Edge Hill - Groove Armada

MONDAY MAR.14

Well i just had a really cool experience.....with stars. I really don't feel like telling you it now...I"m having a sappy-ish moment right now. So maybe I"ll tell you about the stars later...

TUESDAY MAR.15

Well here's what happened to me last night:
I was just laying out in under the stars and just kinda praying to God. Asking Him things like "Where do you want me to go after here? Do you want me to stay another 6 months? Who should i like now? Why can't guys seem to like me?" plus other things that have been running through my mind. When i first layed down in the grass there were only a few distinct stars out in the sky. As time went on ( a few minutes) slowly there were more stars that came out and they became clearer. I could really feel God was telling me something: "Over time, i will make things more clear to you. All you need to do is focus on me, read my word and I'll
reveal all these things to you" Even though I was still confused about all these things, I felt a peace about them that I haven't felt since my Quiet Day a fw weeks ago. So it was just nice to have God quietly remind me about these types of things :)

Well as i said before I've been asking God whether or not I"m supposed to stay here for another 6 months or not. I know many of you that are reading this are thinking "No! You can't stay there, we miss you too much". I know you miss me, i miss you guys too. However i need to do what God wants. I LOVE it here at bible school, i mean i love the whole atmosphere of it here. It's just so awesome! I'm just confused because i dont' know if I'm supposed to stay here to learn more or if I"m supposed to go home and encourage my Christian friends/be a witness to my
non-Christian friends. I'm learning so much here, and it's only been 7 weeks!!! So if you could all pray for me and making this decision that would be awesome! Plus i feel like i should wait and see if I"m accepted into music education at U of S, but i don't find that out until May! So it's just having the patience to wait for that. I just want to see if that door is open to me or not. But please still pray for me and my desicion to stay or not.

Fun fact: I'm listening to "Faith Like A Child" by Jars of Clay.....i thought that was a cool fact because I need faith in finding out what God wants from me here.

Funny Story: So i went skydiving a few weeks ago (check the blog if you want more details) and about a week ago mom e-mails be complaining "why did you do that? How could you do that? you're worrying me". Blah blah blah,...you know my mom. So then i e-mailed her back say something about how she can't stop me from enjoying New Zealand and that she should just stop worrying already! Then dad e-mailed me yesterday telling me that mom's willing to go skydiving if dad's willing to pay. That'd be pretty funny, cause then she'll know how safe it really was, I'm sure she'd enjoy it however I don't think she'd actually go through with it cause she's my mom. So ya, that's my funny story of the day.

If you're wondering what I"m up top "educationally speaking"...here's the scoop:
Well we don't really have "final exams" here @ Capernwray. Each week we have only 1 assignment, plus a weekly ministry. This week our assignment is reading a book about discipleship and writing about a 3 page review on it, plus we do our weekly ministry, plus this week it's prep week for Ministry week where we actually get off campus to teach the word of God. I"m actually going to Totara (I think that's how you spell it) Springs Camp which is only about 40 min. from school. I"m assuming it's going to be just like Junior Camps @ Stoney but smaller setting and less kids. So that'll be fun :)

FRIDAY MAR.18

Well i don't really know what else to say about what's been going on this week. Lots of ministry preparation and getting ready for next week. Most groups either leave today or tomorrow, however our group doesn't need to be @ Totara Springs until next Thursday. So in the mean time we're having team building @ the Adventure Bible School Lodge and then maybe helping out at another camp.

Oh cool story, if you like D&D and Lord of the Rings you might enjoy this, my friend Jake is writing up a fictional story about...um it's really hard to explain. I'm hoping to post the story on my blog when it's all done so that you can read it. Here are the characters, a description of them, and who they are based on:

Jakob= a powerful preist, no color in his eyes, just white glowing orbs, black hooded robe, servant of the One God =Jake

Captian Mattberg= the Captain of Daranei’s army, master of two weapon combat, doesn't know if he can trust Jakob in fighting for God=Matt

Rick= Mattberg's friend and part of the army, loves good food=Erik

Sta-sae= a clumsy but vicious Ranger, she has 3 daggers as weapons,=Stacey

Wrath= a very strong Ranger (only women can be Rangers), helped train Sta-sae, was evil yet became good= Ruth

Aerlen= an acolyte (the preist's apprentice), she doesn't have any white in her eyes, it's all black, she wears a brown hooded robe, when she attackes people she can blur in and out (like that character off of X-Men 2), she has "shadow sight" which is where she can see people lurking in the shadows, and she can also sense evil presences and when that happens her eyes turn blood red= she's based on me :)

So if i ever mention any of these characters, then you'll know what I've been talking about :) I even drew a sketch of what Sta-sae and Aerlen look like. They're pretty cool. I might even attempt to draw the guys's characters but we'll see.

MONDAY MAR. 21

Sorry I haven't really written much this week. Now that I have time I can bring you up to date on some things.

Since it was Ministry prep week last week, we had some drama presentations on Friday. I got videos of all the dramas except two. They have some really awesome messages behind them so I"m hoping to show you them and maybe you can use them for whatever purposes you want to. They're really awesome drama! I loved them.

So most of the groups either left on Friday or Saturday except Hayden's group (that's the one I"m in) and Dave's group. So on Saturday most people from both groups all went to Mt. Maunganui to have some "bonding" time. It was awesome! I've come to the conclusion that I LOVE New Zealand beaches. Just love them! I even got a darker tan than before!!! Now i
actually have distinct tan lines! Yay for me! Then all of us went to the hot pools, aw man, that felt really nice after a long day of being lazy at the beach!

