Paintballing

The week of awesomeness continues... I'm going paintballing tomorrow! The youth from church threw a surprise leaving party for me this afternoon as well, which was fun but did mean that I didn't get to Oxford and so purchased precisely none of the things I need for France. Worth it though, I came home with my face covered in Emma's pictures, vaguely resembling a demented pirate. I very nearly went out again still wearing said pirate face but fortunately saw the mirror on my way out the door and thought to wash my face before the cinema! Went to see the Bourne Ultimatum. Awesome. Just Awesome. I want to be Jason Bourne! There are two more books in the series that I've found, the Bourne Legacy and the Bourne Betrayal. I don't know if they'll make it to the silver screen but if the series continues with the same success the first three have had then I expect there are some more quality films to look forward to there!

Blogging

Am not feeling inspired to blog at the moment. I think I enjoy new things or playing with old things to jazz them up and with the new website on stall I've kind of lost interest in maintaining the Posse House, hence the lack of posts over the last couple of months. Also it seems lately that I don't have time for anything, really strange and annoying as I have had more "free time" in the last two weeks than the last six months! And I have no idea where its all disappeared to. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said "I do neither the things that I ought to do, nor the things that I want to do." I'm also a little annoyed that I am far more functional, process things faster, and am funnier at 3 in the morning than I am at almost any other point of the day. It's great when it happens but slightly inconvenient timing. It does bode well for next week though, I'm at Soul Survivor and we're observing the 4am curfew [that is you're not allowed to sleep before 4am for the week]. Post Soul Survivor I'm at Rivercamp for the weekend and then have a week to get a few dozen things in order before I spend a month cycling around France!
So, blogging shall be sparse, no change there, and likely as not will resume at a different venue upon my return to Oz. That is if I ever manage to work out exactly how I want this website to work and how I match the ruddy colours with the background!
Peace Out for the Present

Finished

It's all done. I finished my last commitment with Fusion yesterday. (Fusion: previously the top secret organisation I worked and studied with who were unnamed as they have a blogging policy, for understandable reasons, that says staff can't mention them by name) I'm not sure if I expected to feel any different, but mostly I still just feel tired. Something not to be helped by Lighthouse and Fiesta next week, though that's mixed because while there's a cost (every bit of energy I have) it is also one of the most amazing weeks ever and I wouldn't trade it for a months worth of sleep! Last nite I celebrated with the Fusion guys, Chinese takeout and Death to Smoochy on DVD! Awesome!

Knackered

I'm so tired it hurts. Had a week away from home that ended with the Foundations weekend away and I've not really recovered from that yet. I haven't been sleeping well, big surprise, and generally this means I tend to stay up later coz I don't want to lie awake in bed, which helps massively*. The summer is upon England, or it should be, its been raining for the last three weeks straight. However, date-wise we are into summer and all the fun is getting closer, as is my freedom to do what I want and go see Europe. I'd be a lot more excited by this prospect if I was slightly more awake. Ahh well, by the time it rocks around for real hopefully I'll have a little more energy with which to meet it!

*definite sarcasm for those who didn't catch it.

Wind Up

Had an entertaining time this arvo winding Heth up. It culminated in a magical series of pranks when she dropped me home. First I refused to get out the car, she couldn't make me, she tried pretty hard too. Then I got out the car and took her bag with me, which she wouldn't have noticed had I not slung it over my shoulder as I walked away (so she wouldn't drive off without her wallet and fone) and then waited round the corner for the good three minutes it took her to realise I wasn't coming back with it to come find me and chase me round the drive until she realised her bag was under the car. I then got in the drivers seat of her car and locked the doors. After teasing her for a couple of minutes James showed up and I started talking to him through the slit in the window I'd opened, completely ignoring Heth who was getting more and more annoyed (should mention that she couldn't stop laughing either, I generally end the game when the other person no longer finds it funny) I eventually let her have her car back, leaving her with three minutes to get to Risboro, did I mention she was on her way out?
Finished up the evening with the boys watching Jackass 2, funnily enough at the same place as Heth who was upstairs watching the disgrace that is "The Pursuit of Happiness" which I have refused to watch on the basis that it reeks of soppy cheese and a moral of "everything will be ok" ...utter rubbish. Jackass 2 was not as good as the first one, more sickening stupidity this time round, altho there were some quality stunts. One guy held on to the end of a dangling fire hose which was turned on full blast and went nuts, and Johnny Knoxville set up a brilliant gag with a note on a wall that had an extendable boxing glove behind it!

