ADRIAN!!!!!!!

Just a quick one tonight.. :)

Tonight was Drive-In night at United (youth group) and my German friends - Katrin, Kathrin and Marion - came along too! So Maija picks us all up and brings us to church where they have a movie being projected on the side of the building. They've got a popcorn maker, cotton candy maker, hot chocolate... and in front of the "screen" they have carpet all laid out so that you can sit and watch the movie. Best part was that the movie - which I had no ided coming into the night - was 'Rocky Balboa'...

I wasn't too happy about that. But once the movie got started it was pure fun. The girls had brought food, I had brought some cookies. So we just hung out, made fun of some parts and just enjoyed ourselves. It was good times.







Tomorrow the girls and I are planning on going into the city for what's called 'Riverfest'. I guess it's an event that happens every first day of spring - which is tomorrow (Sept. 1). And in the evening they have spectacular fireworks. So we're gonna go check that out tomorrow. Should be fun!!! :)

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Cordial and Vegemite

Tonight I was priveleged to go over to Maija's house for dinner. We ate tacos and nachos :) Felt just like home. Nothing crazy about the tacos. Some El Paso taco shells, meat, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese... and was even able to drink some Diet Coke! (I don't usually buy soda for myself unless I get it at the movie theatre).

Despite dinner being normal - and don't get me wrong, normal is not a bad thing... on the contrary, it's really nice - I was introduced to a few new and exciting things: Australian Cordial and Vegemite!!

Australian Cordial is a sort of concentrate that you mix with water - kool-aid if you will. The flavor that I tried tonight was "Coola". It "tastes like green" according to Maija's mom... or mum. :) It tasted like apple, melon, green. But it was good.


mmmmm.... tastes like green!!

Vegemite on the other hand.... well... watch the video below to get the full effect.


don't let the chocolately-like demeanor fool you... it DOES NOT taste like chocolate!!!

Total eclipse of the... uh... moon.

Hi Everyone!!

Sorry it's been a bit.

The rain has gone. The sun is out. And no... the flooding of the Sunshine Coast did not affect me. But thank you for your concern. :) It's getting warmer and - as strange as it sounds to be saying it at the end of August - spring is on the horizon and summer is the air.

Not a lot has happened since the rain has subsided but here are the key points:

1) Saturday I was able to sleep in, thank you Lord, but later that day - around 2pm - I had another trial for a job. This time it was at a coffee shop in the middle of the shopping centre (or mall) called Jamaica Blue. I had really been hoping to get in there for a trial as my background fares more for a coffee server than a waitress. I was scheduled to be in for only an hour, but ended up staying a little bit longer because they were super busy. Afterwards I spoke with Jan, the manager, who shared with me that her and her boyfriend were going to be going to the states in October then driving to Canada and making a big excursion throughout the states. I accidentally let it slip that I was going to be going home in November - wasn't going to tell them that. She was okay with it, but the Operation Manager, Bradley, had the final say. So I was held in suspense for a few days. Finally, yesterday I received a call from Jan saying that they would love for me to come aboard - that is, if I would promise that I would be back at the end of February. I assured her that I would be back. So I have a job!! Don't know when I start just yet, but I have had someone tell me that I will be working for them! So that's good.



2) Maria, the girl that I went with to the Women's Retreat, and I were invited to lunch at one of the women's house. Julie welcomed us both into her beautiful home Sunday afternoon after church. And I was introduced to the wonderful world of "fish and chips". I'd heard of it before, knew what it was, but had never actually partook. It was good. I'm sure I will die a few years earlier than what I would if I hadn't eaten it... but it was still good. :) I unfortunately did not take any pictures of the aforementioned cusine, but I did happen to snag some pictures of the glorious view from the deck on which we ate. It was an absolutely gorgeous day!


And Julie and her family - husband Frank and 26-year-old son Levi - were great company. They've offered to take Maria and I for a drive on the beach in their 4WD. :) That'll be exciting!

3) Tonight there was a Lunar Eclipse. And while all y'all in California have to wake up at 5am in order to experience the spectacle, I was able to watch the entire thing from my balcony at a comfortable time of 7pm, just after I ate dinner. :) I tried my best to take pictures, but they didn't turn out well. So my apologies to those that were planning on watching the eclipse vicariously through me.





