A day in the life

So today was normal. Its weird to say that, considering the fact that i'm in a foreign country. Got up around 11 after a really odd dream involving 5th grade and a large rock. it was so weird. had pre-made "fresh" chicken curry from asda (walmart in England), then went to class. I am doing a scene from A Doll's House with a girl named Jessica. I'm kinda bummed because the scene I wanted to do from the play is with a guy, but because I don't know anyone, and there are more girls than guys, I'm doing a scene with a girl. I'm sure it will be fine though, and good.

Then I came home and chatted with ANNA! and the cate and I made dinner! Homemade Burgers and Homemade fries. SO GOOD. well, I've had better burgers, but they were not bad for the first time ever making them!

Then Cate and I watched a movie called Sunshine Cleaning, at which I cried. alot. But it was REALLY good. Funny too. worth renting and watching. I'll probably buy it when I get home.

Then I sorta talked to Tom. technical difficulties made it a little hard. And now I am totally exhausted and going to bed.

End of a normal day abroad.

video Blog 2

I am so excited this worked. Blogger is becoming more efficient. thank you.

The ecclesiastical purple and the pagan orange symbolizing the mystical symbiosis in marriage between the heathen and Christian traditions

So its been a while since my last post. I've actually been busy! Classes went well this week, starting to get a work load. On Wed, I went shopping! Then Kim and I went to London, and served with Hillsong at their Europe Conference. It was an awesome experience, and I am starting to fee like that is my church. It was totally exhausting, standing up for 4 hours patroling the line and pointing people in the right direction, but so much fun! And I got a cool teeshirt. This is Kim and me on the tube.

So that was basically the end of my week. Today, we had a field trip to Stonehenge and Bath. It was very fun. I was exhausted. It was fun. Stonehenge was cool. I've seen 2 wonders of the world now. only 6 more.

Then we went to a place called Bath (pronounced Both...if you say if wrong people correct you. it's quite funny) We had pizza for lunch. Pretty center pieces.

While waiting for our walking tour, we found a big floor map that you could take off your shoes and walk around on. So basically I went to America today.

but I had to come back. sorry guys, I love it too much!

Then we took a walking tour of the city. Everything i required to be built of this sandstone so the city maintains its coherance. The stone is mined just outside the city. During WWII, paintings and priceless furniture from the palace and national galleries and museum were taken to those rock quaries to protect them. Alot of Bath was bombed during the war. Acording to our tour guide, this was because it was one of the most beautiful cities in the country, so Hilter chose it in retaliation for the allies(?) bombing his beautiful cities. Its rebuilt now obviously. These are private town-homes. Nicholas Cage just sold his here for something like £4 mil. He bought a castle outside the city instead.

The city is called Bath because its built around an ancient (like 45bc) roman bath that made use of the only natural hot spring in Britian. So these are from inside it. Its really amazing. Too bad my camera died before I could actually take some good pictures of it.

You can see the spring coming up in the top right corner of the water. It looks like its boiling, but actually, its from the pressure of the water rising to the surface of the earth. the hot springs "pump" something like 1 mil liters of hot water a day out and into these baths. Very cool...well hot(120 f) I thought.

On the way home we watched 4 weddings and a funeral. very funny. thats where the title of this post comes from. The speaker is talking about a dress. i found it appropriate.

Tomorrow Hillsong, then back to class for another week! I can't believe I've been here for a month. Its so strange. 1/3 of my time here is over. I don't quite know how to feel about that.

Continue to pray for boldness and that I love people. Some days with some people its hard, and I don't want to be that person.

Cheers!

Mexican, Essays, and Rain

This past weekend was great fun, but also really relaxing. I hung out at home all day saturday, in hopes of getting my reading done for the next week. This was successful on the most part, which was nice. I also got started a little on a paper that's due tomorrow, which I just finished.

Saturday night, Kim and Cate and I went out for dinner, just to have something nice to do. We went to this tiny mexican place by the river. In American, Mexican food is awesome and cheap. Not so much here. It cost about £15 for dinner, plus we got drinks, so it was about £20 for all of us. So much money, but it was fun. The food was not so good, it made my tummy hurt, but I still had a great time.

this is the thames river at night in Kingston

Sunday, Kim and Adria and I went to Hillsong, and it was fantastic. I'm starting to get to know people and see familiar faces and such, which is quite cool. The sermon was on what it means to be forgiven. I have been struggling with guilt of just being a sinful person for a while now, and not realizing it I guess. I thought it was my fault, and good to be guilty. It was my punishment. But actually, I am redeemed. I am free of my sin. I am clean. My guilt has not place because Christ died to cover them. Its heartbreaking to know that it was my sin that put him there, but comforting to know that all is forgiven. I am his. Its funny how that fact is tattooed on my wrist, yet I still have trouble grasping it. This all fit into the fact that building community is about over looking sin and loving past it, just like Christ does for us. here's the link to the podcasts. Its from October 4

http://www.hillsongmychurch.co.uk/index.php/podcasts-and-media/

Then a group of us went to lunch at this great little pub, then Kim and I headed home. Cate and I watched Hotel Rwanda, which is SO intense, but amazing. watch it.

Yesterday was the first rainy day I've experienced since being here. It was fine though. Went shopping for food then to class. Then Cate and Lauren and Megan and I went to a pub down by the river and shot some pool. I'm not as bad at English Pool as I thought. I was the favorite teammate thanks to my skills heh.

