Rosie's Random Ramblings

Your love, oh Lord, reaches to the heavens...

2007-09-17T22:26:00.000+12:00

Wow, it has been an awful long time since I blogged on this blog. I have occasionally posted some blogs on my Bebo page, but I do miss this one. So I'm bringing it back from the dead and seeing what comes out of it.

Rereading things I've written in the past on this blog has been a really interesting experience. Things do get crazy sometimes, don't they? And I am one of those people who only ever gets introspective when things really, truly go wrong. Which is not the best habit in the world, especially since it so often is in direct parallel to how I deal with God. I have to confess that over the past few months, God has not been my focus. I've just been trying to survive. Things have been insanely busy, I've had highs, I've had lows and it's all been a little much. Yet it's not all that often that I call upon God and I ask for His help. You see, I like being strong, I like being in control of things. I'm not always, though. And I have to confess also that when things do fall apart, I'm not always running to God, I'm running to other people and that isn't fair on anyone. May I remember to go to God with the things that suck and may I remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).

One of the hardest things for me to understand and get my head around is the love of God because it just doesn't seem to make all that much sense. The lengths that He went to in order that we might be able to have a relationship with Him are, quite simply, amazing. Incredible. I've been reading "He Chose The Nails" by Max Lucado and one of the things that struck me is that Jesus' flesh was torn, like the curtain that seperated us from the Holy of Holys, so that we could have access to God. In another book I was reading, "Chasing God, Serving Man" by Tommy Tenney, the author was talking about how he was staying in a hotel where they'd put his wife and kids in an adjoining room that wasn't connected, meaning he was seperated from his wife and kids by a wall. It really frustrated him and he mentions it in this book as a bit of food for thought: how much must God hate the things that seperate us from Him? And then going on to think about this - God has sent His son to bridge the gap between me and God, yet there are still things that seperate me from God. And He hates those things! He really does. Whatever they are, be they my insecurities, my stubbornness in trying to sort things out on my own, the secret sins I'm still clinging on to, He hates them. But all He wants is for me to let Him rip through them, let Him sort them out.

When we were kids, our parents had this van and it had a cigarette lighter in the back seat. We knew we weren't supposed to touch it but it looked pretty inviting. It looks kind of like a stamp, if you think about it. Anyway, my sister, who was about 3 at the time, obviously assumed that it was a stamp, and "stamped" her hand. A cigarette lighter is not a stamp. It's hot. Hot enough to light a cigarette. So obviously, when she stamped her hand with the cigarette lighter, it burned her. And it hurt. Like crazy, probably. The thing is, Char knew she wasn't supposed to touch it and was afraid that Mum and Dad would get mad if they knew she had. So instead of saying what she'd done, she hid it. We were on a relatively long drive at the time and it was a very long time before Mum and Dad found out that Char had burned her hand. She didn't say anything, she just cried. I think her crying managed to con me out of my bag of chocolate fish cos I felt sorry for her. Still, no one had any idea why she was crying, until we had arrived at our destination.

Mum always says how horrible she felt when she saw Char's hand. It was a pretty big burn for such a little girl. It had been a few hours since it was burned and the thing about burns is that if you don't treat them properly, they will continue to burn for a pretty long time. So by the time we saw her hand it was a bit of a mess. I was just a youngun at the time but I do remember Dad taking Char's little hand in his and just loving her, looking after her burn. He didn't really say all that much about how she shouldn't have been playing with the cigarette lighter. That wasn't important anymore. What was important was that his little girl was hurt. Once she'd figured out that Dad wasn't mad, everything was so much better and she had a nice long cuddle. Dad bandaged up Char's hand and it took a pretty long time for her hand to heal up and it was no doubt very, very sore for a very, very long time. We have video footage of her whole hand, all wrapped up. She did it pretty good.

I think about this and think about me and God. Things go wrong, sin comes into my life and instead of telling my Heavenly Father, I just let it fester and it keeps burning, until finally I can't stand it anymore and have to run to Him because it just hurts so much. That's when I let Him love me. When I'm hurting so badly there's nothing else to do. The thing that I need to remind myself is that I can do that, that God won't be mad when I tell Him I've screwed up and He'll let me crawl onto His lap if I just take the initiative. I'm not good at resting in His presence but I want to be. I think it's just going to take a bit of practice.

(We did take the cigarette lighter out of the car, by the way, which, in retrospect, may have been a good idea to do in the first place, cos no one we know smokes anyway. We also found a much better use for the cigarette lighter. You can plug one of those chilly bin things into it. It's good stuff, especially when you're transporting cheese or something along those lines. We do like our picnics in our family. And fifteen years later, Char's hand is fine. No scars or anything. She turned out alright otherwise, too.)

This whole thing about resting in God's presence... I think I've figured something else out about it. 1 Thessalonians 5:16 - Be joyful always. Now, there's a big difference between being happy and being joyful. To quote Switchfoot, "happy is a yuppie word". Joy, on the other hand, is something completely different. We've been studying 1 Peter in my LTG (Life Transformation Group, basically a bible study I'm involved in with Student Life) and I really like how the New Living Translation describes joy. Here's the thing in context...

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:6-9

Rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. Cool, huh? I like it. I like it a lot. And note how this is in the context of enduring trials? There is wonderful joy ahead. Be glad. Even though there now are trials, you can trust Jesus Christ, and rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. That definitely inspires me to keep pressing on and fighting the good fight. But it especially inspires me to fight for joy! Because joy is awesome, and rejoicing with a glorious, inexpressible joy is something God gives us the ability to do. So I am going to make it my mission to rejoice. Always. Be joyful. Always. Worship God. Praise God for who He is. Be joyful. Being joyful may not equal being happy, but it's better. It is just so much better.

Better leave it here and get some sleep. I'll be blogging here more often. My heart feels like it's softer, somehow, and it makes me sad to realise I hadn't realised I'd hardened it. Joy softens your heart. God softens your heart. Makes you vulnerable. Makes you admit that you can't do everything all alone. That you need help. That's scary. Really scary. But in it... there's joy. Glorious, inexpressible joy.

Rosie
rejoicing always

NaNoWriMo

2006-10-30T23:33:00.000+13:00

I'm CRAZY and signed up for this -> http://www.nanowrimo.org ! ! !

Let's see how I go...

Rosie

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

2006-10-17T22:32:00.000+13:00

Been awhile since I blogged, hasn't it? Hmm. I guess I've been doing other things. A whole trimester has gone by! I've survived, as you do. I'm never particularly good at keeping up with everything, I tend to let time slip away on me but then again, it's not as if I have anything that exciting to say anyway. I don't think anyone really reads my blog but it's almost good just to be able to look back on my ramblings and think "hmm, I was really a complete pyschopath that day". It allows me to take precautionary measures to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again. You know, things like never leaving the house, never talking to anyone, cutting down my caffiene intake and actually sleeping at night. Those are good precautionary measures, though all entirely overrated activities. I'll just stick with being a nutcase.

So yeah. We had New Zeal this weekend. It really was great. It was a good weekend, the speaking was great, I got a grand total of 71 pages of notes. My sister then informed me that they were, for the most part, completely irrelevant. Is it completely terrible to occasionally dislike my sister? I just find her terribly condescending sometimes. This whole God thing comes so much easier to her, she's so much better at being a Christian and not a raving lunatic that sometimes I am just so insanely jealous and would really like to throw her out of a tall building. Well, I'd make sure there was a massive as trampoline or one of those cool spongy things you use in PE underneath the really tall building before I actually threw her, she is my sister. And I do like her. I think I would probably like her if she weren't my sister. Maybe more than I do now, even. How did this end up as a rant about my sister? For the record, my sister is lovely. She's a lovely, well put together, smart, beautiful young lady and really has the whole relationship with God thing down pat.

I occasionally feel like her antithesis. I have come to the conclusion recently that sometimes I am not very nice to the people around me, I'm not very organised, I do incredibly stupid things and I really have no idea what I'm doing with anything. To be perfectly blunt, things are not good for me right now. There is no real reason why things are not good with me right now - after all, the main cause of stress in my life affects the rest of my family possibly more than it affects me. My dad is sick. It's not life threatening or anything, it's just debilitating and frustrating because it's been going on forever and it's really changed things in the family. Things are actually on the up at the moment. Dad's still up and down but Mum got a new job and it's really good for her. I've all but finished uni for the year - still an essay and an exam to go, but otherwise I'm off til next February - so the stress of uni's pretty much off me. I should be happier than I am now. I should be... I don't know, better. Less obnoxious. Less annoying. Something.

Maybe it's just me but recently I've been feeling like I'm never in a consistent state of happiness. I mean, I have random bursts of happiness, sure. But never a consistent state of happiness. And I'm supposed to be happy, I know that. Joy in all situations or something along those lines. I'm really struggling with everything, to be perfectly frank. I'm struggling with my faith a lot at the moment. And I know I shouldn't be. I really shouldn't be. I thought I went through the worst of it when I was in Canada, I thought I'd gotten the doubt and the craziness out of my system. What the heck.

Things were going so well, you know? I had it sorted. I was really on fire for God. I knew what He wanted from me, He'd told me about the grand scheme of things and I know what He's got in store for me in the future. At least, I know what I thought He had in store for me. I could be wrong. I can barely get through the now. I know I'm supposed to finish uni, He made that clear, but the problem is that I can't hear Him at the moment so who knows if I'm doing what I'm supposed to? And I know He'll listen to me and speak to me but at the moment, I can't bring myself to try to talk to God because.. I don't know. I'm mad. I'm really mad at God because Dad is sick and we've been praying so much and I know He can do anything but He's not. Dad had a vision that he'd be able to run a marathon before he turned 50 and I felt like it was a sign that things would be better soon but instead it felt like things got worse and can we take four more years of Dad being sick? It feels like God's playing some sort of a game with us. It's like when see how many times you can poke the cat before it scratches you. Is He trying to see how far He can push us? How far our loyalty can go? How much we can trust Him? If so, I'm trying, I really am. I am honestly, truly, trying to hold on as much as I can but seriously, couldn't He just heal my dad?

I scare myself a little sometimes with how not fine I am and how fine I pretend to be. I'm a hypocrite. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing. I help with the children's church. I go to bible study. I sing in the choir. I help with Junior Youth Group. I'm involved with a group on campus. I help teach Bible in Schools. I'm in a band and we're singing these songs that I wrote almost a year ago now and I'm looking at them and realising that I haven't written a song since February because I haven't been able to. And I hate it a little, but what I hate more is that I don't really hate it. But who the heck am I supposed to admit all this to? I mean, I look fine on the outside the majority of the time. People aren't supposed to see my cracks. And then this weekend, when the speaker said "you might be fooling everyone, you may be fooling yourself, but you're not fooling God" and it just sent shivers right down me. And I'm thinking: "is this a make or break kind of moment? Do I have to decide all over again if I am in or out?"

It's a weird feeling. I'm so involved with everything that if I just quit everything I did, it'd cause a massive as stir and I really can't deal with that kind of drama but I don't know if I want to just be going through the motions. Because I know these things were important to me once and in a way, they still are. They really still are. I'm just finding it hard at the moment. I just want to be as sure as I was just a few months ago. I want... something, I don't really know what it is exactly that I want, but whatever it is, sure, okay. There's something that I need to do - pray about it, I guess. Spend more time in the prayer room. I've been avoiding it like the plague recently. I went in today for the first time in a good few months. It was... well, still there. I know that effort needs to be made on my part, I know that I need to actually get in there, into the thick of things but the truth is that I've never been good at prayer or getting into scripture and the fact that I don't really want to at the moment is not making it easy. Before, sure I wasn't great at it but I wanted to talk to God and I wanted to read my Bible and now... I kind of don't. And it feels blasphemous to even say that and it feels like I'm a complete screw-up and nothing is going right for me at the moment.

I know what I believe. I know about God. I have met Him. I know in my heart of hearts that God exists and it's going to take a lot more than this - whatever this is - to convince me otherwise but there's something wrong, I can't pinpoint it exactly and it's killing me a little. While everyone else around me moves forward, lives their lives, sorts things out, has things work out for them I am here, standing still, and all my accomplishments seem like nothing, nothing I do seems to have any meaning, all I am doing is working and drinking too much coffee and quite honestly, nearly killing myself, living on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and for what? Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless. I am running out of patience with myself. If I really believe what I profess to believe, I know that despite all of my failures, God loves me. He loves me enough to die for me. He loves me even if I don't love myself. Right now, I don't love myself. I don't even like myself. If I were someone else and I met me, I probably wouldn't mind me but if I were someone else and I saw through me, then I would probably leave the room because that person is a white washed tomb, a complete and utter disaster area, pretty much dead spiritually and trying to pretend that everything's okay. And I can't accept that! But I'm having trouble changing that. Maybe I'm being hard on myself, maybe I'm just too tired to even be thinking about this but... my gut tells me things are not right. My gut tells me I'm not right. I'm not even trying to be right. And I can't seem to find the energy or even the desire to try to be right.

I did get it, once upon a time, didn't I? I guess that's what I mean by putting the title as "nostalgia isn't what it used to be" - I can remember being onto it. Being really and truly connected with God. Now it's just kind of... there as a distant memory and a thing I'm supposed to cling onto, to really understand. I don't know who to talk to about this. I don't know who I'm supposed to come clean to so I'm just going to jet this long, rambling post off into cyberspace and maybe someone somewhere can give me some perspective because honestly I don't know what to do about it anymore. Then again, I suppose half the security of posting this monstrosity is that I know the chances of anyone reading it are slim and I couldn't bring myself to explain any of this - again, whatever this is - to someone's face. Because I am supposed to have it all together. Everyone else does. I hate pride sometimes. Cause it's what's stopping me from actually having someone I'm fully accountable to. For someone who's supposed to be a fine upstanding Christian I certainly am a joke sometimes. Good grief.

It's late. I might feel better tomorrow. I might realise I'm probably over reacting but in all honesty, this is probably all true and a long time coming. Maybe a good nights sleep will give me a little perspective on this.

ALP,
Rosie

Timing...

2006-06-18T21:34:00.000+12:00

... it appears, is not one my strong suits. I was half an hour late for the AFS meeting tonight which led to me missing Volley and most of the meeting. *sighs* I do have two kumara in my handbag, though, if that's any consolation. *sighs again*

I've been told off for not updating my blog, so I thought I might just do that. Stewart mentioned it tonight and Shaw's been at me for not updating it as well, so I figured I should. Not that anything particular exciting has happened since February. Well, a lot has happened, but nothing that Stewart won't know about... maybe Shaw will be interested. And I guess that Carol's reading this as well although she probably knows anything that's happened in the last six months. Maybe. *shrugs* I dunno. What to say, what to say...

Uni went well last trimester, I guess. I didn't do as well as I did last year, mostly because I was slightly less obsessive and because I have a gazillion things on my plate that had nothing to do with my education. I'm helping with RE at a local school, that's fun. RE is Bible in Schools and I really like it, although it is tiring. I got a job at a cafe at uni, which is nice because it's extra cash and it's convienient. I sprained my ankle again about a month ago. I tend to do that. My physiotherapist says I'm the most accident prone person she knows. Mostly because I came to physio a week back and informed her that since my last visit, I'd slammed the door on my foot and had my foot stood on by my rather drunk friend Nick salsa dancing at the languages ball. (That was fun, by the way. My sister came with me. She can balance orange juice on her head. People were impressed. Mostly because by that stage most of them couldn't even walk straight.)

As you may have gleaned, I'm on mid trimester break. It's just peachy. I have a French literature exam on Saturday and I'm really not looking forward to it because I hate French literature. The French are weird. Writers are weird. French writers are even weirder. How am I supposed to take a story seriously when they tell me that it's authour used to have reccurring nightmares about being chased by giant crabs? It's a pain that French lit is a requirement for a major, but I console myself in the fact that at the end of this year, I'll have completed all the requirements for the French major! Yay! I just have to do the Spanish and Linguistics next year and some other papers to make up points, and voila! I get to wear the funny hat. Really, the only reason I'm going to uni is for the hat.

I want to travel. I really do. I'm getting antsy here, as much as I don't want to be. I want to see things. I want to go places. At the same time, I like things here. But I want to be somewhere else. I'm not sure where, exactly, but somewhere. It's a weird feeling. I've been hanging out with the exchanges as they prepare to go home and went to a camp for a bit last weekend. I had to console two crying German girls who really, really didn't want to go home. I understand that, I felt that way when I left Quebec. Coming home sucks, it really does. You spend all this time fitting in, creating a home for yourself, then once you're finally settled, you're uprooted again. It's unfair. But it's good for you in the long run. Except for the fact that no matter where you are, there's always somewhere you wish you were. Someone to miss. It's hard, it really is. People don't get it unless they do it for themselves. But I'm digressing. I want to travel. I want to see the world, I want to put what I've been learning for the past year and a half into action.

I'm obviously tired because I'm getting all weird and philosphical. Sometimes I feel a little irrelevant where I am. It's a strange feeling. Hmmm. Things are weird and I don't know why. Things are changing and I'm just... well, I'm still me and still kind of floundering a little. Because things are really, really weird. And they shouldn't be, they just are. I'm not particularly good at expressing what I want to say when I get like this, but it's all a little strange. Things in the family have been weird. I feel like we've gone through this huge crazy time and everyone else is kind of like "I'm glad that's over" but I still feel like I'm hiding in the cellar and the tornado is long gone but I'm still freaking. Hmmm. I remember that movie with the cow in the tornado... Twister. I watched it like 4 times with a friend of mine, she went through a phase where she was totally obsessed with it. Hmmm. I'm trying to rest up for next trimester but not doing too good a job coz I don't seem to be sleeping too well. Maybe I do drink too much coffee. But sometimes it's the only thing that keeps me from biting someone's head off. Not that my mouth is physically capable of actually biting off someone's entire head. The whole idea makes me queasy.

Hmmm. Perspective is a great thing. Not my strong suit. But yeah. I've forgotten how theraputic it is to write a whole load of rubbish and beam it off into cyberspace. Woot! It actually makes me feel a whole lot better when I'm feeling yuck for no apparent reason. *shrugs* I am a bit of a fruit loop sometimes. Not that I mind. Je suis comme je suis. (Why have all my French papers to date mentioned a prostitute at some point? I don't get it. The French really are weird...)

ALP (maybe a bit sooner than the gap between this and the last entry... maybe)
Rosie

Back in the saddle again...

2006-02-20T22:04:00.000+13:00

Just enrolled properly for university this morning. Ran around like a headless chicken for about 3 hours. Had a really, really good little chuckle to myself about the first years. Not that I'm so great just because I'm in my second year, but honestly, you can spot them a mile away because of that oh so lost look in their eyes and (on the females) excessive amounts of make-up. It's silly. Most people assumed I wasn't 1st year last year coz I wasn't wearing much make-up, which is kind of cool, and probably I'm so used to being completely lost that it just doesn't show anymore.

Have also changed my major. I'm now majoring in French and Modern Languages, instead of Second Language Education as I was earlier in the day. It's all kind of crazy... I'm quite excited to start back next week, though. It's going to be a good year.

Rosie

Wow...

2006-02-02T14:45:00.000+13:00

... I have been mighty slack with this thing for awhile. Well, here I am, blogging again - albeit a month since my last blog. That's ridiculous - or maybe, maybe it just proves that I've actually found myself a life. Yeah! Who knew?

What have I been up to in the last month? Hmmm... on the 3rd of January I did a Potential Leaders course at the Training College of The Salvation Army and that was pretty cool. I learnt a lot, I made some very cool friends and generally had a rather rocking time. And since my dad paid for it, it was worth every penny :) Wahey! I've been hanging out with Fi a lot, though not as much as I would've liked - she left to go back to Oz on the 20th, and I miss her. My parents and my brother and his girlfriend went to Auckland on the 20th to see relatives, leaving me and Charlene home alone for a week until Parachute on the 27th. Char and I have managed to develop a minor obsession with Gilmore Girls...

