the procrastinatrix

Time to move

2008-10-08T11:03:00.002+11:00

Here's a little update.

If this post is showing in your RSS feed, or you have come to this page by accident, please head over to The Procrastinatrix (http://theprocrastinatrix.com) and update your feed/bookmark.

Thanks to Karen for doing the heavy lifting of moving the blog over to Expression Engine!

a leetle strudel

2008-10-06T21:05:00.007+11:00

I made up a strudel tonight for dessert, and it was extremely easy and delicious, so I thought I'd share it here. And as you can see, I don't use precise measurements - basically, add whatever you think would make it yummy.

Bec's apple and cherry strudel
5 sheets filo pastry
2 Granny Smith apples
handful dried cherries (I got them from Norton St Grocers - yum)
cinnamon / mixed spice
tablespoon or so of butter
a few spoonfuls of almond meal
a few spoonfuls of brown sugar
a couple more tablespoons of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Peel, core and chop the apples into rough chunks. Put them in a smallish saucepan with the cherries, spices, brown sugar and butter. Cover and cook over a medium heat until apples are soft.

Lay out a sheet of filo and brush with melted butter. Sprinkle on some almond meal. Lay another sheet of filo on top and repeat until you've used all the pastry. Put the apple filling in the middle of the pastry. Fold the bottom and top of the pastry in towards the middle, brush with butter, fold the sides of the pastry over, brush with butter (so it should be a neat little parcel). Sprinkle the top with almond meal and a little more brown sugar. Bake in oven until golden brown (about 20 mins).

Serve drizzled with cream. Or ice cream. Or just eat it. Any which way, it is very delicious.

long weekend

2008-10-06T20:49:00.006+11:00

It's been mostly a good long weekend, though I feel as though I've sleepwalked through most of it. Got up at 5.30am on Saturday to take John to the airport, then after breakfast (and a little WoW) I crashed til mid-afternoon.

That evening was Lucy's 33rd birthday party. A bunch of us turned up to the house that the Barrys are housesitting in Botany for burgers, white russians and sarsparilla in honour of Lu's favourite movie, The Big Lebowski. Mark set up the data projector and I brought speakers and we all had a great time watching the movie. I hadn't seen it since it first came out 10 years ago - it's no less hilarious than it was then.

I couldn't sleep that night. Sunday was also daylight savings, so we lost an hour. So by the time I got up and headed into the city for a City Writing Day at Customs House, I was kind of out of it. But it was good to have dedicated writing time with Karen and Guan, and even though I didn't write heaps I liked what I did write. We had lunch at Wagamama, wandered back to Pitt street, looked in Borders and K and I headed home. I realised we had lost track of time and I didn't have a chance to nap before music rehearsal at church.

That night was Sammi's baptism. She has been a Christian for 10 years, but decided that she wanted to make this public declaration of what Jesus has done in her life and what she believes. She read out her very moving testimony (which had me and George in tears), and I wanted to leap up and cheer as Kurt poured water over her head and baptised her. It was just such a beautiful, brave and hopeful act, and I hope so much that Sammi's friends and family were moved to think more about why she was doing it, and to find out more for themselves. I'm glad that I've gotten to know her better in the short time that I've been at Wild St; she is a great Christian sister (congrats Sammi!).

Today I slept til 11.30, which was bliss. I played WoW for a while, while I did my laundry and wondered whether I should be doing anything else. It was a weird day, weather-wise, grey and rainy, then brilliantly sunny, then rainy again and then windy. I think that may have had something to do with my restless and slightly sad mood. Mum and I had a late lunch at Bondi Junction, I bought some craft stuff, then came home, and made dinner and strudel for dessert (see next post). I feel much more peaceful now than I did earlier today - but the weekend's over now!

blobbing

2008-10-04T00:05:00.004+10:00

Have had a lovely couple of evenings with friends. Had Guan and Mary over for dinner on Thursday and an unplanned chicken roast. So good to see M again after weeks and weeks. So good that Guan ate the drumsticks. :) And I love that my friends can hang out and chat to my mum as easily as I can.

Tonight I had Bek's partner John staying over, as he's heading from Coffs Harbour where he's been holidaying, back home to Belfast in the morning. The last time I saw John was in April in Belfast when I stayed with him and Bek, and we all went to that glorious Bjork concert.

So after I picked him up from the airport, we had a catch up and both put on our Bjork t-shirts. He had brought his Wii with him from Ireland (got to go equipped you see), and had been given a Wii Fit as a present while he was over here, so of course we had to play it. It turns out my Wii Fit age is 31 (1 year less than my actual age! Woo!). Then we had to undo the 10 minutes of exercise we did by eating pizza for dinner. We watched Juno and half of Lars and the Real Girl before we were falling asleep.

We have to leave at 6am to take him to the airport. And while I should be sleeping, of course I'm wide awake! Bah. But it's been great to catch up with friends, to just hang out and relax and feel completely unpressured.

what I want

2008-10-01T21:46:00.002+10:00

I just want to feel better. I want to wake up with energy. I want to look forward to tomorrow. I want to have an idea and then have the motivation to follow through on it. I want to enjoy other people. I want to feel like I'm making a valuable contribution. I want to feel light.

I hope I will one day. Again.

the marketplace

2008-10-01T09:10:00.003+10:00

Terry Pratchett's new book Nation is out! I'm excited about this, as I've been longing for a new Pratchett, and although I do love his Discworld books it'll be interesting to read something of his that isn't set there.

I went onto Dymocks online to see how much it would cost. Normal price $49.95, discounted to $37.95. Guh. Why are books so expensive here?

So I went to the Book Depository to see how their prices compared. Retail GBP16.99, discounted to GBP12.05 with free shipping worldwide. That's about $10 cheaper than Dymocks.

And finally I checked Better World Books because I've used them before and was happy with their service. Retail US$16.99, reduced to US$14.48, and I had a Facebook 10% discount voucher. So with shipping (carbon-neutral apparently), it came to US$17.05, which is $16 less than buying it at Dymocks, and makes a contribution towards funding literacy charities.

Naturally I went with Better World Books. I do want to shop local as much as I can, but sometimes, when it's the exact same product, if it's much cheaper and there are other benefits to buying from a particular shop that isn't in Australia, my money goes overseas.

And now I'm looking forward to my new book.

not an entrepreneur

2008-09-30T18:45:00.005+10:00

Okay before I start, I acknowledge the irony inherent in complaining about the internet on the internet. But I'm not going to stand outside my house with a megaphone telling everyone about it, because, well, I'd probably get beaten up by my neighbours.

I'm not sure whether I've just had information overload, or whether it's a symptom of depression, or what, but I'm finding my addiction to the internet troublesome at the moment. There is so much information out there, so much you can do, so many people doing so many things (with varying degrees of quality), so many ways of finding out information about people, and so many ways for people to find out information about you...sometimes it gets a bit too much. A step back and a deep breath is advisable.

For the most part, I control the information I put out there. I write this blog, and I choose what I will and won't write about (and if you're a regular reader you know I write about just about anything, so that doesn't bother me so much). I post photos to my Flickr page. I post random snippets of my day to Twitter. I poke people on Facebook. I've signed up with all sorts of sites that collect my information, from the books in my library to the songs I'm listening to right now. I love the confluence and the immediacy of information, but then occasionally it gets overwhelming.

I think the tipping point was setting up an Etsy store. Etsy's a great website full of handmade stuff, and there are some beautiful things featured for sale. It seemed like the perfect marriage between my love of the internet and my love of making things. I had a little scheme for selling the bits and pieces of craft that I make, and maybe even helping Karen sell some of her superb knitting. I set it all up, took photos, wrote some copy and excitedly put a couple of Karen's hats and a shawl up for sale last night. So rather than just putting bits of trivia out there, I was putting something tangible and saleable online and hoping that people would find it appealing.

I woke up this morning to a disgruntled note from the designer of one of the hats, telling me we'd breached copyright by posting her design (I don't know - was she waiting there, refreshing her browser every five minutes to see whether anyone was selling her designs?). I immediately apologised and took the items down. Karen did a bit of research and now we're much better informed, but can't sell the knitting (it all seems a bit ridiculous to me, but if that's the way it is you have to respect it - read Karen's post for the full details).

It just left me feeling so flat and disillusioned (although the designer probably felt that way too and thought we were ripping her off), and it's made me doubt whether I ought to be stepping into this pond of internet selling at all. To add to it, I was trawling through Etsy and then started down that whole spiral of 'why bother adding anything to the already crowded marketplace', which then led to 'why bother doing anything?' (Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!) It's hard to go out on a limb; to get knocked down before you've even started makes you feel like giving up - and I haven't even gone through the torture of putting my own craft things up for sale!

I don't think I'll give up. I'll just try something different. But maybe not for a while.

fog

2008-09-30T14:03:00.003+10:00

I hate it when everything seems too difficult. This often happens after a burst of creativity or activity, and seems worse somehow because I had a glimmer of my old self, a little peek into a stable emotional life, so that when I start feeling grey again it seems even greyer than before.

I never know what to do when I feel like this, and I keep trying different things. I've tried pushing on through. I've tried having a nap. I've tried going for a walk in the sun. Sometimes the greyness just won't be budged.

2008-09-28T20:12:00.000+10:00

I don't know what's been happening with my blog lately. My apologies that it's been down. I think I may have inadvertently created some sort of wormhole and the blog was eating itself. Hopefully that shouldn't be happening anymore...

black dog socks

2008-09-25T12:16:00.002+10:00

This is one of my favourite illustrations from Matthew and Ainsley Johnstone's book Living with a Black Dog.

interruption

2008-09-25T12:15:00.001+10:00

I don't know what's going on with my domain name, but the blog's been down all morning. My apologies.

comfort reading

2008-09-24T11:33:00.002+10:00

I was in need of extreme comfort reading last night, so I turned back to one of my favourite childhood books: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My copy is dog-eared and the pages yellowed, but it still has my name written in my mother's handwriting on the front page. The front cover, sadly, has fallen off.

I didn't want to stop reading it last night. I do love it so. I love the character of Sara, her combination of seriousness and whimsy, her kindness and her generosity to those who are overlooked by the self-important people; I love the descriptions of her little garrett room when it's transformed into a beautiful room by the lascar; I love Hodgson Burnett's scorn and her scathing character assessment of the more unpleasant members of society, like Miss Minchin and Lavinia. I guess when I was a child I identified with Sara being a third culture kid, growing up in an 'exotic' country and being sent back to Anglo society and being expected to conform and fit into it, but finding it all a bit strange. When I get home I'll try and find some favourite bits to post.

What are your favourite comfort reads and why?

Spark

2008-09-23T11:02:00.002+10:00

It's so frustrating when you have creative impulses but you're not in the position to act upon them. Like, fragments of song lyrics suddenly jumping into my mind, or the desire to write all day, or a sudden urge to draw. I'm at work, and so must work, and know that by the time I get home the energy and enthusiasm for getting stuck into something creative will have waned. I try to jot things down so I don't forget them, but still...

Does this happen to you? How do you deal with it?

refreshment

2008-09-21T12:22:00.006+10:00

Had a wonderful day yesterday, driving down to Bundanoon with mum to see the Tonkses. So good to catch up with them! We ate delicious food and drank delicious wine of course, then we went for a walk/bike ride in the National Park (Bethany and I took turns riding her bike down the dirt road with Nathaniel). We just sort of wandered, and it was beautiful and quiet and just felt so refreshing.

As we're walking along this dirt road, in the middle of the bush/forest, a car pulls up beside us and a voice calls out, "Bec!" And there, grinning and waving at me, are Ben and Karen! How funny. It wasn't completely serendipitous, as we knew that we were both going to be somewhere in the Southern Highlands on the weekend, but it seemed so amusing and strangely surreal.

The rest of the day and evening passed with me lying on the couch, playing with the guinea pig Nathaniel's minding, eating more wonderful food, watching a video of Leonard Cohen singing a song with U2 as his backing band, and and showing Jeremy and Bethany some Bill Bailey on youtube. Mum said, "You look more relaxed than you have for a long time!" - and I felt it, too.

Then Jeremy checked under our car for wombats, and after getting the all clear, it was time to head home. I shall be going back; hopefully soon.

do not worry

2008-09-19T09:56:00.005+10:00

My lovely friend J sent me a message this week, containing an article about stress. I'm not sure what the original source was, but I liked this:

There are many ways to reduce stress. One is knowing that worry is like winking at someone across a pitch-dark room – you’re the only one who knows you’re doing it, and it doesn’t get you anywhere.

Also makes me think of Jesus' words in Matthew:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

I think all of us need to remember that more often!

Tinselworm

2008-09-15T23:04:00.004+10:00

Although I was unwell today, Em and I had tickets to see Bill Bailey at the State Theatre that I'd bought ages ago. I was glad that by the evening I was feeling up to going! We ate dinner at Wagamama, had a good chat and laughed ourselves silly. If you ever have the chance to catch Bailey live, don't pass it up. He's manic, musical, highly intelligent and really, really funny.

My favourite bit was his critique of Australian news theme songs. On the channel 9 news theme: "That theme song is only appropriate if Godzilla is attacking the studio!" Think about it next time you hear it - he's right. He also did an interpretive dance to the ABC news theme and almost broke a leg tripping over his keyboards and theremin in the process.

blue green

2008-09-15T12:18:00.003+10:00

At her stress talk, Helen Rienits talked about colours being important tools to relieve stress. Blue and green are soothing colours, so if you're highly stressed it's a good idea to surround yourself with those colours rather than, say, red or yellow, which are stimulating colours. That's why it feels so good to go and look at the ocean, or to be surrounded by rolling green hills. As an aside for the Christians, she said, "so isn't it great that God made the world predominantly blue and green?"

I'm at home, sick, lying on the couch in my pyjamas staring at a perfect, cloudless blue sky. It is very soothing indeed.

merch

2008-09-11T11:34:00.001+10:00

Today's little happiness comes from drinking pipingly hot black coffee from a travel mug that I designed (which arrived today). Yay!

auditory

2008-09-10T20:25:00.004+10:00

I hate the voice. The voice that tells me things. The voice that tells me that I am useless, ungainly, unlovable. The voice that tells me I can't do anything. The voice that tells me I'm letting people down. The voice that asks what the point is. The voice that keeps harping on, a ceaseless drone underpinning everything.

Why can't I listen to the good, bright voices? Why are they so much harder to hear? The voices that tell me I'm loved and valuable, that this patch will pass, that the only one I have to please is God? The voices that tell me of all the wonderful things I have, the people I have, the joys that can be found every day?

I need to learn to listen.

managing stress

2008-09-09T22:52:00.004+10:00

I went to a Wild St event last Friday, one of the Delightful Nights that they run once a quarter. This one was a little different than usual; rather than being an event with an activity and an evangelistic talk, we had supper together and heard a talk on managing stress from GP Dr Helen Rienits. I was pretty wiped out but had a really good time sitting with my mum and my godmother Freda, and chatting to Sammi while we ate cupcakes and Lindt balls. Lots of things Helen said resonated with many of us, and we all exchanged glances every so often when she would describe symptoms and situations that were so like our own.

One thing that I've been thinking about a lot is the sustained, cumulative effect of stress and living in a permanent state of stress overload. Your stressors can be made up of many things, little and big. Most of us tend to think of stressors as only being big things like problems at work, major illnesses, car accidents, things like that. But you can easily reach the point of stress overload with a lot of little things that add up - even something like constant, loud ambient noise can push you over the edge (like building noise, or traffic noise). Obviously it's unhealthy to live at this level of stress all the time; your body is depleting its stores of endorphins and running on adrenalin and cortisol, and this wears down the immune system and leads to all sorts of other major health issues.

I think about all the things that have happened to me over the last few years, and more recently, and I shouldn't be surprised that I struggle with stress! It manifests itself in my depression and in a kind of paralysis; it's like I just grind to a halt and feel like I'm unable to do anything. My counsellor and I talked about how I had essentially been living in survival mode for years after certain traumas and sadnesses, and you can get used to living like that, but you physically and emotionally cannot sustain it. So I'm at breaking point a lot quicker than most people simply because I'm always living close to it.