Last night (Sunday) we had a surprise birthday party for Bianca at Hayden's house. It was so much fun, and it was just move "bonding time" between our two groups. We also played a "Get To Know Your Teammates" type game too. I'll have to show you sometime.

Today both teams went up to the Adventure Bible School Lodge for some team building activities. Our task was to build a raft, take it on the river, over and through a small path on an island and take the raft back to shore. Our team made our raft big enough to let those who couldn't swim on our team would just sit on it and the rest of us would push/pull the raft along. I'll be sure to show you pictures of our raft and Dave's team's raft. It was tons of fun building it, it reminded me of Survival training @ camp. *sigh*I miss camp...oh and Melissa sent me a
postcard today, so that made my day too.

Um what else happened. Oh our team went over to Finlay park to work a little bit on an isalnd that's there and cut off some vines that have been wrapping around the trees there. It was so crazy to see all these vines. I mean they were everywhere!! All of the paths that were on the
island were made entirely out of vine roots, NOT tree roots. Some of the trees were completely covered in the stuff. So it was cool that we got to help out with that.

TUESDAY MAR. 22

Today wasn't too bad because orginally we were supposed to help someone paint their office but then that didnt' work out for him so we helping him fold some Youth Group posters and letters and he was sending out. It really wasn't too bad.

In the middle or working we stopped to have lunch and then a Starbucks break. You can just imagine how happy i was when that happened! :) We also had a few minutes to just shop around, so guess where i went first....MUSIC STORE!! I really couldn't help it, I was just drawn to it ;) I
ended up getting 3 soundtrack CD's:
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Lara Croft Tomb Raider
Sister Act
So yes, even though i already have a few of the songs off the CD's on burnt CD's, i still bought the really CD's. Mostly because they were at a pretty decent price and it's always nice to look at a CD liner when you're listening to a movie soundtrack CD. Plus I'm somewhat addicted to music

When we got back to school we cut up some ingredients for some pumpkin soup that we're going to send to some elderly people. It's just another nice thing we could do while waiting until Thursday to pack up and go to Totara Springs.

Mar.9-12

WEDNESDAY MAR. 9

My dad forwarded me a forward sent to my hotmail account. It's really good so I thought I'd just share it with you...

As you got up this morning, I watched you, and hoped you would talk to me, even if it was just a few words, asking my opinion or thanking me for something good that happened in your life yesterday. But I noticed you were too busy, trying to find the right outfit to wear.

When you ran around the house getting ready, I knew there would be a few minutes for you to stop and say hello, but you were to busy. At one point you had to wait fifteen minutes with nothing to do except sit in a chair.

Then I saw you spring to your feet. I thought you wanted to talk to me but you ran to the phone and called a friend to get the latest gossip instead. I watched patiently all day long. With all our activities I guess you were too busy to say anything to me.

I noticed that before lunch you looked around, maybe you felt embarrassed to talk to me,that is why you didn't bow your head. You glanced three or four tables over and you noticed some of your friends talking to me briefly before they ate, but you didn't. That's okay. There is still more time left, and I hope that you will talk to me yet.

You went home and it seems as if you had lots of things to do. After a few of them were done, you turned on the TV. I don't know if you like TV or not, just about anything goes there and you spend a lot of time each day in front of it not thinking about anything, just enjoying the show. I
waited patiently again as you watched the TV and ate your meal, but again you didn't talk to me.
Bedtime I guess you felt too tired. After you said goodnight to your family you plopped into bed and fell asleep in no time. That's okay because you may not realize that I am always there for you.. I've got patience, more than you will ever know.... I even want to teach you how to be patient with others as well.

I love you so much that I wait everyday for a nod, prayer or thought, or a thankful part of your heart. It is hard to have a one-sided conversation. Well, you are getting up once again. Once again I will wait, with nothing but love for you. Hoping that today you will give me some time. Have a nice day!

Your friend,
GOD

Yes, I do Love God. He is my source of existence and Savior. He keeps me functioning each and everyday. Without Him, I will be nothing. Without him, I am nothing; but with Him I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)

I just thought I'd post that up, just for something for you to think about :)

SATURDAY MAR 12

Wow I've written nothing in like 4 days........such craziness! Well here's what's been happening in my life and mind over the past week.

Well my friend Jake here knows i just LOVE Phantom Of the Opera. So he tells me not only did he saw it live, in Sydney..............BUT he saw Sarah Brightman live!!! See ever since i heard the London POTO soudntrack, Iv'e had a love for Sarah Brightman, i even bought one of her Las
Vegas live performance CD's as i Christmas present to myself. So ya now I"m jealous of Jake, cause not only did he see it live, but he say Sarah Brightman. *sigh* I"m cool with it now though :)

Oh last Sunday at church we got to watch Mr. Bean. That's right, you read that right, we watched Mr.Bean in church!!! Well actually it had something to do with the message how how there are different types of churches. I missed the message of it because we had to teach sunday school.

Our lesson for this week was to explain how TV can influence you and what you think is right or wrong. It was good, except that some of the kids can be a bit rowdy at times, so if you could pray that they settle down and listen that would be awesome.

Oh a few days ago when i was doing my devotions the verse that the passage was based on was in Rom.8 so I read all of Rom.8, because i usually read the whole chapter that the passage is based on so that i get the whole meaning and context of it. So ya my devotion of the day was based on Rom.8. Then the lecturer for this week mentioned Rom.8 about 3 times. Then part of the morning team devotion was from Rom.8 It was just really cool how pretty much everything that day, in the biblical sense was based on Rom.8!!

Well we all know that I"m now obessed with Phantom of the Opera. So when Hayden mentioned POTO in one of his lecturers, i bolted upright (cause i was slouching), and i could tell that all my friends were staring at me waiting for one of my usual reactions to Phantom. Then Hayden
asked if anyone has seen it, of course i shot my hand up right away. I think i scared Hayden, but that's ok ;) Yay for Phantom!!