4) Assignments are in full gear. I have a group project due on Friday for my Contemporary Cinema class where we have to take a foreign film (in our case, Pedro Almodovar's 'The Flower of my Secret') and prepare a film treatment of an Americanised, or Hollywoodised, version of the film. So we took the melodrama and turned it into an action film with the star-power of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jude Law, Kirstin Dunst, Benjamin Bratt and Jennifer Lopez). :) It was actually quite fun. I also have a short answer assignment due on Friday for my Australian Film class. In two weeks I need to have a draft of my research project for my Screen Aesthetics class. And I need to be thinking about topics for research projects for both Australian Film and Hollywood Film. So yeah. Yay school. I'm really happy that the semester is going by quickly - the closer home is - but the fact that it's going really fast also reeeeally scares me.... because that means that I have to get all of this done!!

Things are good.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, night I'm heading over to Maija's house again for dinner: Tacos. She said that we'll have to see if it's the same kind of tacos that I'm used to... I'll keep you posted and will take pictures if they're something completely bizarre.
Thursday will be devoted to homework.
Friday is United - Drive In. We watch a movie on a screen outside in the carpark (or parking lot). I've invited my German friends, who aren't Christians, so if you can just toss up a quick prayer for them right now that would be wonderful. Their names are Marion, Katrin and Kathrin. Just pray that they won't get scared and not come, and that when they do come that they'll want to come again, or that something - God - touches their heart in a way.
Saturday is Riverfestival and Riverfire.... I'll explain later, but it's in the city and it sounds cool.
Sunday is church.

Busy busy busy.
The days are going by fast.
But there's still a ways to go.

Miss you all!!!!

Singin' In The Rain

It has pretty much been raining for 2.5 days now and it's WONDERFUL!! I had a whole video made up to put up on my blog with footage of Australian rain and Jamie Cullum singing 'Singin' In The Rain' in the background... but for some reason my iMovie wasn't working very well and I wasn't able to export it. Basically, I'm not able to put it up. Bummer. The picture will have to suffice - although it isn't very cool cause you can't really SEE the rain, it's really only implied because of the random person holding an umbrella. But I do assure you that it is raining. And today it's been REALLY windy. It's wonderful. Finally feels like winter... when it really should be starting to feel like spring. Makes me feel like Thanksgiving or Christmas is right around the corner. But alas... it is not.

Tonight I went to Lifegroup at Maija's. It was refreshing. I really like those girls. I made cookies this afternoon to bring with me (bummer... I should have taken a picture - cause I take pictures of EVERYTHING... oh well). They were Mint Chocolate cookies - thank you Betty Crocker. Super easy and super good.

We're going to be starting a deeper look at the life of Esther - which I'm really excited about. I think because of the Women's Retreat this past weekend I'm on a big kick about the role of a Godly woman. I've never really studied it, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Maija also let me borrow a Joyce Meyer DVD... so I'm hoping to get into that sometime too.

I LOVE that I've got a great group of girls that I can talk about Jesus and life with. It's so nice. Hopefully it'll inspire me to get a group together when I end up going back home.



OKAY... for all of those that are looking for more video of Aussies with their accents... :) I got a video of Maija and Esther from Lifegroup talking However... again... because of my stupid iMovie, I was unable to edit it and it was taking over an hour and a half to load the thing up on youtube. As soon as I get my software working again (or figure out what I'm doing wrong) I'll get it up and you all can enjoy.

Until then... well...

G'day... how're ya goin'... throw anotha shrimp on the barbie... and no worries.

Hope all is well!!

AWAKE!

This past weekend I was able to attend a Women's Retreat with a bunch of the ladies from Garden City Church. It was held at the Surf Air Resort in Marcoola Beach - which is about a 2 hour drive north of Brisbane. It was a really great conference. The guest speaker was Patsy Cameneti and she was amazing. The entire theme of the conference was "Awake". I wish I could explain everything that happened during the conference, but there's no way I'd be able to get it all in one post... So I'll break it down as best as I can:

FRIDAY:
6:00pm - Arrived at the Resort in Marcoola Beach after a two hour drive.
7:30pm - First session...