Will update later. Adios!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-02T19:01:00.000+13:00

Granted, a day late. But never mind!

It's been awhile since I last blogged, and really I'm sure there's heaps to say but it doesn't really come to mind all at once. It's really hot and I think I am supposed to be going to the beach sometime soon, so I'll just keep my phone here so I can stay posted on what's actually happening. Hmm, time for a bit of a recap of important things, I feel.

Christmas Eve: We went caroling, which is possibly my favourite thing to do at Christmas. We went and visited people from church and sang carols and generally had a very fun night. Then Mirjam, Mum and I went to midnight mass at the Catholic church. We're not Catholic, but Mirjam is, and I personally found it very cool. Tiring, though, coz midnight mass is named so because it actually starts at midnight!

Christmas Day: A service in the morning where I actually sang - I got rather nervous so it was actually a little dodgy but I'm sure everyone was so full of Christmas spirit that they didn't really mind my awful singing. We said goodbye to our officers - they're moving on, and they left on the 30th but Christmas Day was the last time I saw them. Lunch at my aunts, then dinner at our neighbours. Present highlight: guitar pick holder that attaches to my guitar. Absolute brilliance, thank you Phillipa and Rob! Very nice day, but I have to admit I was pretty shattered - nap between lunch and dinner. Such an old lady.

Boxing Day and the next: Shopping. Got myself a hair straightener, the DVD of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and blue hairdye.

Day after that: Went into town with Fi. Bought a CD, realised I had no money left, ran into people from uni all over the place, then went home and dyed my hair blue. Watched chick flicks with Mirjam and Char.

Day after that: We went to Strawberry Fare for dessert as a family. Very entertaining. First outing with blue hair, many stares. Good food.

Day after that: Mirjam's farewell shindig. People coming and going all night. Many tears.

New Years Eve: We saw Mirjam off at the airport, even more tears. Then went home to clean the house and had a party for New Years Eve, which was actually a lot of fun. About 15 of us, hung out, played games, ate lots, fireworks, general hanging out... a nice way to end 2005.

I'll leave it at that. Adios!
Rosie

All by myself...

2005-12-11T00:53:00.000+13:00

I've officially decided that I could never ever live alone. I just can't hack it. So either I'm gonna eventually have to get married, or I'm gonna live at home forever, or I'm going to flat with someone forever... what brought this on, you may ask??? The fact that my family went on holiday and left me here by myself!!! I have work and whatnot, and I can't afford to not work coz I'm completely broke. So no holiday for me. I hope they're having fun.

It's interesting, actually, coz I do like having my own schedule. But I do tend to just not go to bed. For example, it's 1am and I'm online listening to Thriller by Michael Jackson. That's not quite right. I finished work at 9.30, last bus up the hill was 9.25 so I had to walk and it was dark and scary and there wasn't any Chinese food left after work so Robert made me a mushroom burger and all the filling fell out while I shoved it in my bag to go into the video shop to get a movie out. So I had to eat the filling seperately. And it was kind of funky, but not entirely bad... Walking up the hill was dark, scary, and not an experience I want to repeat again. Especially since you have to go through a pitch black tunnel. I texted Steve to see if he was around to hopefully bail me out - he wasn't. *sighs* Not that I need a guy to look after me. *shrugs* Maybe I do, actually... I got home in one piece, I redyed my hair, I put on a face mask in a half hearted attempt in doing the whole "beauty routine" thing, got bored with it before it dried and ended up just washing it off and moisturising hard out coz the mud stuff made my skin all dry. So now my hair is blonder. I'm gonna keep blonding it all summer, and then just before Parachute I'm dyeing it blue. Don't think I won't!!! Then I went to bed, sat there for an hour, got up and went on the computer. Once I finish this blog, I will go to bed coz no one's online. Probably coz they're either out or asleep. I was gonna go out. I didn't. Obviously.

Last night was pretty much the same - after Volley, I procrastinated going home as long as I could, but got a ride home, then put on a DVD and stayed up til 1am watching Donnie Darko and folding papers. It's a very weird but very good movie. Very weird. I hired out "Les Choristes" today - my host mum told me to watch it. I'll do that tomorrow night, it's a 3 day one. Today was huge - I helped Phil out with a schedule for next Sunday's Christmas thing at church. Char gets to sing the cool solo *sighs* coz I already have a solo (which, incidently, is kind of hard to get right... it seems to require more skill than I actually have). Char's gonna sing a really pretty song but I do get to harmonise, so yay. We had a mission - find a Christmas song that Nathan wouldn't hate. He's slightly anti-Christmas. Basically, he just hates Santa. *shrugs* Some people have issues, what can I say? Actually, to be quite honest, I'm not overly concerned about Santa. I stopped believing in him pretty young, and quite frankly he stopped being important after that and I really don't invest much energy into actively disliking things or people. The way I see it is that if I don't like something, why would I waste any form of energy on it? Hating things requires energy.... what's the point?

Right. I'd really better go to bed, although I'm actually not that tired. I could probably stay up all night but I really, really shouldn't. I should get some sleep. I should clean the house. I should do those papers. And I should find out exactly when I'm supposed to be at brunch tomorrow, too. *checks* 10am. Hmm. Really best be getting some sleep.

Goodnight!
Rosie

Hey ho

2005-11-24T20:49:00.000+13:00

Hmm, hasn't been too long since I last updated. I'm going on camp with the exchange students tomorrow! Joy! Rapture! Nah, it shouldn't be that bad, but I'm not exactly looking that forward to it, which is kind of gutting... I'm just not feeling that well. I suppose I'm just being a snob, and it really is gonna be cool. Mirjam will be there, and both my students will be there, and it should generally be quite nifty, but still...

Just a quickie today, coz I'm gonna go work on my songs. I did a massive "lets get organised with these suckers!" last night and now I have a book containing everything I've written in the last 15 months, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Most of them are absolute rubbish, but there are a few that seem to alright... not sure exactly what the next move is, but hey. My sister gave me a talking to: "all you're doing is wasting paper if you don't actually SING anything!" There may be some truth in that... then again, not every person who writes songs should let them see the light of day. I may be one of those people. I'm not entirely sure... hmmm....

I'm off.

Adios!
Rosie

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzoom

2005-11-22T10:08:00.000+13:00

Hey there!

The really sad thing about having all this time up my sleeve to blog is that the fact that I have so much time is actually signalling that I'm not doing anything worth blogging over. Which kind of defeats the purpose, just a tad. I'm just tryin to think what exactly has been happening recently that could be blog-worthy...

Well, first of all, I'm a blonde now. I decided to find out for myself whether or not blondes have more fun. So far, all that's happened is I've been mocked more. That may subside, however... as my brother finds some more worthwhile way to spend his time. I'm sure it'll happen. Secondly, my sister is currently having an interview for a scholarship to go on a student exchange herself! Which is very cool although somewhat scary, seeing as if she gets it, she'll be leaving in January, probably a few weeks after Mirjam goes home. Which will mean that the household will go from 6 to 4 rather quickly. Which will be weird. Then again, she might not go... I hope she does get it, it'd be good for her and she'd really enjoy it, but at the same time I don't want her to go! Coz she's my baby sister and I'd miss her monstrously.

In other exchange news, my host sister in Canada wants to come here in 2008! Very exciting :D Probably means she'll see me graduate and whatnot, which is very cool :) I'd actually better go do something useful, so a bientot!

Adios,
Rosie

Pffffffffffffffffffffft....

2005-11-05T23:30:00.000+13:00

Found an old quiz thingy. Feel like posting it. Why not?

Full Name? Rosie Avocado Kraze…

Were you named after anyone? My middle name is inherited from, like, 3 generations back after my great-grandmothers sister who died aged 18. Mum and Grandma both have my middle name. And I'm semi named after my other great-grandma - Rosa Ann.

Do you wish on shooting stars? can't say I do... occasionally

Which hand/finger is your favorite? I think I like my right hand better than my left had, coz it's more useful

When did you last cry? Not sure… I laughed til I cried a few days back. Coz people are funny.

Do you like your handwriting? it's alright

Who do you admire? People who can walk down the street *without* falling over…

What is the # 1 priority in your life? Hanging out with God, figuring out what He’s got planned for me and doing it.

Your favorite Lunch Meat? chicken

Any bad Habits? not thinking before I say anything, therefore insulting people and having them never talk to me again. Until next week, that is. Getting obsessive over things that aren't really that important in the long run.

What store would you never be caught in? dunno

If you were another person, would you be friends with you? If I really felt the need to make my life that little more unusual, yeah sure.

Are you a daredevil? Not really - the most adventurous thing I've ever done is white-water rafting and ice-skating. (The last one was a dismal failure)

Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell and you did? I’ve never sworn not to tell a secret that I couldn’t keep.

What would you do if you came to school/work one day and everyone was naked? scream and run away

Do looks matter? Well, I'm not blind. I'm gonna look at people. But it's not the be all and end all.

When was the last time you wanted to punch someone? happens occasionally, I can usually hold myself back

Are you trendy? hahah... no

What do you do to prevent anger? Take a very deep breath and try to figure out why it's bothering me so much and what I can do about it and how much is actually my fault... (yeah, sometimes I don't quite get to that last bit)

Who is your Idol? Hmmmm… not sure. Catherine Booth was a pretty funky lady.

Who is your second family? My host family in Canada… and then the MPOWRD crew ;)

Do you trust others easily? On the surface, yes, but it's rare for me to completely trust someone. I still have an "everyone's out to get me" complex, even though I know I'm not important enough. I do like talking to strangers, however…

What class during high school do you think was a waste of time? P.E. - since I just kept injuring myself! Or that stupid career class I had to take in Quebec… I think I actually calculated how many hours of my life I wasted in that class at one point. It was just dumb, because it had absolutely nothing to do with me and every single person who came in to ask me what I was planning to do with my life didn’t know where my country was.

Do you like Sappy Songs? depends... not that much. Well, I suppose you have moments when sappy songs are so deep and meaningful and flowers bloom and marshmallows dance… and then you have moments where you hear them and want to throw up. Although the best rendition of a love song I ever heard was Steve’s “I wanna know what love is” during Bus Idol on the way to Livefire – he got my vote!

Are you sarcastic? Whatever gave you that idea?

Have you ever been on radio or television? according to Char I have... hmm. I remember that. Not particularly eventful.

Have you ever been in a mosh pit? LOL, Yes. I’ve even been in a mosh pit on crutches. Well, on the outskirts of the mosh pit. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Do you feel understood most of the time? Considering how many times people ask me to slow down or repeat what I'm saying, no, not really. And then there’s the whole “I’m sorry, I don’t speak your language” thing… meh. Not to mention the many, many language mishaps (there are hunters on my feet!)

Would you rather have a sore throat or an upset stomach? I don’t know… sore throats bug me a lot, but I think the upset stomach takes the cake (or rather, doesn’t take the cake coz you shouldn’t eat cake with an upset stomach)

Do you know what sctief is? no

What is your nickname/s? Rosie, Rosie Outside, Rosala, La maudite anglaise, New Zealand (by other foreigners, it saves time), Rosie Dahlin, Rosie-anne (ewww)

Could you be a vegetarian? I could, but why?

Would you ever Bungee Jump? Might do...

Do you untie your shoes every time you take them off? uh no... oops

What are you worried about right now? I’m not actually too worried about anything. It’s rather nice.

Do you wear overalls? I'd look like a sack of potatoes. Why do that?

Do you think you’re strong? not really

What's your least favorite Popsicle flavor? dunno... do I eat Popsicles? I did in Canada - maybe Grape.

Birthday? August 19

Eye color? blue

Last person who called for you? My grandmother! Hahaha

Favorite Vehicle? *shrugs*

Do you have a cell phone? Yes. It’s small.

What kind of Car do you drive? I don't drive coz I'm too lazy to learn

What's the last movie you saw? Breakfast at Tiffanys… no, wait, sorry – Tais-toi.

Last thing I got in the mail? A letter from Mariane! Woot!

Favorite Hobby? Reading, writing, singing, songwriting, blobbing, learning all my languages, being exceptionally geeky.

Are you photogenic? No, not particularly...

If you were making a movie about yourself, who would play you? I don't think anyone would want the part... no one could be me. I have enough trouble doing it!

Best Advice(s) Ever Given to You? The Little Avocado Book of Wisdom, from my avocado twin. I dove you!

Thing you want to be remembered for: Being a Jesus Freak. Being obedient to God. Being encouraging. Being able to laugh at myself - frequently. Being a good friend. Being really weird.

Things you look for in the opposite sex: Loves God. Good sense of humour. Appreciation of music and languages.

Your Personality type: Haha... annoying? Bubbly. Odd. Friendly. Hard to say, really...

Food you hate: Stuff with too much onion.

do you pray? Yep. Do you talk to your friends?

What was your favourite toy as a child? My cabbage patch kid. I still love her.

What's your favourite ice cream flavour? Cookies and Cream!

CD in your CD player? Switchfoot – Nothing is Sound. It’s Charlene’s, I borrowed it.

The last thing you said that made people laugh? Uh... the only thing that springs to mind is when we were doing music team and I made the comment that Phil always mocks me when I hold out my pinky as the "repeat the last line" sign coz my pinky is rather short and asks if I only want to repeat half of the last line... Nathan laughed. For quite some time. He will get what's coming to him one day, and there will be knives involved. (I am kidding, of course... next time I just shouldn't say anything...)

What do you think of Ouija boards? Stay away – don’t mess with the occult.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? With at least three cats out of the seventeen. *laughs* I dunno... seriously? Hard to say as of yet. It's all in His hands.

What do you do when you are bored? Listen to music. Cross-stitch or knit (do not mock! it's good!) Write songs! Play my guitar.

Favourite

Songs: “The Blues” by Switchfoot – that’s my current fav, but I think it’ll endure… my alltime favourite song may be “The Scientist” by Coldplay. Bit depressing, though.

Book: Too many to list. The Bible’s a good read though.

Place: My room. The prayer room at church. The sitting room in my host parents house.

City / Country: Wellington, NZ. Quebec City or Montreal, Canada.

Vacation: My exchange? Does it count?

Shop: Pagani. Number One Shoe Warehouse!

TV show: Will and Grace

Foods: Chocolate! Stuff with chili sauce on it. Paninis. Coffee...

Day of the Week: Sundays are fun. So are Tuesdays.

Flower: Roses. I know, I know... cliche. So sorry.

Quote: I love 1 Corinthians 4:20 : “The kingdom of God is not a matter of mere talk, but of power.” Or this: "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"

Season: We don't have seasons in New Zealand.

Summer Activity: Being at the beach with mates, just hanging. Sitting outside with a good book.

Winter Activity: In Canada I loved watching the snow fall. Here in NZ I like being warm in my house.

Magazines : Don't really read magazines.

Inside Joke: Microgranules! Or NAB.

Scariest thing that's ever happened while with friends: Terrorising the coffee man! Or buying pizza in a towel!

Best quality in a friend: Compassion. The ability to laugh at you without it offending you.

Do You Have A Best Friend? Uh… I’m not sure. Not in the old-fashioned sense of the word. I have an avocado twin, and Fi, who’s pratically family… I have lots of friends.

Who do You E-mail The Most? My host mum, I think.

Do you Believe In

God? Yes.

Yourself? I do think I exist...

Your Friends? Well, when I poke them they seem to be real.

Aliens? but no, I don't really believe in aliens.

Love? I believe that God loves me. I believe love exists in many different ways - there a lot of people whom I love. Romantic love though? It exists. I'm no expert in it. Maybe I'll figure it out one day, maybe not. Right now it's not looking too promising. But hey.

I'm outy. Catch y'all later!!!

Rosie

Yikes!

2005-11-01T14:14:00.001+13:00

It's the first of November today. That's ridiculous.

I've been finished university for nearly two weeks and I am yet to do anything of real substance. Unless you count hurting my knee, having a cold and completely tidying my room substantial. (I suppose I could.) Hopefully I'll find a job soon, I'm really getting a little bored. There are things I'd like to do, though, but I do need some money. It'd be a very good thing. I have some planning and whatnot to do for various occasions as well. And Christmas. Yikes. I have a project up my sleeve that is looking slightly unrealistic with only like 6 weeks in which to do it. Here's hoping that I develop some time management skills between then and now. I'm sure it's doable.

Thursday I'll have to make lots and lots of chocolate and caramel sauce for JYGroup. We're just starting it up, and the first thing we're going to do is make a really, really big ice-cream sundae. So they've all been instructed to bring a banana but they have no idea why. It's rather entertaining... I think they're scared we're gonna have banana mush fights or something. Paranoid little creatures. Note to self: tarpaulins on the floor would be a very good idea. A very, very good idea.

Better jet, adios!
Rosie

Yikes!

2005-11-01T14:14:00.000+13:00

It's funny...

2005-10-29T16:42:00.000+13:00

... that now that I'm on holiday and have lots and lots of time up my sleeve I never blog. Hmmm. Actually, the last two weeks have been pretty weird, coz I've been rather sick and haven't really done much. I tidied my room on Wednesday, and that was very exciting... found a book I got for my birthday back in August and ended up giving a sermon on it last night. I spoke at Volley last night - so did my first ever spot of preaching. It's also funny that I had it all planned out for weeks and then at the last minute realised that what I'd planned was pretty irrelevant and I should completely start over. So Thursday night I looked at the bookshelf, and found the book and remembered how cool and challenging it was and that's what I spoke on. It's called "Under the Overpass" by a guy named Mike Yankoski -> go here for more info http://www.undertheoverpass.com very, very cool book.

Oh, and yesterday I fell over and hurt my knee. It's pretty much just a graze, but it's quite painful and bruised and still slightly bleeding and it's frankly rather disgusting. I slipped on a manhole cover on the footpath because I am a complete and utter klutz. I was actually supposed to be going to a party tonight, but I'm not going coz I hurt. Hmmf. Never mind, though - I randomly had tonight off work anyway before I got invited to the party and since I have the night off, my friend Lauren's coming over to watch a movie with me. I think my brother and his girlfriend will be around, as will our exchange student and her boyfriend. Lauren and I are representing singleness! I actually feel like having a nice quiet night at home - and Dad took pity on me and bought TimTams. Which is very generous of him because he can't eat gluten anymore so he isn't allowed TimTams! (I hid them in my wardrobe so Stuart and Julia won't eat them!)

Hmm. I should be jetting. Things to do and whatnot.
Adios,
Rosie

Whoa

2005-10-19T12:59:00.000+13:00

It really has been awhile since I blogged. Yikes.

Well, I've finished university for the year. I had my last exam on Friday last week and it went pretty well, all things considered. I hadn't really slept too well during the week, so I was reasonably happy with how it went. Actually, it was quite a good exam. The week before we had a gazillion things due, and I didn't sleep much during that week, either. So glad that everthings over. Now what I need to do is get myself a job. I had an interview yesterday and that went well, so hopefully I'll hear back soon. It's for a marketing company - selling stuff. And whatnot. I suppose we'll see how it goes - I would really like to stay away from anything involving food this summer. Much as I love food, you get sick of it when you're always working with it. Trust me, I have vast experience with Chinese food. Sweet and sour fumes could probably take out a small country.

Had an adventure yesterday. I was walking down the street and this guy grabbed my arm and asked if he could cut my hair. His hair model had cancelled on him at the last minute. I figured I had nothing better to do (I was just kind of wandering in town) so I agreed. So now I have a rather nice new haircut. It's a bob, and it's shorter at the back than the front... hard to explain. Very entertaining to see people cut my hair and discuss angles and whatnot. I never realised hairdressing was so technical. It was actually fun. A free haircut that I actually like, and I've possibly found myself a decent hairdresser. I do need to get a hair straightener if I want the style to sit how it did after the guy did it. I'd better start saving.