Yet even though I know this consciously, and I try to take steps to reduce my stressors, I can find it subconsciously quite hard to cut myself some slack. I'm the sort of person that takes guilt on even when there's none to be had. I pre-empt imagined negative responses to things I have or haven't done, I worry about letting people down, etc, etc. There is a fairly constant stream of negative self-talk that, when pointed out to me, is ludicrous, but is insidious when it's allowed to prattle on, unchecked. This all, of course, just makes managing stress harder.

Helen suggested identifying your stressors and trying to deal with the smaller ones if you can; you may not be able to fix the major stressor, but if you get rid of some of the little ones, you'll be more able to deal with the big one/s. She had lots of other suggestions to help us manage stress, such as doing something creative regularly, getting exercise, gardening, eating healthily, getting 7-8 hours sleep a night. She also suggested some quick fixes in stress overload times, and I liked that one was "laugh, cry or sing as loud and as hard as possible", as all three of those actions release endorphins that help you to calm down. I knew there was a reason that singing at the top of my lungs while driving feels so good!

a brief memeapology

2008-09-07T09:48:00.004+10:00

Okay, okay, I know that the meme is the blogging equivalent of the chain letter, and I apologise for tagging those who dislike them intensely. I just love random information, that's all. :D

Actually, maybe it would be more interesting if I had added some rules of my own, for example:

7. you must respond to this meme by midnight in three days or else a plague of garden gnomes will be visited upon you.

Actually, that would be quite freaky.

spring from our garden

2008-09-06T09:29:00.003+10:00

In case it's also rainy and cold where you are, thought I'd share with you the spring flowers from our garden. Hooray for growing things! That's a very heavy daffodil (it's dirty because it was slumped onto the ground from the weight of last night's rain), a different coloured daffodil and a little pink sweet pea poking out.

Enjoy!

what a week

2008-09-05T15:44:00.006+10:00

I went to work this morning and lasted an hour before the headache hit and I had to come home and lie down. I guess if you're going to be sick at home, a cold rainy day is a good one to choose!

I watched a disc of West Wing season 1 and slept under my blanket with my hot water bottle. It's been a pretty huge week and a bit. I think I'm going to give up on trying to write anything extensive about Driscoll and all the things I went to hear him at, but I'll do a summary.

Engage
Guan, Mary and I drove up to the mountains in the late afternoon last Friday. We were the first to arrive at our accommodation, The Blue House, where we got set up and ate shepherd's pie for dinner. Mary elected to stay home and have an early night, and Guan and I went to the convention centre and met up with the others.

Mark Driscoll gave four talks over the weekend, and his bombast and difficult challenges were well-tempered by Don Carson's reasonably straightforward exegetical preaching. They were a good combination - I think too much of one or the other would have been a problem.

I really enjoyed seeing Driscoll give a talk; I've listened to a few podcasts and read some of his writing, but he definitely has a 'watchable quality' (as Annabeth on the West Wing would say). But that's not to say he's all style and no substance. He packs a lot into his talks, and goes off on a lot of 'riffs', and doesn't fail to tie his theology in with living life. In fact, he dispensed with his third talk altogether to answer questions from the crowd, as he had observed that in Sydney there is a lot of good solid theological teaching but people had a hunger for practical application of what they were learning. As the questions were SMSed in, people were free to ask anything they wanted without fear of embarrassment, so there were predictably mostly questions on relationships, sex, family and things like that.

It was the end of this question time that he answered a question about why men should leave home younger than they generally do (ie, mid to late twenties). That's been one of his big themes while he's been speaking in Australia, challenging young men with the 'adultescence' mindset to grow up (sorry, I hate that term, but it fits). His thinking is that no woman is going to want to marry a man whose mom still tucks him into bed with his Star Wars sheets and footy pyjamas (when he speaks in the States, it's Star Wars pyjamas, but I guess he was tailoring the message to the audience), so guys should grow up, get a job, leave home, show they can provide for a family, get married, etc, etc.

He also talked about the responsibility fathers have towards their daughters to protect them, nurture them, encourage them to make good decisions and teach them discernment about men. He said some very good stuff here, but then it just started hammering into me that this was something sorely lacking in my relationship with my own father and how I had made some colossal mistakes and trusted some very dodgy people because I hadn't had a good model in regards to men as I grew up (not saying dad doesn't love me, or that I'm not also culpable in the decision making/wilfulness of the whole thing, but I didn't start off with a very solid foundation). It made me immensely sad, and by the time we got back to the house for lunch, I kind of lost it, cried all over my lovely friends, had to go and lie down and sleep it off for the rest of the afternoon.

But it was nice hanging out with the Beilharzes, the Un families and Elsie. By the end of the weekend, the big talks, the 2000 people and not sleeping very well, I was glad to be home and back in my own bed.

Ministry Intensive
As a National Office team, we went to this together and saw many other AFES staffworkers there. Again, it was the Driscoll and Carson double-act, with Kent and Barbara Hughes as well. Carson repeated one of his talks from Engage, which was a bit of a shame as I'm guessing a good number of people there had been at Engage (and apparently he wasn't supposed to give the same talk twice!).

In his second talk Driscoll was hard hitting and confrontational about what, as an outsider, he saw were the reasons that evangelism was being hampered in Sydney (Gordo gives a pretty thorough rundown if you're interested). I thought it was a brilliant talk, and really something only an outside observer could deliver.

I got cranky after lunch when we were separated into men and women and told which talk to go to, so I skipped Barbara Hughes' talk on Evangelism in the Home. Was too tired to go to Carson's big talk in the evening, and hadn't really perked up much by the next morning. I didn't really get much out of Kent Hughes' talk on Pastoring from the Pulpit but then I guess it wasn't really aimed at me.

Was supposed to go to the New College Lecture series on God and the Artist, but I was so completely drained by Tuesday night I didn't go. As I mentioned a couple of posts back, on Wednesday I resigned from work and hadn't recovered any more energy so didn't go to that night's lecture. And on Thursday I was unexpectedly given a ticket to Bek Caines's PhD graduation ceremony, so I went to that and missed the lectures entirely!

So it's probably no wonder that today I'm out for the count.

random facts

2008-09-04T20:58:00.002+10:00

The Random Facts meme has been doing the rounds and I got tagged twice (by Ali and Simone). So the rules are:

Link to the person who ‘tagged’ you
Post the rules on your blog
List 6 random facts about yourself
Tag 6 people at the end of your post
Let each person know they have been tagged by commenting on their blog
Let the tagger know the entry is posted on your blog

There don't seem to be any specifics about what sort of information to divulge. Okey doke.

I'm left handed, and I have a birthmark on the inside of my left arm. As a child I would remember which side was left by checking for my birthmark. I quite like being left because it's different to most other people; I feel an instant camaraderie with other left handers.
I can't stand cauliflower, no matter how much cheese is on it. I'm also not too fond of celery, cucumber or raw capsicum which has led some to believe I have issues with vegetables beginning with the letter 'c', but this is untrue. I'm quite partial to carrots.
For my 21st birthday I had a masquerade ball in the Chinese Gardens at Darling Harbour, basically because I love dressing up and wanted an excuse to wear a gown with a corset and hoop skirt. Thankfully most of my friends at the time were theatre people who also loved an excuse to dress up and everyone got into the spirit of it.
I love playing World of Warcraft with my friends on the other side of the world. My highest level character is a human rogue.
I was baptised at the age of 12 at the International Baptist Church in Singapore. I wore a white robe and was fully immersed in a glass-fronted font that was at the front of the church. When the pastor dunked me, the robe ballooned up around me, and I was grateful that I was wearing jeans.
I love to sing. I love love love it, and I love to sing with a strong singer who doesn't get flustered when I do harmonies. But I feel intimidated by things like auditions and professional choristers with impeccable sight reading abilities and so I have never done much with it. Though that is slowly changing.

Now. Who to tag? Karen, Guan, the Baddelim, Mark, Kathleen, Dave.

brain drain

2008-09-03T13:19:00.002+10:00

It's been a big, exhausting and interesting week. Engage was fantastic but I hit a few emotional speedbumps along the way and got peopled-out pretty quickly. The Ministry Intensive was also fantastic but...intense. And today I resigned from AFES (I'll be here til Christmastime). So all up it's been huge, physically, emotionally, pretty much in every way you could imagine.

I'll post some musings about the talks, etc, soon, but just thought I'd keep y'all up to date.

Burn your plastic Jesus

2008-08-29T11:22:00.006+10:00

So Wednesday night was Burn Your Plastic Jesus at the Entertainment Centre with Mark Driscoll from Seattle's Mars Hill Church. This won't mean much to the non-Christians among you, but take it from me, Driscoll is the hot ticket amongst the uni-age set in terms of speakers you have to go and hear preach. He's been in Australia for almost a month holidaying with his family, who have now returned home to the US to leave Driscoll to work. And he works hard! Seems he's speaking just about every day/night at various places in Sydney, the Central Coast and Brisbane until he goes home next week.

Anyway, back to Wednesday. I hadn't planned to go to this event because I'm going to the Engage conference this weekend and a Ministry Intensive next week that both Driscoll and Don Carson are speaking at, and I didn't know that I needed another dose. But Mark and Lu had a spare ticket and I thought 'why not?'

I'm glad I went!

As Mark and I bussed into town, went to King's Comics and wandered down to Dixon St to meet the other Wild St Church people for dinner, we played Spot the Church Group. They just stand out so much from everyone else! We couldn't really work out why, but you just knew which ones were Christians. By the time we left the food court and the place had filled up, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a non-Christian (and the food court staff seemed a little bemused by it). But it's not surprising, as there were reportedly 10,000 people converging on the Entertainment Centre for this event. I enjoyed the chance to hang out with church people (especially the nutty youth groupers), and at dinner I had a whole plate of dumplings to myself, which was great.
As for the event itself, the staging was slick as a rock concert with the difference being that the house lights stayed up the whole time. The Engage band was full of familiar faces, and they did a great job - there is nothing quite like singing to God with 10,000 people! Though I was surprised at the amount of singing we did; I'm sure the non-Christians in the audience wouldn't have been too comfortable about it, and perhaps this could have been offset by someone from the front saying something like "One of the things we do when we gather together is sing praise to God - we'd love you to join in, but if you don't feel comfortable you don't have to". Anyway that's a minor gripe - from my point of view, the music was excellent. Nathan Tasker played a couple of songs with his band, but I didn't think that added a great deal to the night.
There was the obligatory screening of videoed vox pops, people saying what they thought of Jesus - if they thought of him at all. I was especially saddened by the young mother who was quite defensive about it and said basically her world was her children and family and she'd never thought about Jesus before so why should she bother now? He didn't have anything to do with her.

Then Mark Driscoll came out and spoke for about an hour and a half. As a speaker, he is a friendly, funny man with a relaxed style and an easy-to-listen-to voice. He dissects and critiques culture especially well, and he is not at all ashamed or timid about what he believes. He spent the first chunk of his talk tearing down seven versions of Jesus he thinks people hold up that have nothing much to do with the actual Jesus (though he never referred to the passage from Revelation 19 that had been read beforehand, which I thought was a little odd). In the process he challenged and rebuked us, but also made us laugh a lot. The pitch was a little hard to work out initially, but he had something to say to the committed Christians, the fringe Christians and the non-Christians, and I thought he covered his bases well. He then took questions (via SMS!), and answered them gently but forthrightly. Then in the last section he talked about the real Jesus that we see in the Bible and why we should have relationship with him. If you're interested, you can download the talk for $2 at KCC - it's funny, engaging, challenging and well worth a listen. You can watch the clip below from Sydney Anglicans for a taste:

At the end of the night, he invited people to stand if they had decided to become Christians, or if they wanted prayer for something, and he asked the Christians sitting around them to pray. I had expected something like this to happen, as it's a fairly common end to a big event like this (they used to do 'altar calls' where they'd get people to go up the front, which is even more confronting), but it did take a while for people to start moving. It would have taken a lot of courage for people to stand up in full view of the entire Entertainment Centre, but gradually, as he spoke and kept encouraging people to stand, people started getting up. I don't know how many there were altogether, it wasn't a huge number, but there were a fair few. And then as the musos played quietly, we were asked to pray. I found it incredibly moving, looking around the room at this sea of people sitting, and here and there clumps of people standing together, praying. Gaz said it reminded him of white blood cells grouping together. I was so struck by the face of this one girl standing near us, her eyes closed, tears on her face, and a look of utter conviction.

It's a hard thing if you've made such a life-changing decision to go from a context like that back into the hard, gritty world. I really hope and pray that those people who decided to become Christians on Wednesday keep exploring God's word, that they are supported and loved by the friends who took them along to the event, and that God would continue to grow them in the knowledge and love of him.

And now I have to finish packing to go off to the mountains for Engage. Should be a great weekend!

words

2008-08-27T10:48:00.003+10:00

So as I said, the latest Salt Magazine is out. We've gotten heaps of really positive feedback about it, which is always encouraging!

One thing that I find curious, though, is how people deliver criticisms. We had one letter from a supporter who largely praised the magazine, had a couple of quibbles about certain points in some of the articles, but was particularly annoyed by the "stupid use of colour" on one of the pages where the text was over the top of a grey background. I do take her point, if you are in your 80s (as she is) and your eyesight isn't perfect it might not be that easy to read. But:

a) it's not designed for 80 year olds, it's designed for uni students who presumably don't have as much difficulty reading over that kind of design (and personally, in the article she referred to, I had no trouble reading it);
b) how is it helpful to use the word 'stupid'?

I've read (and been on the receiving end) of some really nasty criticism/feedback in the secular world, and of course by comparison this is exceedingly mild. I know that people are generally fairly careless in their giving of feedback, especially when it's done via letter or email or on a forum where they don't actually have to speak to the person face to face. But something in me is disappointed that this Christian, who wasn't backward in telling us what she thought about theological points we had raised, wasn't a little more gracious in her word choice. Not to say that she shouldn't have written the letter, but maybe she should have considered whether the person who made that "stupid use of colour" was actually going to read the letter herself.

I'm not really upset about it, especially as she said some other lovely things about the magazine. I just thought it was a chance to raise (yet again), how important words are, and how careful we need to be with them.

Comic Book Tattoo

2008-08-26T14:38:00.005+10:00

This morning Jess sent me an IM message from upstairs: "A package for Bec!" I knew what it was before I even read the Better World Books tag. It was so large (about 30 x 30 cm) it had to be shipped in a box, which I tore open excitedly. Inside lay one of the most beautiful books I now own.

I can't wait to actually sit down and read it. It's sitting here on my desk and I have to keep resisting the urge to get lost in its glossy pages. Think it's time to put on some Tori.

bargain

2008-08-23T19:21:00.001+10:00

Also, I bought a simple navy polar fleece jacket at Coles, of all places, for $6.00! I don't normally buy my clothes at the supermarket, but this is seriously snuggly, warm and it even looks reasonably good.

Mooncakes

2008-08-23T19:06:00.005+10:00

I'm a little early to get mooncakes for the Autumn Moon Festival (apparently falling on 14 September this year) but I'm happy I didn't miss them entirely like I usually do. My family never celebrated this festival, which is why I always forget when mooncakes are 'in season'.
I remember dad giving me a mooncake when I was in my early teens and being stunned by these wonderful morsels, and loving the whimsical name. Mooncakes are sweet and slightly salty at the same time, velvety smooth and meltingly delicious. They're about the size of a fist, but you only eat a little bit at a time (about a quarter), as they are incredibly rich - and not cheap! They can be made with all sorts of fillings, but most common are lotus seed paste or red bean paste. Sometimes they have whole egg yolks in the middle to symbolise the full moon.
You're supposed to have them at celebrations with family and friends (much like celebrating Chinese New Year), but I don't see why you shouldn't have them just because. A lot of Chinese traditions have a vague memory or sense of recognition for me, but I don't really know what they're really all about. Hooray for the internet...
The story I like most about this festival is the legend about the Chinese people organising an uprising against the Mongols in the 14th century by hiding messages inside their mooncakes. Subversive desserts!
I went into the Asian grocery at Maroubra Junction today and saw a table full of red tins and boxes that just triggered a childish delight in me. Some were as expensive as $11 a cake, but I went for a cheaper brand. Even so, as you can see, the packaging is lavish and pretty (and just a bit kitschy!). I just had a taste of one filled with red bean and an egg yolk, and it didn't disappoint.

balance

2008-08-20T18:25:00.002+10:00

I don't know how to ration my energy. When I have a good day like today and I feel reasonably well, I am so excited about feeling good that I end up doing too much and conking out again.

a break

2008-08-20T16:33:00.004+10:00

I've been getting those warning signs - the fraying temper, the easily bursting into tears, the sore back and head - so today I decided to Be Kind To Myself (and everyone else) and had the day off.

