i've moved. again. i just need something *new* to get *inspired* to blog / journal again. if you haven't noticed - i get bored easily. so click here: twirlingtulles.wordpress.com. see you there! :-D
oh my goodness. never thought i'd actually ever go on a "class outing" since maybe primary or secondary school! but here at the college, everyone is just so friendly. i love how people here aren't as "hoity toity" like at law school and everyone is just here trying to figure out what the heck they did for five years of their life and is just "seeing where it leads to". love it. i especially like how my class is so crazy you could actually have a reality television programme just on my class alone and you will so many weird crazy personalities. seriously.
anyway so about 3/4 of us went on a little class dinner (oliver and jolyn came along just because "my group" organised it and oli and jo are our friends) to hurricanes at bondi beach. it was so cool. had a lovely time just relaxing and enjoying the sea breeze and eating massive pork ribs. yum! it was really very nice interacting with my classmates outside of class time!
so here are some of the photos of the event. one of my classmates took a whole group photo. i just have some snippets.
feet of kondwani from africa, oliver from germany, me from singapore and the boots are din's from singapore too!
kondwani walking happily into the beach. we never realised how much he loved the beach til thursday. glad we chose to go to bondi!
the four giggle / gossip queens :P
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH so ANNOYED WITH MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! stupid stupid stupid stupid. I HATE MOVING. so much stress involved and all this mail gets lost in the meantime. AND this annoying person (i.e. myself) goes and orders something TO THE OLD ADDRESS. COMPLETELY FORGOT TO UPDATE MY PROFILE DETAILS AND NOWWWWWWWW THE THING IS ON IT'S WAY TO THE OLD ADDRESS. I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO UPSET AND ANNOYED. really hoping the australia post re-direct mail system works man.
oh i am so happy. i love saturday mornings. i woke up today at 7:30 and wanted to jump out of bed because i felt i was missing out on the beautiful morning. but then i decided that it's better to sleep in a little while longer just in case i fell sick again (i fall sick if i don't get 8 hours of sleep). so i slept in til 9ish. OH THE MORNING IS SOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL. love mornings! God's mercies are new every morning! and it reminds me of the FUTURE when we will just live in God's glory and beauty and radiance and there will be no night. just sunshine and light. :-D LOVE MORNINGS.
okay. so i did a little scrapbooking (actually finished a layout of my grandmother when she was young. and so here is why i love where i live - there is a RIBBON, LACE, FABRIC, BUTTON, BEADS, DIAMONTE, SEWING, NEEDLEWORK (you get the point) shop TWO seconds from where i live. how cool is that. so as i was doing the layout i decided i needed some lace so i just popped into the shop, got me some lace (and some embroidery yarn) and continued working on the layout. how cool is that.
and i love mornings because you can do so many things and yet the sun doesn't go down. it just gets brighter. what i mean is if you start doing this in the arvo, then suddenly it becomes evening and it gets more depressing and darker and colder and you feel as though time is running out. but with the morning, you feel you have the whole day in front of you. a fresh new canvas just laid out in front of you.
yes! i am a chirpy one this morning because IT IS SATURDAY MORNING and i am freeeeeeeeeeee! :-D
lovin' my new finepix camera. well, it has it's flaws. it's not terribly clear, especially at higher ISOs (yes i am learning a thing or two about my camera, albeit slowly) but heck it's so much better than my stupid pocket nikon one. which wasn't that bad, by the way, just a little slow and bad at indoor photo-taking.
so here's a snapshot from feb and march. these photos make me smile. :-D (these are arranged in chronological order)
daddy and lesley on daddy's last day in sydney. love this photo. so going to scrapbook it. ;-)
photo of poor little gillian sitting in her little corner on the staircase eating her kiwi fruit. haha. she looked so "poor thing" that i just HAD to take a photo. plus i wanted to practice using my new camera... so anything would do actually
nat the ultra-man. if you look very closely, you will see a little star on his forehead. he's fighting with sunshine the bear (can you believe it? what a bully nat is!)