The Prophetic Warrior Shepard Statesman

One of my teachers once told us that his aim was to turn us into Prophetic Warrior Shepard Statesmen (and women I suppose, there were females in the room as well, altho as a matter of personal preference I'm inclined to sexism in such instances) I'm sure there's meant to be some sort of hyphen slash combination in that mouthful but I for one can't be bothered to work it out. An strange thing to say, and indeed a stranger thing to post on the internet, however the interns came out of class today analysing each other before moving on to Guybo and myself and what they were analyising was which of four categories we "fit". The options were: Agitator- angry little man (ok, not quite that harsh, but close). Prophet/Myth-maker- visionary who is very useful at the beginning of great undertakings and rather less useful towards the end. Statesman- leader who sees not only the vision but also the people he (more sexism) is leading and is capable of caring for them and holding their trust. And Administrator- a highly organised (and likely anal) individual who has the irritating ability to make things happen and more often than not block the things they do not want to happen. (Guess which one I'm not)
Now, I'll grant you that this is my rather skewed interpretation of a brilliant piece of work, and that each character has a vital role to play at different points in leadership, yes, even the administrator (and to be fair two of my favourite people in the world are the past and present parish administrators in Haddenham, so it is possible to do this job in a non-obstructionist manner, it's just that the generally anal temperament of administrators is not conducive to this). Back to the point; as the analysis moved around the room bringing great amusement with it for the most part, I set about reflecting on the impact of each of these roles and especially on how they work in my life and most recently in the organisation of the Breakout on Saturday. The group turned its focus on me last of all (I like going last for some reason, happens quite a bit) and the concensus was that I was a "Prophet-maker Statesman" which I believe was Grets attempt to combine the middle two characters into one. There was a definite agreement that I lacked the capacity to organise anything more complex than a piss-up in a brewery (not entirely accurate and something that unfortunately is the topic of many pieces of "construcive criticism" that come my way) but that I have some sort of capacity for leadership. Having been informed of this I went and grabbed the notes so as to work out what precisely they were talking about and then came the memory of my teachers aim which was the opening line of this here post.
Having unpacked that lunch-box of fun, I can no longer remember whether or not I had a point I intended to make or not. But it was an interesting thought process anyway. Will post my talk from the Breakout as soon as I find a copy of Guybos introduction to my talk, which multiplies the entertainment value many times over. Suffice to say for the moment that it was a good day and that I went to bed at 8 last nite and did not wake until 10 this morning!

Two Dinners, Two Lots of Pudding!

Twas a good nite! Caught up with a good friend who I don't get to see nearly enough, coached Harry to victory in an eating contest against Timbo at Talk and Tucker, watched Liverpool beat Chelsea in the Champions League, twas a good nite! Now have a youth report to write for the church AGM tomoro nite, fun fun! (Oh! also; had a shave, tis the cleanest my face has been for two years but I just can't bring myself to get rid of it all)

Weekend

Had a pretty big weekend. Didn't go to sleep until 7.30 this morning, good thing I did the festival on Saturday and so had today off coz I then slept til 4! Got up, cooked dinner for cell, had cell, cleared up and came home. I'm knackered and going to bed!
(Found my torch that disappeared on New Years at Heth's, Huzzah! She has free house at the mo so the better part of the weekend was spent there)

School

I was in the School in Riboro all day yesterday, this meant getting up at stupid o'clock to be there on time and make a good impression, totally not worth it. Sleep is an undervalued commodity. Was quite a good day, got involved in a game of Bulldog with some boys at lunch before being informed that "the children are not allowed to play bulldog" by the teacher on duty... whoops!
Jordy is providing me much entertainment as he msn's me about the female species "if we ever had a war with them they'd kick our sorry arses" all too true...