Anyway, aside from that not much is happening. Better jet.

Catch you!
Rosie

Livefire

2005-09-25T20:38:00.000+12:00

Well, Livefire was last week, as I may have mentioned and I was intending to update a bit earlier but I have been busy. I've just come to the realisation that actually, there's only 2 weeks left of this trimester and we've reached the "oh my goodness how am I supposed to fit this all in?" part. Two tests this week, a few assignments, some orals to present - goodness, why did I decide to do foreign languages again?

Anyway, Livefire. We left last Friday morning bright and early, to get on a bus with roughly a third of the rest of our division... hooked up with the other buses around Bulls at about 9am for breakfast (coffee). Headed to Taupo for lunch, but en route we had the first rounds of what someone had so cleverly named "Bus Idol". I figured what the heck and had a go and sang something, as my guitar was on the bus with me... made it into the "finals" which were to be held after lunch with a guy from Palmy who REALLY wanted the prize (an MP3 player) and our cadet (trainee minister) who'd sung "Yellow Submarine" for a bit of a laugh... Mirjam and I split a pizza for lunch coz we were pretty hungry and got to hang out with Daniel who'd just got back from the States that week so yay. After lunch, Joel from Palmy was really anxious to do the "finals" of "Bus Idol" and was somewhat irritated that our illustrious judges really just wanted to sleep and I was busy doing my Spanish assignment. Anyway, we eventually did do our final round and I've got to say that my corps was very well represented, what with 2 of us in the finals.... I won. It's not a bad little MP3 player, actually. Joel bugged me about it the rest of the weekend, but that's okay.

Got to Livefire, settled into the cabin (me, Mirjam, Char, Candy, Kim, Laura and Tamsen - as in all the girls from my corps) and then had tea. The first session to kick off Livefire 2005 was brilliantly opened by Kapa Haka from Wangas and then by our very own Vatican boys, who did an absolutely stellar version of dc Talk's "Jesus Freak". The speaker for the weekend was this crazy Canadian dude named Michael Collins who was very, very good. I've got some notes sitting in front of me from what he said, and it's actually quite disjointed so I'm gonna try to some it up as cohesively as possible. He talked about hypocrisy, pointed out that a lot of Christians don't read the bible and since people tend to judge Christ by Christians, there are a lot of people who call themselves Christians out there who are disrespecting Jesus by their actions. He talked about the story in 2 Kings 6:8-17 - how we can't see the spiritual realm, but there's more than meets the eye. The earth will one day be gone - this is a scientific fact. The only thing that lasts forever is God, and He's calling us but we're not going! Michael issued a lot of challenges over the weekend, along the lines of (and I quote) "put up or shut up". Stop the excuses and if you're gonna say you're a Christian, actually do something about it.

Saturday morning it wasn't exactly the best weather (actually, it pretty much rained all weekend) but it did eventually clear up. We had a morning service where Michael talked about the armour of God (have a gander at Ephesians 6:10-18) Basically, if you don't march and fight you can't call yourself a soldier of God. Being in the Salvation Army, we call ourselves soldiers. Michael pointed out that talk is cheap, and when the fighting gets fierce you want to know your fellow soldiers won't run away. When you serve, you should be doing it according to your spiritual gifting - but you've got to actually do something. God will use the gifts He gave you but you actually have to get up and do something. It's gonna be one heck of a ride, and it's going to be awesome and rewarding but it's not going to be easy. Once you enter the fight, stand up and say "I'll fight", the devil is out to get you. Being a soldier of God isn't safe. But it's fun! If you don't want to fight, turn in your tunic or your Army teeshirt and go find somewhere else. If we stand up, lives are gonna change - our lives aren't for us alone, they're for God and for others. Fix your eyes on Jesus - the war has been won but there are still battles to fight.

Saturday afternoon was quite possibly the highlight of my weekend (probably a tie with Sunday morning, which I'll mention later). We went out on mission. We ended up doing door-knocking, which basically meant we went from door to door saying "Hi, we're from The Salvation Army, we were wondering if you had any odd jobs you'd like us to do - gardening, housework, anything." People have very varied reactions to this particular mission outreach. Some will just not answer their doors and hide when they see us coming. Some just don't get that we're actually doing this and ask "what's the catch?" Some are just plain rude! And then some are willing for us to come and do something. We ended up weeding a garden for an elderly couple. Their daughter was around and she answered the door, and seemed quite keen for us to do the garden. The elderly lady was absolutely lovely but you could tell it was too hard for her to do her own garden - we spent roughly an hour and a half on that one house (it was the only one we did). The man seemed a little grumpy - his first comment was "do you know the difference between flowers and weeds?". Luckily, Tamsen's a florist, so that solved that problem. (We spent a sizable amount of time checking with Tamsen before we got rid of anything, though). There was an orange tree that had tons of fallen oranges around it - I gathered up the ones that were alright (as in not rotten or inedible), gave them a wash and then gave them back to the lady to put in her fruit bowl. She insisted that we have them. I argued for a bit, but little old ladies can be very stubborn.

The lady went out with her daughter and it was just us with the man for the last half hour. We spent the last half hour debating whether we should ask the man if he wanted us to pray with him... I thought we should, but felt a little shamed out about asking and when we left I nearly didn't but as no one else was, I finally plunged right in and asked if he wanted us to pray with him. He said that would be lovely, so I said a (not particularly eloquent) prayer. He then nearly gave me a minor heart attack by saying that he wanted to pray for us, and he then went right ahead and prayed for us, too! I was really, really blessed. And once we met up with the rest of our group, the oranges were a huge hit with everyone - I didn't get one, but apparently they were absolutely beautiful. You can't really beat oranges from peoples own trees. They just taste nicer somehow.

That night, we had the big concert which pretty much completely rocked. Straightline, Moped and Mumsdollar meant for some pretty intense moshing (well, mostly from Moped on). I gotta admit I didn't stay for Mumsdollar but went to spend some time in the prayer room. I had a great time at the Moped set, though. We even had fireworks. It was flash.

Sunday mornings meeting was about the Holy Spirit. Basically, if your religion is external it's not going to work, you really need the power of the Holy Spirit to get you through the battles - as long as Jesus is just a concept, it's not going to work. Michael made a very good comment - Christians sometimes don't know when to shut up, but the Holy Spirit will teach you when it's appropriate to speak up and when you should just shush. The Holy Spirit is the fire part of the "Blood & Fire" on the Army flag, it's the power. The greek word for "power" is actually the root of the English word "dynamite" - so we're talking huge stuff! We had a huge amount of people at the front praying, and the coolest part for me was when the entire youth group got to pray together. The weekend went a long way towards strengthening links in our youth group and it was pretty cool. We finished off the weekend with one more session (it all kind of ran in together) where Michael did his last little bit on worship - he referred to a passage in Malachi where God called Israel up on not bringing the best to sacrifice. Worshipping God isn't about "what we can get out of it", it's about bringing glory to God and God would rather we didn't worship at all than not give our best.

Oh, and we got a little taste of Kaivata '07 - as in tri-territorial youth councils in Fiji! I've decided I'm going to learn Fijian before we go. And the youth group is going to learn at least a little bit of Fijian before we go. We have time. We'll be sweet. So that was Livefire. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and bring on Kaivata! I'd better get some sleep now, but Carol, that was mostly for your benefit, so hope you enjoy hearing about our big adventures! And sorry I'm not around much, I just don't seem to spend that much time online with all this work I have to do... hope to catch you online sooner rather than later.

Adios!
ALP,
Rosie

Countdown mode... 5 days

2005-09-11T22:40:00.000+12:00

Only 5 days left til Livefire! I have to admit that I'm really looking forward to it - I'm sure it's gonna go off. At the same time as I have these great expectations, however, I'm trying not to get too excited in case it sucks. I really don't want to be disappointed. I'm sure I won't be, but the way things have been going lately... I dunno. I think it's gonna be just what the doctor ordered (The Great Physician, that is) and I'm gonna come back having had a really good time but I'm getting a little exasperated at the fact that I can be such a mountain top Christian. Like I'm all fired up when things are going well but I always crawl back into my own comfortable little life and let things get me down / lose sight of my priorities / start forgetting about that whole Great Comission thing. What have I done to further the Kingdom of God lately? The answer is probably not very much. I try. I really do. And I know I can do all things through God. But I don't do a lot of those all things. There's always a thorn in the flesh. There are a whole bunch of them at the moment. Things don't exactly suck, but things aren't exactly great.

Being a caring person is really hard work. It seriously is. Being caring is not for sissies, let me tell you. Caring about someone takes a lot out of you. Their wounds become your wounds. Their problems your problems. Sometimes there's a whole lot of emotional weight leaning on you. Sometimes they don't really want your help at all and can be hurtful, nasty, cutting... and then sometimes they'll tell you they're fine and you know they're lying to your face. Either way it hurts. And no one can deal with that on their own. I have a really hard time bringing things to God. I know you should. Everyone says that: "just give it to God". Sometimes it's not that easy. You say "God, I give this over to you" but your hearts not in it, you haven't really done anything, it goes deeper... and you can't understand why it just isn't going away. Why it doesn't magically disappear. And why it resurfaces ten times worse the next day!

I really don't get God sometimes. I really disappoint God a lot of the time. I try and I try to be a soldier but I'm just not very good at it. It's only through Him that I can do these things so I should probably stop trying to convince Him that I'm doing fine by my own. I'm going to admit this now - I'm not a very good Christian. I'm not very good at being the on fire Christian I like to profess I am. If God graded people on being Christians, I'd be getting C-'s all the way. I like being good at things. I mostly get A's, however geeky that may be. Admitting I'm not good at something is hard (unless it's sport, I'll admit that any day of the week because, come on, it's obviously). You can fake your way through being a good Christian, though, but you can't fool God. People might think I'm a fine upstanding Christian girl. I go to church every Sunday, bible study on Tuesday, church choir Wednesday, worship service Friday. If I'm just going coz that's what I do, then I shouldn't be doing it. Right now I feel like I'm at the end of my wick, my candle has burnt out and I'm sitting here, waiting for something, trying to keep glowing with this tiny bit of wax and string left. Lord, I need You to give me a new candle, one that isn't going to run out anytime soon.

/Lord renew in me the fire of Your Spirit
so I begin to see the power of Your love
Make my life to be blazing with Your holiness
Father, fan the flame in me
To be holy, for Your honour
so that Christ be seen in me
To be holy, in Your likeness
Father, fan the flame in me/

Better jet, bed calls. Back to university tomorrow, my own personal battlefield. God, give me the strength to make it through this week and please, please be with me. Prepare me for renewal this weekend. I'm not going to make it through without You.

Hang on to You

2005-09-01T22:02:00.000+12:00

//And I'll hang on to You
coz You're stronger
and You keep me
from falling... //
Delirious? - Hang on to You

I've just had a bit of a shock. I'm not going to go into details here, coz I don't want to betray anyones confidance, but it really has been a bit of a shock. It's really made me think a lot about where I put my priorities. In my profile I said that God is the most important thing in my life, and if He's not He should be. How seriously do I take that? I was thinking about it, and what I actually invest most of my energies into - things like trying to get really good marks at university, being competitive, my social life, music (be it church music or otherwise), saying a lot of really God-centered stuff and then having a hard time putting it into practice. Sometimes I almost feel like I spend more time being a "Christian" than actually making God Himself a priority. Like I listen to a lot of Christian music, read Christian books, go to Youth Group, Songsters, Music Team practice, church... but how much of that is just "Christian" culture and how much is actually following God? I'm not saying that it's not important, because it is, but sometimes you spend more time doing all the "Christian" things and less time actually being a real Christian - that is, a Christ follower.

The cool thing about God is that He actually doesn't get mad if you screw up. I do it all the time, and He won't get mad, and He'll take you back no matter how many times you screw up. He's the God of second chances, third chances, millions and millions of extra chances, and you keep on getting them. He'll always forgive you, period. Jesus' blood will never lose it's power, it is the most powerful substance on this earth. And nothing is unforgivable. No matter what happens. My minds a little wandery at the moment, and all sorts of things are just blowing it all up into pieces, and I'm a little freaked out, but it's all gonna be alright. I think maybe I should go.

ALP,
Rosie

Whoohoo!

2005-08-22T12:05:00.000+12:00

It was my birthday on Friday. I'm now officially one year older. Woot for that! It was a really good day, actually. Actually, a really good weekend. We've had 24/7 prayer here at church - meaning that for an entire week, 24 hours per day, there has been someone at church praying. It's been really amazing and really, really rewarding. Friday night we had a volley (Worship service run by The Vatican) and then a sleepover. I was in the prayer room from 1am til about 2.30am. I got a little bit of sleep that night, then a couple of hours of sleep on Saturday afternoon and then had to work.

After that, headed into town to meet up with mates until about 1am, when I trained back to church to wait around until my 3am-5am prayer slot! It was the best, honestly. It started with a real "fear of God" moment. I'd been really lamenting the fact that I hadn't brought my guitar because I really, really like playing the guitar in the prayer room. I showed up at 3am and there's this guitar with the following note attached: "I brought this humble guitar with me to help in prayer and had a really strong sense that I should leave it for others. Feel free to use it." So I was like "okay God, you have my attention..." It's been a really awesome time. I've never felt closer to God. Some bad stuff has happened in the last few days, but I've really managed to deal with it with God. He's so much bigger than the absolute crap in your life. He can really make a difference.

Lots of music has been playing in the prayer room, and it happens that a Switchfoot song that's on the CD I got for my birthday has been playing and it's really meant a lot to me over the last few days.

/They tell you where you need to go
They tell you when you'll need to leave
They tell you what you need to know
They tell you who you need to be

But everything inside you knows
There's more than what you've heard
There's so much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words

And you're on fire
When He's near you
You're on fire
When He speaks
You're on fire
Burning at these mysteries

Give me one more time around
Give me one more chance to see
Give me everything You are
Give me one more chance to be... (near You)

Cause everything inside me looks like
Everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I'll take
When I'm on fire
When You're near me
I'm on fire
When You speak
And I'm on fire
Burning at these mysteries
These mysteries...

I'm standing on the edge of me
I'm standing on the edge of everything I've never been before.
And i've been standing on the edge of me
Standing on the edge

And I'm on fire
When You're near me
I'm on fire
When You speak
I'm on fire
Burning at these mysteries...
these mysteries...
these mysteries
Ah you're the mystery
You're the mystery/
- Switchfoot, On Fire

It's been really, really crazy. I've really learnt a lot and I pray that I can hold on to this experience in the times when it's not so good, you know? I know there'll be struggles. I've come such a long way in the last year... but I didn't do it on my own. God, You rock the party.

ALP,
Rosie

Not really sure why I'm blogging... not much to say

2005-08-10T22:54:00.000+12:00

Yeah, so we're on holiday next week. I suppose that could be exciting. Next Friday I become another year older. That could also be exciting. Tomorrow night I'm supposed to be going out with mates, but I'm not sure who's actually going to show up. People have been cancelling on me all day. I suppose I shouldn't be too upset and should actually realise that, hey, people have assignments and whatnot. Just coz I don't doesn't mean they don't. But, still, if no one shows up I'll probably be upset. I'm not really upset.... I'm not about to get all offended over people's lives being too busy to accomadate me. I mean, what kind of person what that make me? Someone I don't wanna be, that's for sure...

Aforementioned problem is still exactly that. I'm really at a loss as what to do about this, but I think that when it comes down to it I just have to get on with my life and try to forget about it. Thank goodness for holidays. Only problem: I now know where he works. I'll just have to avoid it like the plague (yeah, I'm not good at that... I'm not a stalker. I just occasionally act against my better judgement) - on verra ce qui va se passer.

Assignments for the break - woot! Well, kind of... actually, it shouldn't be too bad. I have a Spanish test tomorrow and that should be alright, all going well. Tonight I went to see a school production my friend was in (she was in the chorus). Oliver. Actually, turns out that I went to school with the girl who played Nancy. And I spent a little bit of time pondering the question "why were there no hot guys at my old college when there are so many at this one?" And hot guys that can sing, too - how many of those do you find? Well, they do exist... but man, there were a lot in that production. Apparently the guy who played Fagin (who I thought was exceptionally hot) is actually only a 6th former. That means he's too young for me, since I'm at varsity. Which is funny, coz he looks like he could be at varsity... you can never tell anymore. I don't understand it. There are a lot of really, really spunky guys at my mates school. It's not actually fair. Granted, there are hot guys at varsity. There are a lot of things at varsity. You can really find a lot of different things - something for everyone. It's kind of like university is a mini, intense version of the real world... something to ponder. I'll bet there's a metaphor there. But I need to go to bed, so I think we'll leave that for another day.

ALP,
Rosie

Deep thoughts... not really, no

2005-08-03T22:12:00.000+12:00

Hey up,

Been awhile since I blogged. What's happened since my last update? Well, August, for one. Hello August! Nearly 2 weeks til my birthday - woot! I am going to have a fantastic birthday this year, through the power of positive thinking. Last two birthday sucked. But 2005 - this is my year! Woot for that! We're going to go out for dinner next week - as in a whole bunch of my friends and I. It should be peachy. We'll see who actually shows up.

Ball was fun, though hanging out watching movies afterwards was possibly funner. I have cool friends, I really do. Life's been weird lately. I've realised a lot of things - firstly, that French class is a lot more fun when I talk more in French. Secondly, that I've been away from Quebec longer than I was there and yet it still has a hold on me... it's really a life-changing experience. I've actually almost lost the Quebecois accent, though, unless I talk to a Quebecois. Which I did on Sunday - I'm a support co-ordinator for a Quebecoise and a Peruvian. How exciting, huh? It's really cool... JNB is supporting a guy from Spain. Irony, n'est-ce pas?

Anyway, I don't really have that much to say... well, yeah, I do, but I'm not sure how to say it and I'm busy looking up guitar chords anyway... so it'll have to wait. Adios!

ALP,
Rosie

Hmmm...

2005-07-26T22:56:00.000+12:00

Well. Life is going pretty well these days. I'm still not exactly over the aforementioned semi-crisis, but hey, I'll be fine. I will eventually get over it. That's exactly what I told JNB today. My exact words were "oh, I'll get over it. You just watch me."

I have a nightmare of an assignment due on Friday. I really, really, really don't think I want to do it. But, unfortunately, I kind of have to. I've been doing so well up until now, I can't justify just not doing an annoying assignment. Bleugh. Double bleugh. What I'll do is head off to LLC tomorrow morning to make friends with the French synonym book. Who in their right mind does resumes anyway? They're ridiculous. And painful. I think I'm going to have a heart attack... this thing is stressing me out. Badly. I'm sure it'll eventually get done. And SOME people have already completed the stupid thing. *mutters something about disgusting organised law students making the rest of us look bad...*

Meeting up with David tomorrow. Guy I met at NZ Idol audition. Very cool guy. Will be nice to see him. He's cool. I'm going to a ball with Tal and Shane on Saturday, it's going to be completely funky-fied. I tried on my dress this weekend, though, and I'm too squishy. It's depressing. We'll see what happens... I'm dieting. Kind of. Just going off carbs for the week. It usually works. Although not exactly fun. Not fun at all, actually. Bleugh.

Oooh, almost forgot. My friend got married this weekend. It was a lovely wedding. She looked absolutely beautiful. I'm so happy for her. I sang at the wedding, it was... interesting. Let's just say that the drummer went a little too fast and there were quite a few words to fit in. The reception was fun. I perfected the art of the awkward conversation with a guy I barely know. Isn't it sad when people you've known for 6 days start insulting you? It happens... especially with me. Maybe I just have that effect on people!!! LOL!!! Oh well.