jing and james. SO CUTE. i love this photo because i feel that it just captures them! jing the animated one and james with the "smile". hahahaha. :-D
so today someone's death affected many of us sydney-siders. someone fell / jumped on the train line at chatswood and died and because of his death, the train lines from gordon to north sydney were closed. because of the closure, many many many people were late for work / classes / uni / college of law / and a variety of other things. because these people were late for work / classes / uni / college of law / and a variety of other things meetings were cancelled, appointments rescheduled, stress levels were raised, blood pressures went higher and corporate and commercial practice vivas were pushed back an hour or so.
man. the impact of just one person's death. and you know, nobody even knows this guy's name or where he's from or why he jumped / was pushed / fell / slipped. all we know it that "did you hear on the news? someone died on the train tracks!" the sad thing is, that come tomorrow or even the day after, bit by bit people will resume their daily lives and forget all about the person who died on the train tracks. so a person interrupted sydney's life for a day. and then he will be forgotten. except by close friends and family of course.
so as i was commuting home on the sydneyrail this afternoon after my viva which was pushed back an hour, i was thinking about another death which has impacted lives. it's funny. this death happened more than two thousand years ago and still people are going ON AND ON AND ON about it's historical accuracy, credibility, truthfulness and falsity. what's with this death? and just this week (or was it last week) there was a report that said that a Jesus tomb had been unearthed.
well, i guess because of the impact it will have on the personal lives of those who really believed that this man died and rose again. also because of His message. He preached that not only was He the SON OF GOD, but also GOD. so, anyone who says that Jesus is / was just a righteous prophet / man obviously has never read the bible. how can a RIGHTEOUS or even SANE TEACHER even say that He's God. it can either lead to two conclusions: that He WAS / IS GOD or He WAS / IS INSANE / PSYCHOPATH / MAD MAN / LUNATIC (take your pick). so yes, people have for years and years and years and years and years tried to argue around His death because if He really did die on the cross and really did rise from the dead, well, then we will have to accept and agree with His claims that He is God and live according to His way because God is not happy with the way we are living - living like we are our own gods, living our own way.
it's amazing isn't it, how ONE PERSON'S death has stirred so much controversy. just one person's death. even van ngyuen (you know, the dude who smuggled drugs whilst in transit in singapore and was hanged some one or two years ago) in all his media glory hasn't stirred up that much controversy (did he die, didn't he die, did he rise again). his supporters haven't died for him. well, at least i haven't heard of any who have.
seriously, most of Jesus supporters died horrible horrible torturous deaths. would they do it if they did, as some claim, hid the body and fabricated the truth? there really is a limit to a person's pseudo self-glorifying devotion to a man who died and never raised from the death. but instead, these disciples went on to preach and preach like never before. these disciples who ran away and hid when Jesus was being crucified suddenly got even BOLDER like never before. something must have empowered them. what was it??
amazing. yes. for some strange reason, this faith has grown and grown and grown like never before. it's not just some strange cult guy who tells his followers to commit suicide - most times these cults die out. instead Jesus' followers number in the hundreds and millions (and even more) around the world now. this leader, Jesus, actually DIED for His followers' own sake, and RAISED from the dead. how awesome is that?
so impressed by a death that has affected the railways and sydney for a day? let's talk about a death that has impacted lives for two thousand years.
ok since i'm still complaining about packing and moving - i've decided to share with everyone my schedule for today and my one MAIN stress. please please pray that we don't have any real estate agent disasters this year. i can't cope going to the tribunal again. it sucks.
someone said that packing and moving house ranks right up there with dying and public speaking when it comes to activities that cause stress and trauma or something that people dread most in life. or something like that. i'm probably just making the whole statistic up. well, i'm not really. but oh whatever.
so i've decided to post two photos of my horribly messy apartment. well, i forgot to take a photo of the ginormous mountain of boxes but this is my living room and my desk - the neater areas of my house - just so you get the mental picture of exactly how messy the real messy parts of my house is.