The next day (Thursday) 8 of us girls and Tom dressed up to go see the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. I was totally stressing out cause i needed to get my bible study done, plus i had to make some effort into looking nice for the symphony, plus i was having frustrations with guys, but i had lack of sleep so my head was pounding. Argh, so i was just stressed out. So i got myself all prettied up and everything. Dave said i looked good and he was being silly and he bowed down in front of my and started petting my feet. Oh silly Dave!!

But ya the symphony was SO awesome! The piano player was just amazing! Like if you play piano and you play an octave chord and jump around to another octave chord it's really really easy to "smudge" it with the surrounding keys. But this guy was super pro ast this! He was totally jumping around from octave chords to octave chords without "smudging" it. Plus he has everything memorized and they were like 15 minute long songs! Oh man, it was just amazing! I definately want to watch more live symphonies and other live music performances when i get back home. Oh and if you were wondering, i felt much better after the symphony and i didn't have as much stress as i did beforehand.

Last night there was about 10 of us girls that had a movie night. Well actually before we watched the movies we kinda had a little wrestling fight between all ten of us. It was fun!! I think Diane's foot almost landed in my face, but other than that it was awesome :) The movies that we ended up watching were "I Am Sam" and "Princess Diaries". "I Am Sam" is a really good movie. I've been wanting to watch it for a while now, and now that I have, I'd recommend it. Definately a
must see! After "Princess Diaries" i was feeling sad cause i missed that feeling. As in the feeling of being loved/liked by someone else. Aw!

Then i went into the Orangery (it's what we call our dining hall) and Graham and some of my girl friends here were watching "A Walk To Remember". So to avoid being even sadder i decided to watch a bit of the "Settlers of Catan" game that was going on. Dave, Ray, Erik, Matt B., Mark, and Jan (pronouced Yawn...he's from Holland) were all getting ready to play and Dave said that they came up with their own version of "Ice Ice Baby". It was SO cool! I only remember 2 parts of it: Ray would do the base line and Dave would contribute with the high pitch beat. The other guys were in there somehow too, so it sounded awesome.

That was about it that happened list night. Oh, ever since i got here I've been trying to find the Southern Cross in the sky, and list night i finally found it.

Today a few of us did a little shopping trip into town. I read a bit of Becky's blog and she said that she's sending me a package with a few random things and she mentioned the bubbles are one of those random things. So i'm definately excited to recieve some bubbles!

I also bought two CD's cause I've now realize that I"m addicted to music. I bought "The Princess Bride" soundtrack and a jazz CD that was $4.99. I'm listening to it right now. Well actually it's "The Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker". It's really really good. It's making me miss band, and playing tenor sax, and hearing the Schem play bari sax (cause he's the only real bari-man that i know....sorry Reid), and I really want to just learn how to play sax and improv on what I've learnt so far. *big sigh* I love jazz music.........all i need now is some Starbucks coffee and my day will be complete!

Well actually it's only 2:00 in the afternoon right now. There's a rugby game tonight in Hamilton that about 40 of us are going to. I"m pretty excited. I mean i understand the basics of rugby, but it think that's just the basics of the basics, if that makes sense. We're cheering for the Waikato Chiefs so we all gotta wear some sort of red, black or yellow cause that's the team's colors. If we wear blue (the Auckland Blue's color...obviously) we may get hurt cause most of the place will be filled with Chief fans. I"m hoping to curl my hair all crazy-ish and maybe wear a yellow T-shirt and my black board shorts, well that's just depending on how much laundry i can get done.

Skydiving.... And the rest of my week

SATURDAY FEB 26

**Many of you may have already read this but it's still on the blog for you to read it again. If you did get this e-mailed to you...read it again cause now i corrected most of my spelling errors**

Well for those of you who don't know yet...i went skydiving today. Oh man i don't even know where to begin or how to explain it to you so that you understand what the experience feels like. But I will try my best. So me,Steph, Nick, Nikki, Stacey, Ronaele, Dan, Graham, and Jamie all woke up super early cause we had to leave @ 4:45 to get to Taupo by 6:40. We made it into the plane hanger at about 7:00 cause we had to fill out a whole bunch of forms and get everyone organized. I couldn't believe that we were actaully there getting ready to jump. I was SO pumped up for it. Yay!

We suited up and met our "instructors" because it was tandem skydiving, meaning you are strapped onto someone who actually knows what they are doing. So ya, my instructors name was Fred and he seemed to know what he was doing cause he said that he had done about 1100...or wait, was it 11000 sky jumps (he told me later that he's been in the Guiness Book of
World Records because of sky surfing). Anyway the point was was that he seemed to know what he was doing.

All of us that were diving from school decided to pitch in and buy the DVD of us getting ready to jump and of us landing (if we were to get the DVD of us actually in the air and jumping it would have been super expensive so we just went with this option). So eventually all of us will get a burnt copy of that CD, so I"ll be able to show you exactly what I"m talking about now ;)

Anyway we actually didn't get off the ground until an hour later because of the cloud cover. We did keep ourselves entertained by visiting and playing "No, Who?" (I'll teach you that game too ;))and by taking random pictures of each other. Then we heard a buzzer go and then we know this was it...we were going skydiving!