Knut

I love Polar Bears. They are my favourite animals. I love their strength and beauty and the "personality" that I still attribute to them even tho I know that they are animals and therefore don't have "personalities" as such. However, in my head: they do. (Also in my head animals could talk in the garden of Eden and will be able to talk again in the new heaven and earth, Im not arguing this as correct theology but it's how my head works so don't mess with it) A friend sent me this link to a video of the cutest baby Polar Bear called "Knut" (no idea of the pronunciation there) and I instantly decided he would be an addition to the fictional floating house Marigold that I have decided to write stories about due to the difficulties in actually building a floating house and filling it with various animals and people.

Celebrated the summer sunshine by playing football for two hours this afternoon. Was meant to go rock climbing with Ebbie but had overlooked good friday being a bank holiday and so had to "settle" for football. First ten minutes were apalling, everyone was massively rusty and so played like a bunch of year 8 school girls until we got back into it and started playing some decent football. On the way to take Ebbie home he announced that the run down church we were passing was going to be his in nine years time, when asked for more details about this he gave some explanation that sounded vaguely like squatters rights and conning the council out of it basically. What started as an outlandish claim proceeded to become a hilarious cock and bull fantasy when we reached the crux of it. Binnie and I spent the rest of the trip laughing as Ebbie continued to expound his idea reaching new heights of fantasy and moving further and further away from reality with each new sentence, providing me with the best laugh I've had all week I believe. I love that boy!

Spring Harvest

Got invited to go with Binnie's family to Spring Harvest over easter, had no idea what it was really but sounded like a good laugh and they had a free place so I thought why not. Just had the "briefing" about it, turns out this thing is awesome! It's across the road from the beach (and it's in Devon so I'm expecting a real beach not one of these pathetic pebble wastes of coast line) it has a whole stack of different seminars and stuff on the go, and it has entertainment options such as a cinema, football, basketball, go-karts, and quad bikes!!!! Thankyou Lord!!!! And I get to spend the whole time there with one of my best mates plus a couple of other friends who I don't get to see that often, soooooo good. I'm taking the dubious risk of driving Heths car down there as shes in Gambia for a week. My record with people lending cars in the last couple of months has not been good by any measure but Heths car is a fair bit newer and a lot less likely to break down... I hope.
Everyones back from uni at the moment, it's really cool to see people and catch up, the suns out again, weathers turned for the better, everythings falling into place for one sweet summer. The only slight downer is that my knee decided to start playing up and Binnie's injured as well so we're holding off the sport for another week or so (praying hard that we're both fit for spring harvest) but we both managed a bike ride that took us the better part of 30miles yesterday so I think we should be right.
Bit of work to get done this week so I can really enjoy the holiday, shouldn't be a worry!

