it's the little things...

Random thought: as cliche as it sounds, its the little things that make a big difference. I was thinking the other day, something I really admire about my Mum (which I hope i pick up!) is how she goes the extra effort to do the sort of things that you can get away with not doing, but it makes all the difference if you do. Things like making meals for people, random notes or cards, or cleaning my room up a bit when I'm out. The sorts of things that make ordinary, mundane life all of a sudden interesting and more meaningful. What got me thinking about it was how Em's parent's sent her flowers at school- it reminded me how Dan and Phili did the same thing for me at the beginning of the year to wish me luck for year 12. Aww, warm fuzzies, lol! Anyway, just a thought...

In other news, it's been a pretty jam packed w/e:

Fri: in response to a last minute plea when no-one else could (or would?) do it, some of us (being Georgie, Jordan A, Nick VR, Fergus, Anne, Miz, Sum and I) did this thing at the Archbishop's (Jeff Driver) installation at the convention centre. The 'thing' involved two things- the first picking up a giant piece of blue drifty fabric and running down two aisles so it went over the centre section of people (trying not to coathanger them- keeping in mind Mike Rann and Marjorie (sp?) Jackson were in the first row, so that wouldn't have been good... actually I did almost get a camera man who didn't get what we were doing till we were running at him), and the second picking up these giant bannery flag things (which were actually quite cool) and running, and I quote, "down the aisle and out into the world". Yes, I was a little cynical at first and needed some convincing, but it ended up being a lot of fun- both the actual performance thing (apparently we were on channel 9 news on sat nite, but WE MISSED IT!! anyone happen to tape it??), seeing what the service was like, and hanging out with everyone.

Afterwards we went to the last bit of youth (after surviving Jordan T's driving, quite the adrenaline rush) which was pretty good, I think we disrupted the girls Bible study a bit on arrival, but ah well. Apparently they played 'egg' (say in monotone voice) according to Emma, lol!

Sat: Actually got up early to do individual modern history essay. There were two things significant about that last sentance- 1) i actually got up EARLY to do work, as in I carried through on my plan- quite the rare occurance, and 2) yes I was only doing the first draft of my BIG mod hist essay on saturday, and yes I have to hand the final one in this week. At least I can work alright under pressure! It's on the impact of the printing press on the spread of the Reformation in C16th Germany, which is actually really interesting bcoz I've been wanting to learn about the Reformation for a while. I would've been completely lost without Dad tho, he was the hugest (if that's a word!) help!!

Sat nite: Joel's Mexican Fiesta, which was a whole lotta fun!! Wierd, bcoz I hadn't been to his place since his party last yr so it brought the memories flooding back! Poor Annie got injured (think blindfolded Dave with pinata baton, thinking Anne was Law, and thinking Law had just *ahem* pinched his nipple so wanted to get him)- thankfully she had some awesome friends too keep her both conscious and entertained, and wasn't concussed! And yes there was a rather amusing incident that was referred to on Phil's blog after the party- without going into too much detail Law, G and Phil drove past Dave's with high beams, honking, at like 12:45 and my car happened to still be there as I was dropping Dave off... and *shock horror* we were talking!! So we'd been there an hour, but I still maintain that it was impossible for the window's to be foggy bcoz the window was open... Anyway, I don't have to defend myself ;o) We had a perfect right to be there (well, apart from the fact that midnight was the curfew...) It was pretty classic tho!! Mmm, I laughed... it could've been worse

Anyhoo, off to see Lisa's exIBition soon, so I'd better go do the stuff i need to do before then!

as Mum would say, birthday fun!!

A lovely pic of Sez, Anne, and the BIRTHDAY BOY JOEL!!! looking very Mexican Fiesta-y

Happy birthday Joel, welcome to the world of 18 yr olds :oP

there we go

The gorgeous Alli, Elyse, Hillary and Bec at camp on the Bad Taste Wedding Night, just before my camera started beeping loudly and going crazy (aka ran out of battery)! Don't they make a beautiful bunch :P? The funny thing is, they actually did!

Like a tiiiiigerrr.... Em, Stef and I lookin hot with our freshly waved hair and tribal necklaces...


Dan took this photo on Sunday when we had a bit of a photo shoot for my 2nd art prac - this wasn't for the art (ah the joy of digital cameras, we took more than 100!) - I thought it was an awesome pic with Dan really in focus in the foreground, and Phili looking gorgeous in the near background!
This was a random photo as we were moving the rug (well I was, it doesn't really take more than one person to move it hey) of me being silly, but I thought it looked kinda cool! All the angles, candidness, sunniness etc...mmm...

So there were the promised photos, and a couple more, thankyou for your patience ;)

10se

Well I'm not really that tense (get it, 10se?) but I just worked out that little word thing today... Then again I have only got 9 days of school left EVER and a fair bit of work to get done within that- final special studies, second art prac, let alone beginning revision!!