I was the last one to get on the plane with my instructor so that meant i was the first on to get off the plane because i was closest to the door. The whole way up Freddy was giving me instructions on what to do when i was in the air (as in where to put my legs, when to let my arms out, etc.). I wasn't really nervous or anything, i guess at that time i was just excited, plus the reality that i was in air didn't really hit me because in the hour or so that we waited i was getting tired and restless. Then Freddy opened the plane's door..oh by the way at this point we were 12000 ft in the air ;) so then i knew there was NO turning back and that i was jumping out of a plane!!

so the next thing i know, we're in the air (cause we jumped out of the plane), the plane was in sight for just a second, then all i could see was the earth. The ground didn't really seem as if i was coming towards it, it just felt like i was floating in the air, and Freddy told me to put my arms out and i could feel the air just rush past me. such an experience! He also told me to make waves with my arms and when i did i couldn't feel the air that i was pushing down with my body (does that make sense?) Basically it felt like there was a gap of air between my body and when i put my arms out...sorry i can't explain that any better :(

He deployed the parachute and so we weren't free falling anymore, we were just gliding through the air. He asked me if i knew whre the rainbow ended, (of course i said no) and showed me this awesome beyond awesome cloud formation that was forming behind us. So amazing!! He also said that he could show me a rainbow..so he turned us around so that the clouds and the sun were behind us and i could see our shadows within a circular rainbow. It was so cool. I even yelled out "God is SO awesome!!" in the air, so that was cool too. After that i dont' really remember much of the parachute ride down, no wait! Freddy showed me Mt. Ruapehu, basically a large mountain ( I hear that Mount Doom was filmed there). So it was cool to see the mountain from an above view.

Oh then he started turning the parachute back and forth because we were getting ready to land. Now remember I get motion sickness (plus i had a headache from something else too) so all the swerving back and forth so i was kinda getting dizzy and really wanted to just land so that my
head wouldn't feel as if it was spinning. He told me how to put my legs out so that i would land nicely. We landed nicely and i fell over onto the ground because i couldn't think of anything else to do. When the camera man came around he got a really good shot of me flopped on the ground. All i could think about at that moment was how dizzy I was. Then that was the end of skydiving!!

Looking back now I know it was an experience i would never forget (in a good way) and i would definately do it again as long as i didn't have a headache plus as long as i had the money for it cause it was $160 NZ dollars, but it was totally worth it!!!. But now my whole perception of clouds and the sky have totally changed because I was actually in them. It's such a sureal experience that i dont' think my mind has fully processed it. The rest of the day i kept saying out loud "Did we really go skydiving? Did we just fall out of the sky? Was that real?" It didn't hit me that it actually was real until we pulled into back into Capernwray. So amazing...i suggest if you get the chance to do it, DO IT! You will not regret it :)

Well the rest of the day wasn't as exciting but it was still cool. All of us had lunch in Taupo and didn't some quick shopping then headed off to Huka Falls. We were able to see the waterfall there, which is kinda small cause it looks just like a rushing rapid river, but it was still cool cause the water was SO blue. After we looked at the falls for a bit we walked about 45 minutes to the natural hot springs there. They were kinda under a bridge and once we got ourselves organized we hopped in. Now the thing that you have to understand is that there's 2 parts to the hot spring: hot water, which is heated from a valcano, runs into the Waikato river, while there's cold water there because of the river. Basically if you stand in the hot springs the top half of you will feel warm (because of the thermal heated water) and the bottom half of you will feel cold (because of the river). It's on of the weirdest but yet still wickedly awesome things you could ever experience in water. So cool.

But ya that's my day. We just watched the DVD of us jumping. Aw...i wanna do it again! Just for the sole purpose of being up in the clouds and seeing the earth from there. *Huge sigh*.........It's just that awesome! The DVD's pretty funny cause the camera guy gets us to do a little dance before we take off and you can actually see everyone landing and if you look really close you can see the look on my face. Even though i was having fun i was still dizzy. Then there's the shot of my just laying on the ground. LoL! But yes! That was my day so far :)

SUNDAY FEB 27

You know you have strange roommates when your sitting on the floor just listening to music when one of them comes back from town and says "Hellooooo my little paprika!" then walks away. Oh I love my Nikki!! Aw....

TUESDAY MAR 1

If your wondering if I've gotten a tan since I got to NZ...i did. Everyone else says that i don't have a tan because i"m already naturally dark, but i know the truth. I've gotten darker. How do i know that? cause I've got tan lines from my swim suit. And my shoulders at definately darker. I kinda wanna tan some more, as in had a "toasted almond" type color when i get home. Then i can tan some more, cause it'll be summer when i get back. Just kidding!! Can't get too too much sun, but you know what i mean. i'm always up for getting darker and mroe tan :)

Oh yesterday we had Quiet Day. Basically you just take the whole day to spend talking and listening to God. My Quiet Day was so good! Basically i was asking God about relationships and what i should do and who i should like and how i could focus on God when i still like someone and all these other things. Then I really felt God speaking to me because there was a voice in my head that was so gentle and calm. He told me "I can only give you the man you want, when you become the woman I want". It was exactly what i needed to hear from God to keep myself focussed on Him. Now some of you may think I'm crazy saying "there was a voice in my head" but if you have ever really felt God speaking to you then you know exactly what i mean.

WEDNESDAY MAR 2

Well today is Work day....again. I"m kinda bored right now cause none my friends from school have e-mailed me...wait! Jake just informed me that he e-mailed me...probably out of boredom too.

Aw a whole bunch of us watched David & Marsha's(the married students)ultrasound for their baby that's due in June sometime. I want a baby!! Well first i gotta get a man, then get married, then i can have a baby. But that's the hard part...finding the right guy. It's like everytime i think i like guy there's something he does that totally turns me off to him or the "liking" party just fades away. Well my first priority is that' he's a Christian, that's extremely important to me. Then there's the whole issue of finding a guy that can handle me in my entirity. Like I"m pretty crazy and emotional person (for those of you who didn't notice that) and a guy's gotta be able to handle all of that. So ya, i know it'll be hard to find the right guy, but that's what God's there for.
He knows exactly who's out there for me and who he will be. And that guy will be just for me. :) yay for God!

