An Unexpected Journey

Hi all, and my apologies for the long silence. It's partly been due to extreme busy-ness (is that a word? I just tried spelling it three different ways, and none of them looked right.) and partly due to me not being sure what the point of this blog is. Should I write more deep and meaningful posts about my life and faith? Should it be more about the silliness of everyday life? A bit of both? More recipes? More photos? More books, films and pop culture references? Today, it's going to be the latter...

Last night, I went to see 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' with a bunch of mates from church. Now before I continue, I should rave (a little) about my undying love for all things Tolkien related. I first read The Hobbit and all three books of the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was eleven. There have been a few subsequent re-readings. The first movie came out when I was thirteen, and I was really surprised that my mum not only let me see a movie with (what was for me at that time) such a high rating, but actively encouraged me to see it. I thought it would be disappointing after reading the books, but it turns out that I was wrong. Later that year, my school concert band played an arrangement of themes from the movie, and that was when I really started to realise how powerfully moving music could be. I introduced a friend to the movie, and she became even more of a Tolkien fan than I am. This friend and I then went to see The Two Towers and The Return of the King together at the cinemas at the first showing. In later years, we would celebrate the day the movies were released by having marathons of all three movies.

I left high school, and my love of The Lord of the Rings did not wane. One of my uni assignments was to write or arrange a song for high school level choir. I wrote a melody to 'The Merry Old Inn', which Frodo sang in the inn at Bree (but only in the book, not in the movie). From memory, I got quite a good mark for that assignment. I've also been on a holiday to New Zealand, which partly, but not entirely, consisted of visiting movie sets.

Anyway, last night I went to see The Hobbit. I no longer live in the same city as my friend from high school, so we went on opening night in our separate cities, and sent happy togetherness vibes to each other. I thought the movie was fantastic, even with the addition of quite a bit of subplot to link it more closely to The Lord of the Rings. (However, it has been a few years since I've read the book, and I'm sure there's a lot that I just didn't remember. Maybe that can be my holiday project.)

I'm generally pretty good at getting lost in a story, but occasionally a few thoughts pop into my head while trying to immerse myself in fantasy. This is the kind of unexpected journey my brain takes during movies:

• Oh listen to that, they have a lot of the same music as the Lord of the Rings movies. That's a good thing. It links the stories together more closely, even if other people don't realise it.
• Wow, the dwarf song is amazing! (I may have been listening to it all morning.) Those low bass harmonies are so awesome!
• How come Bilbo's sword is invisible when he's wearing the ring? And what would happen if he dropped it?
• I thought all dwarves had long beards. What happened to Kili's beard?
• Speaking of dwarves, did they find lots of actors with really big noses, or are they prosthetic? And why does their king look more human and less dwarvy than the rest of the dwarves?
• Which dwarf is which? (This helped a lot)

The Best Medicine

Today was a rather amusing day. I spent the day with the school concert band I help to run, performing at local primary schools. The band is made up of a great bunch of kids, all of whom gave me a little bit of a giggle. But two things today made me laugh so much that I just have to tell people about them:

1) The band has three percussionists, all teenage boys. One of the boys was so tired before our final concert that he decided to have a little lie down on the stage. So one of the other boys tucked him in under an old towel and I decided to play a lullaby on the glockenspiel. As you do. A few minutes later, we realised that the kid was still very quiet, and had actually fallen asleep. But the concert was about to start, and we needed to wake him up. After shaking his foot, he still didn't wake up, but rolled over saying "I don't want to go to school". We eventually had to play the crash cymbals in his face to wake him up. It was one of those teaching moments that makes your heart swell about three sizes!

2) I've recently been talked into joining the Bible reading roster at church, so once a month I read the passage from the Bible that the day's sermon is based on. My church is currently doing a sermon series on marriage (and I won't go into details here about being a cynical spinster who doesn't think that a 6-week series on marriage is really necessary). Anyway, today I've been told that this week's reading is from the book of Song of Songs. So come this Sunday, I will have to publicly say things like "Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine", "Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon", and "Your breasts are like clusters of fruit". As a Christian, I think that all of God's word is important and useful, but if I can get through this reading without dissolving into fits of giggles, it will be a major achievement. (And if a man ever says things like that to me, he's going to get what's coming to him, probably involving a black eye!)