I tested out my new Laidback Laptop stand, which arrived this morning and is great (although I'm still trying to find the best angle for typing). Then I wandered down to return a library book and bought a couple of books for $1 each at the library sale. Then on to a challenging but fantastic yoga class at the gym.

I decided to go to Edith and Rose in South Coogee for lunch. I'd been here a couple of weeks ago with a few people from church, and it's a delightful little place, inconspicuous and simple, with delicious cakes and pies and coffee. There were only a couple of people there, so I thought I'd just sit in a corner and write. But as I placed my order I heard a voice call my name, and sitting at the window was M from church! So we sat and chatted for a bit while she finished her tea, then she left for another engagement and I had a little time to write.

I also had a little time to eat the most delicious chocolate ganache tart with a raspberry base:

(The other thing I like about this shop is that the retro chairs remind me of Neenish tarts, my favourite of all tarts.)

Then I went to the plant nursery and bought some violas, petunias and poppies to put in the garden so it will be all colourful and cheerful in spring.

A very good day in the middle of the week! I'm so glad I was able to take it off; I think it's just what I needed.

comfort

2008-08-18T19:35:00.004+10:00

After a nightmare of a day, where I cried twice at work and came home with a very sore back and head, I:

had a hot bath
cooked a chicken pie
put on my snuggly warm hoodie
delighted in the sudden downpour, brilliant lightning and rumbles of thunder
am about to eat a bowl of ice cream

Simple pleasures make things so much better.

weekend

2008-08-17T13:23:00.002+10:00

It's been a busy, up-and-down kind of week. One where I struggled with fluctuating emotion and energy levels but thankfully got through to the end and a really refreshing weekend. Some highlights of the week:

Salt came back from the printer's this week, and we did a major mailout to over 4000 supporters. I was going to take a photo of all the boxes of envelopes, but really it isn't anything that needs to be immortalised. If you're an AFES supporter you should receive a copy of Salt and a 2009 wallplanner soon (designed by me!). If you're not a supporter and want a copy of either, let me know and I'll hook you up.

I managed to get up at 6am on Wednesday for the second week in a row to go to pilates. Although it is counter-intuitive to my night-owl ways, I actually find it easier to make time for exercise in the morning than the afternoon. And it gives me a good energy/endorphin boost for the rest of the day. This coming week I'm going to try adding another class (pump, which I've never done before and is apparently all about weights) in the effort to trick myself into developing an exercise routine.

On Thursday Karen and I went to Carriageworks to see the Sydney Dance Company. It's a fantastic space - I think in an earlier incarnation it was where I saw an excellent ATYP production of Henry V complete with live horses and mud filled battlefield - and set me to dreaming of hosting a steampunk ball there. If only I knew more than two other people who thought steampunk was cool, it might actually be a possibility...

Anyway, K had managed to get $20 tickets to 360°. I knew nothing about it, and after seeing it I think I'd still have trouble describing it to you. It was dark, fluid, a little disturbing at times and made great use of two gigantic mirrored panels running at angles across the stage. It was fascinating, sure, and the dancers are incredibly talented. But I spent most of it fighting the urge to scream at two of the female dancers "EAT SOMETHING!" Talented, but way too thin. So that kind of distracted me too much throughout.

I actually much preferred the 20 minute show that played in the lobby beforehand, called Love Instalment. It's part of what the SDC is calling its 'overture series', giving up and coming choreographers a chance to display their talents. There were five boxing rings set up throughout the foyer, each with a couple of dancers inside. They all danced independent sequences simultaneously to the sparse but driving musical accompaniment of violinist Nick Wales and drummer Bree van Reykand, and then occasionally the choreography would come together and all five stages would be working together to create a whole. I also liked standing on the ground and looking up at the performance, and thought the whole thing worked really well.

It was also just great to hang out with K, eat a delicious dinner at Urban Bites and to do something out of the ordinary.
Yesterday mum gave me back the study. I've been experimenting with different spaces through the house to work in but haven't been comfortable in any of them. Mum said I could use the study and she was happy to have her computer in her room. So I spent yesterday moving things around, tidying up and making a comfortable space. I love doing that, it makes me feel like I have a bit of control when things are hard to cope with in other spheres of my life.
Today has been one of those wonderful gifts of a Sunday, quiet and sunny, with time to do my washing and sit in the sun and play the piano. And now I'm off to a music meeting at church where we're going to talk about why we do music ministry, and we'll also play through some new songs.

Hope you're enjoying your Sunday too!

determined contentment

2008-08-14T07:47:00.005+10:00

Scout doesn't really understand how the sun works. She knows that a sunbeam is warm and good to lie in, but she doesn't understand why it isn't where she wants it all the time. She will reach up and claw at it on the wall, as if she could bring it down to her level. Or she will sit and stare determinedly at the sunbeam until it moves across the room to where she normally sleeps, and then curl up in it, satisfied with her good hour's work.

I think, sometimes, that's how I view contentment. I get frustrated and try and Make It Happen by doing things or forcing things or buying things or whatever. But if I believe (and I do) that true contentment comes from God, then it isn't something to be forced or bought. It kind of creeps up and infuses you when you aren't expecting it. The only thing you can do to bring it on (and it's actually kind of an absence of doing really) is be still and know that God is God. He does the rest.

I wish I could remember that when things are darkest.

people living with people living with black dogs

2008-08-12T19:01:00.004+10:00

Today I got Matthew and Ainsley Johnstone's excellent book, Living with a black dog. I mentioned Matthew's earlier book, I had a black dog a couple of years ago, but this newer book is brilliant because it specifically addresses the carers of people with depression. I guess this could extend to people working with / ministering to depressed people.

It's in a similar style to the first book, a picture book style with very simple text. It has some wonderful insights and advice - and humour too! I reckon it should be mandatory reading for everyone. More info at Matthew's site.

darkness

2008-08-10T15:03:00.004+10:00

Went to see the Dark Knight with Guan and Mary this morning at Eastgardens. A very good movie, but not one I could say I enjoyed. For sheer entertainment value, I'd probably rate Iron Man over it - probably because there are more moments of levity, and in their respective roles Robert Downey Jnr is more fun than Christian Bale. But the Dark Knight had a much more terrifying villain in the form of Heath Ledger's Joker, and a much more absorbing subplot in the form of Harvey Dent's downfall. You can read a more detailed comparison of the two movies here, though note that the reviewer was intent on drinking a bottle of wine during each screening, so his assessment might not be the clearest.

There was a bunch of teenagers in the audience - I guess they must have been 14-15, though they looked about 10 to my ageing eyes. I know that I had a much greater capacity for gore and violence when I was that age, but the fact that they giggled and mocked during some pretty awful scenes made me think they probably weren't old enough to handle a movie like that.

I think that rather than becoming desensitised to graphic stuff in movies, as time goes on I am even more affected by it. I remember absolutely loving Interview with the Vampire when I was a teenager, and watching it again a couple of years ago and thinking "Whoa. I don't remember it being quite this gory." I mean, it's a movie about vampires for goodness' sake. Or Silence of the Lambs, which I found fascinating when it first came out, but which terrifies me now. It's a movie about a serial killer, it's supposed to be terrifying. It's much like mum rewatching Dirty Dancing and saying "I don't remember them sleeping together!", even though that's basically what the movie was about.

Perhaps as I get older, get a better understanding of the brokenness of our world, and see the awful things people do to one another reported on the evening news, fictionalised terror no longer serves as entertainment. As a teenager, it's all just a joke, it's not real, you get a bit of a thrill and a buzz out of being scared and then you shake it off and walk out into the sunshine. But when you start to understand something of man's inhumanity to man, it ceases to become something you can just shake off that easily.

I don't think I'd want to live in Gotham, even if Batman was the perfect saviour.

falling down the tumblr

2008-08-08T12:00:00.004+10:00

Oh - if you're not reading this blog in an RSS reader, you might notice a new box on the right hand side marked falling down. This is a new tumblelog that Guan and I have started as somewhere to stick all those quotes, interesting links and totally random things we stumble across as we trawl the internets, that might not warrant an actual post on either of our main blogs. For those interested in procrastination (Ms Gill, I'm looking at you), it might prove handy!

daytime TV

2008-08-08T10:32:00.003+10:00

I'm at home today, not too well. Turned on the TV and have become transfixed by the stupidity of the tech segment on 9am with David and Kim on Channel 10. The two hosts present a gormless, 'I have no idea about anything' front - "I want to talk about VOIP...what is it?" "Google Maps Street View...why...what is it? Why would I want to use it?" It's a disingenuous way of conducting an interview to make it sound like a casual chat, but it's just irritating. The thing that bothers me is there are people out there who would tune into this show every day, who would be going "If David and Kim are talking about it, I must investigate this VOIP thing...phone calls on the internet! Gosh!"

I'm sorry, I'm sick, so I can't disguise my snobbery.

Faithful Writer

2008-08-07T20:33:00.005+10:00

It seems odd that a writer would have trouble writing about a writers' conference, but I don't think I've actually managed to digest/process the Faithful Writer yet. Maybe I never will. That's part of the problem when you're on an organising committee of any sort, even if most of the running around is being done by someone like Karen The Dynamo. You are just aware of tiny things that have the potential to become problems, you don't get a chance to just soak up the atmosphere or just hang around with the other delegates.

I arrived at 8.15am, as Karen and I had arranged, with the booklets I'd designed. I was barely through the door when I was already being hassled (the hassler was obviously just worried because people had turned up early, but since the registration desk didn't open until 8.30 I don't know why he was so frantic). I had to tell people to just leave me alone for one minute, allow me to put my bag down and work out what I was doing. Guan had kindly bought me a coffee, and once I was organised, we registered about 120 people and welcomed them to the conference.

Trevor interviewed the keynote speaker, Mark Tredinnick, and then did a short devotion. Mark then gave a fairly rambly talk about writing as an act of faith. He talked about how you needed to do the important work of 'mending the nets in the hope that a fish may rise', continuing to work away at your writing even when it seems mundane, so that you're ready when the moments of inspiration hit. I can relate to that.

He encouraged us to aim for the Hemingway school of thought and try to say things in a way they had never been said before. He said "a way of finding your voice is in refusing the clichés that are most precious to you." And the final thing I wrote down was "write the poem, the sentence, the essay, the story, the book that only you can write - the one told in your own original voice."

Good advice.

After a donutty morning tea, Guan and I wandered to a local cafe so he could work on the writing exercise that had been set. I didn't even attempt it; my brain was so scattered and my thoughts so unfocused I don't think I could have managed much. But towards the end of the hour I scribbled a few things down about the whole writing shebang:

Words are ordinary things that fall from our lips every day, but they can also be extraordinary and dangerous when put together a certain way. When they are put together well. But as Mark said this morning, that can take discipline and practice.

Kate Grenville works by a couple of principles. One is 'never have a blank page'. Another is 'you can come back and fix it later'. It was very freeing to realise that, to be released from the idea that something had to be perfect the first time around, or that you had to keep nutting out a phrase before you could move onto the next. Sometimes you just have to step over that roadblock and move on. You can come back and clean it up later.

Just before lunch everyone handed in their writing exercises for us to look through. Karen, Trevor, Tony, Mark and I read them all and pulled out ones we thought would be good for workshopping after lunch. It's kind of hard to do that; just as hard as it would have been for the writers to feel confident submitting something for public scrutiny after only an hour, it was hard to read them all and feel like we'd done them justice. But we weren't looking for the best or worst, just ones that had something interesting to talk about in the workshop.

Karen and I grabbed a quick lunch. After letting Mark read through the pieces more thoroughly, culling them down to a final six, we typed up the pieces so they could be projected onto the screen for all to see. Mark led the workshop and was tough but fair and reasonably gracious. I think everyone learned a lot through the process, about avoiding cliche, about when and how to use certain types of punctuation, about what makes a piece flow better, about how to structure something.

Then it was time for the seminars. Karen and I ran a seminar on Writers and Editors, which oddly enough had the highest number of attendees of all the seminars. We did a kind of tag-team effort, with interview, role play, brainstorming and general discussion all thrown into the mix. I had a minor disagreement with one of the delegates who kept saying, "I've had two books published and my experience with editors has been nothing like that". I never quite know how to respond to things like that without getting prickly and defensive. But apparently I handled it well, and we were on friendly terms by the end. George was very encouraging and said we had done a good job at running training (drawing lots of inspiration from her seminar at Word by Word a while back).

I don't think I had afternoon tea. I seem to recall chatting to Dave and telling him I needed a holiday, but I'm not sure if that was at afternoon tea or lunch. Then we tried to call everyone together for the readings, though we were running a bit late by this stage. Greg read an excellent piece about getting his car (or himself?) serviced at a prestige garage, and some entertaining poems he had written for his children. I read the pineapple tarts section from Undragon Stories - and a brief listen to the audio tells me that I still need to work on slowing down my delivery. And to close, Mark read a selection of his poetry.

After the conference I sat, guarding the bookstall cashbox, while the packing up went on. I was impressed that Karen was still able to rush around, but she just kept going until everything was done. People came up to me and told me how much they loved the story, which still amazes me because I am so familiar with it I can't see any of its merits anymore. But several people said they really really wanted to taste a pineapple tart, and others commented that they felt they were right there in that humid kitchen. One lovely woman said after last year's conference she had scanned the Sydney Writers' Festival programme for my name, and hopes to see it there next year.

Maybe one day!

with a buzz in our ears

2008-08-03T19:17:00.005+10:00

Yesterday was the Faithful Writer conference (which I'll write about later). I helped out with regos, gave a seminar with Karen and read some of my fiction to an appreciative crowd. But it was an exhausting nine and a half hours! Guan and I decided to chill out for a couple of hours before heading in to the Hordern to see Sigur Rós with Duncan.

M had made a delicious vegetable curry and welcomed me with a glass of wine. I lay on the couch trying to do my best impression of someone who cares about sport while Guan and M watched the Bledisloe Cup (I didn't do a very good job). We ate, drank some coffee, then Duncan joined us and we headed off.

The bus was full of carousers heading into the city. It was noisy and bright and I felt like I just wanted to curl up on the seat and go to sleep. But by the time we got into the Hordern and found our seats, I had revived somewhat (we had made the judgement call early on that after being at a conference all day we probably wouldn't be up to standing in a crowd for three hours...I'm glad we opted for the seats!). We caught the end of a set by Pivot, which I enjoyed mainly for the incredibly meaty drum sound and the excitement of just being there.

The music between acts was sort of floaty and ethereal, which was fine in some ways and in keeping with the music we were going to hear, but unfortunately for three very tired people it just made us feel a bit sleepy. "I wish we had some gummi bears," I said, and Guan dutifully produced half a bag of gummy dinosaurs. Perfect wish fulfilment!

The lights dimmed and the crowd roared as the four members of Sigur Rós walked onstage, dressed variously in frock coats, tails, and what looked like a boiler suit. I had had the strains of Svefn-g-englar running through my head all afternoon, so I grinned when the band came out and started with that song. I don't know the whole of their back catalogue - actually, I only really know Ágætis Byrjun and their latest, Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust - so much of the set wasn't hugely familiar to me, but that didn't seem to matter in terms of enjoying the music.

They painted amazing soundscapes with rollicking drums, cello-bowed guitar, drumstick-beaten bass, glockenspiel, vibraphone, piano, brass...a constant swirl and propulsion of sound with Jónsi Birgisson’s otherworldly voice floating and screeching and hovering over the top of it all.

"We'll need your help for this one," he said in his thick Icelandic accent towards the end of the show. "Can you clap along with us?" Then they launched into Gobbledigook, from their new album. The song has a childlike quality to it, with fast clapping and a 'la-la-la-la' refrain, but the most incredble energy in the relentless drumming. It has an almost yearning, impossible-joy feeling to it. The entire room seemed to be riding a wave of delight, as the lighting, which had been in sombre blues and greenish yellows up until that point, exploded into colour, and the brass players let off confetti cannons from either side of the stage. The crowd squealed like children. It reminded me so much of what happened at Bjork's concert that I wonder if it's something in their cultural makeup, this propensity for creating simple pleasures, for the joy of pure sound and shimmering light and fluttering bits of glittery paper falling through the air.

Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust translates as 'with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly'. At times, despite my tiredness, I wished it would just keep going and going. I wasn't the only one, judging by the way the 6000-strong audience screamed and stamped on the floor for more. The band did two encores, and ended with an almost humble bow, as at the end of a theatre show.

PS. Also, if you've ever wanted to know how to pronounce Icelandic words check this out.
PPS. If you want to be superior and pronounce the band's name correctly, it's "si-ur rose (the i is like the i in "hit". "rose" is said very quickly)". Roll those Rs!

vertical bag jump

2008-07-31T21:52:00.009+10:00

A higher degree of difficulty than plain old horizontal bag-stalking, the vertical bag jump is inspired, of course, by Aoise's beloved puss Hamlet. Hammy was the absolute king of this manoeuvre, made even more challenging by jumping into A4 envelopes. Scout may be the boss of the paper bag, but she has a way to go before she can reach Hamlet's level of skill.

Hamlet's crazy ... crazy in love!

2008-07-31T15:49:00.002+10:00

This is so fantastic.

[via Anthea on the Facebook news feed]

Public Service Announcement

2008-07-31T11:55:00.003+10:00

We have council garbage and recycling bins at our office. No longer do we have to take rubbish home or illegally deposit the office garbage in the street bins. Yes, we have moved to unheard-of levels of sanitation here in Kingsford.

Through all the sarcasm, I am actually grateful for this. Amazing how such small things make such a big difference.

I'm chugging along with Salt - I'm in the final design stretches now, and hopefully it should be ready to go to print by the end of the week. Which is tomorrow. Er. Hmm.

Tomorrow I also have a review with my boss, and a taskforce meeting for SPRTE. Then counselling. Might be seeing the Dark Knight in the evening with Dave if I haven't completely melted down by then. On Saturday, I'm speaking and presenting a seminar at the Faithful Writer conference. And in the evening going to see Sigur Ros at the Hordern with Guan and Duncan.

I'm glad I have nothing to do tonight - methinks an early bedtime is in order.

Light

2008-07-27T21:17:00.002+10:00

There is something very pleasing about candlelight, especially Northern Light candlelight. We went to the Remo VSC warehouse shopping night last Thursday and bought a bag of the tiny Muse beeswax tealights. They're much smaller than a normal tealight, and so I thought I'd try my hand at making some holders for them out of FIMO. The millefiori one looks very pretty lit up, but it's a bit chunky and blobby when you look at it close up. So I have to work on that with the next one I make. But for the moment, I'll just enjoy the candlelight...

winter hoorays

2008-07-23T22:27:00.004+10:00

Hooray for being indoors, in pyjamas and wrapped in a thick blue dressing gown, while the rain steadily pours down outside. Hooray for a big, warm bed to lie in and listen to the water smattering on the window panes, splashing off the roof tiles and pooling in puddles on the driveway outside. Hooray for being well-fed, for studying the Bible and for friends. Hooray that God forgives me my bad temper and my tears and loves me just as I am.

elsewhere

2008-07-21T20:30:00.003+10:00

I have been missing France lately. I really enjoyed it when I was there in April - possibly because I was striking out on my own, I had arranged it all myself, I was being entirely independent and seeing what I wanted to see, and experiencing the joy of new things. I got to catch up with beloved friends. I wandered around and enjoyed exploring. I ate well. I stayed in lovely places. I revelled in the beauty, in the otherness of the surrounds. I delighted in the sound of that beautiful language.

Sometimes I wish I was there still, but I have to keep remembering that if I lived there, eventually I would catch up to myself. I'd still have to work through the issues that I'm working through, and life wouldn't be like it was on holidays because, well, it wouldn't be holidays anymore.

At the same time, I've been feeling so grateful for our house and the level of comfort mum and I enjoy, living here. It's so strange feeling at home somewhere, but feeling restless, like maybe you belong somewhere else at the same time. I think that's part of the Christian thing as well, that we live on this Earth for a time, but we really do belong somewhere else. This isn't our home. Maybe that's why it feels so hard to be here sometimes.

But in the meantime, I have to keep thanking God for little joys. And maybe I'll go and watch Amelie again...

sing along!

2008-07-19T10:46:00.003+10:00

This is one of the best FAQs ever and demonstrates why I giggle in girlish glee whenever Joss Whedon has a new project out. The last installment of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog goes up sometime today, and it will be available for viewing free until Sunday night. So check it out! It's great.

The Red Tree

2008-07-17T22:14:00.003+10:00

As you know from my previous rant about WYD, I was a little worried about getting in and out of the city on Tuesday night. I was also worried as I wasn't especially well that day (had been home sick from work), but I was determined to get into the city to meet Karen for dinner and to hear the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

The trip into town was uneventful. A group of American girls got on at UNSW, though they weren't pilgrims - they were dressed up for some concert or other, and had so much makeup on I was tempted to run a finger down one of their faces to see if it would leave a channel.

The city was buzzing with people leaving work, pilgrims swarming around Hyde Park, and others just wandering aimlessly in bunches down the streets. I was early so I took the chance to stick my head in the Apple Store, absolutely packed at 6pm. I was impressed by the glass stairs, but I don't know that there would be any reason to go back there (unless they were running an interesting workshop or something).

I wandered down to the GPO and saw Karen perched on a stool, scribbling away in her notebook. I gave her a hug, and we ordered dinner from the GPO Wood Fire Pizza. I read her notes for a difficult article she's writing, and we chatted over prosciutto and funghi pizza (the word 'funghi' inexplicably had us in giggles).

After we ate our fill, we strolled across Martin Place to the City Recital Hall. Every time I go there I am struck by the beauty of the building, and the delightful way it's nestled into a laneway, almost unseen from the street. We climbed up to the top tier of seats and were almost right in the middle for the performance.

A large, portrait-oriented screen hung down above the orchestra. As the ACO began Shostakovich's String Quartet no 15, the sepia-toned images from Shaun Tan's The Arrival were projected onto the screen. The angular darkness of the music blended well with the haunting illustrations, though occasionally the projections were a little too swift and I wished I could have gotten more absorbed in the pictures. And I have to say, sometimes I find Shostakovich's style a little too obscure and jagged, and long for something a little more lyrical that I can get lost in.

Well I got that in the second half of the program, a new work by Michael Yezerski, Richard Tognetti and Lyn Williams called The Red Tree. It was inspired by Shaun Tan's wonderful book of the same name, which explores a complex, sad and wondrous emotional landscape through incredible imagery. An unnamed red-haired girl moves through her day, struggling with feelings of isolation and depression, searching for understanding and solace. It's a theme that I can relate to, of course.

The seven movement work was large and grand and sweeping, yet intimate and personal and piercing. The Gondwana Voices children's choir was an integral part of the peformance, and they were fantastic, singing in a mixture of English, Finnish and Hebrew. So tightly co-ordinated and perfectly pitched, and the occasional soloists had the purest, bell-like voices. I think my favourite movement was The World is a Deaf Machine, with the percussion of the choir's hands and feet punctuating the driving melodies of the orchestra. The work ended with the last few positive, hopeful images from Tan's book, and left Karen and I with contented smiles.

Karen and I parted at Pitt Street and I caught the bus home. It was mostly empty and smelled of vomit, but, I thought, at least most of the people seemed to have left the city. Well. Except for the one bunch of French pilgrims who got on at Liverpool Street and romped onto the bus in a blur of orange, waving their flags and shouting "Bonjour! Bonjour!" at the four of us already on the bus. We looked at them blankly, willing them to just. get. on. the. bus. They sat up the back and chattered loudly in French, getting more and more raucous the further away from the city we got. I put on my headphones to try and recapture some of the calm I had felt at the end of the concert.

It was a relief to get home, hug my mum, and get into bed. I spent some time poring over the book of The Red Tree before finally drifting off to sleep. Thanks for a lovely night, K!

bulldozers

2008-07-17T10:56:00.002+10:00

Okay this is just ridiculous.

World Youth Day organisers, with help from police, have been clearing plants from the park, at Parkham Street in Surry Hills this morning, in order to build a two-metre wide ramp over the park for pilgrims to walk across on their way to Randwick racecourse.

But residents have resisted the move, saying it is over the top and will damage the treasured five- by 10-metre park.

George Pell said earlier this week that Sydney had been "invaded by joy" - I'm not sure about the joy part, but the invasion feels about right.

WYD rant

2008-07-14T21:53:00.003+10:00

I just have one question. How much money did the Catholic Church give to the NSW Government and the City of Sydney to get permission to take over Sydney?

There are many things that bother me about World Youth Day ('day'? Ha!), including:

There are around 300 road closures at various times over the six days, including chunks of George Street in the city and Anzac Parade in the Eastern Suburbs (which are two major public transport routes). The events and road closures are also blocking access to two major Sydney hospitals (Sydney Hospital and Prince of Wales);
The CBD and Darling Harbour are majorly disrupted for the pre-WYD events, with the procession of the cross and icon from the Harbour to Central today, and a mass for 150,000 at Darling Harbour tomorrow night (this, of course, happens to be when I'll be in the city for a concert at the City Recital Hall, and researching how I am going to get home is what started this rant off in the first place);
Randwick Racecourse and the area within a 2km radius are almost a complete no-go area for the whole of this weekend (my mother's church in Kensington (just near the racecourse) isn't able to have a service in their church this Sunday because the parishioners won't be able to park anywhere near the church);
The whole Pope-worship thing really bothers me ("'...He's like Jesus Christ on Earth,' said Liba Vazquez, 17. It was worth waiting two hours in the cold for a glimpse of the Pope, she said." (SMH) No. He is not like Jesus Christ.). And they're projecting images of Benedict on the Harbour Bridge, which is just creepy all round;
And the thing that bugs me most? That people think that this has anything to do with Christianity. Trust me, it doesn't (I've been told by a reliable source that I'm starting to sound like a Reformer - it's like history come to life in a really annoying way!).

I might actually say something helpful in the next few days about all this, but don't hold your breath.

more things I made

2008-07-13T16:07:00.003+10:00

I got inspired by the FIMO website to make this tealight lantern for M's birthday present.

And also, at the last minute, I gave her the owl too. Because, really, who likes owls more than M? That's right - no one.

Birthday meals

2008-07-13T15:49:00.005+10:00

I think the best parts of birthdays are the meals with wonderful friends. Well, and the presents. But the meals are always the standouts. It's probably a throwback from childhood when you have the birthday party with all your friends, and the food you like, and a cake. Sometimes we have parties as adults, but there are always lovely birthday meals, no matter what.

In the last few days it's been a birthday for two lovely friends, Karen and Mary.

Karen's birthday was on Friday, so Ben, Guan, Elsie and I took her to the Chinese Dumpling and Noodle House on Anzac Parade for...Chinese dumplings and noodles, oddly enough. Ooh, and honey chicken (if you have given up on honey chicken as something flabby and over-sweet from those all-you-can-eat takeout places, give this honey chicken a try - it's absolutely divine). I love eating there with these people! And I think K enjoyed her birthday lunch.

Today was M's birthday. She loves breakfast and brunch, and I wanted to take my friends to Pyrama, so it was the perfect opportunity. Although grey and cloudy and a little on the chilly side compared to last time we went, Linda fixed us up with a heater and we were right on the edge of the outside area, overlooking the light rail.

The food was yum, and needless to say, enjoyed by all (yes, even G, despite his 'grumpy' face).

ad break

2008-07-13T15:15:00.003+10:00

I can't believe that one of those annoying ads on the left hand side of Facebook actually enticed me to click on it - even more unbelievable, it was actually for a cool website!

Check out BetterWorld Books. They seem to have a pretty comprehensive catalogue of new and used books, and

All books sold on BetterWorld.com help fund high impact literacy projects on four continents. BetterWorld.com has over 2 million books, free shipping in the US ($2.97 worldwide), and every order is shipped carbon neutral with offsets from Carbonfund.org.

A bookseller supporting literacy projects...well go figure. Seems like a much better alternative to Amazon!

(though not quite on the same social-conscience bandwagon, another cool Amazon alternative in the UK is The Book Depository - with free worldwide shipping!)

To lift our spirits again

2008-07-11T23:13:00.002+10:00

Here's some things I made...Panda was given to Karen today for her birthday, and I've been experimenting with owls. That's the owl and the pussycat in their beautiful pea-green boat on the left.

Safe Harbour

2008-07-11T22:36:00.004+10:00

"So what do you want to talk about today?"

It's a benign question, handing me the control. The conversation starts off light-heartedly and is interspersed with laughter. But before long it turns into a tangled handful of threads, intersecting and knotting and severing and looping. I leap forward and backtrack and forget a whole slew of important facts and retrace my steps and sink into conjecture.

Then, deftly, it's like she flicks the lights on. "Well that makes sense, looking at it like this," and as she begins to rephrase my own words, suddenly it's clear that what I thought was a tangled mess is a bizarre tapestry of sorts; it's not pretty, it's not elegant, but there is a picture there, a story in tableau. As a writer, how could I have missed such a clear narrative, such a strong sequence of cause-and-effect? It's been there all along.

Staring at it, starting to make sense of it, it begins to hurt me anew. Unexpected tears clog my attempts to speak. She looks levelly back at me and reassures me. And somehow I know there will be a way through this, even though the very prospect exhausts me.

Little joys

2008-07-09T22:23:00.002+10:00

Sure, she can drive me nuts, but there is something to be said for the pure, anarchic joy that a cat like Scout can bring.

Also she's totally the boss of all paper bags. Just so you know.

therapy

2008-07-08T20:59:00.005+10:00

I wish I could stop the unexpected waves of sadness that roll over me. They're often not generated by anything I can pinpoint. It's not like something happens to make me feel this way, which is partly why it can be so frustrating.

I tried to ward an impending wave off tonight by making something with my hands; creating things can be so therapeutic, especially if the end result is pleasing! But almost as soon as it was done, I felt adrift and weird.

Perhaps the way of dealing with it is not trying to stop the wave from coming, but just accepting that it's going to come and try and ride it, instead of being dumped by it.

Maybe a long hot bath will make me feel better.

lazy writing

2008-07-08T09:32:00.001+10:00

"Nicole Kidman has delivered her first child, a baby girl, her agent, Wendy Day, said." [SMH]

Wouldn't it be a worry if the child was anything but a baby? 'Nicole Kidman has delivered her first child, a fully-grown woman...'

get through it

2008-07-08T08:21:00.001+10:00

I need to watch this often - and so do you, probably! [source: 43 folders]

I'm sure there was weekend in there somewhere

2008-07-07T22:56:00.003+10:00

So I've pretty much settled into my new office downstairs. There's so much space, it's almost the exact opposite to what I had upstairs. This week Mark's on holidays and the other tenants haven't quite moved in yet, so I have this absolutely massive space all to myself. It's so much easier to concentrate, to just focus on a task until it's finished and get a lot of little bitsy things done. We're still working on keeping the communication flowing freely between the two offices and maintaining relationships. It's good, I guess - ducking upstairs every couple of hours to say hi is a tiny bit of exercise I wouldn't otherwise get!

The weekend seems so far away now, though. On Saturday I went to Word By Word (the Christian writing group), and Karen and I did a test run of our seminar on Writers and Editors that we'll be presenting at the Faithful Writer in a few weeks' time. I had been having a bit of a meltdown about my writing and abilities and just life generally, though, and hadn't been able to wrap my brain around it at all. Thankfully Karen was way more organised than me, had even printed me session notes, and we managed to get through it quite well. I had a little cry in the stairwell and then had to nap during writing time because I was just exhausted. But I needed Karen to say "I think you're burned out and shouldn't write today," for me to go 'hey I think I'm burned out and shouldn't write today'. Funny how we don't let ourselves off the hook sometimes, but seem to need others to tell us it's okay. Thank God for wonderful friends who know what it feels like and keep an eye on me!

I played Wii at Guan and Mary's for a while, and then went to Bondi Junction with mum to buy a computer game to distract me. I couldn't find Civ IV and ended up buying...er...the Sims Life Stories instead. It's a very pointless game. But it's kind of fun to just muck around, dressing up characters, building them houses, and seeing the Sims interact with one another. Though having played it for a little bit now, I'm kind of disturbed by the emphasis on physical relationships that didn't used to be there. And of course, there is no spiritual dimension to these Sims. I don't think that even occurred to me years ago when I used to play the Sims 1.

