cutting up firewood and we found some rat babies! they were so cute! Carmel tried to kill them straight away. i stopped her killing them all but i think she hit two of them because they died very quickly. they were so cute though! they were all furry with little eyes and feet. there were three of them. Mercedes (the more active one), Sparticus (the overlooked one) and Gidgee (the intellectual of the family). Sparticus and Gidgee i think were hit by the log wielded by Carmel. Mercedes was alright though. We had to kill them though coz we are in the midst of a rat/mouse plague. and so we decided to feed them to Sams snake. very sad. i didnt want to kill Mercedes. then Sam threw him across the roadway to kill him! and i ran over to check and found him still half alive! so i ended up killing him to end his misery. so sad. they were so cute. poor rat babies...
the other night we had a camp at the Poplar trees. we ate vegies and a rabbit that Tim shot. followed by some tea and apples caramelised in the coals. yum! Carmel and i named the campsite "Camp Larf", because we could :). it was so good. we had heaps of fun that night. went to bed some time after 3 i think. the stars were amazing....
ok thats all im going to write about. i hope you enjoyed reading about my various escapades...
the end for now.

Another week. More stuff to tell about. Another interesting title to begin the blog with.

Ok... I never know how to structure these blogs. The most logical way to do it, you would think, would be to do it in a chronological order. However it never seems to work out that way. My fingers just start typing and the thoughts and memories just come out onto the page without much sequence and order at all. Today i have made a list on a notepad beside me with a list of things, in the order they happened, that i wanted to record. It might work... maybe :)
Lectures. Man you guys are seriously all missing out. so good! we have a few different lecturers at the moment and they all teach in pretty different ways. they all bring an enthusiasm to their subject that they teach though, which makes a huge difference. its infectious :) We all get totally into each lecture (usually) despite being so tired all the time. For example, the other day we had a lecture on World Views with Tim Wagstaff, and we had the most amazing discussions! at one stage though, the discussions turned into a heated discussion, then a debate and then an argument lol. We were talking about truth and some people were saying that there wasn't any absolute truth! I KNOW! crazy. anyways, Carmel and i, with Tim H in support, ended up arguing against like the whole class. Josh (Jess's Josh) i swear was deliberately saying things that he knew we would get fired up about. I was so annoyed. It was good though. In my mind we won and convinced them that we were right, but even if they weren't convinced i know that they are wrong and am prepared to let it go :) lol
Two weekends ago we had our pledge night! It was so good! I wont say anything else about it except thankyou to everyone who contributed to the weekend to make it amazing for me :)
Last Monday we played our second last touch footy game (the semi final) and we won! we were so happy. After the game our team had to ref another game. So Tim, Jess C, Sam and i all decided to start walking home while the others stayed behind and reffed. We went through the river along the way, just for kicks, and mucked around and laughed as we walked. Then Tim suggested that we jog for a while, which Jess totally supported, so we started jogging (Sam didn't jog though because of a cut up foot or something..., so he got left behind). Anyways, we ended up jogging for like 25 minutes non stop. I fell behind quickly but eventually caught up to Jess and then we jogged together. By the time the bus came to pick us up we were a fair way up Rivers road and so had jogged around 6km or so. It doesn't sound like a lot but believe me it was a fair bit. Jogging that long makes your legs pretty stiff the next morning lol. It was so good though. loved it.
On Tuesday we had Scripture. And Georgie and I had to run it ourselves. !! Georgie did really well with her class. She told the story amazingly for the young boys and had them all listening and attentive. My scripture class went alright too. I was so nervous. The kids enjoyed it though. Probably because i bribed them with lollies :) At one point though i found myself thinking "oh my goodness i have no idea what point I'm making or where I'm going with this" and i kind of shot Anna a look asking for help with my eyes. She then stepped in subtly and directed the conversation. I then could gather myself and keep going. The kids didn't pick up on my nervousness or panic at all though which is always good :) The only thing that i was told to work on was speaking louder. They said i spoke well but i just need to raise my voice slightly. Apparently i have a quiet voice lol. Who would have thought?
After scripture i played Ticket to Ride (a board game) with Millie, Tim, Ethan and Steve. Millie won but i managed to come in second (just). It was my first game so i was pretty proud of myself lol. Its a really good game. Everyone should buy it.
During the rest of the week stuff and things and work happened. Can't remember anything interesting off the top of my head...
On the next Saturday (last Saturday) the girls went camping. Not real camping though coz all they did was go over to the poplar trees to camp. (for those that don't know, the poplar trees is down in the field next to us). Us guys went out to dinner. We went to the golf club and ate Chinese. it tasted so good. i had fried banana and ice cream for desert. yum! Then, when we came home we decided to take advantage of the girls being gone... So we went into their bathroom and put detergent into some of their soaps, Coleslaw sauce into some of their shampoos and orange essence into various cleaning stuff too. i forget exactly what went into what because i spent most of the time laughing. Then, after calming down, we decided to watchgood movie?!?!" and "i want the last two hours of my life back!"... like i said. stupid movie.
The next morning we got some pretty satisfying responses to the pranks. Wally actually put the Coleslaw into her hair  and realised that  it smelt like mayo half way through lol. Georgie smelt it as she went to use it and so used something else. Carmel washed her hair with it but didn't even notice lol. She didn't realise that it was Coleslaw until after the other girls commented on it lol. So funny.
Oh. We also had a watermelon/water fight after work on Saturday too. Amy and Alfy(our boss type fella) started it. Millie then joined and everyone ended up involved in the field. Then they decided that the people working in the shed should be meloned too, so when the came to the bus they were drenched and covered in melon. It was pretty fun. The bus was a bit of a mess though :)
Tim had his compound bow and his gun brought down so we could go hunting. They are pretty cool. We have had some target practice and i think Tim and Jordan managed to shoot one rabbit. Good fun. Although... i was shooting the bow the other day and one of my fingertips went numb, which i thought nothing of at the time, but its now several days later and feeling still hasn't come back. Its really bizarre. Its probably another molonitis symptom. they don't want us to have fun so they are punishing us. evil melons.
Speaking of evil melons, the feud between us has escalated. They are now trying to kill me. I work close to the tractor because i more the belt up and down as needed and stop the tractor if people are falling behind... and so i am close to where the melons build up as they go onto the trailer. They build up when there are too many and they aren't moving along the trailer belt fast enough. And so what the melons are doing is they are taking advantage of the build up and throwing themselves off the belt and trying to hit me. Three times now I've either had to move at the last second or nearly been hit on the back or head as they shoot down past me, before dying a splattery death on the ground at my feet. Evil melons....
We had our last touch foot game last night, which is very sad. We lost the final for C grade, which is also very sad. And at one point one guy broke through the line so i took chase after him but didn't quite manage to catch him which is also sad. But, the other team voted me as the best and fairest player and so i got a mad drink bottle when the awards were given out later in the night. Yeah!
What else to say.... there are probably other things that happened which i have missed, but i cant think of them at the moment so we will let it go.
And here ends this weeks recount of surviving first year...