Plans

I managed to get on Timbo's insurance for a week, starting yesterday, as he has chicken pox and is house bound. Naturally I made some plans to maximise the freedom and headed up to Loughborough yesterday to watch Ian play rugby and see Megan. The plan was to come home late, (like after 12 at least), so that Ian would be home for Mothers day (happy mothers day mum!! I know its not the Aussie one but I don't actually know when that is and will almost certainly miss it so I am capitalising on the opportunity) and so I could run sunday morning youth at church. That was the plan anyway. Halfway out of Oxford I noticed the heat guage was very high. A quick call to Tim put my mind at ease, apparently it stays hot till you get out on the motorway and then she cools down. So I headed up the motorway and got most of the way to the M1, just under halfway to Loughborough, when the engine light came on. I pulled into a service station and checked the water (had checked this AND the oil before I left and they had both been fine) both were still ok but I topped up the water and let it cool down for twenty mins before deciding to give it another go. The car seemed fine again, except that the heat climbed very quickly, and it was driving fine, not doing anything that it should not have been. About 5mins later however the car started losing power, the engine light came back on and I started hearing worrying noises, I just managed to get it to the next BP station where it promptly died and refused to come back to life. Steam from under the bonnet suggested a blown head gasket. Not good. I called Tim and he said it sounded like a head gasket, told me he'd make some calls and then see about getting me home.
3 hours later. I had finished my book, beaten my own high score at solataire three times (now stands at 119 seconds, 6573 points. Heck Yeah!!) listened to my cd five times, paid an exorbitant amount for a sandwich and muffin, and written half of a letter. Stu and Tim rocked up with the dirtiest, most pathetic piece of rope I've ever seen (about as tick as my finger) to tow me home with. We quadruple layered it to stop it snapping and being to big a gap between the cars and twisted it into a half decent rope which I double locked off in both directions and then some, basically I made it up as I went along but it worked. We worked out a series of army style hand signals to communicate what Stu was about to do in the car in front, and after a couple of missunderstandings and close calls worked it out so that we could drive almost as one. Cruising down the motorway at 50(miles) we were a sight to behold, so impressed were the other drivers they drove past with mouths agape, clearly speechless at our genius and daring. The Police however would not have been speechless on the topic and so we kept a sharp eye out and made it all the way to Oxford before not one but two police cars pulled out directly in front of us. We quickly pulled off the side of the road and I called Tim to say "Shizzer!! The bullen commen!!" (Something we picked up off the Germans last week that seemed appropriate to the situation) We made it home without further incident and had only snapped one strand of the make shift rope, we'd done well. Even better, there's a pub directly across from Tims house and I walked in just in time to see England score a spectacular first try against Wales (who, in fairness, beat them in style by the end of the match). France won the six nations, should have been Ireland... gutted.
So that the day was not a complete mess, Heth came to get me and we headed to Emma's to chill. Halfway there I realised that Heths lights weren't on. Spent the other half of the journey giving her stick about it. Watched the last half of Bridget Jones Diary, a thoroughly girly movie, before discovering Fight Club was on another channel, a thoroughly un-girly movie.
There were two up points to the weekend. Friday nite, the boys from last week showed up, I took them aside for a quick word and they were absolutely fine, they came in and played volleyball with us and there was not a hint of the anger and so on from last week. Grace and Mercy seemed to have a powerful effect. The whole nite was fantastic, a great four a side football thing got going and there was laughter and good natured banter in the other room all nite. Amazing stuff. The other thing was that I got given a bunch of clothes the pators son was throwing out, he's pretty much my size exactly and he has stupidly good taste in clothes as he is a designer. I quite literally doubled my wardrobe over nite.
Now feeling very much like I need to sleep so I think I'll go have a kip before church tonite. Im open to this becoming a kip instead of church tonite, but James is doing his first talk so I want to go support him.

The Key

A few weeks back we moved the church office a hudred meters or so up the high street. At some point during the day we moved two massive lockable filing cabinets, I took the key out of one of these stupidly heavy cabinets so that we wouldn't break it and put it in my pocket so I wouldn't lose it. Several weeks later, I find said key in my pocket and after a couple of forgettings I remember to take it back to the office. By some stroke of luck I chose to hand it to Geoff and some instinct warned me not to go into too much detail (loving my instincts at this point) and Geoff goes "Shirley'll kill you!!" Turns out Shirley spent two days rummaging through boxes looking for this key, someone called Geoff in Nigeria to see if he had it, and then there's been an ongoing saga where Shirley's been accosting different people and possibilities to try and find this key with the blame largely falling on Geoff!! So Geoff laughs and gives me the wink, our little secret, and goes to give Shirley the key back. Far from being glad to have it back Shirley launched an inquest that lasted half the afternoon trying to work out where it was. Geoff did an admirable job of keeping the secret, although Shirley has cottoned on to my knowing the truth too as Geoff and I were sharing too many winks and in jokes too get away with it scott free. It provided some ongoing entertainment anyway, probly will for a while yet, at least till Shirley figures it out and defenestrates me out the upstairs window!!
Was a good day, all in all. I had a meeting with Geoff and one of the teachers from the local high school which went very well indeed. In a massive reversal of trends in schools, the teacher asked me how I'd feel about coming in for a whole day and doing various bits of youth work for them throughout, some mentoring and some lunch time stuff and some other stuff too probly. I was stoked, such a good response!! Geoff also gave me a bag of clothes his son has just thrown out, turns out he is pretty much my size exactly, and he has awesome taste. Loving it!!
Had Mart and Jen's farewell tonite, they're moving to Germany to start a centre for the work over there. Which means that the role of Fearless Leader has passed to Atari man (Danbo) who was welcomed as UK Director tonite (I'm gonna get many months worth of teasing him out of that!!) Was an ok nite except for the small talk, small talk drives me crazy, felt uncomfortable, ended up nicking off with some friends who had to pick someone up from the bus station to get away from it for a bit. Is strange, Mart's favourite pass time is chatting with loads of people so it was exactly his kind of party, (and has been the kind of party at every work function ever), but I really can't deal with those kinds of party's and inevitably end up going off to get some space. May possibly be working for the wrong organisation in that sense, they're very much into the whole networking/small talk gig, tho I recognise a valuable difference between the two, there is a definite link.
Anyhow. I must get to bed as tonite has turned into another late one despite my best intentions!!