What has made you laugh today?

This is why I don't have #twitter

I once heard somebody say that to fully grasp the concept of twitter, you have to imagine everyone in the world shouting everything they're thinking into a megaphone. But that's not the reason I don't have twitter. It's more to do with the fact that I don't exactly want everybody in the world to know the crazy things that I'm thinking and doing. But you, o priveledged portion of the blogosphere, have achieved the entitlement of knowing exactly why I don't have twitter.

• I've discovered that if you put all of your usual breakfast ingredients into a blender, it turns into a banana flavoured cappucino foam
• Does anybody else remember hair mascara? I never really got that stuff. Is it supposed to go over all your hair, or just streaks?
• This, my friends, is the technique known as 'flirt to convert'. I'm not sure if it's a great idea or not.
• "Miss, I really like the way you've done your ears today", says a seven-year-old-girl.
• Dark coloured dressing gowns are better when worn around the shoulders while jumping around the house pretending to be batman/the phantom of the opera.
•  "I'm going to stop being silly now, and start being sensitive", says another crazy seven-year-old.
• Stop the world! I want to get off!
• 'Won't you be my Pavlov, I could be your chocolate cake, we could form a habit neither one of us can break'.
• Nooooo! Starburns is dead!!!!! He was my favourite.
• Finishing the final season of Community is like saying goodbye to an old friend that was with me through my honours year.
• Evil Abed is really creepy.
• But if the guy goes back in time to remove his reason to go back in time, how does that work?
• "Spring is here, spring is here, life is skittles and life is beer'. Even though I don't like beer. 

I think you're all starting to get the idea. Welcome, yet again, to my crazy life!

On Holiday

So...guess who has a two week holiday from school.....

This girl does!

Seriously, one of the best things about being a teacher is the regular school holidays. I really love my job(s) but kids are exhausting, and I need regular breaks from them. This break, I'm not travelling far, and not travelling for long, so I get to spend a lot of time at home doing not much. I'm so excited! This is how I define 'not much'

I'm driving to a city about 5 hours away for a few days. The main reason for the trip is a friend's wedding, but I'll be spending a few days there visiting my sister, my grandmother and a few good friends.

I got lots of books out of the library the other day. I've already finished the Grumpy Old Men diary, but hope to get read 'On the Road', 'The Slap', and 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'. And I've also recently discovered the DVDs at the library, so now there are many episodes of Blackadder to watch.

Speaking of TV, my mum has taped a few documentaries that I'd like to watch, so I'm going to spend a day at my family's house watching their TV. I've also recently acquired season 3 of Community, which my housemate and I are watching together. This is quite exciting because I have already seen seasons 1 and 2, which I watched again with her, but I haven't seen season 3 yet. Hooray for new Community episodes.

I'm also going to spend a day with mum visiting a few local art galleries, because there's a visual art festival happening in town, and my mum and I like to pretend that we're cultured. This will be a few days after a day hiking through nearby mountains with my dad and brother.

I should also probably do some gardening. Gardening isn't my favourite task, but I like the pretty roses that result from a little bit of maintenance.

My housemate and I have agreed to go op shopping, because it's something we've been talking about doing for ages, but it's a little bit hard to fit around a full time job.

I've got a few choral arrangements floating around in my head that I'd really like to get onto paper (or into notation software anyway). I love doing arranging, which I'm not ashamed to admit because I've decided to embrace my inner nerd, but I rarely get time during the school term.

I'm also vaguely thinking about hosting a party at my place, just because.


So much for a holiday spent doing not much. I'm not sure how I'm going to fit all the above in two weeks. but I'm certainly going to have fun trying :)

Living as a Christian woman

This post has been stewing around in my brain for quite a while, but tonight I have decided to stop agonising over every point and just write. Believe me, I'm a very long way from having everything figured out, but this is where my thoughts stand at the moment. Feel free to disagree with my opinions, as long as you can justify your own.