SATURDAY MAR 5

Man i haven't updated in a few days!! Such craziness! Alrighty so here's what I've been up to over the past week.

Wednesday was our work day and it was mine and Laura's turn to weed the garden by the pool. It was alright except there were two spiders that were crawling up my leg and i didn't appreciate it that much cause I"m kinda slightly arachiphobic. Ugh!

Oh a few people here have tatoos and when a bunch of us went swimming in the hot pools there were more people with tatoos. So I was thinking about getting one on my shoulder and my roomie Nikki was thinking about getting a tatoo too. I mentioned that i wanted one on my shoulders and Nikki said that she didn't want on her shoulders cause when/if she got married she didn't want it to look "trashy". Good point. So then i was thinking about what i could get on my ankle. However if i ever did one I'd probably get a cross or something meaningful in Greek or Hebrew. But i can't get tatoos during school cause those are just the rules. However then there's the fact that it would be on me forever so then it would have to be something that i really really liked. So I came to the conclusion that i might just get a henna tatoo in Fiji, cause then i can put it on my shoulder but it will eventually fade away. Cause then i can show it off when i get home but it won't be on be for the rest of my life. And plus that way my parents wouldn't freak out on me :)

Our assignment for this week (we have one per week) was to memorize Psalm 27. I thought i was good at memorizing so i didn't start looking at it until Wednesday night. Nikki even helped me out by doing some crazy action for "breathing out violence", I'll show you the video sometime. So ya Friday came and I did know the passage except i kept screwing it up and getting the words jumbled together when i was telling it to Steph so i got a C+. Not bad, but i could have done better if i would have put more effort into it. But i do know what the passage is basically saying. If you wanna know you should either read Psalm 27 yourself OR just ask!

Oh here's a cool story for you! Okay on Wendesday we had a presentation about leprosy in India and that totally remined me of my Jenny (who's on a missions trip down there) and how much i missed her cause i seriously haven't seen her since November. So ya i was telling Nikki that my
best friend is in India right now on a missions trip. Nikki said that her friend Melissa in on a missions trip too in India with Venture Teams and that's the same organization that Jen's in! so ya my friend and Nikki's friend are both on the same missions trip. Wow! Is it ever a small world!!

Um, what else have i been up too...not really a whole lot. Well my youth group "Extreme Team" came here the last night and we swam in the pool and then they played a version of hide and seek and when they left I was SO extremely exhausted cause of all the craziness. But then Mark and Graham were watching seom "Family Guy" so i had to get in on that.

Well most of my day been spent just being lazy. Since it's a Saturday most people either went to the beach or they went to Hamilton to do some shopping. I didn't feel compelled to do either so i just hang out here. Most of my day was just been e-mailing people and just putzing around. I kinda started a bit of my book review but then i got bored. Then i sat in the sun for a few minutes and attempted to tan. Then i typed up my Sunday School lesson for tomorrow....now i"m typing this now.

Apparently we're having Korean cuisine tonight for supper. Well what happens here on Sat. night is that the students cook for everyone to just give Dean (our cook) a bit of a break. This week Jung Soo is in charge of organizing it. I"m excited cause I've never had Korean food before
and there's sushi too even though I'm not a big fan of sushi since i had it in LA airport.

SUNDAY MAR. 6

Well I've come the conclusion that Korean food is kinda like Chinese food but it's still good!

Um, the rest of my weekend was more or less spent brushing up on my "Phantom of the Opera" piano playing. At first it took me SO long to re-learn the notes but once i figured out what i was
doing it was alot easier and now i have another urge to play again! Even though i just finished playing like 15 minutes ago. That's about it. Nothing else is really for today, kinda bored and it's only 45 minutes until curfew. Like, I"m tired, yet I don't wanna sleep, I should probably read my book review book, yet i don't want to. Argh! Such a conflict of interests.

Oh man! It's been a whole week since i went skydiving! It's just so sureal that i went skydiving! Some people have e-mailed me from home and they still can't believe i did that. Such craziness! wow, i didn't realize how much i wrote about skydiving. That's a honk load! But how else am i going to describe it to those who are either too afraid to do it OR can't afford it. LoL!

Heartbreaker

SUNDAY FEB 20

Well what can i tell you about this weekend...um, i guess it was full of experiences. Ya! There's way to describe it! ok so yesterday me, Ruth, and Stacey all biked into town and it took me quite a while before I fully remembered how to properly operate a bike. Ever since my crash with th Beast (my mom's 18 year old bike) and since i got that awesome scar on my left knee I've beenkinda skeptical about biking. Somehow yesterday i ended up crossing the highway when i was trying to turn and ended up on the opposite shoulder...just dont' ask! but we did make it into town successfully.

Once we got there we did some shopping @ Warehouse and (hello-that's from Charlie) some of the little small town shops that were in town. Then we met up with Eric and Mark and we started shopping around with them. All of us were craving deep fried Mars bars & milkshake so we stopped for a snack. Okay a deep fried mars bar may seem a little bit weird to most of you but let me explain it: picture a normal mars bar, dip that thing in a light layer of donut-type batter with sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on it, then deep fry the whole thing. It's really really good, however when you eat it you just can'y move anywhere afterward cause the fat content of it is SO concentrated it almost makes you sick. Mark said the word to describe that feeling is "heavy" and i totally agree. After that us girls finished up the day in town by clothes shopping and i bought like 5 new shirts. They were remotely cheap (like $15 and under) so that's pretty good.