Right-o. Off to get some sleep. And dream of hydrogen powered cars.

ALP,
Rosie

Parle-moi pas d'amour...

2005-07-14T19:55:00.000+12:00

.... de tout c'que tu veux
d'n'importe quoi, mais pas d'amour
je te jure que j'saurais pas quoi dire...

I'm not really good at the whole boys and girls thing. There, I've said it. I can offer advice on other people's relationships, yes. I'm good at that. I can offer very wise counsel. I will do whatever I can to help my friends in their relationship woes. And occasionally, just occasionally, me being a good friend gets in the way of my own feelings.

In a nutshell, I'm being a really supportive friend with a friend of mine who's interested in a guy I shall hearby refer to as "Some Guy". She's into "Some Guy", but she has not yet let the identity of "Some Guy" slip to me. Unbeknownst to her, I've kind of figured it out. When it all comes down to it, I'd have to be pretty blind to not have by now. Problem? "Some Guy" has actually been causing me a certain amount of heartache lately. Yes, my friend and I have a crush on the same guy. Can we get any more adolescent? Seriously?

As it stands, I am the only one who knows both sides of the story. She doesn't know I'm into "Some Guy". She probably doesn't even know I've figured out the identity of "Some Guy". So what is my reaction to this? Well... actually, I'm trying to get her to give him her number so they can get to know each other better. I'm even considering setting up a massive as group social event so she can invite him along and not be too embarassed about it (because it's not technically a date, yadda yadda). Yes, you heard me - I am encouraging this relationship. 'Why', I hear you ask, 'would you be setting up your friend with a guy you like?'

The answer, of course, is simple. I'm not really happy about the fact that I like this guy. I find crushes annoying, inconvienient and a waste of my valuable time. If he's seeing someone else, then I'll be able to talk myself out of liking him and maybe even convince myself I never really liked him in the first place. That would be nice. Painful, but with a nice outcome.

In an ideal world, he'd like me and ask me out or whatever and all would be well and there'd be happy little marshmallows and rainbows floating around, but this isn't an ideal world, and I'm fairly sure he isn't even into me. Generally, the fact that he thinks I'm crazy doesn't really bode well for a possible relationship. Course, I have friends telling me that "it could be crazy in a good way" and "why shut the door on what could possibly work out?" but when it all comes down to it, the door isn't even open. Not every single guy wants a girlfriend. In fact, for all I know he could already be seeing someone, or he could be gay, or he could have a secret burning desire to become a monk (which would all be interesting twists to the whole story...)

But in other ways, it'd be easier if he disliked me. He doesn't seem to. He tolerates me like everyone else does. Occasionally laughs at my dumb jokes like everyone else does. Has that same expression of fond amusement that everyone seems to have when I say something stupid. I'd probably place him on the acquaintance/friend borderline. And that's bad. I'm not even sure if he's into my friend. For her sake and for mine, I really, really hope so. But to quote my dear friend Shane, "if you're willing to let him go, getting over him this way will be quicker, and who knows, he may realise your brilliance at a later date, you don't need to push it, or make a dick of yourself." Realise my brilliance at a later date... yeah, right (an example of two positives making a negative). But I'm really, really, not into making a dick of myself.

I would say watch this space, but really, there's nothing to watch. What it comes down to is that I am a complete and utter loser. 17 cats, a coup of attack chickens and a rocking chair coming right up!

ALP,
Rosie

Mrs Blueberry

2005-07-09T22:32:00.000+12:00

Hi folks - I would like you all to meet Mrs Blueberry. Mrs Blueberry is my guitar, and also a dear friend of mine. It may not be evident from her photo that she is blue, but, in fact, she is. She's a lovely shade of dark blue. And semi-stripy. Almost like a blue tiger. Or even a bit like Dory from Finding Nemo. She's lovely. She enjoys making music and helping me write songs. She also enjoys cool people like Tamsin and Tom playing her, but isn't too keen on strangers as a general rule. She likes her new little space at the left hand side of the platform at church. Mrs Blueberry likes having a home - she even suggested that we put a beanbag and a lava lamp next to her guitar stand to make it more homely. I kind of had to talk her out of it - she's a bit over-imaginative. Most of all, Mrs Blueberry likes making music to the glory of God. And even though I'm not the greatest guitarist, and sometimes she goes out of tune for no apparent reason, we're a good team. God blesses teams, I reckon - and I think God has blessed the both of us. And we really want to be able to bless Him, too. So we're going to keep working at our relationship. She'll try to stay in tune, and I'll try not to drop her, and we'll keep working at it, and we'll keep making music! It's all good!

Mrs Blueberry and I have been engaging in a spot of songwriting. She's pretty good at it. However, occasionally she can't find what she needs to be doing and gets a little frustrated, coz some songs are piano songs and she's not a piano. Not, she adds, that she would ever want to be - she likes her curvy blue figure too much to be a piano. (She had a little hissy fit about how pianos just think they're so cool, but she kind of got over it after awhile...) Sometimes, she thinks she'd like to be an electric guitar and not an acoustic/electric, but she does like the fact that she's versatile. She'd like to make freaky noises, though... although she admits she'd feel kind of silly. And she does like the fact that she can make nice, pretty sounds... In her wildest fantasties, she dreams of being an electric violin. Coz she thinks they're pretty awesome.

But deep down, like all of us, Mrs Blueberry knows that she can never be an electric violin. Because she is an acoustic/electric guitar. That is what she was created to be. And that is what she does best. God created Mrs Blueberry to be a very cool guitar, and to be my songwriting companion and friend. And she is. So right now, I'm going to thank God for Mrs Blueberry. Coz she's awesome. And so is God, only a hundred thousand times more so.

I'd better be jetting - au revoir from me and from Mrs Blueberry!

ALP,
Rosie

Really happy right now...

2005-07-05T22:27:00.000+12:00

It's just so good to be back at university. I really, really feel so at home there now, and it was awesome to see everyone. And, of course, Fi's home for the week. Yesterday we spent 6 hours straight together, pretty much eating the entire time. I know. Shocking, isn't it? I really probably shouldn't have eaten that much. We went to Strawberry Fare (really expensive, but really good) - and there were cookies beforehand, and coffee beforehand, and wedges afterwards. Strawberry Fare makes awesome desserts. We had Kahlua, white chocolate and coffee cheesecake and a warm raspberry drenched chocolate cake. Consequently, I am now completely broke. Completely. Oh well... it was worth it. Completely.

Back to uni matters: I dropped German. The negatives outweighed the positives, I really don't enjoy it that much as a subject, I just really like the people in my class. So I'm not longer German-asizing. But I will still see everyone! So it's great. This means I have 2 days of the week with no classes or tutorials and the earliest class I have is at 10am. So yay!

Only small grey cloud on horizon. I hate crushes. I really do. I've already posted about that. We don't need to get into again. It still sucks.

ALP,
Rosie

Last weekend of holidays...

2005-07-02T22:45:00.000+12:00

I'm not really that upset about it, though - I guess I'm just not cut out to do nothing. I'm such an action oriented person, when it comes down to it... but then I'm also a procrastinator who doesn't finish things that I start. I have three knitting projects underway, one of which I just started, and two cross-stitch. At least when I write songs, I finish them... I'll never write a book. I'd like to, but it just wouldn't get done.

Ooh, in excitingness - I'm now a moderator at Cafe Christ. Check it out here : http://forums.cafechrist.com It so figures they shoved a debate forum at me... two, actually. I don't really debate much. This could be interesting... oh well, it'll be an educational kind of process.

BTW - Watch this space for news about Highly Flammable. I shall elaborate if it all works out. If not, well, never mind, it obviously isn't in The Big Plan.

Fi gets home at midnight!!! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALP,
Rosie

Eeek! One week left!

2005-06-28T15:02:00.000+12:00

I'm actually very glad these holidays are nearly over, but I gotta admit, I will miss sleeping in. I slept til nearly midday today. I just checked up some unofficial marks - looks like I'm doing alright! Apparently I got A+ in my Spanish, my French and my German papers! Who knew? That's insane! I'm really quite happy about that - here's hoping the official marks end up being the same...

So next Monday, back at university for another round. Time to hop back on the roller coaster of learning - it's gonna be great. As much as I complain, I love it! And I am looking forward to being back into my crazy lifestyle. Life is good.

ALP,
Rosie

Oh well...

2005-06-20T14:11:00.000+12:00

... I'm not going to be NZ Idol after all. Are we really that surprised? No, not really, no. But I had a lot of fun :) Tamsin came with me, and we queued, and that was exciting. And we met cool people, which was also exciting. Some guy shoved a phone at me and I talked to the radio station in Masterton!!!!! Yay!!!!! (It's a very small place, for those who don't know...) I sang them a little song. It was very entertaining. Sadly, when I went to audition, I was told that "you're good, but we're looking for excellent". Which is fair enough, I suppose. In some ways I was relieved I didn't get in, coz it would have screwed up my life a little, and life's actually going quite nicely at the moment. I don't think I'd audition next year if the opportunity arose... it's just one of those things you need to give a go the one time.

I did meet a cool guy, though. More talking to strangers - I know, I know... I should stop it. I really should. One day I even might. When I'm a crazy old lady with cats I won't talk to anyone. How the world eagerly awaits that day!

The trip to Foxton was very cool. Foxton is... small. Very small. Yet, I enjoyed myself immensely. I always like Songster trips... hang on, we're called "Soul Praise" now. We renamed the Songsters, but I'm still not used to it and I'll probably just keep calling us the Songsters. Maybe one day it'll properly click...

ALP,
Rosie

I wanna be a rock star!

2005-06-15T22:15:00.000+12:00

- but I ain't got what it takes
the drive and the determination and the lucky breaks
I wanna be a rock star - yeah, but I ain't got the face!
I wanna be a rock star, but I ain't got what it takes...
- Third Day

Guess what? In two days time I have an audition for NZ Idol. Isn't that funny? I'm not sure how I actually feel about it... I'm not really taking it too seriously. Like, if I don't get through, I'm not going to hole myself up in a room for the next six months or something. But it'd be cool. Tamsin (Spanish class) is coming with me, and we're gonna get lots of junk food and play cards and generally have an awesome time til I have to sing or whatever, and if I do good, we'll go celebrate and if I don't get through, we'll go and comiserate. It's really a win-win situation. Anyway, I had pretty hard core regrowth going on from not having dyed my hair in awhile, so I've fixed that... it went darker than I thought, but oh well, at least it's gone back to the colour it was on the photo I sent in with my application. Weird, huh?

This weekend we're off to Foxton with the Songsters! That's going to be very exciting. I'm looking forward to it - the youth group worship team are doing the worship on Saturday night. It's gonna be a lot of fun, methinks. Woot! I'm quite excited.

I'm going to go crash now. See y'all later. (Y'all = Carol, Erin and Bri, I guess ;) )

Possible to be sick of holidays?

2005-06-13T22:14:00.000+12:00

Yes.

Yes. It is possible.

I need to do something intellectually stimulating. Carol suggests I write presentations, when really what I actually need to do is find more interesting strangers to talk to. Preferably those who speak foreign languages that I'm learning. I talked to some Spanish people the other day, that was really fun.

I'd like to make a public announcement. Nick - I vow to complete and utterly kick your ass in Spanish next trimester. I'm giving you fair warning so you can make an effort to be a worthy opponent. Bring it. Seriously.

In other news, am seriously in debt. May possibly need to sell kidney. It'd just be my luck that I only have one that functions, wouldn't it? Hmm.... am aiming to pay off visa by next May so I can move out. I'm kind of sick of living at home. Not that I don't love my family. It's just that with Dad being sick, I can't really galavant all over the place til all hours of the night coz he'll wait up. And I'd really like to do the whole flatting thing. If it doesn't work, I can always move back home. (shouldn't think like that) I have a whole year to think about it. And at least I know who I wanna flat with. It makes it easier.

Better get some sleep. Adios!

ALP,
Rosie

Big night out...

2005-06-06T22:27:00.000+12:00

Well, not really big night out, but it was a lot of fun. I went out to dinner with some friends - I've been trying to organise it for the last week, and we did actually figure it out. Nick, Lizzy, Tamsen, Eugene and me. As in 5th wheel kind of thing - well, not really, it wasn't actually that bad. It was really cool to see that they all got along :) I'm quite relieved, actually. I was expecting it to be a little awkward, but it wasn't. Which is good. I think we should probably do that again.

Maybe I should date more. *shrugs* I dunno... it's just that I'd really like to find a nice guy. I don't really want to go through a whole bunch of losers, though... and I don't want to date for the sheer heck of it. As silly as this seems, I think I'm going to need to find the One. I don't think I can handle dating the seventeen or so beforehand, it's going to have to be the One. Good luck to you, I hear you say. And I know, I know, I'm young, I have plenty of time to find the One and God does stuff in His own good time. But still... sometimes, I'd really like to find him. Whoever he is. The only thing I do know and hold on to is that he's going to be a pretty amazing guy, coz he's going to have to be absolutely right for me and that's going to make him a pretty unusual person.

I have a lot of ambitions. There are a lot of things I want to do with my life and I'd really, really like to not be doing them alone. Not that I don't think I couldn't - if I'm supposed to be doing stuff alone, then God will equip me, I know that. What it all boils down to is that if God intends me to be single, then he's going to make me okay with it. And if God has a guy somewhere for me, then I'll find that guy at the exact right time. It's all under control. I should really stop freaking out. But... *sighs* you know, sometimes it kind of sucks just being everyone's friend. I'm a romantic and I do want to live out some grand fantastic love story that doesn't involve sleeping pills, poison and balconies.

Then I think about the fact that my existence and my salvation is a part of the greatest love story ever told, and it all kind of pales in comparison. Earthly love is never going to be enough to satisfy me - but the eternal love of God is. What I want is what He intended love to be, his vision for humanity. I want someone who understands that. I want a guy who spends more time on his relationship with God than he does on his hair, to quote my friend Suzie. I want a guy who understands the love of God, because I don't think that he could fully appreciate love until he understands what God has done for him, for me, for everyone. There's a part of me that still doesn't fully understand what God's done for me, why he did it, what I've been rescued from. Can any of us really fully understand? It's pretty mindblowing... pretty crazy.

This is a situation I have to constantly give over to God. I keep trying to take it back, and worry about it but deep down I know that His timing is perfect. I also know that nothing will happen til I let go. It's hard to say that, but I know that it's what's best. I suppose I'd better get some sleep. I always get all deep and introspective when I'm tired. Good night!

ALP,
Rosie

J - trying to find a letter I have not yet started a post with

2005-06-05T16:55:00.000+12:00

I'm about to head off to CTC in half an hour for tonight's evening concerts and what not - it should be fun. I've had a really good time so far - yesterday was fun. I sang in the morning and it went... alright, I guess. I don't think I played the C#m chord correctly a single time, but that's okay. I didn't get called back, but I really enjoyed myself. Hung out with Lisa, who I hadn't seen for awhile, and she taught me how to do Dance Dance Revolution at Timezone. That was fun. Some of the items at CTC were just incredibly cool and amazing and wow and man, do I wish I could dance like those guys. It was LEGENDARY. Seriously :D

I'd better jet - but I'll try and blog properly later on in the week. Adios!

Rosie

La Vision

2005-06-01T22:40:00.000+12:00

Alors ce gars s’approche de moi et me demande : "C’est quoi la vision ? C’est quoi la grande idée ?" J’ai ouvert ma bouche et voilà les mots qui en sont sortis…

"La vision ?"

La vision, c’est Jésus- obsessivement, dangereusement, indiscutablement Jésus.

La vision est une armée de jeunes.

Toi, tu vois des os ? Moi, je vois une armée. Et ils sont libérés de tout matérialisme.

Ils se moquent d’un idéal limité par les horaires de bureau (entre 9h et 17h).
Ils pourraient très bien manger du caviar le lundi et des miettes le mardi.
Ils ne s’en apercevraient même pas !
Ils connaissent le sens de la Matrice, la façon dont l’Ouest a été gagné.
Ils sont libres comme l’air. Ils appartiennent aux nations.
Ils n’ont pas besoin de passeport. Les gens écrivent leurs adresses au crayon, et ils s’étonnent de leur étrange existence.
Ils sont libres et pourtant ils sont esclaves des gens qui souffrent, qui sont sales, et qui meurent.
C’est quoi la vision ?
La vision c’est la sainteté qui fait mal aux yeux. Elle fait rire les enfants et irrite les adultes. Elle a depuis longtemps laissé tomber le jeu d’un minimum intégrité pour viser bien plus haut. Elle méprise le bon et s’efforce d’atteindre le meilleur. Elle est dangereusement pure.
La lumière filtre de chaque intention secrète, de chaque discussion privée.
Elle aime les gens loin de leurs sauts suicidaires, de leurs jeux sataniques.
Voici une armée qui donnera sa vie pour la cause. Un million de fois par jour ces soldats

choisissent de perdre
pour pouvoir un jour être
récompensés par un grandiose "C’est bien, mes fidèles fils et filles".

De tels héros sont aussi radicaux le lundi matin que le dimanche soir. Ils n’ont pas besoin de célébrité. Au lieu de cela ils sourient silencieusement vers le ciel et entendent les foules chanter encore et encore "ALLEZ !"

Et ceci est le son de la résistance,
Le murmure de l’Histoire en train de se faire,
Des fondations qui tremblent,
Des révolutionnaires qui rêvent de nouveau,
Le mystère complote à voix basse,
La conspiration respire…
Ceci est le son de la résistance !

Et l’armée est disciplinée.

Des jeunes qui forcent leurs corps à se soumettre.

Chaque soldat accepterait de prendre une balle à la place de son compagnon d’armes. Le tatouage sur leur dos proclame "car Christ est ma vie et la mort m’est un gain".

Le sacrifice alimente le feu de victoire dans leurs yeux tournés vers le ciel. Vainqueurs. Martyres. Qui peut les arrêter ? Les hormones peuvent-elles les retenir ? L’échec peut-il vaincre ? La peur peut-elle les effrayer, ou la mort les tuer ?

Et la génération prie

comme un homme mourant
avec des plaintes qui vont au delà des mots,
avec des cries de guerre, des larmes acides et
avec une grande foule pleine de rire !
Ils attendent, montent la garde : 24-7-365.

Quel que soit le prix, ils donneront ! Violant les règles. Secouant la médiocrité de sa confortable petite cachette. Abandonnant leurs droits et leurs précieuses petites fautes, se moquant des étiquettes, se privant de l’essentiel. Les publicités ne peuvent pas les influencer. Hollywood n’a pas d’emprise sur eux. La pression de leur entourage est incapable d’ébranler leur résolution aux fêtes nocturnes avant le premier chant du coq.

Ils sont incroyablement cool et dangereusement attirant de l’intérieur.

De l’extérieur, ils s’en fichent presque. Ils portent des vêtements comme un costume pour communiquer et célébrer mais jamais pour se cacher.
Renonceraient-ils à leur image ou à leur popularité ?
Ils sacrifieraient même leur propre vie – changeraient de place avec le condamné à mort – plus que coupable. Un trône pour une chaise électrique.

Avec du sang et de la sueur et beaucoup de larmes, avec des nuits blanches et des jours stériles,

ils prient comme si tout dépend de Dieu et vivent comme si tout dépend d’eux-mêmes.