really liking my new baby, my camera. i love the fact that i can now take photos without flash indoors or areas with less lighting. my other silly pocket camera couldn't do it to save its life. i mean, my new baby really isn't perfect - if i wanted something perfect i would have gotten a canon DSLR or something but that's like triple or quadruple the price of my baby. so i just have to make do.
so without further ado, the photos of the "neat" parts of my house. this is just so that everyone else can take that sigh of relief and think or say, "i'm so glad my house is not like hers..." and have a quick assuring moment and feel good about yourselves. see how amazingly altruistic i am?
this is my messy desk. i love the lighting. this was seriously the light as it was. love my camera!! :-D
this is nat watching "top gear" - one of his favourite shows. as you can see, this is what we ate for dinner. i know it's pathetic but i kept all my plates and my pots and pans. so we could only eat korean sushi!! well, initially the rice cooker was at the bottom of a very deep box but i fished it out (just so i didn't have to eat take out five days in a row).
EDIT: i took a picture of my boxes downstairs. there's still two (and counting) boxes upstairs not including suitcases and the stuff that hasn't been packed into boxes... ARGH.
today was a happy day. besides the fact that i actually SURVIVED three exams in a week, i had a wonderful lunch and wonderful dinner. lunch was really good. we had it at makoto in chatswood and then we had (well some of us did) ice-cream at krispy kreme. yum. it was good because we were all really happy and we didn't have to worry about pending vivas or exams. well for this week. oh and today was good because i got to try out my new camera. all these photos were taken without flash so it's "okay" quality. i should have used flash in the restaurant but stupid me was just too cocky. stupid. anyway the photo quality is a little grainy unfortunately so i am planning to use flash next time. oh well.
my crazy college of law friends. seriously i wouldnt be able to get through 9 to 4 five days a week without these crazy kids. ok i would technically be able to get through it but it would be horribly lonely.
so this is one at krispy kreme. the makoto photo didn't turn out very nicely. it was too blurry - didn't look blurry in the screen but when i transferred it into the laptop it was awfully blur. sigh.
my darlings. it was SOOOOOOOOO good meeting up with both of them today and catching up tonight and finding out wonderful news from both of them. love them to bits. :-D
highlights from barack obama's announcement for president speech:
We all made this journey for a reason. It's humbling, but in my heart I know you didn't come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union.
It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had, and where I learned the true meaning of my Christian faith.
After three years of this work, I went to law school, because I wanted to understand how the law should work for those in need. I became a civil rights lawyer, and taught constitutional law, and after a time, I came to understand that our cherished rights of liberty and equality depend on the active participation of an awakened electorate. It was with these ideas in mind that I arrived in this capital city as a state Senator.
It was here, in Springfield, where I saw all that is America converge - farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. I made lasting friendships here - friends that I see in the audience today.
It was here we learned to disagree without being disagreeable - that it's possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we're willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst.
The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we've changed this country before. In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we heard a King's call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more - and it is time for our generation to answer that call.
For that is our unyielding faith - that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.
That's what Abraham Lincoln understood. He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks. But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people. It is because of the millions who rallied to his cause that we are no longer divided, North and South, slave and free. It is because men and women of every race, from every walk of life, continued to march for freedom long after Lincoln was laid to rest, that today we have the chance to face the challenges of this millennium together, as one people - as Americans.
That is why this campaign can't only be about me. It must be about us - it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice - to push us forward when we're doing right, and to let us know when we're not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.
WOW. i'm so blown away. you know, this speech is going to go down in the history books. he IS the next martin luther king jnr. and i AM going to aspire to write like that. wow. i just don't know what to say. stupid microsoft advertisers obviously hadn't listened to this speech when they said that vista would cause us to cry out "wow". THIS is the REAL WOW.
and if you're not blown away yet, here's an excerpt from "20 hours in america part II". one of my FAVOURITE speeches from all the seven seasons. i haven't really ranked my favourites but i know this is definitely top five:
i watched it twice on youtube and once on dvd today (the whole episode) and i've been moved to tears all three times. i think i can safely say that "20 hours in america part II" is probably one of my favouritest episodes as well. seriously.
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