That night when we got home (well back to campus) some people went skydiving that day (Erik, Spence, Vicki, Robin, Natasha, and Kalli) and when they came back they told us ALL about it. They even got a litle DVD made of them getting ready to jump and then landing afterwards. If they would have spend about $80 thye could have actually had a video of them in the air and floating but they just got the cheaper DVD. But it was still cool to watch. The skydiving was in Taupo, where Giselle went skydiving when she was still in NZ. After she told me that she went that made me want to go and now that my friends at school went i want to go even more than i did before! Some of my friends here want to go again but they're gonna wait awhile until they get some more cash. It's about $200 to jump but from what i hear it's extrememly worth it. So ya no I really want to go, the question now is just when...

Oh also last night i was gonna practice my saxophone for a bit cause I"m helping lead the worship music for tonight and i didn't get any practicing done during the week. So i was just getting started when Shandall walks in, saw me, chatted with me for like 2 seconds, then went to get her sax so that she coul jam with me. Whenever people here tell me that they've played sax before i also feel so inadaquate because I've only been doing it for 2 years and they've done it for at least 4 and i always feel like i don't know what i'm diong when people tell me those kinda of things. *shrug* but maybe that's just me. So anyway Shandall came in and she was asking me what i was playing and if i was doing improv. Improv?!! Are you kidding! i mean I've heard it on sax before and it sounds cool but i could never do it myself! If you don't know what improv is, it's basically making up the melody as you do along. I could never do that cause I'm so reliant on notes in front of me. However Shandall was awesome enough to teach me how to do it. Cause what i would usually do what just play the bass line, as in the chord note. But she taught me to play the parts of the scale in between each chord so that there was also a melody. According to her it sounded awesome and when we asked Graham to join us so we could hear some guitar chords he said that it sounds cool too. I know how to do improv!! Well, just the extreme
basics, but still, i can play improv!!

MONDAY FEB 21

Um what else happened this weekend...Oh ya! That Shakespeare in the park thing was also this weekday, actually it was yesterday. so ya there was about 20 of us that sacrificed some sleep, got up at 3:00am and travelled to Hamilton (20 min away) to see "Shakespeare's Loves Labours Lost". Funny story: when we got there we walked right through a gazebo without realizing that the gazebo was part of the stage. Good thing we got there just in time or else we would have totally walked in while the play was happening. So ya, we all sat down (some people layed down but they fell asleep right away) and we also had some cinnamon buns and some pina colada type muffins which was an awesome breakfast break from toast and cereal every singlemorning (ya that's all we get for breakfast here at school, not really interesting). So ya the play was pretty good. Some people from school didn't understand a word but once i got back
into the Shakespearian groove I understood it. Good thing that the couples in the play were kinda color coded or else i would have been totaly lost. One of the actors was wearing a spandex outfit which left nothing to the imagination, so that was kinda dodgy (or sketchy as i would
normally say it back home).

That afternoon we had worship team practice and we kinda agreed that I would only play sax for the 2 fast songs. I was kinda bummed about it cause the night before me and Shandall were doing improv to the slow songs. So I didn't feel like i knew what i was doing for the fast songs
and i was just not in a good mood for the last 15 minutes of practice and during supper.

However i somehow felt really awesome about it after supper cause I just felt like God gave me this talent for saxophone whether i was playing the fast or slow songs. And that just shows that God can really change your attitudes if you just let him. It's just that simple. So the actual playing in the worship team was awesome, even though people could barely hear the sax because of the keyboard, guitar and drums...but that's ok because worship isn't about me, it's about God!

After our sunday night service, some of the guys were doing cartwheels and flips in the lecture hall (all the tables and chairs were pushed out of the way) and Hayden was also teaching them and some of us girls how to do rugby scrums (I think that's what they were called). Nick also
taught me, Angeleah, Graham, and Jamie the human helicopter. Basically person #1 gets on person #2's shoulders, person #3 stands in front of person #2 and hooks their arms around person #1's legs. Then person #2 spins arouns really fast and person #1 leans back while person #3 gets lifted off the ground. I know i probably lost some you as soon as i started but I'll show you it sometime okay? deal! ;) Then after we had some fun with that there were13 of us that attempted to do a few human pyramids. Needless to say, they didn't really work too well, but we still had fun.

*sigh* there! That's my weekend. This week our speaker is Peter McDonough and his main topic is "The Doctrine of Salvation" which is the basics of why and how we as Christians are saved from our spiritual death. If you have any questions, just feel free to ask!

Hey again. Kinda bored right now so I thought I'd just write bit to kill some time. Right now i'm listening to my Smash Ups Cd. The song All Fall Down/Get Down/Dive was THE summer anthem at Stoney this year. Every time i hear that song i can picture the videos on the wall in the chapel and all the kids screaming cause they were so excited for camp to start. Aw, i miss camp now. I'll be sure to visit camp when i get back though, don't you worry.

TUESDAY FEB 22

Hey! If you guys are kinda bored and you want to see picture of me on Valentine's day...feel free to visit my friend Charlie's website which is www.homepage.mac.org/perontoc . On his website, he's able to post pictures on there when he goes into town .I don't know how but that's how it works. So ya, check it out!! It will give you an idea of what life is like here at Capernwray NZ.

Man i'm bored, even though really shold be working on my Genesis outline of Ch.1-3. It's not hard work of anything, it's just getting the motivation to do it, that's all.

Dear Dad, send dollar, love girl....I was talking about my lack of money and how I was gonna ask dad to put some more in my account, when Graham randomly said that. And Ruthie told me to put it on my blog. Mission Accomplished!