Leur ADN choisit Jésus. (Il expire et ils inspirent.)
Leur subconscient chante. Ils ont eu une transfusion sanguine avec Jésus.
Leurs paroles font hurler les démons dans les centres commerciaux.
Ne les entendez-vous donc pas arriver ?
Elle annonce les déjantés ! Elle appelle les perdants et les mecs bizarres. Voila qu’arrivent les effrayés et les oubliés avec du feu dans leurs yeux. Ils marchent fièrement et les arbres applaudissent, les gratte-ciel saluent, les montagnes sont écrasées par ses enfants d’une autre dimension. Leurs prières appellent les meutes des cieux et invoquent le rêve ancien d’Eden.

Et cette vision sera. Elle arrivera, elle viendra facilement, elle viendra bientôt.
Comment je le sais ? Parce que cela est le désir de la création même, le cri de l’Esprit, le propre rêve de Dieu. Mon demain est son aujourd’hui. Mon espoir éloigné est son 3D. Et ma pauvre prière chuchotée sans foi invoque un AMEN retentissant, étourdissant qui secoue les os, venu d’une multitude d’anges, de héros de la foi, de Christ lui-même. Et il est le rêveur originel, le vainqueur ultime.

C’est sûr !

(http://24-7.jesus.fr/)

Such a smart little language-knowing cookie...

2005-06-01T22:17:00.000+12:00

I am really proud of the fact that I had an MSN conversation entirely in Spanish with my friend Augusto :) He's from Argentina, he was on exchange in Quebec with me. Anyway, we actually conversed in Spanish! It was a pretty basic conversation, but it was actually really fun. Hopefully we'll get to do it again sometime - I miss Augusto. A ton, actually.

Course, at the same time as the Spanish convo, I was talking to my host mum in Canada in French. Words do not express how much I miss my host family. I just realised recently that it's been nearly a year since I left Quebec. How weird is that? And how much has changed since then... Sonia had a lot to say, it was really good to talk to her. She was looking at my MSN photo and told me that I'd lost a bit of weight and I was looking less like a little girl and more like a woman. That was kind of freaky. I knew I'd changed a lot during my year away, but I hadn't realised I'd changed since I was back. Well, I know I've changed, but I didn't think I'd changed physically. Does that make sense? I'm also not too sure if I like the fact that I look older... does it just mean that I'm getting old? Why am I worried about that anyway? It's silly.

By the way - it's June! How the heck did THAT happen?

Life is an unusual thing. It really is. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the next few weeks. Much as I know that I desperately need this break, I also reckon I'm going to get bored quite easily. Then again, there are so many variables... so many things that could happen. And if they did, they'd change everything. Course, the actual chance of these things happening is remote, but still possibly. Frustratingly possible. But if you don't try, you'll spend the rest of your life thinking "what if" or "if only". In 3rd form Meg told me that. And I've never really taken that advice until now... she was right. I hope she knows that. If it works out, or even if it doesn't, I think she deserves to know that she wasn't talking out of a hole in her head. She actually had a point. And I'm fully aware that this doesn't really make that much sense. I have my reasons for avoiding being specific.

Already Wednesday of my first week off. STILL haven't tided my room. I will honestly do it by the end of the week. Honestly. I really, really will.

I found the coolest thing the other day. The Vision - in French. Just having it in a foreign language gives me a sense of how big it is, you know? God is God, whether you say Dieu, Dios, Gott or whatever. He's still God. It's amazing. It's crazy. Etonnant. Incroyable.

ALP,
Rosie

DON'T PANIC

2005-05-31T22:34:00.000+12:00

Guess what I just saw?

Anyone who has not yet seen The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy must run out and see it Now. I'm serious - I loved it. Though I will admit that it may not be everyone's cup of tea (has a good chuckle to herself)... ahem. I think I shall see it again. I think that, when it comes out on DVD, I shall buy me a copy. I really, really liked the way Zaphod and Trillian were done (I, like my twin Carol, didn't really get Trillian in the books, either)

I'm quite liking being on holiday, actually. Only 4 more days til CTC! Yay for that... I'm really looking forward to it. Less to me singing and more to just all the awesomeness that's gonna happen. My grandma bought me a pillow today. Apparently it's coz I did well in my first trimester at university - and coz pillows are always useful. Hmm... I love Grandma.

Rosie

Can I hear an "oooh-yeah"?

2005-05-27T23:12:00.000+12:00

Oooooooooooooh- YEAH!

I've finished my first trimester at university! My goodness how the time has flewn... it's been crazy, let me tell you. It's still somewhat strange that, hey, whoa, this is actually my life. I don't think I'm quite used to the fact just yet. I finished my dissertation last night and almost ended up relatively happy with it, though I feel somewhat sorry for Dorothee coz she actually has to read it. Handed everything else in, and it was like a boulder being lifted from my shoulders.

Seriously, the last week has been a nightmare, well and truly. I managed to get very, very sick with a cold on Sunday night and I was death warmed up on Monday morning, having barely slept at all the previous night. I was so completely clogged up I was actually surprised at the sheer quantity of gunk my nose is actually capable of holding. (That may be boarderline TMI) Anyway, I had to do my expose for French, as well as a Spanish Test. Let's just say that the expose was disaster-esque, mostly coz I got told to slow down half way through. I talk really, really fast in English, and almost twice that in French. I can't really explain why that happens. Spanish Test seemed alright, too.

Tuesday morning I woke up feeling slightly better, did my Spanish oral test then went and got my meningitis injection. An hour after that, I was feeling worse than I did on Monday and didn't make it to work that night. I also realised that I couldn't find my flipping LLC fiche de travail for French215 and started to freak, coz it was due at the end of the week and the whole point was that it was supposed to have been continuous work throughout the entire trimester. Ack. I went to bed and got a decent night's sleep, which was good.

Wednesday morning I started the day with a French test (joy! rapture!) and had a German one in the afternoon, which was fun. I spent most of the day cramming in my silly LLC stuff, as did most of the rest of the French class. We're all a bunch of SLACKERS, it seems...

Thursday I finished off the rest of my LLC stuff and did another French test. I also had a nice little minor panic attack about the fact that my dissertation did not want to be written at all and was generally being a huge pain in my ass. I went to my German lecture where we were treated to the best lecture I've had so far - someone kidnapped the lecturer during Kaffeestunde and if we wanted to get her back (and our test results) we'd have to solve some German puzzles. All I've gotta say is it was cute. Very cute. And I got an A- in the test itself despite being so sick, so yay.

Last night I finally finished my dissertation, and believe you me I was rather happy. It was such a haul - on Wednesday night I sat in front of the computer for nearly 3 and a half hours and nothing got done. I did write a big long encouraging email to a friend which wasn't really on the to-do list, but I think it helped me as much as it helped him (at least I hope it helped him - if you're reading this, mate, I'm glad to be of service and I do what I can) - priorities, people, priorities. I handed everything in today and felt awesome about it. I am so looking forward to these next 5 weeks - it's going to be awesome to be able to relax. At the same time, I'm gonna miss everyone. I've got lotsa numbers, though, so much hanging out will take place. (If I remember, that is, it's quite possible I'll just get lazy and not text anyone...)

To top of the weirdness of the week, though, I had a bit of a realisation, and it kind of annoyed me. I don't really like developping feelings for people. It tends to get in the way with my relationship with said people, and I end up looking like an idiot. I just need to concentrate on 17 cats, a rocking chair and a coop full of attack chickens. I hate crushes. I really do. Other people tend to really enjoy that butterfly-stomach-I'm-going-to-go-psycho feeling you get when you're around someone you have feelings for, but I most certainly do not. I even wrote a poem about it.

I'm not really sure
why I can't stop thinking about you
it's not as if I
don't have better things to do
why do you invade my thoughts?
I used to be alone here
whatever happened to privacy?
I didn't realise I was so paranoid but
sometimes I feel like you can read my mind
when you look at me and smile
and it's almost like you're mocking me
and I'd kind of like to strangle you
coz frankly, it'd just be easier
the only downside is
if you were gone
I know I'd miss you
sometimes I miss you when you're there
right in front of me
making stupid, idle conversation...
what it all boils down to is
you stole my heart
and dammit
I want it back

I would also like to point out that I am not taking any English literature papers. Nor do I intend to. Thus I do not claim to be any good at writing poems. I'm not. I just like expressing myself in a creative, interesting manner. Or at least what I reckon is creative and interesting. It's better than going all angsty. OH WELL. The moral of the story is: it's back to the recipe for Rosie. The recipe being "recipe for dealing with crushes"
Step 1: Ignore the feeling until it goes away
Step 2: Avoid said person at all costs
Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 until cured.

ALP,
Rosie (qui est libre!!!! je suis libre!!!!)

Am possibly on the final lap...

2005-05-21T16:40:00.000+12:00

... of this trimester, that is. In all honesty, it actually went quite fast. But it was pretty intense, what with all the crazy language learning and whatnot. I can honestly say that I am a great deal more knowlegdable about all three of the languages I am studying at this date than I was when I started. I can make full sentences in Spanish, in past, present and future tenses. Two past tenses, even. And I've even got a hang of the gerand, too. Yayness! German... well, I can use the past tense. And the random structures of the different types of conjunctions. Still gotta get my head around the pure evilness of the subjunctive and adjectives, but all in good time. And I've even learnt stuff in French! I learnt how to use "dont" appropriately. And "ce dont". And I even learnt that up until 1981, the French used the guillotine to administer the death penalty. On October 9th, 1981, they abolished the death penalty in France completely, but they used the guillotine right up until then! Actually, I'm quite knowledgable about the guillotine now.

- A doctor invented and perfected it.
- Used during the French Revolution.
- The aim is for it to be quick and painless and easy. (Hmmm, I have a song called "Quick, Painless and Easy" on CD somewhere. It was a cool song.)
- Cut off the kings head. And his wifes. They seemed like silly people anyway.

I got to speak about the guillotine for 3 minutes in class the other week. That was exciting.

Anyway, what's coming up... Monday is my Spanish test. Straight after is my French expose. Yikes. Tuesday is my Spanish oral test. I have to read a little text thing. Wednesday I have a French test. Thursday I have a German test and another French test! It's all so exciting... then on Friday, I think I get my German test back at my tutorial. And we're all going out celebrating! It's going to be awesome fun... salsa, possibly karaoke, lots and lots of dancing... yay! This time next week I'll possibly be completely exhausted, but it'll be so worth it :). So bring on the week!

ALP,
Rosie

Me gusta el cafe...

2005-05-17T22:02:00.000+12:00

Me gusta mucho el cafe.

Me gusta muchissimo el cafe!

I just realised that so far, I've had titles in French and German (and a decent bit of English, too) so I figured, hey, why not put Spanish in there, too? I have news, btw... I'm going to sing at CTC! Go here to find out what it's all about: http://www.yfc.org.nz/ctc <-- it's all very exciting. Here's hoping I don't screw up my chords like I did at the audition thing. *shrugs* Life does continue. It's on over Queen's Birthday weekend. It's going to be great fun - and hey, even if I screw up there's a ton of cool stuff happened. Like, for example, Moped! Yayness!!!

Less than two weeks to go, and it's getting into an "argh, I've just realised I don't actually know anything" stage. At the very least, I know that I have read L'etranger. It's an interesting book... I don't know if I would recommend it or not. I really can't decide - I read it, and it did affect me somewhat. It kind of left me feeling a little... I don't know, disturbed? Well, not really disturbed, but more confused. Perplexed. The main character was hard to figure out. His motives completely eluded me. I didn't understand him, but at the end of the book I still felt bad for him. It did make me think, though - we are all condemned to death. Humanity is condemned to death. What's cool is the fact that death doesn't have to be the end - it can be the passage for what we're destined for, being with God. Still - the book made me think. There are so many people who will live their entire lives exactly like Meursault. It's sad... there has to be something I can do about it.

Well... I have a lot to do in the next little while. I gotta somehow locate some money for CTC, so I can actually go perform. I still have to pay, which is understandable, coz there are quite a few performers. It's going to be awesome, I reckon. I've also got work off next Friday night so I can go out. Yayness! I think Julia and I are gonna go hunting for lemon chicken...

yummmmmmmm... lemon chicken.

And with that thought, I leave you.

ALP,

Rosie

Il n'y a rien de nouveau sous le soleil...

2005-05-14T22:45:00.000+12:00

*ahem*

In much better frame of mind at the moment. Have much work to do, esp. this random German assignment they thought it might be fun to give us at the last minute. Imperative! Yay! Ugh... why does Anke like Monika's Spaghetti? Please explain this to me... hmm... oh, and maybe I should write my dissertation. Maybe my expose too. Ooh... I have found usefulness for that dissertation, however.

"Ce qui a été, c'est ce qui sera, et ce qui s'est fait, c'est ce qui se fera: il n'y a rien de nouveau sous le soleil. Si l'on dit: «Tenez! Voilà quelque chose de nouveau», en fait, cela a déjà existé dans les temps qui nous ont précédés depuis longtemps. Seulement, on ne se souvient plus de ce qui s'est passé autrefois, et il en sera de même pour ce qui se produira dans l'avenir: ceux qui viendront après nous n'en auront aucun souvenir."
-Ecclésiaste 1:9-11

Trust me. This is useful. Or I will find a way to make it useful.

ALP,
Rosie

What if I stumble?

2005-05-11T23:03:00.000+12:00

//Is this one for the people?
Is this one for the Lord?
Or do I simply serenade for things I must afford?
You can jumble them together, my conflict still remains
Holiness is calling, in the midst of courting fame
Cause I see the trust in their eyes
Though the sky is falling
They need Your love in their lives
Compromise is calling...

What if I stumble, what if I fall?
What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble, and what if I fall? //
- DC Talk

That's definately a question I ask myself a lot - what if I stumble? What if I have already stumbled? What if I'm not really going anywhere - I'm just kind of dragging myself along. Why do I still get the best of me? Why can't I just get it together? Why does God feel so far away from me sometimes? Why do I have these questions? I sometimes feel like I'm swimming in this mine-field when I'm at university - defending myself. Defending what I believe. But at the same time, the friends I've made at university who don't believe what I do are the ones who are the most supportive of my studies. I can't really explain it properly... but it's kind of like this.

I have a great youth group. They are really awesome people. But lately it's been the last place I wanna be at times, simply because I don't feel that they take me seriously and seem to think I'm wasting my time at uni studying all these languages. I don't need that from my friends. I get enough of that from my extended family - had a rather exciting lunch with all the rellies on Dad's side of the family and they seemed to be implying that me wanting to learn all these languages implied that I thought I was too good for NZ. Well, evidently, if I'm learning languages I want to ultimately travel, but I am still a kiwi, through and through. I don't think I'm any better than them. They seem to think studying in general is a good thing, since they support my cousin's architecture degree, but apparently mine just doesn't cut it. They're all busy congratulating his B, and I'm just thinking "does anyone actually care that I haven't got anything lower than an A- all trimester?" I'm not doing this to IMPRESS people - but maybe occasionally I'd like my friends to ask how it's going, or maybe express the tiniest bit of support for what I'm doing.

My friends at university, on the other hand, are totally supportive of my studies, ask me how I am, congratulate me when I get good marks, study with me and are generally a lot nicer about it. Most of my uni friends aren't Christians, and they don't seem to have a problem with me being one but I can tell they just don't understand. To this problem one could answer: "well, there you go! you're out on the mission field! you can show the example of Jesus to them!" To which my reply is: "don't you think I'm trying?" And I am... but I don't feel comfortable discussing anything relating to struggles with uni at youth group, coz I feel like they don't actually care enough about uni to want to discuss it. Like if I brought it up, they'd be all like "well, you chose to go to university". Well... I dunno if they would. Stewart's at uni, too. But he doesn't go that often, I don't think. I've made a lot of friends at uni, and that's the problem... kind of... like, I need Christian mates just to be able to relate to on that spiritual level. But I also need people who I can relate to on things like course stress, how hard it really is to learn languages, how stressed and tired I am, how I have so much work to do... what I don't need is people who think I'm wasting my time studying in the first place. Maybe I'm over-reacting, maybe I'm just tired, maybe I'm just an idiot who reads into things too much and they're only teasing me (they do it alot) but it's getting to a weird point and I no longer know how to react. Thank goodness I have a babysitting job on youth group nights for the next little while. It'll give me time to sort myself out... pray a lot... just get my head together. I'm such an idiot sometimes...

I also feel like I'm failing everytime I try to talk to people about my faith. I feel like a fool, like I can't explain it properly, like maybe I'm not a real Christian if people don't get what I'm talking about? I feel like I'm compromising without even realising it - I'm compromising my standards to relate to uni friends. And that's not on. It's my problem to resolve with God... I can't do this on my own. It's just not going to happen. Without God I am nothing, and I cannot possibly hope to show him to the world if he's not with me... ack... I need sleep.

ALP,
Rosie

Tiiiired...

2005-05-10T22:06:00.000+12:00

I had my interview at the teacher's college today. It went really well, actually, better than I thought it was. Reminds me a lot of my AFS interviews for my exchange, same sort of thing. Group work, etc. Then I babysat. It was good.

I have all this craziness to sort out for uni, and it's starting to freak me out that I have less than a fortnight to write my expose for FREN215 and that I also have to write that disseration for just over a fortnight away. Trimester is hurtling to an end, and it's been a wild ride. FREN215 is obviously the hardest because it's a 2nd year paper, but it's also really challenging so I'm really loving it. I'll have to decide next trimester whether or not to keep doing German. Other stuff might arise... I dunno. I'm still a bit ho-hum about everything. Haven't been sleeping, and I'm stressed and gah. But life is still good, and so is God. So it'll all be fine.

ALP,
Rosie

Hehe...

2005-05-01T21:33:00.000+12:00

Sorry. I accidently posted a nothing post, but it so entertained me that I think I'll leave it there. Just to confuse the masses.

Well! 4 weeks til the end of my first trimester at university. My, does time fly. Just finished work and headed over to the supermarket to buy food to make lunch. I just had this amazing brainwave - buy yummy stuff to make lunch as opposed to buying lunch at uni. Well, usually I end up just not eating coz I'm not very organised and I never have any money. I do, however, drink a lot of coffee, and nothing I do is going to stop that, but I bought some croissants, some spicy ham, some Brie and some Oreos. That should do me for this week, if not next week too. Only petits croissants, though. And yes, it actually said "petits croissants" on the packet - it's not just me abusing the fact that I speak French. Bof...

Anyway, I do have quite a bit to do before the end of the trimester. Like pretend I've been going to the language learning centre at least once a week all trimester. Prepare my French expose. Write my second French dissertation. Do my Spanish assignment. Actually figure out what the heck the lecturer from Fren124 was on about in time for the test. Keep trying to learn German vocab... it just doesn't seem to want to stick in my head. Oh, and guess what? Next Tuesday I have an interview with the College of Education. They're going to psycho-analyse me to see if I'd make a good teacher and will find that, in fact, I'm just psycho. Whoulda thunk?

Best be off... yah!
ALP,
Rosie

May Day! May Day!

2005-05-01T21:30:00.000+12:00

Something Exciting

2005-04-28T21:44:00.000+12:00

Hey, I did say I'd yak on a bit about my adventures at Noise, so I figure I'd better do that. Even if it's just for Carol and Erin's benefit. (Erin - thank you :) you're awesome)

Wednesday is one of my nightmare lots of consecutive classes days, so by the time I got home I was well and truly exhausted. I threw some clothes together, had a shower, fielded a call from Grandma (she's lovely) and ate whatever it was we had for tea and as soon as I'd accomplished all that the boys had arrived to pick me up. Which was good. We collected everyone and got on the road at around 7ish. Arrived in Auckland at 4 in the morning, then drove around for awhile trying to find the street where the boys were staying. I camped out on their couch for that first night and got about 3 hours of sleep, then woke up and called the people I was staying with, who then came and picked me up and took me back to their place where I had another 4 hours of sleep. Then I went to register for the conference.