(Jen doesn't understand how I can enjoy such a game - I think she ranted once about how the Sims didn't do what you told them to, which is a little too much like real life for her liking - but there is something in it that allows me to detach myself from my rambling brain, I don't have to do or achieve anything. It's kind of like a computer version of playing around in the sandpit.)

Sunday was quiet and restful. I did several loads of washing, planted my desiree potatoes in the raised bed I made for them (happy potatoes!), and played with the cat in the sun. Mum and I went out in the late afternoon to buy her an electric blanket, and just twenty minutes in the Supacenta at Moore Park was enough to make me feel miserable again. That place just gets me down.

I headed off to Unichurch at 6.30 to hear Guan preach his first sermon, on the end of 1 John. It was a really good sermon, with lots of jokes that I wasn't the only one laughing at (mum and I have earned ourselves a reputation as a 'good audience' because we'll laugh at any joke in a sermon, no matter how lame (though yours weren't lame, G)), and good, solid challenges and encouragements.

Then home again, home again, jiggity jig and the weekend had evaporated, just like that.

UBO

2008-07-04T13:45:00.003+10:00

So I went to the friendly neurologist this morning. He looked at my scans, then whipped through a whole bunch of motor skill and stimulus tests and then smiled and said, "Well as expected, there's nothing wrong with you."

Basically the mark on my scans is what he called a UBO (Unidentified Bright Object). Other people with headache symptoms have had similar marks, but because "nobody's died from it" they haven't cut a brain open to see what these UBOs actually are. And apparently mine is so small it's nothing worth worrying about anyway (the UBO, not my brain).

So that's a relief that I don't have a tumour, or multiple sclerosis, or anything sinister. But it still doesn't help me out with the headaches.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep last night, but I was feeling a bit fragile afterwards. So I went and had a morning coffee at Berkelouw's and bought some cards and wandered slowly through the grey drizzle back to work. We had Thai for lunch at work. And all I really want to do is nap now.

space: the final frontier

2008-07-02T21:53:00.003+10:00

So it's finally happened! Mark and I have made the looong trek down one flight of stairs to our new offices (the way the rest of the office has been reacting it's like we've moved an hour's drive away, but we're still in the same building). The space has been divided into five large offices, and we have the two biggest. The other offices are still empty at the moment, so it's a little surreal to wander through this brand new and completely blank suite of rooms. But gradually we are making them our own; our books are out, the Salt display wall is up and someday soon I'll be bringing my dad's couch in from my garage so we have somewhere comfy to have meetings.

I'm already happier to be at work. Amazing the influence your environment can have on you. Well not really - going from having a desk in an open space where I could hear everyone in the office's conversations no matter how quietly they tried to talk, to a large room that I can shut the door on...I'd be worried if it didn't make me more productive. It's luxury, I tell ya!

a completely unbiased review

2008-06-29T11:30:00.007+10:00

I was still a bit out of it yesterday, but my brother had invited us for lunch at his girlfriend Linda's new restaurant, Pyrama, and I can always be tempted out for a good meal. It was another gorgeous, jewel-like Sydney winter day and we headed down to shop 1, 56 Harris Street, Pyrmont.

Pyrama is almost at the end of Harris Street, just as the hill slopes down to the water. It's nestled in amongst new blocks of flats and old workers' cottages and wintry trees and a glimpse of sparkling water, perched over a dramatic cutting in the sandstone for the light rail track. It's a really interesting spot, quiet but villagey. It seemed the perfect place to be on a bright winter's morning.

Nic, me and mum

It's always wonderful to hang out with Nic. But it was especially great to see Linda in her restaurant, obviously so proud and excited that Nic had brought his family. She and her brother Jim (who is the chef) have been working towards the launch for a long time, and have put a lot of effort into making it a great space with a really relaxed, friendly ambience and food that perfectly suits the setting. It's unpretentious but delicious fare, not trying to be fancy, but doing simple things well, allowing the top-notch ingredients and the expertise of its staff to shine.

Nic and Mum

We sat outside, drenched in sunlight, each of us sporting our huge sunglasses. Nic and I both need to get more sunlight (me for my depression, him for some horrid skin thing he's gotten), so it was therapeutic too. Linda's mum and sister were also there, so it felt very congenial to stroll into this slick new restaurant and already be 'regulars', knowing the other regulars. But I watched the small team of staff and although they were, of course, very friendly and chatty with us (being connected to the owner) they were pretty much the same with everyone who walked in, which is great.

Mum decided on ricotta pancakes with rhubarb and apple compote from the all-day breakfast menu.

Nic chose a wagyu beef burger with the most delicious chips.

And I had the most tender, light and melt-in-the-mouth calamari with harissa aioli I've ever had (I think I need to change my standard line from "I don't eat seafood" to "I don't eat prawns or oysters" because I quite like calamari and some shellfish. So there you go, this one dish has converted me).

Then my favourite part of any meal, dessert. It was hard to decide, so I promised Linda I'd start at the top of the menu and work my way down it each time I came to eat there. So the top of the list - 'The original' Belgian white chocolate creme brulee with passionfruit coulis.

Ohhh. Aside from the one I had in Paris recently, I can safely say this was the best creme brulee I've ever had (and the Parisian one had extra points because of its location of course). Silky smooth, rich but not heavy, with a perfectly formed and satisfying sugar crust.

Mum and Nic shared the warm chocolate fondant, also smooth and delicious from the little taste I had.

Mum, Nic and Linda

Of course Linda is the consummate perfectionist, so she's never going to be happy with the restaurant and is always going to be tweaking things to improve them, which is as it should be I think. But I think she and Jim should be very proud of what they've created so far!

Nic and Linda, showcasing the fuzzy feature wallpaper

So go on a sunny winter's morning and sit in the courtyard outside (when I go there for dinner I'll let you know how that was, but I'm pretty confident to say it'd be fantastic for dinner too). Eat well and enjoy. You won't be sorry!

my cat is insane

2008-06-28T09:30:00.003+10:00

Actually, it turns out, no, she's just a cat (she ate two gigantic holes in my new woollen top yesterday...well it's made me inventive as to what I can do with the arms of a new woollen top - make fingerless gloves to replace the ones she ate!).

Renewal

2008-06-27T11:29:00.003+10:00

I've not been very well the last couple of days. So today I am at home, still in my pyjamas, sitting in the sun and reading Prince Caspian. Makes me feel like a little kid again! There were things to do today, a meeting I was to go to at Parramatta and an article to write, but my aching head won't allow for any of it. I've opted for being kind to myself.

So I will share with you a lovely passage from Prince Caspian that may make your Friday that much better, as it has mine.

Lucy and Peter find the armory at Cair Paravel

The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face.

'Welcome, child,' he said.

'Aslan,' said Lucy, 'you're bigger.'

'That is because you are older, little one,' answered he.

'Not because you are?'

'I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.'

For a time she was so happy that she did not want to speak. But Aslan spoke.

'Lucy,' he said, 'we must not lie here for long. You have work in hand, and much time has been lost today.'

'Yes, wasn't it a shame?' said Lucy. 'I saw you, all right. They wouldn't believe me. They're all so-'

From somewhere deep inside Aslan's body there came the faintest suggestion of a growl.

'I'm sorry,' said Lucy, who understood some of his moods. 'I didn't mean to start slanging the others. But it wasn't my fault anyway, was it?'

The Lion looked straight into her eyes.

'Oh, Aslan,' said Lucy. 'You don't mean it was? How could I - I couldn't have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I? Don't look at me like that . . . oh well, I suppose I could. Yes, and it wouldn't have been alone, I know, not if I was with you. But what would have been the good?'

Aslan said nothing.

'You mean,' said Lucy rather faintly, 'that it would have turned out all right - somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?'

'To know what would have happened, child?' said Aslan. 'No. Nobody is ever told that.'

'Oh dear,' said Lucy.

'But anyone can find out what will happen,' said Aslan. 'If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me - what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.'

'Do you mean that is what you want me to do?' gasped Lucy.

'Yes, little one,' said Aslan.

'Will the others see you too?' asked Lucy.

'Certainly not at first,' said Aslan. 'Later on, it depends.'

'But they won't believe me!' said Lucy.

'It doesn't matter,' said Aslan.

'Oh dear, oh dear,' said Lucy. 'And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you'd let me stay. And I thought you'd come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away - like last time. And now everything is going to be horrid.'

'It is hard for you, little one,' said Aslan. 'But things never happen the same way twice. It has been hard for us all in Narnia before now.'

Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up.

'I'm sorry, Aslan,' she said. 'I'm ready now.'

'Now you are a lioness,' said Aslan. 'And now all Narnia will be renewed. But come. We have no time to lose.'

CS Lewis, Prince Caspian, Fontana Lions, 1985, pp 124-126
illustration by Pauline Baynes p30

reflection

2008-06-23T18:56:00.007+10:00

Reflected Arrows 1974 Jeffrey Smart

Why does my continual low opinion of my writing surprise me, as though I'm the only one who's ever felt this way? How ridiculous. Jeffrey Smart, an artist whose work I love, was interviewed on Talking Heads tonight and said this about a retrospective of his work, "when i look over them, I see a series of disasters. I feel I'm going to paint my best work...soon."

He's 81 and recently sold a painting for something like $900,000!

Then there's Andrew Bird, a brilliant musician who wrote recently on the Measure for Measure blog,

I listened to my record recently and I’m concerned about how much I like it. This has never happened to me at this stage of making a record. Right about now is usually when I want to scrap the whole thing and start over. In fact, scrapping whole records has become par for the course for me when recording.

I'm not saying that "oh well if other artists think they suck it's okay to think I suck". I don't think I suck. I know there is value in my work, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to being frustrated to tears by it. I guess there's a disparity between accepting that my writing is decent and whether I think anyone else will like it or get something out of it. I like people to read my stuff, but at the same time I'm terrified that people will think I am my work, that they will weigh it in the balance and find it wanting, and by extension will find me wanting.

I think the only thing to do is accept that an artist of any sort is going to feel negative about their stuff, and I guess that can be amplified if you tend towards low self-esteem anyway. It doesn't make sense, and it might seem self-indulgent, but it's just how it is. I just have to accept that and move on through it, reminding myself that I am not my work and finding joy in it.

Gripe

2008-06-23T07:38:00.007+10:00

Attention lazy headline-writers/journalists/sub-editors (though I sometimes wonder whether the latter still exist at the SMH online): a woman who is 61 is not 'elderly' (pardon the use of that terrible story to illustrate this point). The journalist doesn't use the term in his story, why put that as the precis to the story? Isn't the headline itself awful enough?

Ah, no, the point is to milk as much emotion and scandal out of a handful of words to ensure the reader clicks through to the story. "'Woman attacked'...hmm. That could be anyone. Sure it's bad, but...Oh, I know! 'Elderly woman attacked' - that could be someone's defenseless grandma! Winner!"

The media is irritating. Since Leigh Hatcher's talk at staff conference, where he asked us to constantly question what the media's agenda was, and to remember that it solely thrives on conflict as a means to grab readers/viewers to ensure revenue, those little cynical attention-grabbing tricks have become more and more apparent. And it bugs me that I can be so susceptible to them!

Saturday night - do do dooo do do do do

2008-06-21T20:34:00.005+10:00

After my stupid wrong-bus-catching-and-subsequent-walk-home I didn't have time to have a nap, but pretty much went straight on to Catherine's surprise birthday dinner at the Doncaster. I only stayed a couple of hours, but long enough to get some pics and cuddles with my goddaughter and lovely friends.

My head pounding, I excused myself after dinner, came home and got straight into my trackies.

Saturday in the park with mum

2008-06-21T20:10:00.006+10:00

Mum and I went to Peter's of Kensington to buy Catherine's birthday present with the last of a gift voucher I was given. Boy, but you really see some caricatures of entitlement in that place, in particular the bridezillas with their clipboards swanning around making up bridal registry lists, their bored fiancés in tow. We had panini for lunch, then caught the bus into the city.

We got off the bus at Circular Quay just outside Customs House, so I took mum inside to show her how cool it is. Little kids were crawling on the glass over the model of Sydney set into the lobby floor, pointing out familiar landmarks and exclaiming. It was very cute.

We wandered down to the Opera House and, much like the Eiffel Tower, I wondered if it was possible to take a bad photo of this building.

Then a meander through the Botanic Gardens, which were crowded with people soaking up the glorious sunlight. We sat on a bench, then looked up at all the fruit bats, hanging like in podlike clusters from most of the trees.
Mum decided to go home then to let me write and potter around a bit. I went to the Art Gallery, and although I'm not especially interested in the Biennale which is on at the moment, I was amused by the chalk 'graffiti' covering the outside of the building and some of the windows inside.

I spent some time looking at Harold Cazneaux's photographs of Sydney, marvelling at the soft smudginess of them and how that contrasted so abruptly with the hard, glittery brashness of the city on a day like today. Then I had a delicious lemon tart and a black coffee in the cafe and wrote a bit.
When I left the gallery I looked up at one more bit of graffiti on the lintel. I think it totally sums me up:
I walked back through the Domain and through Martin Place.
I was seriously flagging by this point, but wandered through David Jones on the way to the bus stop and got a jumper for half price at the sales. Unfortunately, because I was so tired and my headache was starting up again, I got on a bus that I assumed would go past my place but didn't. I ended up having to walk a few blocks to get home. I was glad to have been out on such a beautiful winter's day, but I wish I was better at calibrating my energy levels so I had enough left to get home!

Saturday morning...who's gonna play with me?

2008-06-21T10:44:00.002+10:00

salty apples

2008-06-19T13:49:00.002+10:00

My pet project at work is webSalt, but sadly (and possibly because it's seen as a pet project) I don't get much time to devote to it.

How odd that on a day when I'm sick at home, away from the hustle and bustle of the office, I have sudden inspiration to write an article!

Check it out (it's a rant about the new Sydney Apple Store). Hopefully there'll be lots more coming soon.

clouds

2008-06-18T22:00:00.003+10:00

I love things like this - Wordle is amazing (thanks Doug!). You just dump a bunch of text into the site and it generates a beautiful word cloud. You can adjust the colours, direction of words, fonts, number of words it displays. And it seems to be able to handle a lot of text very easily (it managed my 53,000 Undragon words with nary a hiccup). I find this fascinating because you can see what words you use the most, and maybe what sort of themes are coming out in the bit of writing. And it's pretty. They're like fingerprints.

So here is my novel in word cloud form (using 400 word clumps...that might be too many for this exercise, but...it's still pretty).

The Jasmine bits:

The Daniel bits:

The whole shebang:

Click on the pics for a closer look. I guess I must use the word 'don't' a lot.

matching luggage

2008-06-18T11:11:00.004+10:00

Interesting Boundless article:

As my friend and I talked and reminisced our conversation fell to our single plight (deep down we all want things like marriage and family). "It used to be really simple," my friend said with a laugh. By "it" he meant establishing a romantic relationship. (He was engaged his senior year of college, but it fell through.)

"Now I've lost confidence in my ability to choose," he said. "I know how I am. I know all these things about myself, and I know what won't work for me. I almost know too much about myself."

I knew exactly what he meant. In the eight years since college, I've accumulated more than a house full of photographs, furniture and dishes that aren't plastic — I've developed a fairly complex identity. And honestly, finding someone who's a fit seems like a much more difficult task than it used to.

I was just thinking about this very thing the other day. In the case of the article's writer, she's talking about the baggage of achievements and things that we have accumulated throughout our 20s, and what effect that has on meeting a potential partner. I was thinking of those, yes, but also of emotional baggage, of course. I thought about what would happen if someone I was interested in, who already knew about all my achievement baggage, discovered my blog, opened up this public Pandora's box and read about what's in my emotional baggage.

I guess in my 20s I would have been keen to hide all that stuff to some extent. I wouldn't want to turn someone off getting to know me better, and so would present a particular version of myself, the 'display' model. We all do that, I guess (I always loved the term 'residual self image' that was used to such good effect in The Matrix). You want people (and I don't just mean potential partners) to be attracted to the best parts of you, you want to look your best, sound your best, be your best, and you try to put out the markers that will make this new person choose you as a potential friend. If you actually get into a conversation, it's full of calculations and control, whether conscious or not. You laugh winsomely so they will know you enjoy a good joke. You pepper the conversation with witty asides so that they know you have a good sense of humour. You try to connect on a meaningful level so that they know you're not just about the superficial. All the while, there is a simmering undercurrent of 'if only they knew what I was really like...' (well, there is for me).