Weekend Away

Well, kind of. I have drop in tomorow nite until ten and then I drive up to Telford (or close by, not sure really, 2 or 3 hours anyway) once there I will probably prepare the unit I have to teach on saturday as I doubt I'll get time to do it tomorow, then I get a few hours sleep before doing foundations all day and catching a train back to haddenham. Get in at 7:40 and head straight for the 70's nite where I said I'd help out before I realised how busy this weekend was gonna be. Church Sunday, teching Sunday School, was supposed to call Mark and work out what we're teaching them like three days ago... whoops.
So a restful weekend in store *cough* "sleep is for the dead"

Weekend

The weekend supposedly is for resting, but I seem to sleep less then than ever. Friday nite was drop in, good fun this week, I had a twelve year old size me up for a fight (and think better of it) and his big brother decide that playing football with little kids meant he could push, shove and kick everyone out of his way, I took him aside and offered him a choice about playing with little kids and looking out for others (as opposed to bashing into them) or not playing. After a few stubborn attempts to argue that "football is football" and that he could bash into people if he wanted he chose not to play. Got home from drop in and fell asleep watching Jarhead, stupid movie that makes a stupid point but does it very well. The point being that the soldiers sat around waiting for something to happen... and nothing ever did. This point is made by keeping you sitting there thinking surely something must happen... and it never does.
Saturday I edited my MySpace page, it now looks well cool, check it out (links in the side bar) and then went to Matts to watch the rugby. I wisely decided to use the tenuous link of an Irish grandparent to cheer for Ireland, who trounced England in magnificent style at Crode Park. Brian O'driscoll is a legend. Stayed at Matts as his place is a good deal closer to church than mine. I found it in the morning that he'd left the window open all nite, which explained why I'd frozen into an icicle!!
Church was great this morning, which is one of the really impressive bits about my church, family service is really good (unlike the generally intolerably infantile family services of many chuches) and involved the youth sharing about the gathering two weeks back. After I had a couple of good chats and it looks like we'll be doing an all nite prayer thing (with loads of different things for fun in there) at Easter, should be fun.
Close examination of the side bar will reveal some new additions. Lyndsey (blog squad) is a friend from Soul Survivor who's taking a gap year and travelling around africa and various other cool places, probably including Australia. Captain Justice has returned to the Motherland from his adventures in Tasmania and has begun his blog anew to mark the move. And Brecklines is Andys (the Bish) website, which I shouldn't really put under Blog Squad as its a web page in its own right... but I'll stick him there coz in reality its just a glorified blog owned by a legenadary snow boarding computer geek who uses yellow times new roman font, say no more.
The weekend (probly the week as well to be honest, but particularly noticable in the last couple of days) has been massively up and down. Stupidly soaringly high and awesome, or crashing down to earth with a sickening thud depression and gloom. Went flying this morning, crashed this arvo. Seriously unfunny. Waiting for my wings back.