Oh you may remember that i told you that Matt & Jake came up with the word Meesing and it only applies to me and Stacey. Last night i figured it out, with a little help from Jake and tongiht Stacey figured it out with help from Daniel, Jake, Ray, Mark, Ruth and Me. The defintion of
Meesing is...
UNINTENTIONAL FLIRTING!
So you can't be meesing if you know you're flirting with someone so if you don't know you're flirting then you're meessing. Stacey does it WAY more than me which is strange cause I feel like I"m always flirting with the guys here. But then again it's supposed to be unintentional so
maybe that's why she does it more than me....because she doesn't know she's doing it :)

Oh you guys should also check out another friend of mine from school's website. Check out Dave's sight www.davefirth.com Yay for Dave! And yes that's him in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. English people rock, only because David and Marsha (his wife) are English!

THURSDAY FEB 24

Sorry i didn't update this yesterday...but since you're reading this on my blog that really means nothing to you :) Well yesterday was "work day" here at school. Basically we are split into 3 groups. Group #1 does indoor work, Group #2 does outdoor work, and Group #3 gets to sit in
a lecture. So for the first 4 weeks of school, here's what my "work days" looked like:
-cleaning the Homestead
-mowing the lawn
-lecture
-cleaning the kitchen
See the pattern? Oh fun fact: when me, Katie, Nikki, and Laura listened to Tom Jones while we were cleaning. Mom, you would have been SO proud (my mom loves Tom Jones)! It was fun.

Oh and last night Graham was playing music on his laptop and he played the sweetest song a Canadian could hear...
Hockey Night in Canada!
Yes it was very comforting to hear that again. Haven't really heard that song since me and a few friends tried to put that on our answering machine but my keyboard skills didn't work out too play for playing it. I was SO happy to hear that song that i asked Simon if i could give him a hug cause i was just SO happy :) Graham's playing it again right now. And Simon's trying to dance while kneeling. Aw!

Oh a couple nights ago me and my friend Ray were talking about relationships, as in the dating kind. It seems like everyone is in the same boat as I am.
Cause i want to date someone right now, but i don't really feel ready for it.
I want to have a relationship with someone, but it seems like guys don't want to have that same relationship with me.
I feel like I'm "flirting" with the guys here, but i don't want to lead anyone on in the wrong way.
I feel like my personality may be causing guys to think that I'm flirting with them when really, that's just me being me.
I want to be pursued, but yet I don't want to be "stalked"
I want to date the right guy, but i don't feel patient enough to wait for him.
I want God to help me find a guy for me, but i don't want to wait for His leading.
It's like an internal battle going on in my mind. It's kinda
frustrating.

My friend Becky has a really great "cooking" analogy for
relationships...

So I've been cooking for a long time. It takes a lot of effort and concentration. Its a process to get everything to turn out the way its supposed to.

Take for example the ingredients. Taste varies tremendously from person to person, there are many recipes out there. There are lots of recipes that are nice that have a nice combination of ingredients but sometimes its about proportion of ingredients. A little more of this a little less of that. Things need to be tweaked sometimes.

So you finally figured out the correct proportion of ingredients you need. That's a huge first step. The next task is figuring out how you want to cook the dish. There are many methods for doing this. You want to be careful with open flame, it might make the food taste real good, but you get to close and you might get burned. You also want to be careful in letting it sit in the pan too long, it may go bad before you have a chance to use it. Sometimes certain foods need some extra prep work before they can be heated up, some extra marinating to bring out particular qualities, like tenderness, and spiciness. Sometimes they needed to be slowly roasted in the oven to bring out the subtle qualities, you don't want to over-cook or under-cook. It's important to pay attention and make sure its ready before attempting to eat it. Otherwise it could leave you with a bad feeling in your stomach or a bad taste in your mouth.


When bringing all of the cooking elements together it is also important to watch out for people that like to come by and "help" they may mean well, but sometimes turning up the heat or adding a little extra something just makes the food go bad. You also have the problem of people coming into your kitchen and taking your perfectly prepared food for themselves. Often that is what happens. Sometimes its for the best because that food was not what you really needed anyhow.

Most importantly make sure you are using a recipe for what you really want. That has been my biggest mistake. I think I want something or that if I use a recipe if I cook it just right it will be different, but everytime it turns out the same.

With that said cook responsibly, don't cook up more than you need, its just wasteful. And make sure you have the time and patience to see the dish all the way through, or else you will have a stove full of pots half cooked and no room for what you really want.

I totally agree with her! Cause if you really think about it, that's how relationships work. But in the mean time of dating "Mr.Right", all i have do is trust God. It just sounds SO stinking simple! Trust God! One of my favorite verses at the moment is Pslam 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart". But just don't desire God for the sole purpose of "getting what you want". God will bless you when he knows your ready for it. *sigh* So ya, those are my (and Becky's) relational thoughts of the evening.

Oh today i sang in the morning worship time. Like I've never sang in public before, i mean not counting church choirs and other small singing groups for church. So ya, me and Lance were up there (he was playing guitar) and i was kinda nervous about singing in public cause I've never
really done it before even though I've always wanted to. Like i always wanted to know HOW to sing but no one ever really gave me the chance to. so ya i sang in public and no one complained about it so i guess it must have sounded good :)

Oh one thing that me and my roomies have habit of doing is eating between meals. As in we havea whole bunch of jonk food stocked up in our drawers and we just eat it. Like take me for example, I've got: trail mix, rice crackers, small cookies, chocolate and some Nutella. If you haven't experienced Nutella, it's THE best spread ever invented cause it's made of chocolate and hazelnuts. Yummy! So if you haven't tried it yet go to Superstore right now and buy some and spread it on toast or any other kind of cracker type substance.