But now that I'm older, even though I'd still be mildly nervous about what someone new would think of me upon reading my backstory, the fact is I know that close friends are the ones who know all that stuff and want to know me better in spite (or because?) of it. I've had plenty of friends over the years who only knew the 'display' version of me, and most of them have fallen away. I look at photos of my 21st, recalling how I agonised over who to invite and how each person there I considered to be vitally important to me, and honestly I'm only in touch with a few of them now. Some of them I can barely remember their names. The friends who have stuck are the ones who know all about the dark and the light parts of me and love me anyway, whether I've known them ten years or ten months.

I know there are lots of you out there reading and I have no idea who you are, but obviously there's something there that's kept you coming back. I am grateful that I'm not hollering into a void. Hope you stick around.

i'm an owl

2008-06-18T00:29:00.005+10:00

This is great (full article here). (I also really like that style of illustration with lots of factoids to ramble over - maybe it stems from when I was a kid and loved poring over exploded diagrams of spaceships and buildings and other random things in books my brother owned.)

I should probably heed the advice in the article, especially given that I tried to go to bed two and a half hours ago and I'm still awake (also I am well aware that looking at a computer screen is counter intuitive but I was getting bored).

I'm planning on bringing a couch into my new office (1 July...so close!) but I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get away with siestas. Damn larks, trying to force me to be one of them!

mourning the ghosty things

2008-06-17T08:22:00.003+10:00

I switched off the light last night and as though the switch had been flicked in me, I started to cry. For a moment I didn't know what I was crying for, and tried that ineffectual trick of scolding myself out of it. Then I realised, with some surprise, that I was mourning the loss of something I had never had. It wasn't a particularly terrible loss, or something that was ridiculous to get upset about ("waaa...I've never owned a pony..." for example). It was just something that was quietly sad of its own accord, missed time, missed opportunity, missed potential, a litany of 'what ifs' that lead nowhere.

As I've said a million times before, I'm only here because God has brought me here, and all the things that have or haven't happened in my life are part of him bringing me to himself. But it's something I've been thinking about, particularly as a result of my recent counselling sessions where we've been talking about the reality of loss and mourning as you become an older single woman. Certain milestones pass by unmarked; you note them but they aren't anything you can claim for yourself. Things you maybe thought you would mark in the appropriate time crumble to dust in the light of reality and how things have panned out.

That sounds terribly maudlin, I know, but there is a kernel of truth in it, even for those not prone to crying in the middle of the night. There are seasons of life that some of us move through at the 'right' time, and then there are those of us who are just waiting, a little confused and wondering whether we've done anything wrong, and feeling guilty for feeling sad about things that haven't happened. It's the emptiest kind of grief, unvalidated, unasked for, unnoticed. It feels pointless, but maybe that's a way through - maybe it's worth acknowledging and staring at in the light, to reduce that sadness to its appropriate size and make it less of a thing that goes bump in the night.

gratitude and grace

2008-06-16T20:13:00.020+10:00

It's been cold and rainy and windy these last few days. Finally weather that warrants a coat and thick scarf and a hat. It's also best when you're indoors, even better when you can sleep or you're with friends.

Saturday I just slept and pottered and slept a bit more. Sunday was a City Writing Day, except we had it at The Sweet Spot at The Spot. Ben came too and we ate yummy cakes and all tried to harness the writing bug (it's a very tiny bug with a very tiny harness...). I just wasn't in the mood to write, even though I had been looking forward to hanging out with my fellow writerly friends for a couple of months. My head was cloudy and sad, and try as I might I couldn't think of anything I wanted to write. I did manage to get some stuff down; it was just writing for writing's sake, but sometimes that is much better than a blank page.

Karen wins at boxing...or was it baseball?

Then we got Thai takeaway and went back to the Uns' place to eat and play Wii. I think I get as much fun watching people play Wii as actually playing it myself. We laughed a lot, which was much needed by all. Though by the end of the afternoon I was getting a little weary. M came home from visiting her parents, so the Beilzes and I took our leave and headed out into the rainy afternoon.

We went to church, and it was another great Kurt sermon about Paul and his Christian journey in Acts. He started off with the startling comparison between Paul and a modern-day suicide bomber, saying that to contemporary Australians there probably wouldn't seem to be much difference between the two. However a suicide bomber is ready to die so that others will die; Paul was ready to die to bring others life in Jesus. The key thing was Paul's attitude; he had already gone to Jerusalem expecting death, so fearlessly proclaimed Christ because after all, to Paul "to live is Christ, to die is gain". Kurt said that although we aren't facing death like that, are we willing to die to our ambition, life goals, comfort, security for the sake of the gospel? If we're struggling to live for Jesus, maybe it's because we still think we have life apart from Jesus. But the fact is, we don't.

I've heard a few talks like this recently and it really does challenge me, especially in the area of work. I complain and gripe about work and the money and all those standard bitching and moaning things, but really what am I complaining about? If I am committed to the spread of the gospel, and am serious about the fact that my job contributes to that, then I should be honoured to work where I do. And I am.

the AFES staff at conference last week

I am grateful to work in a place where we get to open the Bible together and study it every day. I am grateful to work with colleagues who are constantly striving to be more godly. I am grateful to have the chance to think about living as a Christian as part of my job, and to write about those things, to encourage others. That doesn't mean the work is going to be easy, in fact, it probably means the exact opposite. And we're still a bunch of sinful humans messing things up and getting frustrated and irritated with one another, getting tired and stressed, not coping with life generally. But I guess the difference is that because we are trying to be more godly, and trying to remember that we are serving Christ in our work, we apologise, we seek resolution, we try harder next time. So I shouldn't be discouraged by work, but I should be encouraged, and should go to it gladly.

Some days that's easier to do than others. But with God's grace, I struggle on.

safety net

2008-06-14T09:03:00.004+10:00

On one level the fact that I've already spent over $1000 on medical bills in six months this year is kind of upsetting. But one great thing is that I've finally reached the Medicare Safety Net threshold. This means that now although I'll still need to pay the $80 and $110 bills, I get all but $8.40 back from my Medicare claim. Woohoo! Yay for Medicare!

joy!

2008-06-13T11:07:00.004+10:00

Karen went to a Shaun Tan reading/signing at Kinokuniya last night. She texted me a photo of him drawing last night. Then this morning she brought me back my copy of tales from outer suburbia with this on the inside:

If you can't quite see it, he's drawn a flower with a sign next to it saying 'for Bec'...oh okay, here's a close up:

Thanks K! You made my day!

Lollipop

2008-06-13T09:53:00.002+10:00

Just a respite from all my doom and gloominess, a question for you: in school zones, when there is a lollipop man/woman helping the children cross the road, are they also supposed to help adults cross the road? I wonder if the lollipop man outside the French school near my house is just susceptible to the good looking and charming parents dropping their kids off; I seem to have to stop while he ushers adults across the road more often than children.

The other thing I notice about parents dropping kids off at school is that they seem to forget all the laws of the road. People pull out of parking spots and block the peak-hour traffic going both ways while they do a three-point-turn without waiting to see if anyone stops. They just stop in the middle of the road. They expect you to give way to them even when you have right of way.

Maybe I'm just crankier in the mornings.

being a depressive at staff conference part 2

2008-06-12T21:02:00.004+10:00

I wake long before my alarm, much earlier than the time I usually get up. I'm cramped and uncomfortable, so I decide to go for a walk. The air outside is sweet and cool compared to the awful dorm room, and I walk with long strides. I try to veer off onto a bush track, but it's been raining and I don't like my chances on the muddy ground, so I stick to the road.

When I get back to the site, I sit in a corner with my laptop and ipod on, trying to write, but other early morning risers keep wanting to chat to me. That's okay, I guess, though I don't feel like I have much to say. I sit with Mark and Tim for breakfast.

Grimmo gives the morning Bible talk on Philippians 3:1-16. He starts off by making poo jokes, which is kind of unexpected, but segues neatly into how the apostle Paul described everything in his life prior to knowing Christ as dung. Our translations are much too sanitised (the NIV and ESV use the word 'rubbish') but Grimmo said it was more akin to bin juice, or whatever the most revolting thing you can think of is. Before his conversion, Paul was the 'Jew of Jews' and was obsessed with keeping the law and being made right with God by doing the right thing. But after knowing Christ, he knew that was impossible, and was prepared to give all that up, his reputation and everything he had worked for, thinking only of straining towards the goal ahead of him - life in Christ.

You can’t get your life sorted out and then come back to God when you're ready. There’s nowhere else to go. All you can do is come back to Jesus and fall at his feet, and lay all the crap of your life at his feet. The three takeaway points:

Keep finding your righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ and in nothing else. (Not in achievements - it’s not about achievements but ‘have I honoured Christ?')
Forget what lies behind. There is nothing that has happened in your past that needs to define you in your relationship with God. A profoundly excellent truth!
Suffering and perseverance is part of it - but so is resurrection. As we share in his death, we will share in his resurrection. One day this body will be taken away and we will be given bodies that are fit for glory.

All very good things for me to be reminded of in my current mindset!

We have prayer groups again, then go into a couple of hours talking about SPRTE. This is our big conference at the end of the year, which this year will include students from all over the South Pacific. The logistics of it all are already wearying us!

I ditch lunch (processed meat...bleagh) and go down to Fairy Meadow to visit Stacie. I always think it's funny that Fairy Meadow sounds like such a cute sort of place but it's on the highway, with huge almost industrial buildings here and there. But Ben and Stacie's house is kind of cute. We're both feeling a bit flat and blah. Stacie puts Eli down to sleep, we just chat over lunch. It's always good to chat to Stace as you can be as blunt and honest as you want and it won't faze her because she is also blunt and honest.

I head back to the conference site. I'm getting so peopled out, making eye contact, making small talk, keeping it all together. The afternoon session is really good though. Leigh Hatcher, who is a Christian journalist and news presenter on Sky TV, gives us some media training and interview techniques. He has a warm, lyrical voice that sounds like the aural equivalent of butter menthol. He never says 'um'.

I'd seen him on Channel 7 news, but I wasn't hugely aware of him before I read his book I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. It's an easy-to-read autobiography looking specifically at the period of his life when he was struck with chronic fatigue syndrome, and how he had to work through that and ways of dealing with it and other peoples' impressions of what the illness was. I know it's not the same thing as depression but I think it does share a similar stigma. It's always helpful to see someone on the other side of something like that, looking healthy and happy and helping people. I feel fairly confident I'm going to come through this somehow, and I will be fully functioning again one day. I hope I never take good health for granted, if I ever get it back.

I chat to Mark and Keith and Cathy over dinner and then Cheryl and I drive home. Ahh, my own bed! My own hot shower! My own block of chocolate! It's good to be home.

being a depressive at staff conference

2008-06-12T13:07:00.000+10:00

I really didn’t want to come. I’ve been in the middle of a depressive period, black and tear-filled and unassailably glum. I’d look in the mirror at myself and think, “who could care for that fat, ugly, unmotivated lump?” and that would just reinforce the negative thinking with the force of a fist slamming into me. I cried the night before coming, desperate to just hide, to not do anything, to just be immobile and uncontactable and quiet. To not have to talk to anyone. I packed my bag with reluctance, and slept.

I put on my bright face as I leave the house, gear my tongue ready for conversation, pick up my colleagues and we are away. I chat without any problem, we listen to music, I make light. But it’s like holding together a broken vase with sticky tape; I fear that at any moment the pieces could start to fall away.

We arrive and people are glad to see us, of course they are. We go into prayer groups and I’m asked to introduce myself to those who don’t know me and to talk about how I became a Christian. I don’t shy from that sort of conversation, and my goal is to always be as honest and open as I can be about the trials I’ve been through, but also God’s great grace in saving me and keeping me safe through the difficult times. It’s good to be reminded of those things as I speak. The girls in my group pray for me, loving, earnest and heartfelt prayers that feel like a balm to my cracked soul.

The day’s sessions are filled mostly with admin and policy talks. I try to concentrate, but feel my attention slipping. During free time I get in the car and do what I do every year, go in search of decent coffee. It takes me a while to find a place that’s open and decent, but I don’t mind. The drive down to Thirroul along the Sea Cliff Bridge is one I don’t tire of, the majesty and contrasts of creation on all sides, the vastness of the ocean and the hugeness of the sky. I have my coffee and cake, then go and sit up at the Bald Hill Lookout. The sea is a silver sheet of rippling satin, and it is quiet up there.

I catch up with J over dinner and we have a honest heart-to-heart about the things we’re dealing with. I talk to her and T about what depression looks like for me, what it’s like when I can’t stop crying, when I can’t get out of bed, when I have to force myself to just get out the door in the morning, when I’m exhausted and just sad about everything. J prays for me.

It’s a night off but there aren’t really any options I feel like joining (State of Origin? No thanks), so I go to bed early, before everyone else gets there so at least I’ll have a few hours of lying down without worrying about making noise or whatever. I listen to a talk on my ipod and drift in and out. The room smells like toilet cleaner. It’s stuffy and full of peoples’ stuff. My bed isn’t comfortable, it’s like sleeping on a couch when you fall between the cracks of the cushions. I hate staying in dorms like this but I’m glad I brought my own pillow and can curl up like a caterpillar in my sleeping bag. I eventually go to sleep when the others get to bed and settle down.

DestructoCat

2008-06-10T17:49:00.003+10:00

Things my cat has eaten or ruined:

My amigurumi owls
The strap off my Von Troska top
A red ribbon (this was no great loss)
My fingerless woolen writing gloves

Damn thing. It doesn't seem to matter whether I leave things lying around or put them away, she somehow finds a way to destroy whatever she can. It just makes the end of a blah kind of day worse when you come home and discover your not-especially-attractive-but-very-useful Mimco gloves lying on the ground in the middle of your room, each of them chewed and frayed around the edges. That cat deserves the sore belly she's going to have from eating all that wool.

Twisted, part 3

2008-06-09T17:25:00.002+10:00

We don't get lost this morning, but we're running late. This last day of TWIST is only a half day and they've switched the order of things around, so we start with a workshop. I'm in Song Leading Advanced with the lovely Julie Morrow. It's a great group that seems to get along well and share ideas easily, and Julie is a welcoming and friendly leader. We all get lots of tips and encouragement about why and how we lead the congregation in singing, and ideas on how to prepare and write meaningful introductions, rather than just saying "Okay now we're going to sing, please stand."

It's another chilly, damp day, but not raining as much as yesterday. We have morning tea chatting to Jocelyn, who used to work for AFES, then we go and sit in the third row again for the last session.

Dominic's talk is on 1 Corinthians 14:26-40. He talks about orderly worship, the 'weighing of prophecy', and how we're expected to consider and weigh up the teaching we receive, not just wholeheartedly accept everything that is said from the front. But even this weighing up needs to be done with thoughtfulness and in an orderly, self-controlled manner (so not everyone carrying on and talking over the top of one another).

This then leads into the tricky bit of the passage about women staying silent in church. "Er...I think I'm out of time!" he jokes. But I think he handles this subject really gently and with love, and gives clear examples that illustrate his point. He outlines what stances people generally take on the subject, and then gives us his opinion, that it's a particular word for married women (although there are implications for other women too), and it's certainly not suggesting that women are to be silent in church at all times, in every situation. It's more talking about the time at the end of the meeting when the 'prophecy' is weighed, and saying that it is important for the unity of marriage to be upheld in public, so a wife shouldn't be contradicting her husband in front of everyone. It's respecting the order of Christian marriage. It isn't saying that women shouldn't have an opinion or shouldn't express it, but it's saying that for the thoughtfulness and order that was mentioned earlier, wives need to respect that their husbands represent the head of their households in public. He uses himself and his wife as an example, saying, "If I spoke in public and then my wife piped up and said 'I completely disagree', that not only undermines me but it puts the marriage on the line in public too."