We'd seen that registration was between 2 and 5, but I'm not sure if anyone really thought that if we registered at 2 we'd have a couple of hours to kill. So we went shopping. I bought some clothes and nearly lost everyone, but luckily refound them. At 7, the first meeting started. The Planetshakers did the worship, and it was awesome! I'd never actually seen the Planetshakers live before, so I really, really, really enjoyed it. Sy Rogers spoke, and I actually got a lot of notes out of it. The one thing that stuck out for me is that God's plan for my life extends to what generation I was born into. As in I am here and alive and 18 years old in 2005. And I'm in New Zealand for some reason. I'd never really thought about the being alive in this era as part of God's plan... I mean, it's kind of a stupid thing to have never thought about, but it had never really hit me before. That night we saw a bunch of acts at the theatre bit, including Nathan King, Kate Wray, Brad Dring and the highlight for me, Kevin Max from DC Talk. He was awesome. It was quite honestly incredible the way he could pull off a set with an acoustic guitar and his incredible vocals… yikes.

Friday the morning meeting was cool, then I went off to a workshop run by a guy from PlanetShakers whose name I cannot spell (I’ll run off and get my programme in a sec and spell it for you then) about “The Discipline of Being a Worshipper”. It was awesome, actually, and I got a recipe for chicken marinade which, apparently, is never allowed to get to Australia. So I can’t tell you. Sorry. (runs off) Aha! Mike Guglielmucci. See why I couldn’t spell it off the top of my head? Cool guy. Anyway, after that I went to a workshop called “Developing a Successful Worship Team” and sat next to this guy who had a pretty decent seat. He was very cool – his name’s Adam. After that, Adam and I both headed off to a workshop about “Writing a Great Congregational Worship Song” but there were too many people and we couldn’t get in, so we went to something else Worship Team-y and I ran into Tom. Then I went to a singer/songwriter session which was very useful (apparently, a thesaurus is a good songwriting tool – I never really thought about that) and then jetted off just in time to see the Vatican boys do their audition. I thought they did great. Nathan and Matt went back, gave one of the judges their demo CD and then found out that this particular judge person was DJ-ing on Radio Rhema on Saturday night. The guy was stoked to get the CD and promised to play one of the tracks. Now that’s something exciting!

That night the Parachute Band did the worship, and the speaker spoke on “Non-refundable Kingdom Attitudes”. Basically about not just waiting for revival to happen someday, but getting the right attitude to believe it can happen now. After that, Magnify did some worship and that was cool. Kinda tired by this stage, so the guys took me home. I actually had to do my German assignment at this stage. Bleugh.

Saturday morning – last day of Noise! (Awww…) Christian Life Centre Auckland did the worship and that was pretty darn cool. Speaker spoke about “A Spirit of Excellence” and that was good, too. Points I got from that:
1) Excellence commits to reaching higher
2) Excellence lives beyond the demand and drive of perfection
3) Excellence commits to doing the best with what it has
4) Excellence embraces expectation, extra effort and evaluation
(A lot of e’s just there…) After the morning meeting, I ran into Adam again. We headed off to a Worship Panel, which was basically a Q and A session with Henry Seeley, Libby Huirua, Reuben Morgan, Richard Knott and Kate Wray. (For those of you who don’t know, they’re all worship leaders and the majority of them are songwriters, too – all from NZ or Australia.) Adam and I had lunch and I ate sushi for the first time in my life! AND I didn’t have to pay for it! What a nice guy! But yeah, I had been informed I wasn’t actually allowed to leave Auckland without eating sushi, so we fixed that all up. Sushi! That’s something exciting, too.

That afternoon I went to a workshop called “A Vocalist’s A-Z of On-stage Performance”. It was really interesting – the guy who ran it (Tom Jackson, “from Nashville, Tennessee”) really knew what he was on about and I got a lot out of it. Not many notes, however, coz I couldn’t get into the tent it was being held in due to the sheer amount of people there and it started raining and my ink ran. I followed that up with “Things I’ve learnt along the way” by Kevin Max (which was entertaining more than anything else) and then headed off to the “Live Rehearsal Workshop for Bands and Soloists”, in which Tom Jackson used Magnify as guinea pigs and worked on their live performance. Interesting to see his ideas, and how to fix it all in.

Workshops being finished for the day, I headed back to where the boys were staying so I could listen to them on the radio and I even got some tea! I gotta say, Jordan’s mum can definitely cook – and it’s definitely better than all the fast food we had to eat all weekend. At about 6.20 “All That I Can Give” became The Vatican’s first radio single – and I was with The Vatican at this crucial moment in history! Course, they’re staunch guys and were being all cool – I was the one going “guys, you’re on the radio!!! That’s so cool!!!!”… hah, groupie. Something exciting! Anyway, the grande finale of Noise was the concert. I brought Susan and Laura with me – I was staying with them. Luckily I was staying downstairs in the granny flat bit, coz I kind of came and went. Noise concert started with Kevin Max, who did “Jesus Freak” with the PlanetShakers (which was SOOOO awesome) among other things. He had to fly to Holland, I think it was, so he literally got off stage and headed to the airport. After that we had Parachute Band, then Nathan King, then Magnify, then Reuben Morgan, then PlanetShakers! All in all, it was an awesome line-up and I was kind of exhausted by the end of it…

Sunday I slept in, then met up with Grandy. We had a nice family lunch. Saw a cousin I hadn’t seen for five years. The usual. In the afternoon, I headed back to the mall in the suburb I was staying to buy choccies for the friends I was staying with. On my way home, I ran into these kids on the side of the road. Three of them were beating up this other one. They all looked about ten, and I wasn’t sure if it was just kids being kids or something more serious, so I asked if everything was alright. The guy being beaten up replied “What does it look like, I’m getting a hiding.” I then kind of noticed that they’d taken off this kids shoes, shirt, and hat. I continued on about 5 metres, then realised that I really, really shouldn’t be walking away.

Now, I’m rather short and not very scary (until I open my mouth, that is) so I figured it’d be easier to try and talk to them. I managed to figure out why they were beating this kid up – he’d beaten up someone’s little brother (he denied this) and he’d taken some money. Having a grand total of five dollars in my wallet, I asked the kid who looked like he was the ringleader if they’d leave the kid alone if I gave them this money. He agreed almost immediately. I took the note out, and he grabbed for it, but I told him I wouldn’t let go until the other kid had all his clothes back on and had gone back to the bus stop. They agreed to that as well. The kid being beaten up ran off and I was left with these three other boys. I’d been eating ice-cream in one of this little pot thingies, and I offered it to the really skinny looking kid. He accepted, and polished off the whole thing in about 3 seconds.

These kids were looking a little puzzled by now, and they asked my name. I told them, and asked for their names. George, Thomas and Martin. They asked me where I was from, I told them and explained what I was doing in Auckland. I asked them about school (it being holidays now) and they told me that it sucked. One of them liked Science, though, and I told him that if he stuck with it, when he got older he’d be able to choose the subjects he likes. They kind of thought I was weird, but seemed to accept that. I explained to them that I don’t like Maths or Science, but now that I’m at university I can do what I do like – languages. They thought that was weird too (but frankly, who doesn’t?) and asked me to teach them how to swear in French. Then one of them remarked “you don’t swear much, do you, miss?” (By now, they’re calling me ‘miss’, which is kind of strange coz I never hear it, but it showed me that they’d gained some sort of respect for me). I tried to explain that I liked using other words, and they said “we don’t know any other words”. At this stage, it started to rain hard and they told me “you’d better go home, miss, or you’re going to get wet”. I asked them when their bus came – they had another three hours to wait. With the money I gave them, though, they had enough to get home, at least. Before I left, they taught me their handshake. I headed off on the 10 minute walk back to Tricia’s – and cried nearly the entire way. 10 year olds should NOT be walking the streets of Auckland. I hear all this stuff about us helping those in 3rd world countries, and I totally agree, I do. But people, seriously – take a look in your backyard!!!

Monday (ANZAC Day) we headed home. The weather was a little random, but we didn’t have too many probs. We got rid of Tom in Taupo, and got some pizza from the rudest pizza lady! A real charmer, that one… Nathan was getting rather worked up. Good thing he didn’t attack her. Went to see Sam in Palmy – she made spaghetti, but it didn’t quite work, so the hot chips option happened instead. We got back to Wellington at roughly ten pm. And that was my big, exciting weekend away!

Phew. That was exhausting. I should go to bed.

ALP,
Rosie

Ich bin kein Kugelschreiber

2005-04-27T18:28:00.000+12:00

Well. Back at university and life in general at the moment is going good. Had an awesome time at Noise, and I'm proud to say that at no point in the proceedings did I refer to the van as "The Vatmobile". However, I said plenty of stupid things to make up for it. (I'm like that. I'm such a geek that it's actually awesome.) Lots of fun was had and I will explain it at some stage, but right now I have to jet off onwards to Songsters, so I'll return later onwards. And write something. Something exciting. It'll be good. I promise.

ALP,
Rosie

I love to go a-wandering...

2005-04-20T18:12:00.000+12:00

...

Just a quickie telling anyone who cares that I'm leaving for Auckland. Whoo for the rock stars - to the Vatmobile!!! (Note to self: do not let that slip out in front of the Vatican boys. Ever.)

Anyway, it's all good. Money in wallet, drugs in my backpack (prescription, mind you) and the long road ahead of me. Yeehaw!

ALP,
Rosie

Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeea... herbal teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeea

2005-04-18T18:46:00.000+12:00

... is what is keeping me going at this particular moment in time. Hmmpf. I've been kind of trudging along semi-sick for awhile, but all of a sudden it's just decided to flare up and that kind of sucks. I think I have a chest infection. I'm going to go see the doctor tomorrow because of the crazy phenomenon that involves my chest hurting everytime I cough. Even every time I breathe. Which I tend to do a fair bit, so argh.

I saw the coolest film the other day. It was on MGM, and it was French but with English subtitles, so my mum kinda watched it with me. Anyway, this lady was going around killing these guys coz one of them accidently shot her husband just after they got married as they were walking out of the church. They were all in this room and no one actually owned up to it so she just killed all of them. It was really quite cool. SOOO sixties, though. But French and sixties. Anyway, my French teacher is going to find out what it's called coz she reckons she knows what I'm on about. I'd like to see it again. Me and Mirjam wanna see "8 Femmes" again, coz it's funny. I loved it. That's the way life should work. People should randomly burst into song. It's just the natural order of things. Heck, I'd do it all the time if I wasn't afraid someone would put me away.

Got some marks back, just in case people are interested. 85% and 90% in French assignment and test respectively. Nice, since I thought I'd fail. 99.5% in Spanish test. Just coz, funnily enough, the Spanish don't put an h in anthropology. It's "antropología". I knew that. I'm so annoyed. But Tamsin (Spanish) is getting annoyed and calling me an over-achiever. Blah. I'll have you know, she got an A+, too! So ngah... and Corinna got the 100%. I really am very happy for her *mutters*... no, really, I am. She's lovely, and she deserved it.

Better jet. Two days til Auckland. A-yoy...

ALP,
Rosie

Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to class we go

2005-04-11T22:02:00.000+12:00

...

so I thought I had French and Spanish tests. I was mistaken. I also thought I'd receive both French and Spanish results. I was also mistaken. I was not, however, mistaken when I thought I had a German assignment to hand in. 5 sentences about the daily routine of a famous person. I chose Daniel Vettori. It's just great. I love Daniel Vettori. I know nothing about cricket, really, but I love Daniel Vettori.

Oh my goodness. Go here: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php

Seriously. Just do it.

To quote Mike: "I swear, I live my life by that song! As a result, I have invested in... a Llama and Cheesecake Farm! It's great, its a facility, which TEACHES Llamas to bake cheesecakes! It's gonna be the hottest new craze! I knew you would approve :) "

Haha, doesn't that just tell you to run screaming?

Oh, and I was the Cat in the Hat yesterday. That was really exciting. I made two kids cry, though. That kinda sucked. Anyway, best be off...

llama, llama, cheesecake, llama

ALP,
Rosie

Bleugh.

2005-04-07T15:15:00.000+12:00

Can you hear that whooshing sound? That's my holiday, flying right past me, moving on to greener pastures - wave it goodbye, everyone! *waves goodbye*

Ack and bleugh and meh are the only appropriate responses for the fact that I have a German assignment due on Monday, as well as a Spanish test and a French test. It all seems rather awful. On the plus side - I have money. For the first time ever. I'm just going to relish in this fact and TRY not to spend it all on stupid, random, pointless things. This isn't to say I won't buy stupid, random, pointless things. This just means that I'll try not to ONLY buy stupid, random, pointless things.

Heh! Listening to my Planetshakers CD, and it's Tamsen's guitar solo song. Funny story - I know two Tamsin's. Well, a Tamsin and a Tamsen. Tamsin is in my Spanish class. Tamsen is in OneWay with me. They're both rather groovy chicks - and Tamsen works in Tawa, so I've seen her quite a few times this week. She's coming to Youth Group on Tuesday night, too, which is quite exciting :). Still, ponder this: I know two people with virtually the same name, and it's relatively uncommon. La vie est bizarre.

Maybe I should go do something constructive rather than blog. Laters.

ALP,
Rosie

New month, same Rosie

2005-04-03T13:07:00.000+12:00

April isn't really one of my favourite months, mostly because nothing really seems to happen. At the moment, I'm right smack bang in the middle of my holidays. It's very exciting, but I really haven't done anything particularly holiday-ish. In fact, I've just been working. I guess I'll consider going to Auckland for Noise as my real holiday - that'll be exciting. And good golly, I get to travel up with real-life Rock Stars! (well, The Vatican... that's close enough). I'm quite excited that instead of $130, I only paid $66 for Noise! Early bird discount, plus Supportas discount, plus student discount, plus online reggo discount - and voila! How cool is that? ANNNND... to top it all off, I didn't even have to pay for it! Grandma gave me the money! Isn't that awesome? N2S: make Grandma a cake. If she's ever home to eat it. My grandparents keep jetting off in their campervan (sorry, "mobile home") to exotic destinations up this lovely island. It's all quite exciting.

So... I have some money! I've been doing a bit of work at the Family Store, and that's been cool. I'm doing extra shifts at the Chinese place this week, too. At some stage I gotta get in touch with my Spanish class friends and we can get together to study. Tamsin texted me, so that's cool - haven't heard from Lizzy, though. In awhile I'm off to help with Junior Soldiers, then hanging out with Laura, then off to a meeting where The Vatican are doing the worship. Should be cool. The girls from Palmy came down and are staying with the Vatican boys for the weekend - they were at the meeting this morning, which was cool. Everyone should be here tonight, I think. It's gonna be a good night.

Better be off - Tschus!
ALP,
Rosie

Fire a volley! (HALLELUUUUUJAH!!!!!)

2005-03-30T09:41:00.000+12:00

I'm sorry, but I have nothing on Matt when it comes to firing those volleys... oh well. But yeah, does that give you a semi-sense of how SA Easter Camps tend to go? Haha... fun was had by all. Sleep was had by few. The speakers were awesome, the band rocked as per usual, the company was terrific and God was definitely around. The only problem with these big divisional events is that you realise pretty soon how big the division is, and how the cool people tend to live far away ish. Gutted, really. It was cool to see the Wanganui girls, esp. Emma coz I've known her for years now, back from our General’s Guide Award days... I made her come sing with me in the Songsters when we visited them last August. That was funny :)

Run down of what happened. Arrived at camp on Friday night, and things just kicked off right then and there. We got ourselves into teams – ours was “Chocolate Fish”. No real reason why. We were given these blood-rags - a piece of linen covered in red stains - with the instructions to wear them the entire weekend. We were also told there would be consequences if we were caught without them. (I’ll explain later…) Anyway, dinner was had, grace was sang loudly accompanied by very loud table slapping, and then we had the first Session. I have a lot of session notes, so I’ll kind of summarise what I got out of each one as we come across them.

Session 1 – The Last Supper (Lucy)
Lucy had some cool things to say – she talked about how Jesus was the ultimate freedom fighter (and didn’t walk around on the toilet block yelling “freedom!” to get His point across). Because of what he did for us, we’re called to be freedom fighters, too. We need to start acting like the victory is ours. I think what I remember most about it was the question the disciples asked Jesus when he predicted his betrayal: “Surely not me, Lord?” Lucy made the following point: where have we sold out? Where have we betrayed Jesus? The last thing I have written in my notes: the cross – absolute freedom!

The Vatican did the worship all weekend, and they were, as usual, excellent. The only thing that sucked was that Isaac, the bass player, had his last gig with The Vatican this weekend. He will be missed L. Anyway, Friday night after the first session, I ended up having a good old chat to Daniel til about 1.30am, then went to bed. Only for 2 hours, though, coz at 3.30am I found myself awake to go into the prayer room with Suzie at 4 for 24/7 prayer. Easter Camps all over the country did 24/7 in a kind of tag-team style. We got a 1am to 8am slot, so each team who wanted to got an hour slot. We had 6am-7am, but I really wanted to do a middle of the night one, so I went with Suzie’s team (the Jamaican Sheep) at 4am. Candy came, too. It was awesome – I don’t think I’ve ever chatted with God at that time in the morning before. Anyway, at 5am I had a shower, then went back to pray at 6am with Charlene and Mirjam.

Breakfast revealed that no one had really lost enough sleep to be half-dead, in fact, everyone was just hyper, as per usual. We got through breakfast, then headed off to the auditorium for the first session of the day.

Session 2 – The Garden (Kieran)
First things first – BIG UPS to Kieran for his first sermon! His sermon was mostly focused on finding the reason why Jesus sweats blood while in the garden. (This is something I don’t usually notice when reading the Easter story, so I found it really interesting) Jesus knew what would happen – he would be deserted by his friends, tortured, crucified… but he also knew he’d take on our sin and therefore be separated from God. That’s what made him sweat blood. He did it to make the world perfect again – and now it’s our job to continue his work. Kieran’s biggest challenge to us was to think about the two S’s on the Salvation Army uniform epaulets – they stand for Saved to Serve. Are we?

A quick break for morning tea, then straight back into it. On arrival at the third session, it was revealed that Lance had been caught without his blood-rag. What followed was a good laugh – for some reason, Barry knows a lot about wax strips. Anyway, waxing guy’s legs is always fun, right? LOL… Lance then made the point that girls shouldn’t complain about spiders when they wax their legs… I don’t wax my legs. Mostly coz I don’t enjoy pain. A razor works fine. But I digress…

Session 3 – Arrest and Trial (Lance)
Lance told us he was quite happy to talk on the subject of arrest and trial because he’d experienced both. An amusing story followed, which I don’t remember enough details of to tell. (He’s a worry, that boy…) I really liked the thoughts he picked out of this story. I’ll kind of summarise them:
- Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. The word “worship” in Hebrew is actually to kiss. So when we worship on Sunday and do our own thing during the week, we’re kind of doing the same thing as Judas.
- Peter was following at a distance. What’s the point? If you’re at a distance, you’re almost out.
- When Peter denies Jesus, his accent gives him away. Does ours? Can people tell we follow Jesus?
- Pilate stepped back and let it happen. If we do nothing, something terrible could happen.
- Judas vs. Peter – after betrayal, Peter reached for Jesus. Judas reached for the rope. What are we reaching for?

Lunch followed after that, and then an afternoon full of fun activities. We got changed into scungy clothes so we could take part in catapult games that seem to be a fixture of Easter camps. Picture this – a catapult, paper towels, eggs and flour. Just imagine what chaos ensued… I got flour in my hair! And then it started to rain, so it turned into glue!!! Yuck!! I had a nap afterwards, but there was a paintball challenge. Rachael in our team did pretty well. Only 4 hits. We didn’t win, though. Barry took a few hits, though, which everyone seemed to enjoy. You’ve gotta have a sense of humour to be a DYO.