Express

What's the dumbest thing You've done this week?
This morning I saw the train coming as I arrived at the station, I legged it and managed to get a ticket and be on the platform in time to jump on the train and avoid a 40 min wait for the next one. Pleased with myself I sat down and pulled out a book. 2 mins later the driver announced that this was the express train for London Marylebone. Stopping: London Marylebone. Period. Yeah, I laughed and all.
2 hours later after an unexpected ride into London and back out again I finally got to work and started dismantling furniture for the big move from the old office to the new shop (which is looking well good with the carpet down now and us starting to set up) From there I grabbed a video at blockbusters and headed home to set up for the impromptu movie nite I had organised for the church youth in light of drop in not being on over half term. I managed to have a shower, talk on MSN, cook dinner, deal with infernal smoke alarm (nothing to do with dinner I swear) and rearrange the house all more or less at the same time, who says men cant multi-task?!? (next step: multi-task without burning dinner)
Watched Zoolander, an "old" classic that was pulled out as most of the crowd hadnt seen it and so had to be educated. It was a bit shorter than I remember it being so the older lot stood in the kitchen and talked while the young crew trashed the house or something, I dont know, I havent checked the damage yet... The kitchen convo was extremely entertaining, the highlight of our banter was someone asking what they could "come down with" to get out of work tomorow, the instant brilliant response was "syphilous"
In other news, a drunk Aussie has jumped in the sea and wrestled a four foot bronze whaler shark onto the jetty in a stroke of genius (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it) Full Story Here

2 days down, 3 to go

Two days are done for the week and I feel like it should be the weekend again!! Maybe it's just the return to work after the (unexpectedly extended) Christmas break, or maybe... probably... definitely... the last two days have been particularly full on and emotionally draining. A combination of good friends going back to uni, no sleep Saturday nite, missing church (which happened to be most of the uni friends last service for the break) due to no sleep on Saturday nite and then making the mistake of sitting down at about 8am for a moment to be woken 2 hours later by James using his bloody bubble machine that he got for Christmas to blow bubbles in my face so that he could tell me that Ian was there to take me to church... I must have decided at that point that I wasn't going to church, I dont really remember much beyond the bubbles to be honest, and spent the rest of the day feeling crap about the choice and sleeping in and not getting to say goodbye to people. Monday I spent most of the day trying to work out a job description for the next six months with Mim and that seemed to bring up more and more and more issues and things that needed to be worked through than anything else and spent a lot of time working through that emerging from the whole process without a job description and a lot of questions. Last nite was cell group, which lived up to its regular quality, but ended in another drain as we said goodbye to Megs as she heads back to uni. Today I attempted to answer some of the questions from yesterday and am now coming up with two proposals for job descriptions, one to be worked through tomorow morning, the other on Thursday morning. Hopefully by that stage I will be able to crawl up in a little ball and there will be no more questions and emotional drain to prevent me from peaceful, blissful, sleep. Unfortunately Friday is not accounted for in all of this and I have no idea what it may hold.
Home sickness appears to be rearing its head once more to take advantage of my drained state and it's difficult not to feel a bit depressed when you're drained and when it gets dark before you leave work giving the impression of a constant, oppressive, wet, nite time. Tis ok, just need to hold on, if I make it to the weekend it will all be good, just gotta get through this week.