This is a complicated and emotive issue, and it's hard to condense it down into one blog post without the context of Dominic's whole talk. So if you're interested in what he had to say, I'd highly recommend getting the TWIST talks on CD if/when they go onsale from Emu.

One thing I find interesting is when he says that it's the world that has shifted its perspective, not the Bible, not God. God's word hasn't changed but society has, so to our 'modern', post-feminist sensibilities, a passage like this seems oppressive and archaic. But Dominic stresses that the Bible's teaching on gender matters, that this is God's instruction to us, and as Paul says, if you overthrow the Bible's teaching on gender, you will be ignored. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything worse than being ignored by God. The very thought of it makes me quail.

He ends his series of talks with an exhortation to us to retain the theological heart of our music worship, but to remember that we are not just brains, we are bodies too, and we require an emotional response as well as an intellectual one. This is something that is certainly lacking in many Anglican churches, and something we touched on in the song leading workshop too, that people aren't engaged. As music leaders we need to engage peoples' hearts and minds and prompt them to respond to God's word in their lives.

After the talk, the kids who've been at the kids' programme get up the front and sing a song. You can tell that they're kids of musical parents because they dance and sing and are right into it (although there is always one kid who seems to stand front and center with no idea what's going on, just staring into the middle distance).

We close with a couple more rousing songs, and then it's all over for another year. Mum and I decide not to hang around for the sandwiches and head home for leftovers of delicious beef stew. Then I do some washing and nap. And that's the end of the long weekend! Lots to think about.

Twisted part 2

2008-06-08T17:38:00.005+10:00

I'm really not concentrating this morning as we drive to TWIST for day 2. In fact, I'm just thinking about the pleasant vanilla scent of Tic Tacs as you pop them into your mouth (as I had just done) when we sail on past the Pennant Hills Road exit. "Was I supposed to get off there?" "Yeah." "Oh." After a few turns around, we eventually get back to the Kings School and head up to the main hall, hearing the strains of music from within.

The Kings School is absolutely massive (set on over 300 acres of land, according to their website). Coming from a small, inner-city school that (at the time) was located in an ex-factory, it's pretty eye-popping to wander around this exclusive, wealthy boys' school with so many facilities. In fact, even though there are no boys from the school around on the weekend, it feels weird being a girl at a boys' school. Things like having to use the boys' toilets and being overwhelmed by the persistent smell of urine in the grim toilet block; you can just picture some tiny boy being victimised at lunch time by those much bigger than him (I eventually found nicer 'visitors' toilets in the newer buildings). Or the posters and displays of inspirational men throughout history in the Centre for Learning and Leadership. Or the crude representations of male anatomy graffitied on classroom chairs and tables - I guess it goes to show that the old adage is true, boys will be boys, no matter where they go to school.

We learn a couple of new songs again (I especially like one of Mark Peterson's new ones that we did at NTE last year, The day will come (though I'm not sure I like the arrangement of it on Come Hear the Angels Sing, the latest Emu album)). One of the key ideas behind this year's conference is 'The Naked Church', borrowing the idea from Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef. Basically they're saying that we have such wonderful raw 'ingredients' that this year's TWIST is designed to strip it all back, and rather than just presenting us with the finished product, they show us different ways of putting things together to create a delicious, nourishing 'meal'. So, for example, they played In His Image and each verse played it in a different style just to show us how easy it was to completely change the feel of a song.

But the one I really enjoy is when we sing Crown Him with Many Crowns with the same melody and words as always, but with a really upbeat rock feel. It gives what is usually a very solemn, stately song an injection of energy and vibrancy that has everyone dancing around. It just shows you don't have to do songs the same way each time, that there is a place for doing the traditional hymns in a traditional style, but also for changing things up a bit.

Dominic's talk builds well on yesterday's. I've got written at the top of my page "Before you think about the volume of the guitar, you need to think about the heart of the band", which I think is a good summary of yesterday's talk! Today's passage (1 Cor 14:1-25) is mostly about gifts of prophecy and speaking in tongues. Dominic said that although some churches make it a very public thing, speaking in tongues is a private form of communication with God that does nothing to help those who are listening because it is unintelligible. It's especially alienating to the visitor or outsider. So similarly, with music and the way we structure our church services, we need to be mindful of whether we are serving people, whether we are playing music to build others up, or whether we're doing it to make ourselves look good. He said, "I don't see that there's any place in church for a Latin chant." (basically because nobody speaks Latin, so what help would it be to get people to sing something they can't understand) "Sure, you might have the best Latin chant ever...sing it at home! Don't bring it to church!"

After morning tea, there's a special concert for kids' music, with lots of kids and parents who have come especially for it. Ben Pakula plays first, and totally rocks out with songs from his excellent new album, A Very Special Tent. This is a Christian kids' album for kids who aren't really into the...gentler kinds of kids music. This is for kids (and maybe parents) who love their guitars loud. I had had the privilege of listening to some of the album last week when we went to Ben and Stacie's for lunch, but it's just as good on second and third listenings (one of my favourite lyrics of Ben's is "Thank you God for lollies! (and for giving me a good toothbrush").

After Ben's bit was the J is for Jesus concert. It's a bit like the Christian version of the Wiggles or Hi-5 (though I should be loathe to compare anyone to Hi-5, I dislike them so) - the little kids absolutely love it. They've all heard the CD so many times they know all the songs and the bits when they're supposed to sing really loud. Sarah, Julie and Matt muck around and ham it up, showing a completely different side to themselves than the one they display when they lead the adult singing.

We head outside for lunch. The weather is totally opposite to yesterday; it's cold and drizzly. But we find a step under an awning and eat our sandwiches. Then it's off to workshops. I'm in Sound Recording, led by Rob Smith. He's friendly and warm and I learn a couple of tips and tricks about amateur recording, though I realise that I have learned quite a lot already by just teaching myself how to use GarageBand. It's much more helpful than yesterday's seminar, though, and inspires me with the possibilities of what I can do with my dinky little home set-up. Though I think I'm actually going to have to buy a proper microphone one of these days.

There is a huge rainbow arcing over the campus as I walk back to the car. Mum joins me from her songleading workshop and we head home. I briefly toss up going to church, but although I'm not quite as tired as yesterday, I realise I just need to get inside and have a rest. Maybe I'll go and have a hot bath.

Twisted

2008-06-07T21:25:00.005+10:00

For a mother's day present I bought mum a ticket to TWIST. We have both been heavily involved in music ministry for a number of years. She is still carrying the can at St Martin's, and I had to have a long break when I moved to Wild Street as I was quite burned out. I thought TWIST would be a good thing to go to, as when we've been in the past it has really energised us and re-motivated us, and refocused our vision on why we do music at church. It's a pretty good thing to do with our long weekend too (although just blobbing out would have been pleasant too, but I can do that on a regular weekend).

We get up early and head off to Parramatta and the Kings School. I decide to take all the toll roads because it's less hassle and also I don't have to think too much about how to get where we're going. It's quick and there's hardly any traffic.

We hang around in the quad at the Kings School after we register, soaking up the delicious sun that has been hiding behind sopping rainclouds for the last week. Everyone blinks sleepily into the morning light; I don't think musos on the whole are made to be awake before midday.

After a while, we shuffle into the chilly auditorium, and grab a seat in the third row centre. With about four minutes to go, a giant projection of a clock starts counting down on the screen while the band wanders onstage and starts getting ready to play. The countdown is oddly mesmerising. And the exact moment it hits zero, the band launches into Hallelujah to the King of Kings.

Any sleepiness is gone, a huge grin breaks out on my face, which is reflected back in the faces of the singers as we just exult in singing praises to our great God. I've always loved this song sung congregationally, since the first time I sang it at TWIST a number of years ago. It has such a great sense of momentum and when you sing it with hundreds of people you really do get a sense of that heavenly praise. I'm excited to sing again in a room full of musicians and music-minded people who are full-voiced and joyous.

The irrepressible Jodie McNeill is the MC as always, and his energy and enthusiasm is infectious. He introduces Dominic Steele, this year's speaker, with a game of 'Twist and Specks', asking Dominic to sing tunes to some well-known Emu songs using the words from this year's conference booklet (Dominic gratefully hands the duty over to one of the band members instead, who makes a good job of it!).

We sing more songs, some good new ones that I imagine will be popping up in churches all over the place fairly soon. That's the thing I like about TWIST - there is so much singing! Normally at conferences you get a couple of songs at the beginning, a couple in the middle and one at the end, but at TWIST you sing two or three songs in a row after each segment from the front.

Dominic preaches on 1 Corinthians 12-13. He reminds us that there is no particular gift that marks you out as a 'spirit person', but the marker is whether or not Jesus is Lord of your life. We need to remember that being a musician in church is no more important than being a dish washer - it isn't the task that is the gift so much as the faithfulness that means you turn up week after week to serve others. Each member of the church has different gifts and each one is called to use those gifts to build up the body (that is, the church) so that it can proclaim Christ. Every gift is needed, valued and wanted.

The key comes in chapter 13, when Paul talks about love. It's a passage that's famously used at weddings, but Dominic pleaded with us not to use it: "In context, it's actually a stinging rebuke from Paul, saying 'this is what you aren't'! Not really something you want to say at your wedding!" But the idea that comes out of it is that our service should be an act of love for others, not an act of self-promotion or false humility. Love is other-person centred, and this must be shown in the way we do everything in church, including music, because ultimately it is all for the glorification of God.

More singing, then morning tea, then we split into two large groups for a 'thinktank' session. I go to the one on creativity in music ministry, and mum goes to one on 'why people don't sing in church'. We meet up for lunch in the quad and chat about what we'd learned in our sessions.

After lunch is the first of our workshop sessions for the weekend. I had chosen 'Song Leading Advanced - Harmony'. Perhaps I misinterpreted the title; I assumed that it would be a reasonably advanced group. But when Janelle, the leader says at the beginning "If you're like me and can hear harmony almost as soon as you've learned a song, you might want to leave now and find another group because this is going to be pretty basic", my heart sinks and I realise that 'advanced' means the next stage up from singing the melody as a songleader, not 'advanced harmony'. But I'm sitting in the front row, she is one of our AFES Staffworker wives, and we had been told we weren't allowed to swap workshops, so I don't feel like I can leave.

I'm fairly bored for most of the session, especially the musicianship stuff. But if anything it makes me realise how much of my musicality is intuitive and innate. When did I learn this stuff? I mean, yes, I did AMEB piano and flute throughout high school, and learned jazz piano at uni, but I don't remember ever actively learning how to sing or create harmonies. I could just hear them. I just knew them. Maybe it was because my mum had always sung to me, and we sang together from when I was a little kid. I think I definitely have a good ear for it, much more than looking at a chord chart and being able to see patterns and possibilities there. In fact, my piano and flute improvisation was always a bit lacklustre because I could never make the sounds in my head translate into the instruments. But with singing, it just came out how I wanted it to sound, usually.

I realise I am very blessed with that!

We head home and are both exhausted and starving by the time we walk in the door. We have pizza for dinner, I sew a little bit, the cat is happy to sit in front of the heater with us, and all is well with the world. Now to bed, so I have the energy for TWIST Day Two!

Grey

2008-06-04T13:41:00.004+10:00

Reasons why I hate Anzac Parade, Kingsford:

the people who stand in the street and scream obscenities at one another
the prostitutes who push past you as they hurry up to the brothel
the clumps of people who stand at the bus stop and block the entire footpath and get annoyed with you when you try to navigate a path through the crowd
the staff at the IGA who are rude and unhelpful and make you feel like an idiot for insisting that they charge you $2.70 for the packet of biscuits, as was marked on the shelf. "That ticket was out of date," huffs the manager. "But I'll give it to you for that price anyway."
the whole feeling that it's just a corridor on the way to somewhere else
the general air of grey-faced malaise and misery mixed with an aggressive sense of entitlement

But maybe it's just my mood today. I can't tell. The whole place makes me think of the grey town and its bus stop in CS Lewis' The Great Divorce.

over already

2008-06-01T20:39:00.004+10:00

My, but weekends go by so quickly.

Saturday morning I had breakfast at Mickey's in Paddington. It was a delicious stack of pancakes with stewed rhubarb and apple. Karen joined me and then we went to see the Phantasia show at the Australian Centre for Photography. It's just a small show but really good (from the promo blurb: "Vivid, complex and magical, the works in this exhibition abandon the traditional realm of the photographic - the real world - to conjure images of the fantastical"). To the left is one of my favourite images, from Alexia Sinclair's series, Regal Twelve. The exhibition is on until next Saturday June 7; if you're in the area it's well worth checking out.

Then we drove down to Wollongong, chatting about notions of creativity and listening to music. Ben B met us down there and we all had lunch at Ben and Stacie's. As well as catching up with them, we were there to meet their five-week-old son, Eli. He was very sweet, even though he was unsettled with some digestive problems. It was so good to see them. Ben P played his new album for us too, of metal-influenced Christian kids' rock - it was awesome.

I drove home on my own and sang at the top of my lungs, always a good thing to do when you have the opportunity. Mum and I had a delicious, nourishing stew for dinner and finished Gilmore Girls season 7.

I slept til about 12.00 today. I had planned to get up and go to Customs House to write, or even just get in the garden and do a few things, but I just was wiped out and still melancholy so let myself sleep. The cat came and kept me company, which is always nice. I had some errandy things to do, after which mum took me to the city for yum cha and I ended up buying some clothes and boots, which was unexpected (can never find good clothes or shoes when I am purposely looking for them, but if I have no particular plans I will often make some good finds). I also bought Shaun Tan's new book 'tales from outer suburbia' and although I've only read a little bit, it's typically beautiful and whimsical (the guy who sold it to me at Dymocks barely looked at me until he noticed what I was buying, then we had a collective moment of gushing over Tan's work and how there needs to be more whimsy in the world. He gave me a genuinely warm smile when he handed the book back to me).

Church tonight was good too, and I actually stuck around for dinner afterwards, something I've been meaning to do more regularly. I tend to just scurry away after church, usually because I'm tired and need to get home. But Karen's started coming to Wild St, and as dinner was in the church hall, it was easy just to hang around and continue chatting over yummy pasta and garlic bread.

And now the weekend's almost over. Again. It's never long enough.

now is the winter of our discontent

2008-05-30T22:27:00.006+10:00

I never know how to write about being a single Christian woman without it sounding like a big whinge. And some people I think find it a bit too personal, especially talking about this stuff on something as public as a blog. But I think it's something worth writing about honestly because it's something I and many of my peers struggle with, and there must be some value in expressing that. Surely. (At least it can help the praying types to know what to pray for when they want to pray for me!)

Generally, I am quite happy with the way things are, I'm pretty content. I'm reasonably independent, I'm capable, I have a good job, I live in a lovely place, I have lots of wonderful friends and family and I'm valued for who I am as a person. But it seems that when I acknowledge aloud that I'm content, that's usually when the doubt creeps in and I start to feel most discontent and wonder why it is that I'm in this situation. I start to think about past mistakes and wonder whether I've screwed things up irreparably. I start to feel frustrated about who I am and what I have and all I can think about is what I haven't got and how I'm getting older and what if it gets to a point where it's all 'too late'?

Of course I am well aware of the pitfalls, sadnesses and loneliness within marriages at times, even when they're good ones. And I know parenthood is a tough road. I don't for one minute think that being a wife or mother would instantly fulfil me or make me eternally joyful or stop me being sick or suddenly cure my depression. And yet...

It's not so much the grand passion and romance that I start to dream about, but little things that speak of a deeper commitment and intimacy. Things borne of friendship and comfort and familiarity and wonder. I don't dream of a Broadway romance by any means, but there is something in Eliza Doolittle's simple wish - "Someone's head resting on my knee / warm and tender as he can be / who takes good care of me / oh wouldn't it be luverly?"

It's such a test of my faith, because I have to trust God that he's got a purpose for me that may involve a husband and a family one day...or it may not. And yet when I'm feeling low, I feel like wailing, "But why can't I have those things? What's wrong with me? I'm great with kids, aren't I? I'd be a great wife! Isn't this what I was made for?"

So. Please pray for me. Pray that I would remember that God has forgiven me all my past mistakes (and all my future ones too!). Pray that I would be grateful for what he has generously given me and not constantly wishing for something else, that I would find true contentment in him. Pray that I would trust him and be patient.

blah

2008-05-29T15:22:00.003+10:00

Yes I broke my blog. No I haven't got the energy to fix it right now. Yes I am using a random template until I can fix it. Grah.