So SWOT Camp was AWESOME!! Probably up there as one of the best camp's I've been on, and I've been on a few! What made it so good I hear you ask? Well since I was little I've been a pretty shy person esp when it comes to meeting new people so I was a bit nervous going up and knowing only Dave and Emily's friend Mel who was leading, but it went from on the first night looking at a sea of strange faces and wondering what all these people were like, to on the last day being able to at least name everyone and know to some degree what they were like. It was SO good to be pushed out of my comfort zone, I felt like I was getting stuck in a rut a bit, and meet all these new, for lack of a different adjective, awesome people! Everyone was on equal footing- like you were just friendly with everyone, kind of like it is in year 12 this yr at school I guess but more. Perhaps it's one of the things of being a minister's kid, but I loved the anonymity- a kind which I'd never really experienced before in a Christian setting. Bar Dave there was no-one from church or who knew anything about me previously, so there were no expectations of who I was, what I was like and what I believed. And to be honest that really forced me to take an objective view of myself and my faith- when I step away from the supporting poles of my family and church's faith, where is mine? The main thing I came away with from the camp was to really find Jesus for myself. I know him, I've experienced him, I've heard other people's accounts of him, but I really feel that I need to find him for myself more than I have in the past.

As well as all the soul searching stuff there were lots of laughs and good times- my b'day on Monday turned out to be great, just hanging out, talking, getting to know people, getting lots of gorgeous msg's from ppl, playing cards (point of order, lol) and everyone sang me happy birthday at the end of the first study session (at the end of each study session the leaders did some weird thing to break it up, and for the first one they came in with a muffin with a match stuck in it, and these great glasses/party blower things singing, lol). Very cool! There are so many stories I could go into (lol eg we went on this night hike on tuesday night- literally a hike- with those neon glowsticks and everyone got them all over themselves, on the hands it looked like ET or something) but alas study time will not permit! Oh yeah and I got a fair bit of study done too, about 6 hrs a day! Haha, it's funny that that was the main point of the camp, and that's a side point.

When I got back I had a great w/e as well, so the party just kept on going! Here's the only photo I took at swot camp on the Bad Taste Wedding Night because my batteries ran out (grr) of Ami (not sure how to spell it!) Elyse, Hilary and Bec, and a classic one from Emma's way back at the beginning of the hols.

Well I was going to post the pics, but apparently they don't want to cooperate, so you'll just have to wait for them!!

pensive ponderings

Here's a quick thingy I did today- I found a pic of Keira Knightly (can you tell from the pout?!) in the newspaper randomly ages ago and have been wanting to paint it for ages. There's something about her moody stare- she looks really everyday with the loose ponytail and ciggy, but I thought she looked gorgeous. Something about the smoky eyes and profile- kind of independant and rebellious. Just looking at it now I can see thing's I'd like to change (it's amazing what you can see in a photo of work rather that in real life), but I just had this urge to do a black and white painting of it, so I did! It was fun.

holidays, oh holidays how i love thee

Oh man i love holidays. I think what makes them so good is that you don't have them all the time, even tho that'd be nice- it's the term time/work that makes the non-term time sooo darn good. Great w/e at Emma's- reminded me of summer hollies- being able to do whatever, whenever we wanted, not have to think about h/w, just have the time to hangout together... altho i'm still recovering from the sleep deprivation it was well worth it, lol! I would go into the highlights, but I think Sez and Em have already done a pretty good job of that, so I'll give them a plug and say go to their blogs -->

Sunday nite was really cool too- after sas Lib, Dave, Cam, and Andre & Tess (for a while) went to Subway (of course) then watched Anchorman at Dave's ('Where'd you get your clothes from, the toilet store?''I don't know what we're yelling about!''Loud noises!!''I'm in a glass case of emoootionn!!' haha, gold) and THEN went up to the Kensy lookout (i LOVE lookouts at night, so beautiful!) until some scary white tracksuit guys also came and started playing their music loudly, so we left, lol.

I had this weird almost fainting, blackout thing this morning which was quite dramatic. It's happened before, but still i hate that feeling when ur about to faint, ohh it's so bad- it's like you know that feeling when ur about to be sick, but 10 X worse- you feel like lead, really sick and giddy, have cold sweats, and have these weird stomach pains (mighta been all that milo cereal... :P), and if you try and stand up and walk you can't see, ur eyes just go all black. Thank goodness for parents, how do they get so good at dealing with sickness- you're dramatically thinking ur about to die, and they just calmly deal with it!! So to recover I watched Miss Congeniality 2 (well i was gonna watch it anyway, but hey)- i think i was in the right mood to watch it, even if it was a bit violent (no comments about my violent tendancies haha :P) it was good! I never used to be a movie crier, and i hate to admit it but... i cried in Miss Congeniality 2. Come on, there were poignant scenes!!

Song I'm lovin at the moment- Golddigger by Kanye West and Jamie Foxx. It's like a fusion of blues and hiphop, I love it! Not so much for the lyrics, but just the sound of it, it's kind of Southern (American ??)

Oh and another thing I've been thinking about recently- it's funny how we can have double standards for ourselves and others. Like rules that we have for ourselves, that we'd never have for other people, if that makes sense. Even rules that in your head don't make sense, but you still keep to them- like for example the kind of person I am (tho I'm workin on it) is that sometimes I find it hard to be emotional in front of people, like I have some subconscious rule not to cry in front of others, but I'd never hold that rule for other people, like think that they should hold it in. Hopefully that makes sense, but any thoughts? Can ppl think of rules they have for themselves, but wouldn't apply them to others?

Anyway, I've scheduled a night in with the family- booked in to watch 'Ray' (inspired by Golddigger, Jamie Foxx is the guy who plays Ray Charles) (which is why I'm not going to Wallace and Gromit tonight- you guys have to tell me how it is!) ...