Last Weekend

I promised an account of last weekends trip up to Loughborough and as yet have not had a chance to give it. Briefly, here's why:
Monday- had three meetings and a mountain of day trip work before I got home, can't remember if I ate, oh wait, yes I can, Andrew was home and Rob and Barbara was out so dinner was an entertaining affair that resembled a war zone more than a dignified evening meal. From there I headed to cell and kept everyone entertained with my accent (mentioned in the post below I believe) before finalising some "negotiations" with Google and crashing out.
Tuesday- had staff meeting, then another day trip meeting, then youth cafe with the most hyper and irritating bunch of children in all of oxfordshire who decided that trying to steal everything in sight was a fun pass time, from there to Sozza's birthday party and then a loooooong "deep and meaningful" on the way home (her father ended up coming looking for her an hour and a half after we'd left, apparently this is a regular occurence from her rather protective parents, i thought it was hillarious) Then the real work started. I did not sleep Tuesday nite, but stayed up and worked all the way through.
Wednesday- I emerged at about 7am (it was still disturbingly dark with the moon v high at this point, stupid english winter) and grabbed breakfast before returning to my room to keep working. I lasted all the way to 7:30pm Wednesday nite before I crashed out for one of the best sleeps of my life.
Thursday- had to knock back an extremely tempting offer of a trip to St Andrews bookshop in favour of an all day meeting (which was entirely pointless from my end as I said nothing, did nothing and learned nothing relevant) and then taught the Circular Process of Social Interaction to a group of year 11's who are doing mentoring in a local High School. This was followed by Community Supper and then knocking back another tempting offer of a movie in favour of sleep.
Friday- Had a day trip site check and re-ordered half the day and shifted activities to suit the location, need to call the bus company again and tell them we want to change times again. Followed this with a supervisor meeting over lunch and then got stuck into more day trip work. One highlight was that I started building a games/activities database for myself and anyone who wants it, have been meaning to do this for a while. Caught the train to drop-in, second time I have used a train in England, was nice but expensive, lucky i wasn't going far. Drop-in was a good laugh and Andy was on board with the database idea straight away,
already having a similar thing himself. Caught train back from drop-in
and wrote the epic email I've been meaning to write since Tuesday, finished that about 2am and Soph started talking to me on MSN and then sent me a bunch of hillarious photos from when we were kids. One or two others from Oz warranted a chat and so I crept into bed at about 3 this morning.
Today- I am about to go Christmas shopping in Oxford and then go
bowling with some friends as a goodbye to an Aussie friend whose been
checking out the UK for the last few weeks. So really, I can't give the account of the weekend now at all... However I will, if I have any sort
of energy oor inclination I will post some photos and stories from Loughborough.

Blog Management

As I promised yesterday, a report on the weekend is coming. However the lack of sleep and "negotiations" with Google, which may be nearing an end are preventing me giving it the time it deserves. I managed to add my Google Account and change some of the blog management settings so at least my headaches with swapping between accounts may be over finally!!
Small update: am trialing a new accent after being told on the weekend that I am losing mine. The new creation is something of a mix of Scottish, Irish, Northern English, and Aussie. I quite like it and it's definitely providing everyone else with entertainment. Im giving tribute to Ians sister whose mix of 12 or so different accents, including South African and a Southern American drawl in with an Irish twang, has everyone in utter confusion constantly. Mine was vitoed at cell tonite when I used it to read the bible passage and nobody could focus on what it actually said coz they were laughing too hard!!

Negotiations with Google

I think it Googled up my head, damnit!! I can't work this out at all, I have two Google accounts (I think) one for email and one for blogger (initially I tried to create the email account through my google blogger thing but it wouldn't let me so I created a seperate account for email) where it gets really confusing is that they both have the same password and I seem to sign into both automatically and then am unable to distinguish which one is which or to merge them into one to end the confusion altogether!! Added to this it keeps changing my display name so that I'm really unsure of which account for what. I may have to invite myself to become a team member on my own blog to sort it thoroughly, possibly create an alter ego self... now that could really get confusing.

In the mean time, the cold from hell has gone, it engaged one last ditch attempt to destroy my body last nite with a fever and headache and general inability to sleep. In the midst of said battle I found a packet of paracetamol in my bathroom cupboard, which was only slightly annoying after spending most of one nite last week scouring the entire house for anything that even slightly resembled pain killers unsuccessfully (except for a disolvable kids panadol thing that looked like it was half a decade out of date and tasted like I pee'd orange into a cup) But I won the battle at about midnite and slipped into my most restful sleep in a week.

I'm happy today. Not really sure why. Just am. Maybe it's coz the colds gone. Maybe it's just a good day. I did have a hilarious back and forth series of comments with MEELLIS from the Nutters Gang this morning which has kept me in good spirits. I also spoke to my little brother Jordan on skype which is always fun too. It's a good day. I'm happy.