To be honest, Friday wasn't the greatest day for me. It started out with some issues with class and also trying to get a ride to the Retreat. It got to the point where I really didn't want to go anymore. I wanted to call up the person who was driving me and tell her just to forget it. And I was extremely homesick. But I went. It would be good for me. So we got to the resort, checked in, met our roommates (Bogna, Marika, Juanita, Deanne and Maria and me), ate a little something and went down to the first session. Throughout the entire meeting I was constantly thinking about how homesick I was... how I wish I was home. How close I was to the beach and that my house was right across the water. It was consistently entering my mind how homesick I was. I believe that this homesickness was triggered by two things: 1) Skype wasn't working when I left school, so I wasn't able to talk/see anybody before I left for 3 days, and 2) I was packing a suitcase... I saw my suitcase - which I hadn't really seen since I first arrived... and it reminded me of home and made me want to pack them all up and go home. Worship, and most of the speaking, was tainted by the overwhelming feeling that I had. I did get a bit out of it, however. Patsy had a GREAT analogy of how we need to "plug into God". She said that Christianity is like vaccuming (it's a women's conference... so we got a lot of cleaning and shopping analogies). She went on to explain how she caught her daughter vaccuming once with headphones on blasting music - her daughter had failed to notice that the plug for the vaccum had popped out of the outlet and she wasn't getting any power to the vaccum. She continued to vaccum but wasn't getting anything done. Patsy used this by saying that when we're feeling like Christianity is too hard - when we're pushing and pushing and trying so hard to be "Christian" and nothing's happening that we need to go back to the source and plug back into God. Once we're truly plugged into God we will find that Christianity is easy. God's energy flows through us.
After the meeting we were offered individual prayer... I chose to accept this offer because I couldn't be homesick the entire weekend. I needed it gone. So Louise and Lyn (two leaders of the conference) prayed for me and told me they'd adopt me. Patsy also prayed for me. She gave me such a refreshing perspective by saying that home is in the will of God... we are in the world and not of it... our home is heaven... we're just going through until we get home... that this experience is NOT about school, but it's about what God has planned for me. She prayed that God would show me the reason of me coming here. And she told me that I need to TRUST God.
After lots of tears and some really good hugs Maria (my Norwegian friend) and I went up to Lyn's room where we met a few other people, ate some fabulous desserts and even watched some AFL (Aussie Rules Football - with Lyn's husband Laurie).

I told you it was going to be long... I'll try to shorten it up a bit more. :)

SATURDAY:
9:00am - Second session...

Great word from this session that I took away and hope to live by each week is this: Our goal for Sunday's are not just to get to church (because we ALL do that... we rush rush rush to get to church and when we're there that's it! there are somedays where we just go through the motions)... Our goal is not just to get to church... It's to GET TO GOD. We need to be purposeful and bold in the presence of God; be there to OBTAIN something.

10:30am - Morning tea and coffee (AWESOME muffins)
11:15am - Third session...

Great word from this session: Jesus' death on the cross is NOT casual. Forgiveness is NOT casual. THANK the Lord for the cross. It's great that we can go back to Him and ask forgiveness and that he will not dismiss us, but we cannot expect to go back to Him time after time just because we can.

12:30pm - Lunch
1:30pm - Free Time... Maria and I took a walk on the beach. YAY PACIFIC OCEAN!!! Here's a few pictures:





6:30pm - Fourth session...

This session was awesome. During worship, God held my hand. It was pretty cool... never had an experience like that before. I was deep in worship, battling with things in my head, wanting to get close to God, wanting Him to draw near. I held out my hands in front of me like I was holding a pair of hands, God's hands. I felt a peace flow over me... my body just relaxed. And all of a sudden a physical hand held my hand and squeezed it tightly... holding firm for a minute. I kept my eyes closed. The hand let go when the song was finished. When I opened my eyes no one was there to acknowledge the gesture. Everyone was turned around. Nor did I ask anyone who squeezed my hand. I know it was God... I wanted so much for Him to hold my hands, for Him to draw near... and He did. It might have been through someone else, but I know that it was God.
The speaking was based on the story of Deborah and how we are not to let our weakness define us. We are to let go of the problem or situation that binds us and hold onto the promise of God. Patsy also talked about the woman's role of influence. That women are there to be a support system, to be influential. That all of the greats had an influence in their life and women can be a great influence to their children, to their spouses etc.

Hoping to...

SUNDAY
10:00am - Fifth session...