Anyway, dinner happened, and pretty soon we were all back for session 4. The Vatican rocked on again, everyone seemed to have pretty much survived the afternoons activities, we were all set for Nathan’s sermon!

Session 4 – Crucifixion and Death (Nathan)
I can honestly say that this particular session is one that I will never, ever forget. There isn’t much I can say about it because it was really a “you had to be there” experience, but one thing I will say is that Nate, you did Tawa very proud, and you seriously touched people that night. The shoes that Nathan tried to put us into were those of one of Jesus’ followers who thought He was about to start the rebellion, and was waiting for Him to break free of the torture and the agony and fight. Yet He didn’t. He just let the crucifixion happen. Looking at Him on the cross, the followers must have been thinking “how are you going to save me if you can’t even save yourself?” But when He died, and the ground shook, one of the most significant yet overlooked events of the Easter story took place. The curtain was torn. The curtain that separated us from the most holy place was torn – which meant everyone could come into God’s presence. Jesus’ death on the cross – this is how He set us free.

/ The enemy’s been defeated
Death couldn’t hold you down
We’re gonna lift our voice in victory
We’re gonna make Your praises loud

Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
Shout unto God with a voice of praise
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
We lift your name up
We lift your name up /

That night, they screened The Passion of the Christ. Mirjam went to see it again (third time that week) – I decided I couldn’t handle, so I went to bed. We were given the instruction, though, to be at the auditorium for a 7am meeting. Before breakfast, even! I got a lot of sleep that night, and was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6.30 to get dressed and ready and presentable and whatnot. People kind of drifted in as the meeting progressed, but by the time Sam came up to speak everyone appeared to be functioning.

Session 5 – Resurrection (Sam)
For those who are interested, Sam fired the first volley of EC05. Good on her, I say. And she also revealed the mystery of the blood rags. But I’ll get to that. I want to give huge ups to Sam for her honesty with all of us. It was a real privilege to hear what she had to say, and to have her share her experiences with us. She talked about what was left in the tomb after Jesus’ resurrection:
- The myrrh they used to clean his body represents our being cleansed from sin. Sin is like an infected wound – it’s icky and smelly and it spreads if it’s not cleaned (Sam’s a student nurse, so she could speak from experience). Because of the resurrection, we’re clean
- The aloe is used for healing properties. Because of the resurrection, we’re healed from our pain. Sam was really honest and told us about some of her pain, to show what God can do. All I have to say is “FIRE A VOLLEY!”
- The linen – here’s where the blood rags come in. He was bound in the tomb, and we’re bound, too. The blood rags represent the things that prevent us from reaching out to God. We get ourselves into them, but only God can remove them.
- The face cloth – covering your face represents shame. Because of the resurrection, we have freedom from shame.
We all put our blood-rags in the tomb, and left them there. Everyone had something their rag represented – I’m not really sure I wanna share mine, but let me say now that I think I’m starting to feel the effects of leaving it behind, you know?

We had morning tea after that, and then we did something which I think was up there with the EC05 highlights – the cross scenario. What happened was that everyone got a piece of paper and was told their role in the crowd as we carried the cross into the place in the bush we put it up. Some of us were Roman soldiers (Matt, Mirjam, Phil) some of us were Religious Leaders (Stewart), some of us were Jesus’ followers (me, Suzie, Jenn), some were disciples (Char, Stuart) and some were in the crowd. Everyone was shouting and screaming as we carried the cross in their individual roles. The bit I remember the most was when Matt made me carry the cross. I carried it through this big muddy puddle – it was really, really heavy. I don’t know how anyone could carry it alone – it’s so, so heavy. Imagine having it on your back after a beating. Yikes. When we all got to the site, Matt nailed blood rags where his hands and feet would have been. Everyone was quiet – it was just a really surreal moment. “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross” - far out, it sent shivers up my spine. We never think about it like that. We all had a chance to pray together – then headed back to camp.

The afternoon’s activities consisted of the BIGGEST piece of black plastic I’ve seen in my life and lots and lots of soapy water. It was great. Mirjam has a ton of non-flattering photos. Once Mirjam, Char, Candy and I were good and soapy, we decided to go hug Nathan. He seemed to appreciate it. Matt P didn’t, though, and slapped me with his sandal. Argh. Anyway, it was good fun. After that, we had the boat race. Every team made a boat out of cardboard and duct tape. Ours sunk. But it looked really, really pretty. That’s what counts, right?

We had dinner, and then headed off to the Sunday night session. My parents came, our CO’s did, too, and so did Teneke from my Youth Group! It was cool to see her! Worship was nice and jumpy, and then we settled down to hear our last sermon of the weekend.

Session 6 – So What? (Major Lyndon Buckingham)
Our big name speaker for the weekend! I’ve got a ton of notes on this, so I’m just gonna try to make it short and simple.
So What? Jesus’ death and resurrection changes everything! It means that:
Everything He said about God is true – God is powerful, awesome, the Creator of the universe, the Giver and Sustainer of life… and God loves me. Jesus is the proof!
Everything He said about Himself is true – He’s the way, the truth and the life. The resurrection is God’s vindication.
Everything He said about US is true – we’re sinners, and we need Him. We’re lost, and we need a Saviour, a purpose, to be reconnected with God.
So what? What does God want from me? He wants me to be a star (Carol, you’re gonna love this ;) ) – my purpose is to shine! But I can only do it in His Spirit. God’s method for changing the world is US! And he will empower us! Rise up, o youth, for mighty winds are stirring…

More worship finished off the night, and then we were informed that we were gonna have a dance party at 9.30. Cross dressing was acceptable. Lucky Mum and Dad went home, coz let’s just say that my brother was definitely showing his feminine side. Nate and Bucko have photos. Stuart had better not mess with them. He’s SO paying for the therapy I’m gonna need after this! What didn’t help were both Bucko and Scott’s comments about how hot my brother looked… ugh.

I borrowed Warrick’s guitar, and we ended up kind of jamming until about midnight. Char, Candy and AJ showed up, too. Mirjam, Daniel and Scott, too, for awhile. Anyway, went to bed but there were a few stupid pranks going on. Like the sellotape web outside Barry’s door. Turning over the tables was funny. The many party popper pranks were alright. The music ones were okay. Just in general, I was disappointed with the calibre. Nothing really jumped out and hit as a good prank… *sighs* Oh well. Maybe next year?

Monday morning we were all well and truly exhausted, and we had one last session. People shared, and that was really cool. It was cool to be able to talk candidly in front of people you’d been with the whole weekend – in general, it was cool. Isaac had his big send-off, and played us bass backing to the many terrible photos being shown on the wall. After that followed the big cleanup, lunch (a cake eating competition – where’s Kim when you need her? She would’ve kicked butt?) and going home. Gutted that people were jetting off to their respective homes, but everyone really needed to recover. All in all, an excellent weekend. (Far out I wrote a lot. Oh well, it’s EC05 in a nutshell – just a rather big nutshell)

Best be a-jetting!

ALP,
Rosie

Tout l'or des hommes

2005-03-21T18:16:00.000+12:00

... ne vaut plus rien, si tu es loin de moi
tout l'amour du monde ne me fait rien, alors surtout ne change pas...

*ahem* Sorry. Just had a Celine Dion moment. That doesn't actually happen that often, don't worry. I'm listening to Julia's CD at the moment - I really need to give it back. I feel quite bad about it. It will be returned before Easter. Je le promets.

So. Sunday morning went really, really well, despite the fact that I was actually a little bit freaked out about it. But hey, when I freak out about things they tend to go well, so yay. Kind of funny that I wrote something to go with a song we didn't actually sing, but it ended up working with what we did sing, so that's good. I suppose that when God wants to communicate something, he'll do it through whatever means he can get his hands on. When we did High Above, that was really awesome... in general, it was very cool. Last night, we watched The Passion of the Christ - it was the first time I've seen it. It's not something I'd hire out to watch for fun every Friday night, but it is definately something I'm glad I've seen. It was also the best place to see it - at church, with an opportunity to reflect about it afterwards. Church is all done up cool for Easter, despite the building project. I think that our CO's wanted to do something to stop the building project from taking over so we could really focus on Easter.

This week leading up to Easter is a little stressful, I must admit, most because I've had two tests today and I have my big dissertation due on Thursday. I've gotta go get myself a French dictionary and obsess over minor details all day tomorrow, then type it out on Wednesday. I'm actually quite worried - I'm not sure if my level of written French is quite up there yet. I really have to work on this quite a bit... I'm just hanging out for Friday! Easter Camp is going to be awesome... anyone who is so inclined who reads this blog, pray for Mirjam. Something tells me that this is going to be very significant for her. It's already started. It's just going to get bigger and bigger.

Random little anecdote - accidently got a baked bean stuck up my nose at dinner. Don't EVEN ask...

Before I jet, one last thing - a little thought I wrote in relation with Easter. Actually part of one of my songs, but it's been going through my head all week:

Anyone else would have given up
No one else thinks that I'm worth enough
But you suffered and died all because you love me
- that's the greatest love story.

ALP,
Rosie

It has ears!!

2005-03-19T22:00:00.000+13:00

My cardigan, that is. Isn't it nifty? I quite like it... it even has 14 cats on it. I'm getting there! It's just making me even more crazy cat lady like!

We (the youth) are doing the worship tomorrow morning, and I'm actually quite excited. I'm also quite excited that when I go to bed in a few minutes, I'll have an extra hours sleep! Isn't that spiffy? Anyway, my friend Lizzy from Spanish class is leading worship at her church tomorrow too, so we're worship leading buddies :) which is also quite spiffy. We had a big convo bout it the other day, quite agreable. So the final songs for worship tomorrow have ended up as follows: Open the Eyes of my Heart, In the Secret (which we've kind of ended up doing punk styles - so much for "in the quiet place"), God of Wonders, Show Me Your Glory, Above All and High Above. Funny that even though we did God of Wonders four times in last weeks meeting (somehow), we still decided to do it this week coz our other one (Hallelujah - Your Love is Amazing) just wasn't meshing. We'd pulled out Above All to replace God of Wonders, but ended up using it to replace Hallelujah, so all good. Charlene, my sister, is singing the first verse of Above All and she sings that song beautifully, so I'm quite stoked about that. Also, and this is even more exciting - for High Above we have an actual strings section! Okay, a violin and a cello, but still, a strings section!!!! Exciting!!! It's a first for the Youth Worship Band!!! We usually have a brass section, but not always a strings section. Now it's time to get something REALLY epic sounding and have a song where we use both at the same time.

It's really quite astonishing the calibre of musicians we have in our youth worship band. We have three fifths of The Vatican ( http://thevatican.co.nz - go check 'em out) and we've just gained an excellent pianist and vocalist in Kelly, who I have so much respect for as a person in general. Then there's our amazing musician Phil who can step in for almost any instrument - he's an excellent trumpet player, but he's playing bass guitar for tomorrow. And he's an amazing singer, too, so there we go. My sister is a good violinist and a pretty impressive vocalist. Mirjam, our German exchange student, is an awesome celloist. Stewart can crank out some pretty cool sounds on his saxophone. Candice and Kim both have really pretty voices. And then you've got me in the middle of all this, fumbling away on my acoustic/electric, feeling pretty stupid coz the rest of the musicians are just so darn GOOD. Oh well. At least I can sing. And I can kind of lead. Even though, really, I'm just standing up the front and hoping like anything that I know which direction we're going in. Oh well. We have a running order. It's all good.

At the moment, our church is being renovated. Meaning that it's full of holes and bits of broken concrete. Trust me, this is actually quite exciting. I don't think anyone was really prepared for how fast it would all happen, though. It should all be done by the end of May - which is actually quite astonishing. It's going to be awesome. Our facilities are going to be so much better, and I think it could mean that we'll expand even more!!! Yay!!! I just hope it's not tooo messy tomorrow morning.

En tout cas, I'd better go get some sleep. Including my extra hour! Whooo!

Bonne nuit, Buenas noches, Guten Nacht, Good night
ALP,
Rosie

Yay for random Frenchmen!

2005-03-11T21:41:00.000+13:00

Once again this evening, I engaged in my favourite hobby - having indepth and personal conversations with strangers. This time in French. Well, except for the indepth and personal bit. Hah. I was at work, and I recognised an accent and I thought it was Spanish, would you believe, but when I asked the guy where he was from, he said France. Well, this took me aback, so I went into the kitchen to call his order, and that was all good. Then I found some leftover courage in the bottom of my shoe and used it to actually talk to him.

The following conversation was then had (in French)
Rosie: Sorry, I thought you were Spanish.
Random Frenchman: No, I'm not.
Rosie: Evidently
Friend of Random Frenchman: You speak French?
Rosie: Yes. I spent a year in Quebec.
FoRF: Oh, then you'd know "Tabarnac" (note to English readers - very bad word. Do not say it.)
RF: Oh yeah, "Tabarnac"
Rosie: Yeah, I know. It was the first word I learnt at school.

Anyway, there was more, where I explained that I was majoring in French, and they told me that my French is excellent for a New Zealander. I asked them what they were doing in New Zealand and their reply was somewhere along the lines of "well, we got on a plane and kind of ended up here". Except, evidently, in French. Good-o. My sister who works with me at the Chinese restaurant rolled her eyes and apparently commented "Rosie's showing off again". She's just jealous coz I know more Spanish that she does German in three weeks. She's been studying German for a year and a half. The conversation ended when their food arrived. But it was a cool conversation.

I've been slack this week - it's been an okay week, actually. One thing I really gotta do, though - take a leaf out of my mate Tal's book and ACTUALLY STUDY FOR GERMAN. We actually studied a bit this afternoon. And had carrot cake. I bought this awesome top at the Family Store today, except that it's a little revealing. As in my breasts are hanging out. So we'd really better remedy this situation. Pam suggests a safety pin. I might just wear a camesol underneath it. It's pretty, though - red and blue striped. Not a very obvious Rosie choice. Hmm...

Other randomness: the new girl at work is the daughter of my old French teacher. She's so little! A real cutie. What else... oh, Filo made me a beautiful cover page for SPAN111. With flowers. Hmm.. he's odd. Amanda and I weren't lesbians in FREN215... loooong story. Put this somewhat into context - Amanda: "Je suis un homme!" Anyway... ooh, I also bought toe socks at the Family Store. They're blue.

As I write (type), I am motoring through this Chinese food. It's yummy, but spicy. I wanted the satay chicken - but now I kind of don't feel like it. And I have all these spicy noodles. Oh well. I have chocolate, too. And guess what? I got told I have an amazing singing voice from an unexpected source. Oooer. It's nice to know. Only 2 weeks or so til Easter! I have to write an essay! About the NZ flag! In French! And there's a German test next Wednesday. Das ist schlecht.

Shout out to my dear twin Carol. Je t'aime! Ich liebe dich. Te amo. I love you. (See? Four languages! That's a lot of love.) An un-bouncy Carol is not good. I'm going to cyber-beam you some of my pent-up energy. We're just going to have to share this energy. I need it back at some stage. Shall we create a roster? Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, alternate Sundays? ;) Love you babe. And praying for you. God Bless.

Better be a-jetting - Tschus!
ALP,
Rosie

The day after the night before

2005-03-07T18:21:00.000+13:00

Well, we have successfully completed our first ever OneWay meeting! Yes folks, we all survived - didn't get too stressed out, our sound gear worked, and most importantly God showed up. Maybe not everyone who should have responded did respond, but man, could I feel it. It's a really undescribable feeling, I have to say. This might sound silly, but for the first time in my entire life, I can honestly say that I sang the way God wants me to sing. Completely and utterly focused on him. Technically, I should have sounded shocking, coz I spent the entire day singing but I don't think I've ever sang better - and that's through no doing of my own.

So I'm kind of riding the high of OneWay and hoping it'll get me through the week. However, today I read the book Red Moon Rising, about the 24/7 prayer movement, and I can honestly say that I spent 2 hours in a cafe at university reading and feeling shivers up my spine. Seriously. The stories about how the 24/7 prayer movement has been going all around the world really, really hit me. And I just can't wait until we get to start in August. In fact, I don't think I will wait. I don't think I can. Something inside me is screaming at me to act now. I don't know exactly how or what or anything, really, I just know that I have to act. I'm going to be praying and listening to God very carefully over this coming week. I think I have the glimmerings of an idea in my head - not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, but one that's possibly well overdue. I have a phone call to make tonight. And a lot of praying to do.

Oh, the hair looks awesome, by the way. I've just had to endure the song "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid many, many times from the OneWay crew. I love you guys. Seriously.

ALP,
Rosie

It's official!

2005-03-05T08:17:00.000+13:00

Today is my last day with orange hair. Yes folks, the Rosie is finally completely fed up with the ridiculous orange colour of her otherwise very healthy and shiny hair, and has decided to take drastic action. It's name is Fiery Bright Red. Also known as "Little Mermaid Hair". I have the box in my room, and as soon as I make some form of effort to actually commence my day, I'll go do the deed. If it looks bad, well, I own quite a few hats. Oh well. I figure I have to do it at least once in my life. And hey, maybe I'll stop traffic. That could be fun.

Well! It's been an alright week, I suppose. Marred by a few things, bien sur, but there's been some veritable highlights. Shall we commence:

1. I got an A on my first ever assignment! German 103 - true, it wasn't the most complex thing in the world, but hey! An A is an A. One swallow doesn't make summer, but still... a good start? Peut-etre?

2. Thursday night, went and saw Pie and Moped on campus. It was fun. A school friend showed up and bought me a beer (without asking) which I am happy to say I didn't drink. For those of you who don't know, I've had a few issues with alcohol and have made the decision that I will no longer drink at all. And it was sitting right there in front of me and I didn't drink it, even though, let's face it, I wasn't around any of my friends who would have stopped me. I'm very proud of myself.

A few lowlights, however.

1. I missed a youth group social coz I had to get work off so I can go to the One Way practice tonight. Missing the youth group social is slightly disappointing, but I think it's worth it to get to this practice. Also, I think I might get my head cut off if I miss this practice. And hey, work = chinese food. Pity that those scavengers (Char, Michael, Carrie and Stuart) ate all my food. Oh well. I did have quite a few spring rolls and a lot of soup.

2. I'm still not liking the one tutorial thing on Fridays. It seems like a real waste of money. And Nick was supposed to meet me for lunch afterwards, but he ran away to a job interview. Humbug. Oh well, at least he got the job. Mission accomplished, James Nerdy Bond!

But over all - la vie est belle. 1000 word French essay due in 3 weeks! About the NZ flag. Yikes! I'd better get cracking. I also need to do some serious vocab learning for both German and Spanish. I was thinking about making myself some worksheets with words that I know in all 4 languages, to see how well I'm doing. Maybe try to de-confuse myself.

Oh well. On with the day... and Little Mermaid Hair!

ALP,
Rosie

March is upon us!

2005-03-01T22:08:00.000+13:00

Yikes!

The first of March dawned upon us, and the first thing I did was... uh, slept. A lot. See, Tuesday is my day off. Aside from a paper run, I did nothing. Nada. Zilch. It was fantastic! Well, I lie... you see, me doing nothing just means that I did very little under obligation. I practiced the guitar part for worship team songs. Because apparently, I have to play the guitar now. Why the heck would they ask me to do something I suck at? Especially when we have some amazing guitarists around? Hello? Matt really wants an acoustic guitar, and Tom's not going to always be around to play his electric, so meh. Bring on the understudy. The very unprepared understudy. I'll just have to practice until my fingers are used to all the chord changes. I was the silly one who decided that "God of Wonders" was too high in the key we had it and changed it so it's now in E. And chords in E are trickier. Like C#m. That's tricky. Hating bar chords. But getting used to them.