Today, it rained again. I had class, and Kim came over tonight cause her power was out.

Thats all. Hillsong Conferance Europe starts tomorrow. I'm on team, so it should be awesome fun! I'm sure I'll have tons to say about it.

picture from the end of the week

this is my class. the only boring one.

this is my small group. it was really good!!

these are the buns I made, don't they look professional??

Before the party last night, Kim and I walked around in Knotting Hill. There's alot of Cool vintage shope (some are REALLY expensive) and these outlet stores where everything is £5. It was fun, but we got there as soon as they were all closing, so we didn't get to see much.

Then we went to a party with Hillsong young adults in this really trendy bar. It was so nice to be there and not have to worry about getting hit on by drunk guys, and to just hang out. We met some girls from the US who were here for grad school (one was even from NC), some other uni students from singapore, and two people from Latvia. Also some sweet brits. It was a really fun night, and not super crazy which was nice. I had a really great red wine (well I thought it was great) and we just hung out and met some new people.

As to my tweet last night:

So then we came home from the party. It was about 11, and the buses that late only run about every 30 min, so I was hurrying to the bus stop to try and catch one in less than 30 min. Well I did, only it was going the wrong way. I wasn't too worried at first, because I thought I was already close to the end of the route and I could just stay while it turned around. I wasn't. I rode it for like 20 min in the wrong direction till it got to the end of the route, then had to wait like 20 min for it to get back on schedule, then finally got back on going in the right direction and had to ride for like 45 min to the complete other end. The whole time I'm waiting it was sketchy and there were drunk people walking around, and I had no idea where I was, and it was all very stressful. But I did get home safely, and got to see another part of the area that I hadn't yet. It also took me like an hour and a half to get home. I realized this morning that I made it sound like I was totally wasted and met some strange man and almost got killed or something on my tweet last night. no, I was just lost and a little dumb.

Perhaps Catching Up.

This is also really long, however, the part about wed is sorta funny, mostly because I got lost.

Currently, I am sitting in my kitchen, drinking Earl Grey, eating freshly made apple buns, and watching "Sideways". It is 55 degrees outside and 1:30. This is a beautiful day.

This week has been fantastic. Well, most of it. I did have on fantastically boring class. British culture is intersting, however, I'd rather learn about it by watching then listening to a lecture.

So, Wed

I had British Life and Culture, the aforementioned class. It was SO bad. Literally 2 hours of lecture on the national identity of Britain. Pretty much all of which I knew already. Then, however, the night got good. Haha. We took the train to Clapham, where a friend of our's is staying with her boyfriend for the semester. We had wonderfully cooked chicken parm, and some whine. I felt european. although everyone there was american. heh.

Then Kim and I headed out to go to a small group meeting with Hillsong. We had to go about 2 stops on the train. Well, what should have been like 30 min for a trip to the leader, Venessa's, house turned into like an hour trip. We got off at the right stop (small victories!) and started looking for a bus stop. Well, we were walking the wrong way, but the bus stop was closed (JESUS!) and so we called venessa and asked her what to do. She gave us directions to the bus stop, so we caught the right bus, going the right way (SMALL!). Sometimes, however, the bus doesn't have the sign that let's you know what stop it is. So Kim was awesome and asked the bus driver to turn it on (crisis averted.) then we got off at the right stop! But we were coming from the oppisite direction, because our directions were from kingston. So we walked the wrong way. for a long time. Once we realized this, we crossed the street, and found the road, but were on the wrong side again. We did, however, finally find the house. heh.

Small group ended up being fantastic. We had some dinner and met some new people, then talked about purity of heart, and how it comes before purity of the "hands". A pure heart is reflected in everything that is done. it was really great. then we prayed. (by the way, people either here, or just at hillsong, pray in such a worshipful way. its the most beautiful thing I've ever been a part of.) We headed home, and I planned to stay up and talk to Tom, well more wake up and talk to him. So i set my alarm, but didn't turn it on. whoops. So I woke up around 4:30am here (which is 11:30 in SC) and we talked. It was a sort of worthless conversation though, because I was so tired....yeah.

yesterday.

I had my early class. it started at 12. It was wonderful though. Its playwriting, and we talked for a bit about what the class was about and such, then we did some creative writing. I've never taken a creative writing class before, and it was fantastic. Like it was SO good. We did some exercises and talked about what makes a good scene, and how to make it interesting. And also what sells as far as a play goes. I loved it.

Then I went to the store for a bit then came home and had lunch, then Kim and Adria and I went to volunteer training for Hillsong Conferane Europe, which is next week. It was really great to be around people who love Jesus here. I know I keep saying that, but I don't yet have a core group of Jesus friends, so its SO refreshing to be around that. We talked overall about conference, then broke up into groups. I didn't know exactly where I was supposed to be, so I ended up talking to one of the leaders and asking him, and somehow I mentioned that I do some lighting, and he was like (suprised)"You do Lighting? You need to meet some people! Here's my email." So that was really cool. Then we had our smaller meeting (i'm on one of the welcome groups) and then headed home.

This morning.

I don't have class on friday, so I slept in a little then decided to try and make some muffins. heh. I didn't have close to all the ingredients, so I improvised a little, and ended up with some dry, but not bad, apple buns. the end.

I'll post some pictures tonight.

Falling Behind Again

Sorry It's been so long. I will do an overview of awesome classes and God's provision for my spiritual life tomorrow. And perhaps take some artsy shots of Central London. We'll see if I have the guts to go alone.

Cheers