Tonight i was just e-mailing a few people when i heard "the Phantom of the Opera" being played in the lecture hall by Mark and Shandall was doing the bass line (on her bass guitar) while Dave was kinda doing drums but more concentrating on his opera style singing. As in he was singing what Christine sings in the Opera...as in really really high notes. Of course guys could reach falsetto (as in Bee Gee type voices) but Dave it such a character. Man, i wish you could have heard him, cause it was super awesome, even if it did sound like he was screeching ;)

But ya since they were playing Phantom music i had to leave my computer and join in this jam session. So i grabbed my sax and all of us jammed together. Even if Shandall and Mark and Dave knew what they were doing and i didn't it was still fun. Cause somehow we all ended up playing "Louie Louie" and it sounded really awesome. I was able to figure out the 3 chord part, cause i only figured out the bass line notes but it was still cool.

But ya i guess that's about it. It's kind of a "free night" tonight which is nice cause it just gives us a break from night lectures. But it's still kinda boring cause i like structure and schedules and other such things.

Hopefully my blogs are getting too too long for you to read. But keep in mind they will still be here on my site until i delete them so feel free to read it like "one day at a time" then you wouldn't feel so bogged down from my blog. Oh and i will put pictures on here when i get the
chance. I'm thinking i might put all my pics on here cause that's a honk load of pics but yet i want everyone to get the chance to see them. Like I'll have them available on CD form so i can bring it from place to place if you wanted to see them and when i post them on the blog
they'll be in chronological order so keep that in mind when i post them.

FRIDAY FEB 25

Did you know that today has been a month since i left home. Do you hear that? I've been gone for a month! Craziness. Have you guys missed me yet? Oh here's some cool song lyrics from Phantom of The Opera (these are played during the credits)

Child of the wilderness
Born into emptyness
Learn to be lonely
Learn to find your way in darkenss
Who will be there for you?
Comfort and care for you
Learn to be lonely
Learn to be a one companion
Never dreamed out in the world
There are arms to hold you
You've always known your heart was on it's own
So laugh in your loneliness
Child of the wilderness
Learn to be lonely
Learn how to love life that is lived alone
Learn to be lonely
Life can be lived
Life can be loved
Alone

But ya...I like that song and i just thought that you guys should read the lyrics cause they are wicked awesome. Well, that's just what i think anyway.

Oh here's an awesome joke that my friend Mark told me....

Three guys are golfing: Jesus, Moses, and another man with a long grey beard. Moses tees up on the ninth hole, and slices the ball into the water. He ponders the situation, then raises his golf club. The water parts, and Moses approaches the ball and chips the ball in for a score of two.

Jesus tees up his ball, and also hits it into the water. But Jesus was using a floating ball. So, he walks out into the middle of the pond, takes out his wedge and chips the ball in for a score of two.

The man with the beard tees his ball up. He is left handed and fades into the water as well. Just as he puts his club back in his bag, a frog dives under the water and eats the ball. An eagle grabs the frog with its talons and flies away, and the frog chokes the ball out to land in the hole for a hole-in-one.

Moses says to Jesus, "Man, I HATE playing with your dad!"

Oh and here's a cool "forward" thay Matt made up about an hour ago...

An odd child is a thing that happens every day
We don't know why it is, but still we think its OK
Its not you see, and we all try, to tell her that shes wierd
An elf hat, a pair of wooden shoes, and especially that beard.
Living with elves can make you batty,
Make your clothes all torn and ratty.
How often has she sung
When all the chores are done?
Singing itself is by nature not evil,
But that manly voice just makes me ill.
So next time you see her, just shreik and point and laugh
Because a woman should be dainty, not an ugly fatted calf.
Dwarf women are quite odd, and usually you see
them coming from far away, to visit you for tea.

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION TO BAN DWARF WOMEN FROM NEW ZEALAND.

1. James Thiessen
2. Francis Hargrave
3. Mary-Ann Collard
4. Simon Peterson
5. Toby Macdonald
6. Matt Schell
7. Paul Henley
8. Rhonda Steel
9. Jesus Christ
10. Mark Otago
11. Danielle Swartzstein
12. Matthew Bergman
13.

I love the person in #9. ;) Sorry for all the little "add ons" today...i just feel like telling them to you :) Here's another one...it's a fun little quote that dad sent me...

My three-year old nephew and I were pounding on the piano together when he suddenly noticed the foot pedal."You stay up here and play," he said as he crawled underneath the piano bench,"and I 'll go down and step on the gas!!"

As crazy as this sounds.........we're having a dance party at school. Yes you heard me....Christians are getting their groove on. Stayin Alive...oh man am I EVER EXCITED for this..LoL! I"ll tell you more later!

So ya the dance is still going on... even though it's only 10:00, I'm SO tired. some highlights of the dance:
-when me and Simon danced he told me not to get too close because
according to him is smelled like urine and pork chops, basically because he
was running around the room banging on the tamborine
-I learned to never teach Graham how to dance becauise he's SUPER
SUPER sweaty after he's been dancing...argh so gross
-Graham and Dan did their own interpretive dancing to "My Heart Will
Go on", i also got some great pictures of it ;)
But ya many many good times. Good thing i burnt a CD with Chicken
Dance on it cause Matt F. really wanted to dance to that song, so we all
danced to it and it was awesome cause i haven't danced (publically) to
that song since Ian's grad in April. Craziness.

But ya i should probably go to bed cause i"m leaving for skydiving in like 6 hours. Oh did I not tell you that? ya I can go diving tomorrow @ sunrise...how cool is that?! Don't you worry I'll give you the details later ;)