So! 5 days til we kick off One Way! I'm still really excited. I'm trying to hold on to this enthusiasm, so that by the time we get to Sunday, I'll just be a-brimming. What else exciting happening this week... ooh yeah, Moped at Uni! Yay! After my German lecture, I'm heading off to hear me some reggae. Good-o, I say. I was gonna drag Nick along, but it's at a bar, and he's still only 17. Sucks to be him. I'm quite excited about this. Oh, and I'm having lunch with Maria on Thursday. And possibly lunch with Suzie tomorrow. Meh, I dunno how I'm going to afford all this. Magic? Maybe the ten dollars in my wallet will decide to procreate. That could be cool.

Random aside - I'm really, really happy with the condition of my hair at the moment. Aside from the fact that, well, it's orange, due it having been kind of reddy and then summer turning it blonde, my hair is really nice at the moment. Very clean today. And very shiny. And it feels nice. For some reason, it's just really agreeing with me at the moment. It's like it's decided "hey, let's be co-operative". I just have one thing to say - cheers. It's much appreciated.

ALP,
Rosie

My goodness how the time has flewn

2005-02-28T18:30:00.000+13:00

It really surprises me that tomorrow is the first day of March, the third month of this year. I feel like 2005 has been really flying by. And it's all kind of snowballing, really, which is pretty crazy. I've only just started university and it's rolling along nicely. All my fun languages are finding their appropriate places in my head and it's really hunky-dory.

Last night we had a Firezone Prayer Meeting at Crossroads. It was fantastic. And I am so fired up for OneWay on Sunday night! I'm just going to put out a prayer request for that, and especially for everyone in it. Something tells me that we're going to be under attack this week. Because we could possibly do some serious damage this weekend, and I don't think Satan's going to like that. Recently I've become so increasingly aware that this really is war. There really is an enemy, and we really have to be soldiers. And this is more than just a metaphor. This is actually happening.

Another thing that has seriously hit me recently is that I do not belong here. We, as Christians, do not belong here. The minute we become Christians, we become citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and all the crap that goes on in the world ceases to have any power over us. Jesus cut those chains for us. So I wonder - why do I go on living like it matters what people think of me? Why do I let the little things in life get me down when I know that I've got the Creator of the Universe on my side? And why do I still let Satan bring me down? Why do I still let what the world says matter to me? I don't have to! And I shouldn't!

So no matter how much I get attacked this week, and things try to bring me down, I can survive. I just need to keep my focus, you know? And keep reminding myself that this weekend, I am going to be striking out for God in worship, and that is one of the most powerful weapons I have in my arsenal. Never forgetting, of course, that the most powerful weapon I have is prayer - and that's really what's going to make this meeting great. We're putting the worship out there on a solid base of prayer, and it's going to be amazing. I fully believe it. I'm not going to try and limit it, or predict what's going to happen, coz I don't know. But I'm not about to underestimate God and what he can do. So seriously, bring on Sunday night!

ALP,
Rosie

Drowning slowly in sweet-and-sour sauce

2005-02-26T21:50:00.000+13:00

... and being gassed to death by their fumes. All fun and games in the public service industry. Man, do my feet hurt. But I shouldn't really be complaining... I have money in my wallet. This is a very good thing. However, I know where it's all going to go. This isn't such a good thing. It means I'm on a budget. Grr. I hate budgets. I have to put money on bus card, phone, cable car tickets, visa... but before that, gotta sort out my tithe. I've been quite challenged about tithing recently, and even though the poor student in me is protesting hotly that I cannot afford it, I am tithing. And it turns out I can afford it. Actually, when I tithe, my finances sort themselves out much easier. Funny, n'est-ce pas?

Well. I survived my first week of university without too many problems, something I'm really quite proud about. It's been a good week, when all is said and done, but I'm glad that it's over. It's rather unusual that this is my life now, though. I still haven't quite got used to the routine. I do like seeing Julia and Nick most days, and I like making new friends. Suzie commented last night that she thought it was cool I can talk to anyone and make friends, and I've come to realise that it's a habit I properly developed in Canada. I like people. What can I say? I like talking to strangers. I just need to be a little pickier and stay FAR away from old men. I'm just friendly, I guess...

Weird how life changes, though. I find it ironic that I no longer talk to people I considered my best friends a year ago - well, at least not properly talk. My former best friend and I don't seem to have anything in common - funny how we survived me being away for a year, but once I got back, things unravelled. I feel like I'm the only one making any effort these days. If we talk, I end up making a fool of myself, and it's evident that she'd rather be somewhere else. I just ask myself if our friendship really meant that little to her - maybe it did. I don't really know. And my other former best friend just has a very different lifestyle, so it doesn't surprise me that we no longer talk that much. Still, at least it's not uncomfortable like it is with Bec. Maybe it's just in my head, but I do get the impression that she wants to have as little to do with me as possible. I was probably easier to deal with when I was on the other side of the world. At least with Mike, he's still him and it's almost like old times when we hang out.

There's a big part of me that wants the BecMike entity back, because man, we had some good times. I guess everything passes in God's good time, but it hurts anyway. Thinking about it, though, not being as close to them has forced me to make new friends, and I have met some awesome people. Nick and Filo are great guys, and cool to hang out with at uni. And I've gotten a lot closer to Suzie, who I've known for a few years, but it's different now. My youth group are pretty much family, and that's awesome, too. I've also gotten closer to Lauren, who I've known vaguely for over a decade, but yeah - she's awesome. Then there's all the randoms at Crossroads I've gotten to know - actually, we could probably put most of the SA youth in the division as randoms I've gotten to know. Still, there is a part of me that misses the way Bec, Mike and I could hang out and be completely at ease with each other. If we tried to replicate that now, it'd just be a nasty, uncomfortable event. So I have to accept that. It's hard, but it's life.

I didn't really mean to wax nostalgic, but hey, it's still an issue for me, I guess. I'll wind up here before I get into full-blown self-pity mode, but hey, venting's good, right? Meh, maybe Scott had a point in his comment - "you're insane!". (I think he was referring to getting that old man's phone number - I told Suzie that story last night while he was at her house, and it was rather well received. Like I said - gotta get pickier with my strangers.)

Okay then. Jetting.

ALP,
Rosie

It's amazing...

2005-02-24T21:56:00.000+13:00

... that a woman in a coma for four years can so effectively kill people. I just watched Kill Bill Volume One, and I think I'd quite like to see Volume Two. I still maintain that it is a very arty film, even if the aforementioned art is mostly just a lot of blood. It's excellent. Seriously. Although there is something very scary about homicidal Japanese schoolgirls...

University went well today. I think I have sucessfully survived my first week. Just one German tutorial tomorrow, and then that's it. I've done my dash for the first week. How exciting! Meh, anyway, it's all good. I'm slowly but surely learning how to organise my brain to learn languages. You put Spanish in one corner, German in another, French in another and let English occupy the rest. Or maybe I should invest in some sort of mental filing cabinet. Just you wait til I try to start learning vocab. It's all so intruiging.

Not really that much to say, except that some serious swapping has been done to accomadate both Char and myself next week at work. At least it all works out, and I still get two nights of work. OneWay meeting is fast approaching, and I think some serious prayer is in order. I still maintain that it's gonna go off. I just hope that it's in a good way - I mean, when eggs go off, they're not good. *ponders* What an expression, anyway.

And with that, I'm off.

ALP,
Rosie

Quelle journee!

2005-02-23T21:55:00.000+13:00

Okay, so it's official - German class is looking up, thanks to the very spunky Chad Michael Murray lookalike I sat next to. Very nice. Am I that shallow? No, no... he was a scintillating conversationalist. (I managed to show off my very extensive German - the aforementioned Ich bin ein Schussel. He was impressed... or bemused. Hmm.) Haha. Not that I am on the market for guys. But looking never hurt anyone.

Spanish was also fun - even though rather threatening having a fluent Spanish speaker sitting next to me and LAUGHING. ¿ Como te llamas ? What was Nick doing in a beginners Spanish lecture anyway? Meh... why am I taking 3 languages? I'm getting a little confused already. I don't know if I should be saying oui, si or ja anymore. Meh.

Ooh, and I had lunch with Suzie today! It was fun - she started bible college. I'm very proud of her. We managed to have the quickest lunch ever in the whole history of the whole history, but hey, I had a good coffee. Nick just accused me of saving all my love for coffee. Apparently, it's all I ever talk about. Maybe I should talk about fluffy bunny rabbits instead.

Sleep will help my addled brain.

ALP,
Rosie

And I survive...

2005-02-22T21:40:00.000+13:00

Yes!!! My first day at university was relatively pain-free. I arrived early to have a little look around campus and try and find my lectures. I found them, and congratulated myself for not having to resort to making Stewart show me around. I consider this a very good thing. I even made some new friends. I have this knack for talking to strangers, which is a mixed blessing coz although everyone does kind of start out as a stranger, you can meet freaky people. I only met one freaky person, in my German lecture. He seemed nice, but he was wearing eyeliner and a top-hat, which amused me.

I did learn stuff in FREN124. Something about a Russian guy, and a bowl of soup, a dead body and a half-naked woman. All of this relates to film techniques. Ooh, and even more exciting, Julia-who-went-to-France-when-I-went-to-Canada is in a whole bunch of my classes, so that's good! It means I have a friend. Ran into Nick and Filo (gave Nick a near heart attack on the offending flight of library stairs) and that was alright. My mum made me a sandwich for lunch! That was exciting, too...

Today, however, I didn't have any lectures. I went into Vic just to enrol for a tutorial, but they decided to put lists up at 8am tomorrow instead of at 10am today, so blah. But I bought textbooks! So many textbooks! I also worked at the family store, read a book, read pages 2-7 in the Spanish textbook, sat behind church for an hour and a half after the library closed in order to not meet scary old men, bought a coffee, went to youth group bible study, and made Nathan a birthday cake, which I'm fairly convinced I forgot to put sugar in. His comment was "it's gonna taste weird" but I think he'll eat it anyway. It's the thought that counts, right? Oh. And somewhere along the line I ate dinner. Tuna and a muffin, and diet vanilla coke. La vie est belle.

Mayve I should go to bed. I gotta get up early tomorrow to sign up for this silly Spanish tutorial, and get my computer stuff sorted, and, uh, buy some notes. Yup. It's all very exciting, so I'll leave it at this.

ALP,
Rosie

Won't you join me in my irritating little song?

2005-02-20T18:13:00.000+13:00

*ahem* My brother needs to stop downloading VeggieTales songs.

I have OneWay rehearsal in about half an hour, so I'll make this relatively short. Corps picnic was good - Mirjam took lotsa lotsa photos. And most of them were really, really bad. Especially of me. I look like a big orange... thing. *mutters something about extra-large tee-shirts being very misleading* Hrrrrumpf.

So. University tomorrow. Ack. Good news, however - Hannah's in my FREN124 class. That should be rather groovy. It's the one with the movies and books at stuff. And, guess what? My StudyLink stuff has actually gone through! So yay! I may even have some money to buy books with soon. Which is exciting. My phone also works. And I have money in my wallet. Things are looking up in Rosieland! Course, I gotta get my ID card still. Hmmm... here's hoping I don't get lost. Or see dead bodies in the library. Let's not even go into that. Ahh... getting freaked out... and my first class is taught entirely in French. Do I remember how to speak French??? I really hope I do!

Best be jetting,
ALP
Rosie

Forever is a long time...

2005-02-19T22:48:00.000+13:00

... do you really want to spend it with me?

(Bit of Moped wisdom going on there. Check out their site -> http://mopedband.co.nz )

Hi! Still holding to this "daily update" thing. Nothing really interesting has been happening today, except that I watched Jonah: A Veggietales Movie for about the second time since we bought the DVD on Thursday. It was cool.

*SPOILER SPACE*

*
*
*

I'm just loving the fact that there were gospel singing angel-vegetables inside the belly of a whale. It actually makes me laugh. My aim in life is now to rock like an asparagus. Also, I'm quite liking the idea of a popstar named Twippo. And always, always, loving the Newsboys singing "In the Belly of the Whale". (Guys, you might not want to rhyme with "comet"...)

Learnt a bit about compassion and mercy, too. Compassion and mercy DO NOT involve hoping God smites people! I shall keep that in mind. Besides, God doesn't seem to be into smiting these days. I guess he's going for something more subtle. Sometimes I'd just like to smite someone. *takes a deep breath* Compassion. Mercy. Inhale, exhale. Good-o.

*BACK TO YOUR REGULAR SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING*

2 days! Ay-yoy. Anyway, spent a lot of time today chatting to Mirjam in French. My brother got annoyed. I have one thing to say - c'est pas notre faute si tu ne nous comprends pas! (It's not our fault if you don't understand us!) Church picnic tomorrow! Whoo! I actually really like church picnics... they're fun. And you get to be at Willowbank. That's fun.

Really gotta sleep.

ALP,
Rosie

loud sigh

2005-02-18T22:09:00.000+13:00

Man, I've had a headache all day, and it kind of sucks. Maybe I've just had too much sun - I've spent a lot of today waiting for buses in the hot sunlight. Hmm. Something to ponder. Either way, I should jet off to bed soon, but thought I'd attempt at least to make my updates daily. Isn't that an admirable quest? I think so...

But hey. I had some work today - Family Store for an hour and a half and then the chinese place for 4 hours. I'm kinda shattered. And my feet hurt a little, but hey. I got curry. It was good curry. Gotta buy some new shoes, except that, duh, I have no money. None at all. Seriously, I'm $100 in debt to my mum, which is Bad. Very Bad. And I gotta get a ten-trip train ticket (whoa, try saying that ten times fast!). And, I dunno, my student ID card!!! Yikes!!!

That's it. Going to bed.

ALP,
Rosie

4 days and counting...

2005-02-18T07:46:00.000+13:00

After having done a grand total of 4 months of a whole lot of nothing, I start university in 4 days. One can imagine the thoughts going through my mind right now. Well, possibly. I have no money at all at the moment, but I do get paid on Saturday, so here's hoping I won't have to hitch-hike to my first lecture. That might kind of suck. At least I know for sure that I actually managed to get myself enrolled. Whoo! Got the conformation of study yesterday. Now, it seems, I just need my student ID card, which won't go through until my Studylink application is approved, it seems. Ah, the trials. I figure... this bit is the hardest part of university.

Well, either way, it's a whole new adventure, this entire university thing. One thing I did get told though, was that "university is full of really odd people". Hmm. Yeah, that doesn't reall surprise me THAT much. It should be fun. I'm wondering how well I'm going to be able to learn German, though. So far the extent of my German is "Ich liebe dich" (I love you), "Du spinnst" (you're crazy) and "Ich bin ein schlussel" (I am a key). I didn't actually want to say "I am a key", but hey, things happen. Here's hoping I have more luck with Spanish - "Arroz con leche!" (Rice and milk... rice pudding?) "Me gusta cantar" (I like to sing). Oh well, it can't be better than my initial forays into the French language. When I left for Quebec in August 2003, I could only say "Bonjour" (Hello) and "La vache est morte" (The cow is dead).

The general consensus is that in a few months, people will be understanding even less of me than usual. Good-o, I say. At least I didn't take Italian, too. That might have been silly. Though there was a "teach yourself Italian" book in the library... maybe in my free time?

ALP,
Rosie

A strange day

2005-02-17T20:05:00.000+13:00

First off - my first blog post with these new people! Primo...

Right, down to business. I've had one heck of a weird day. I was working at the Family Store from 3-4 this afternoon, and after that I had 3 hours to kill until Songsters. Now, yesterday I had a somewhat similar problem, which left me killing 3 hours sitting in The Flatican with my near comatose youth leader, Nathan. The man needs to sleep more. But I digress... anyway, I decided that, no, I would not impose myself on The Flatican again. Instead, I went to the library. Then when it closed, I went to Woolworths. On entering Woolworths, this random old guy walks past me and goes "hey gorgeous!" And I'm just like "hello" coz I figure it's someone I know. Coz who just goes "hey gorgeous!" to a random in Woolworths? Anyway... I bought myself a diet coke, and then left Woolworths to go outside and there's the guy again. And he starts talking to me and I soon realise that I actually DON'T know him and it's all rather unusual.

Picture this, dear reader: a rather bemused Rosie, standing in this random little courtyard thing outside Woolworths, a cafe, a knitting shop and a bank, having a conversation with a very friendly, very old Englishman. He just moved here, apparently, but is very well travelled, and thinks New Zealand is a lovely place. He asks me about myself, and I duly give my name and that's about it, although I do mention that I go to the Salvation Army, which is about a 10 second run from where we were. A good thing, coz I was prepared to make the trip to locate my corps officer if need be. Or, as a last resort, even run back to The Flatican and hide behind their flag for awhile...

Then this old man asks me whether or not I'm married. Hah. Do I have a boyfriend? No, not currently - "oh, well I don't see why not, you're a gorgeous girl". And it's then that I realise that, dude, I'm being hit on by an old man! To top it off, he gives me his phone number with the comment "if you ever have a spare moment, give me a call and you could show me around town". By this stage I'm thinking "... do I run screaming across the road now or do I wait for something worse?" but I take the phone number, smile sweetly and explain that as I start university next week, I'm a very busy lady and will probably have to get myself settled before I can give weird foreigners tours of my lovely town. (Leaving out the "weird foreigners" bit, of course. I do have manners, being the well brought up thing that I am.)

Anyway, what ensued was that we went our seperate ways (after him offering to take me home and me politely declining) and I hid behind church for the next hour and a bit before Songsters started. But yeah, at some stage during this hour, I heard drums coming from the hall, so figured that Matt was around and that I could breathe easier if dodgy old man showed up. It wasn't a wasted hour, though. I did finish my book. It was a good book.

So, what's the moral of this story? Something I thought I'd already established - DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS. But then again, if you did that, you'd never meet anybody. Oh well. It makes for interesting conversation. Charlene laughed. And for the record - it's incredibly sad that being hit on by an old guy is the most interesting thing that's happened to me all week.

Well, ALP! (A la prochaine, meaning see you next time on the Rosie show!)
Rosie

Rosie's Random Ramblings

Your love, oh Lord, reaches to the heavens...

NaNoWriMo

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

Timing...

Back in the saddle again...

Wow...

Happy New Year!

All by myself...

Hey ho

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzoom

Pffffffffffffffffffffft....

Yikes!

Yikes!

It's funny...

Whoa

Livefire

Countdown mode... 5 days

Hang on to You

Whoohoo!

Not really sure why I'm blogging... not much to say

Deep thoughts... not really, no

Hmmm...

Parle-moi pas d'amour...

Mrs Blueberry

Really happy right now...

Last weekend of holidays...

Eeek! One week left!

Oh well...

I wanna be a rock star!

Possible to be sick of holidays?

Big night out...

J - trying to find a letter I have not yet started a post with

La Vision

Such a smart little language-knowing cookie...

DON'T PANIC

Can I hear an "oooh-yeah"?

Am possibly on the final lap...

Me gusta el cafe...

Il n'y a rien de nouveau sous le soleil...

What if I stumble?

Tiiiired...

Hehe...

May Day! May Day!

Something Exciting

Ich bin kein Kugelschreiber

I love to go a-wandering...

Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeea... herbal teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeea

Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to class we go

Bleugh.

New month, same Rosie

Fire a volley! (HALLELUUUUUJAH!!!!!)

Tout l'or des hommes

It has ears!!

Yay for random Frenchmen!

The day after the night before

It's official!

March is upon us!

My goodness how the time has flewn

Drowning slowly in sweet-and-sour sauce

It's amazing...

Quelle journee!

And I survive...

Won't you join me in my irritating little song?

Forever is a long time...

*loud sigh*

4 days and counting...

A strange day

loud sigh