Addendum:
Oh also, you might have noticed a name change that just sort of slid in quietly a while ago. Hopefully one day soon I will build a proper site at www.theprocrastinatrix.com that will have bits of my writing and photography and other cool things. But in the meantime, The Laundrette is dead. Long live the Procrastinatrix. (I was always confused as a child when I'd hear in movies and the like "The king is dead. Long live the king!" Wait...didn't you just say he was dead? What is this, some kind of zombie king?)

braiiins

2008-05-28T22:18:00.002+10:00

This is what I look like on the inside.

So I realised I hadn't updated people on the situation with my head and some are wondering whether I'm okay. Well, yeah kind of and no not really. Yeah I'm fine in that although the 'artefact' in my brain is still there, it hasn't changed or grown or made me telekinetic, so that's good. And no, I'm not okay in that I still have chronic headaches that seem to be almost constant now, occasionally migrainey but usually just thrumming away in the background. The specialist is sending me off to a neurologist "just to be sure" that the artefact isn't anything serious (I may have had it all my life, apparently, but it's better to be sure).

In the meantime, I'm continuing with the acupuncture twice a week which does seem to be helping alleviate some of the symptoms in the short term, at least. I've also started counselling again and we're working on decreasing my stress / adrenalin levels. Apparently I have been running on a high adrenalin level constantly for some time now, which isn't a healthy way to live (and probably has something to do with the headaches). It would be very nice if I didn't have to resort to drugs to get a full night's sleep, but it does become tempting when you wake up every night at 3am with a pounding head.

Anyway, that's where I'm at! I'll update you when I know more.

just put it down

2008-05-25T10:41:00.003+10:00

This morning I was sitting on the back step in the sun, watching the cat prowl around the half-weeded garden. It was one of those really lovely, simple, satisfying moments. My first thought was, "We're so lucky to live here", which I immediately corrected to "We're so blessed". I'm not equating luck with blessings by any means; rather, I am acknowledging that all these good things we have don't just happen to us by chance, or by anything that we have maneuvered, but they are given to us by a loving and generous God.

Then I went inside to have my breakfast, and unwrapped the Sunday paper.

If there was ever a thing that showed up the contrast between the Christian life and what the world has to offer, it is the lifestyle section of the Sun-Herald. Maybe there are only some of us who are susceptible to this, but I find the rare occasions when I flick through the 'S' supplement of the Sun-Herald leave me feeling dissatisfied, feeling bad about myself, and with a strange urge to go shopping.

I ate my porridge and drank my coffee, idly scanning over photos of celebrities and party people, an article defending the use of swearing in everyday conversation, and a profile on Angelina Jolie, the "mighty-hearted actress" who "finds there is no rest for a beautiful, wanted woman". But the thing that finally made me shove the paper away was the box titled, "Don a dog tag to win in the style stakes", which offered solutions for both the 'filthy rich' and 'dirt poor' fashion conscious who think wearing a little metal disc on a chain around their necks will make them the envy of all. The filthy rich option was an Emporio Armani tag for a cool $399 and the dirt poor? Well thank goodness that those people who are having trouble paying the bills and buying enough nutritious food will be able to be cutting edge for only $119 - what a bargain for a silly little bit of metal with some brand's logo stamped on it.

(I was only up to page 11 of a 32-page supplement. Thank goodness I didn't feel compelled to read right to the end, or this rant might have been a lot longer!)

I'll be better served going back outside and finishing off my gardening job from yesterday, and thinking more about the many blessings God has given me, which don't involve finding my identity in clothing and accessories. Maybe the newspaper will make a good base for one of my veggie beds...

2008-05-21T09:43:00.002+10:00

I made a book!

No, not that book. After coming back from overseas, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to use Blurb, which I've wanted to try out for ages. You download their very easy-to-use software, you can start from scratch or use one of their great templates, if you have a blog you can 'slurp' your blog straight into the template - and that's what I did. I also fiddled around adding my photos from Flickr and then ordered it! Easy.

If I was going to do it again, I would probably be a bit more careful with it. I didn't alter any of the fonts and (shame!) didn't do a close enough proofread so there are some glitches in the transfer from blog to book that I should have tidied up. But all in all, it's a wonderful memento of my trip and so much more interesting than a photo album!

I think you can look at a preview of it if you click the link below...you could even order it if you were that way inclined (that isn't a hint, by the way).

Travelling Hop...

the record of a ho...

By Rebecca Jee

Book Preview

assiette

2008-05-20T23:06:00.005+10:00

I am so full. Had dinner this evening with mum and Nic at the wonderful Restaurant Assiette in Surry Hills, near Central. Well worth a visit; a beautifully simple room, quiet and not ostentatious, with friendly, knowledgeable, yet unobtrusive staff. We had the degustation menu, tiny portions of marvellous delights.

Standouts were little touches like the tender coriander on the oyster (yes, I had an oyster!), the wasabi-infused caviar on the sashimi, the parmesan ice cream on the risotto (sounds strange, but it was divine), and the sliver of chocolate mousse cake. We also drank a delicious 2004 Moss Wood cabernet. Suffice it to say, I'm very fortunate to have a brother who loves to treat us to wonderful meals because I couldn't eat like this all the time! It would be so easy to become jaded as a food critic I think, but when you only dine like this once every so often, the meal becomes a celebration in itself, something to be savoured and remembered.

Restaurant Assiette Degustation Menu

Seasonal oyster with Vietnamese dressing and baby coriander

Tuna, cucumber and avocado ‘sushi’ sashimi with wasabi-infused caviar

Carpaccio of wagyu beef with baby beetroot, port jelly, horseradish and shoestring potatoes

Pan fried scallop with onion bhaji, curried cauliflower puree and mint yoghurt

Mushroom and asparagus risotto with parmesan ice cream and parmesan crisps

Crispy skin barramundi with parsnip, smoked eel, caponata and sauce matelote

Veal fillet and shank with spiced pumpkin, almonds and gnocchi

Selected cheese with rosemary lavosh

Vanilla custard with spiced fruit compote

Chocolate mousse cake with brownie and prune Armagnac ice cream (below)

I've got to get better at surreptitious food photography with my mobile phone camera.

beware the ups

2008-05-19T16:01:00.003+10:00

...for there is always a down.

I think with any sort of condition you have your good days and your bad days. Sometimes the goods are very good, which invariably means the low that balances it out will be very low. The thing that I'm aiming for is to make the distance between the peaks and troughs shrink, so that yes, there will be bad days as well as good, but I won't swing so wildly in between the two.

On Saturday, as I mentioned in the last post, I had Word by Word. It was a great day, hearing Guan's talk on reviews and reviewing, having lunch at Gourmet Pizza Kitchen and then doing some good writing and workshopping on Undragon Stories. Guan and I then went to see Iron Man - just as awesome the second time around, and I'm starting to think Robert Downey Jr might just be the perfect comic-book hero actor. And it was just such a nourishing day, with lots of creativity, time with friends, and a general, all-round positivity that was hard to beat.

On Sunday, I went along as moral support for mum to hear a minister they might be nominating for St Martin's. It's an unpleasant job, being a nominator; you have the weight of the church on your shoulders, you have to be objective, but you also just want to pick someone so your church isn't floundering without a leader. And then there's the awkwardness of turning up to a church (especially a tiny one like the one we went to yesterday) where it's obvious you're not a member of the congregation and people wonder what you're doing there.

The Anglican system isn't perfect by any means, and it's like a nasty game of tag, where you poach someone's minister and then they have to go through the process to poach someone else's minister, etc, etc. The diocese hasn't been overly helpful either; they don't give the nominators any help with working out who is eligible to be approached (generally someone who has been in their current church for at least five years), and don't give any recommendations, but are quick to tell them 'no' when the nominators suggest people. Why they can't just say 'don't consider these people' in the first place, I don't know. And surely the diocese would be more familiar with which ministers would be good fits for which parish, and be able to give suggestions. Maybe it's different in a more high-profile church, but for a smallish, struggling church like St Martin's, I would think they would need just as much help as some of the big guns. But anyway.

So we drove out to this church, about an hour from where we live, and mum had printed out directions from WhereIs that seemed pretty straightforward. But even though we followed them to the letter, we think there was either a mistake or we majorly misinterpreted one of the directions because we got lost. Thankfully mum has a pretty decent sense of direction (because I don't), and we eventually found our way to the church. We were about 25 minutes late, so missed the beginning of the sermon, but caught most of it. It was quite interesting, actually, part of a series about Catholicism, and looking at the whole Mary issue. We had communion, which was also good as I have missed the (infrequent) communion service at Wild St. Then after a brief chat with the minister and his wife (both very friendly), we left pretty much straight away so we wouldn't have that awkward thing of having to answer questions as to why we were there. It felt odd.

We went on to Berrima for lunch, and I bought some more fat quarters for my new quilt at the lovely patchwork shop there. But a nasty headache had crept in and by the time we headed home it was full blown. I almost fell asleep driving at 110km/hour on the freeway - very scary! - so mum took over. Then the car almost overheated so we had to stop and let the engine cool down for a while. Thankfully we got home, and we praised God for keeping us safe.

I wanted to go to church but by that time I just had to lie down in a dark room. We had dinner and watched Gilmore Girls and then I just had to call it quits, couldn't even keep my eyes open. Today hasn't been much better, I've been in bed, migrainey and queasy all day. Had a brief jaunt out to North Sydney to pick up my MRI scans (and am very grateful to Guan for driving me), and am now horizontal again with my loving cat curled up beside me.

I wonder if two very full days was too much for me. Partly I think it's because I've had a few days in a row where I've been feeling good and positive, I therefore started being more active again, and maybe I just tried to do too much while forgetting that there would be an energy crash coming sooner or later. Guh. Bring on those resurrection bodies, I say!

falling through the cracks

2008-05-18T18:45:00.002+10:00

I haven't read any of Debra Adelaide's books, but I was taken by an interview with her in this week's Spectrum, where she talks about the process of writing her latest book, The Household Guide to Dying. This seems to underline the point I made at last year's Faithful Writer* about how important time, space and support are to creativity and writing.

...The Household Guide To Dying must have been forming unconsciously for years. By the time she embarked on the novel in 2003, her marriage had ended and she was raising three children - Joe, now 18, Ellen, 15, and Callan, 10 - in south-west Sydney while working as a book reviewer and part-time creative writing teacher. That year she scored a full-time lecturer's position at the University of Technology, Sydney. Then Callan developed leukemia.
Again Adelaide is adamant that her novel is not about her son's illness. However, two years of treatment, worry and work left her little time to write. Callan recovered but Adelaide was not sure if her novel would. "I was afraid to look at it because I thought, how can I continue writing a flippant novel about dying when my own son's been suffering with leukemia? I had to make a decision. So I forced myself to open it one day and I found I could go on with it."

A small research grant enabled Adelaide to offload some of her teaching last year and meet a self-imposed deadline. "I felt convinced that a book I'd written to amuse myself in snatched time in a little corner of my bedroom - a novel I had to fit into the cracks of my life - couldn't possibly work." When she handed it over to her agent, Lyn Tranter, she said, "You'll probably tell me to go away and give it a decent burial." Tranter, however, decided to auction the book.

I love that phrase "a novel I had to fit into the cracks of my life"; that's exactly what it feels like writing my book Undragon Stories. I want to give it more time and space, but feel like my life is so stretched most of the time, there's nowhere to put it.

Yet every so often I get a little burst of enthusiasm about the book, like yesterday when I workshopped a very small scene I wrote a few weeks ago and felt greatly encouraged by my fellow Word-By-Word writers. I've checked out a few grants here and there, because it would be so wonderful to be able to buy a slab of time that I could use to finish the book. But most of the big ones, even if you're applying for the new or 'emerging' writers grants, you have to have a certain number of things already published. I've had a few things published, but not nearly enough. So how do you prioritise? Is it more important to work hard on a book to get it finished, or to work on shorter pieces you can get published in journals so you can apply for the money to allow you to work hard on the book to get it finished?

At this point, just writing at all is a victory, and I'm happy to claim it.

* by the way, this year's Faithful Writer conference is coming up on August 2. The keynote speaker is Mark Tredinnick, he of The Little Red Writing Book fame. There will be writing time, workshop time, and some great seminars (Karen and I are running a seminar on Writers and Editors, but we both want to go and hear the others too!). Along with Mark Tredinnick and Greg Clarke, I'll be reading some of my work at the end of the day. You should come along - register now if you haven't already!

TGIF

2008-05-16T22:41:00.004+10:00

I am so glad it's Friday. It's been quite a big week actually.

Work was a bit up-and-down for me, with a lot of pressure and the initial freak-out of how I was going to deal with all that pressure. I think I've managed to get my head above it and work out how to move through it all without imploding. Have actually managed to get a lot of things ticked off my list, which is immensely satisfying.
Had the MRI, get the results this weekend.
Had two acupuncture appointments for my headaches.
Saw a new counsellor for the first time. I think it's going to be very helpful; she seems lovely and the conversation flowed freely. We'll see what comes out of it. But as always, when you have to go over the story of your life and how you got to this point, it can be quite exhausting and can drag emotions out of you that you weren't expecting.

But now that we've finally gotten to Friday, I'm glad to report that I'm feeling better than I have all week, well enough to embark upon a new creative project. I've started to make this quilt which might seem a bit hokey to some of you, but I think it's going to be interesting to do. It would be a great quilt to do in a church craft group; you could do one block a month and do a study on each part of the Bible the block represents. My godmother and I were thinking of starting a quilting group for Christian women in the area, but we've not managed to get in sync with our timing yet (it's mainly me and my busyness, I'm pretty sure she'd be excited to do it anytime). It might happen one day, you never know.

I've almost finished the Walls of Jericho block tonight while watching Gilmore Girls season 7 with mum. I don't have a sewing machine, so am sewing it all by hand, but I'm in no rush so it doesn't bother me. A few days ago I was in such a mire of blackness I couldn't even fathom how I would start a new project. So this is a Very Good Thing indeed!

my Wednesday

2008-05-14T20:29:00.003+10:00

The MRI was uneventful. I had it at the Mater Hospital in North Sydney this time, as they have the smallest Medicare gap of all the MRI thingos. They also play music through noise-cancelling headphones so the banging of the machine isn't so intense. I couldn't really hear the music at times, but it was kind of good to have Classic FM to focus on. The staff were very pleasant and friendly, and unlike St Vincent's I didn't have to get changed into a hospital gown. So all round it was a much better experience.

I then came home to nap for an hour, then went over to the MacBeaths' to spend some time with my goddaughter and her family. I tell you, there's no mood-lifter like trying to read a five year old and a one year old a story, and have them both decide to simultaneously blow raspberries on your stomach. A hilarious time was had by all.

I was then going to go on to Bible study but got a message from Guy saying it had been cancelled. I was quite relieved, as I am a little weary. Ooh...and now I can watch Spicks and Specks!

rut - already

2008-05-13T20:05:00.004+10:00

Ack. I hate this place that I'm in, mentally. Lots and lots of things I want to do (such as write, sing, make songs, start a new quilt, fix up the garden, write, draw, make amigurumi, photograph, build things) and absolutely no energy to do them. So I feel useless. This then leads to negative reflections such as "what's the point of doing any of it?", and then the flipside "what's the point of doing anything but creatively productive/expressive stuff?"

And I end up doing none of it.

Actually the point of it all is that I'm not too well at the moment (both health and emotion-wise), and so I shouldn't be too hard on myself. I can do little bits of things. It would be nice to have the time and space to do something big. But little bits of things will have to do. For now.

Tomorrow I go to the Mater Hospital in North Sydney for my second MRI - this time with dye injected into me so they can see things more clearly in my head. I'm not anxious about it, just tired.

some inspiration

2008-05-13T12:32:00.002+10:00

I need to collect things like this in a jar and open it to look at them when I'm floundering.

For me, that’s what creativity is - playing with found objects, reconstructing things that already exist, transforming ideas or stories I already know. It’s not about the colonisation of new territory, it’s about exploring inwards, examining your existing presumptions, squinting at the archive of experience from new angles, and hoping for some sort of revelation. What really matters is whether we as readers continue to think about the things we have read and seen long after the final page is turned.

Shaun Tan, Originality and Creativity [source]