Wrap up...
Like our clothes in the morning... strength is something that we put on. We are to draw on God's faithfulness and get our eyes of our own unfaithfulness.

To close we had a 'prayer tunnel'. It was really cool. All of the leaders stood at the front and each person walked through and received prayer.

After the session everyone was on their way.
Traffic was horrible CAUSE IT WAS RAINING (praise the Lord!)... took us 3.5 hours to get back. But it was a nice drive... :)

All in all... it was a really great weekend. I'm really glad that I was able to go.
And I really hope that what I got out of this weekend lives in me and isn't fleeting.

Trial Run

g'day!

So this evening was interesting. This past Monday I received a call from a Café located in the Garden City Shopping Centre (my mall) asking if I wanted to come in and do a "trial". I had no idea what a "trial" was, so she told me that it would last 2 hours, that I should wear all black, and that it would basically be a time for me to get a feel for what I'd be doing and if I liked it and if they thought I was capable of doing the job.

So yeah... I first needed to go out and buy a black top - which I did - and then I arrived at the Café - still honestly don't know what the name is, that's bad isn't it? It's advertised as Meal, but I keep hearing the manager say "Email Café"... so I don't know. I was going to take pictures of it so that you could see what it looked like, but I completely forgot. Sorry.

I show up at the Café at 6:15pm (for 6:30) and Leanne - the manager - introduces me to a few of the workers. I meet a girl from Canada who starts talking to me about everything that we (waitresses) do - ie: grab and apron, grab an order pad and pen, take menus to tables, how to write orders, where to put the orders, where the food comes out, etc etc. I ask her, "so am I just starting?" She replies, "yeah... they just throw you in". So I took orders, handed out food/drinks, and even made some coffee drinks toward the end of the night. It was.. nice. I really screwed up one order. Couldn't even say the name of the fish: Berimundi (?). The guy ordering it corrected me and asked where I was from. Yeah... and then I screwed up their order... twice, I think. I've NEVER waitressed in my life!!! I think I did okay. And they don't make drinks like they do at Starbucks... so that was interesting. And the one making the drinks - the one I'm learning from - is the manager, Leanne, so I'm walking on glass around her, trying to make sure I do everything right, but feel like I'm doing everything wrong.

But at the end of the night (8:50) she asks how I like it and tells me that she can't put me on the duty roster any more this week but she can next week and might call me if anyone calls in sick (!). I told her that I really did enjoy it and I feel that it's something that I can definitely get better at, but that I had another interview on Monday for another place (yeah... I'm too honest). So I asked her to hold off on putting me on the roster and that I'd let her know by mid next week where I stand.

So that's my night!! It was interesting. More than what I was expecting.

Tomorrow I have class and then I'm off to Marcoola Beach for a Womens' Retreat with church!! A friend of mine wanted to go so I'm going with her. It seems like it's going to be a lot of fun. It's at a resort about an hour north of here up the coast. So I'll definitely take pictures and will be blogging on it probably Sunday evening (which would be everyone's Saturday evening/Sunday morning). So keep an eye out for that!

Sorry I'm not blogging a whole lot. It's all pretty much the same kind of stuff now... school, studying, church group, sleep. But I promise I'll blog when cool stuff happens. And it will...

:)

Have a wonderful weekend!!!!

Week 5!!

It has been exactly 5 weeks since I've arrived in Australia.
Does it seem to be going by EXTREMELY fast for anyone else? As far away as home seems to be, these weeks (with the exception of the first 2) have flown!

Exciting news... my friend Maija is planning on going to school in Maine starting January. However, before her trip to Maine she will be stopping by in Cali to say hi... for a week or two. SO... because she wants to do EVERYTHING when she comes to visit she's trying to make up for everything now by trying to show me everything here! Which is wonderful!!!! We've both made lists of everything we want to do here and now we're making a list of everything we want to do in California! We're both soooooo excited!! God's cool ain't He?

Today was supposed to be a boring day for me. Wake up late, do laundry, go grocery shopping, watch a movie and turn in early. Well... the first three happened, but as I was shopping Maija called and wanted to know what I was doing tonight... turns out her cousin turned 5 today and they were going to have a birthday party for her. And Maija wanted to know if I wanted to go... Free food, fun family atmosphere... HECK YEAH! So it was Anastasia's fifth birthday and I was honored to share it with the whole family. Lots of fun:




Good fun.

ALSO...
Alison, I've got your Tim Tams! :)

Everyone else... I'll be bringing these back for Christmas, let me know if you want some. :)

Love you all!!!
Hope you're all well!

Mt. Coot-tha

I'm feeling MUCH better! :)

Today began with a bus ride to church with Kibet - a friend from church and Uni, originally from Kenya. The service was good. Worship was good because I knew all of the songs and I was able to fully participate in it. The sermon touched on various passages regarding the poor and poverty and how Jesus came down to earth to LIFT us up out of our poverty and that we too much do the same with others. We are not called to live impoverished lives. To be honest, it was a little hard for me to follow. I tried to get something out of it, but we kept jumping from verse to verse throughout the bible: Proverbs, Psalms, Luke, 2 Corinthians (not said as "Second Corinthians", but "Two Corinthians"), James etc. But it was still a good service. Something I've found interesting is that they have had Communion now 3 weeks in a row. I'm not used to that. I meant to ask Maija if she knew why they do it so much, but I forgot. Maybe next week - if they do it again - I will ask. Also, they really like the song "Blessed Be Your Name". I really think they've sung it every week I've been there, which is 4 weeks in a row so far. Not a bad thing... it's a good song!

After church Maija picked me up and we were off to lunch! We went to a cafe in WestEnd (near SouthBank - where I went last weekend). The cafe was 'Three Monkeys' and was great!

(Sorry... this is the only picture I took...)

It was cozy and small and had a really great atmosphere. The tables didn't match, the chairs didn't match, there were old pictures and posters on the walls, there was jazz music playing overhead, it was just a nice little cafe. We split a Panini and some nachos (wonderful combo) and ordered some fruit smoothies and just talked about life. :) It was really nice.

After lunch Maija had a grand idea to go to Mount Coot-tha. I had no knowledge of this place, but found out that it has a lookout overlooking the ENTRIE city. It was amazing!

(click on the pictures to get a larger... and more detailed view)





After drving down from Mount Coot-tha we went to Baskin Robbins (yes... they have that here too) and split a 3-scoop sundae. It was GREAT to eat ice cream again!!! As we indulged we talked about Maija coming to visit California in December and started making plans. We're both excited. :)

It was a good day.
Beautiful day here in Oz.

Another week of classes ahead. And a paper due on Wednesday! I'm going full force now!
All's I need is a job. I've passed out resumes, now I just wait for the calls to come in. Hopefully they'll be soon!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!!!

It's August!

Happy August everyone!
I've made it through July!! And my second week of "Uni" is complete.

Not an extremely exciting week - you can tell by the lack of posts.

Got sick on Thursday and am battling it off by taking liquid medicine 3 times a day, in addition to Advil in the morning and Benedryl in the evening to make me sleep. No help as of yet, but hopefully I'll wake up feeling a little bit better tomorrow.

Tonight - because I was sick - I opted not to go to youth group. Instead I was going to have a nice quiet evening. Make some dinner, watch a movie and turn in early. But when I went into the kitchen to make dinner Ariel and Eddie (flatmates) were making a big dinner. They asked if I wanted to join them and Ariel's friend Sharon, to which I said "Of course!". Tomo got back from grocery shopping and we invited him to join us too. So we had a big family dinner of Chicken and potato curry, stir fry, green beans, a tomato and egg mixture, omlette and rice. It was all fantastic.

(from left) Me, Tomo, Eddie, Ariel, Sharon.

Following dinner we were treated with Japanese sweets. Don't really know how to explain it... It was kind of a doughy ball with something inside. There were 5 different flavors. In addition to the Japanese sweets we had kiwi and wafers similar to Tim-Tams (for those that don't know what Tim-Tams are.... well... I'll bring them back with me during Christmas break... they are delicious). And Eddie pulled out his guitar and we sang for about an hour. It was a lot of fun. Sharon, Ariel's friend, ran back to her flat and grabbed a recorder because she liked my voice so much. It was fun. :)





But I am exhausted.
And my head is starting to pound.

Tomorrow I've got a full day of Postgraduate Seminar. I'm missing a trip to the Australian Zoo so that I can learn... so hopefully it's beneficial to me in the long run. :)

It'll be four weeks tomorrow night since I first came.

Four weeks! Yay me!