This is a post about me. As you can probably figure out from the title, I have two X chromosomes, I've made a decision to follow Jesus, and my heart is still working. When you reduce everything down to those basics, it all seems very simple. However life can often be anything but.

Recently, I've been reading through some of the harder books of the Bible, including Proverbs and Ecclesiasties. Proverbs in particular I've found challenging. It seemed to have very little to say to or about women, and that it did say wasn't very helpful. The three types of women referred to in the book are the good wife (Proverbs 31) the annoying wife and the adulteress. There wasn't anything there for somebody who fits in category D: none of the above. (That wasn't an emoticon!)

After finding links from a couple of the other blogs I read, I've rediscovered the Boundless webzine. And almost every article I've read has annoyed me. I consider most of the advice offered to be too pro marriage, and some of it downright mysoginistic. For example:

• Successful women are not marrying because they out-earn the men in their peer group.
• A woman travelling for a few days to attend a conference and leaving her husband with the house and children is contrary to God's design.
• Modern women are described as 'aggressively independent'. (If it's 'aggressive' to have a job I enjoy and be able to pay my own rent, then I'm guilty as charged.)
• Women need to live with their parents (or another Christian family) to protect them from men who would take advantage of the opportunity that a single woman living alone provides.

Please tell me I'm not the only person who is annoyed by these ideas (annoyed seems too passive a word!) God has given me many gifts, talents and opportunities, and I'm not about to squander them simply because using them to the best of my ability means that no nice Christian boy will want to marry me. Is it too much to ask for a boyfriend (and maybe future husband) who is enough of a man to find my strength and success attractive rather than intimidating?
And it's just plain frustrating when all the advice about making the most of your single years is written by married people with children.

Okay - so I'm just going to say it: I like boys. While God hasn't revealed all His plans regarding my future, I'm still hoping that a husband will turn up someday. Now this may just be a problem at my church with its current demographic, but unmarried men and women aren't particularly good at hanging out together socially. Youth Group supper is a post-evening service tradition where I worship. I've started noticing of late that the guys will all sit in one big group, the girls in another, and never the twain shall meet. And that bothers me a lot. There's also a girls' social night and a boys' social night weekly for the church youth. Of course, there is a time and a place for hanging out with friends of the same gender, I feel that this has become too much the norm. This might be partly because there are a lot of high school kids in the church youth group, and very little acknowledgement of people who have moved on to the next stage of their life without picking up a spouse on the way. While I love all my girl friends from church, I think that I, and a lot of other people, are missing out on their personal growth from their limited social interactions.


I hope this post doesn't portray me as some kind of bitter single woman. Ninety-nine per cent of the time I'm perfectly happy living and working as a single woman, trying to figure out how to honour God in all aspects of my life as it is now.

Counting My Blessings

So often I come to this blog as a space to whinge. Today wasn’t the best day of my life, but when I look over my last few posts, I feel silly writing about yet another of my problems. Particularly considering that my problems are so insignificant in the overall scheme of things. So today, I’m going to write a list of the things that, when looked at in the right perspective, remind me of the fact that God has blessed me far more richly than I deserve. 

• I had a long and tiring day at work today. That means that I have a job, so I don’t have the financial worries or long term boredom of unemployment. Not only do I have a job, but I really enjoy it. Getting out of bed in the morning is a challenge, but that’s only because it’s cold. Part of the reason that today was long and tiring is because I was planning a camp, which is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of being a teacher (the camp itself – not the planning!)

• Today was rainy and windy. But that means that now I can sit inside my warm house, listening to the weather outside and drinking peppermint tea – a perfect night in.

• I had a day off yesterday, so I was able to clean my room and go op-shopping. So now I’m wearing a cool knitted vest kind-of-thing. I know it’s a bit shallow, but new clothes make me happy. 

• Speaking of retail therapy – If you’re feeling a little bit overwhelmed by work, nothing will make you feel better than going to officeworks and buying a whiteboard/pinup board to write lists and pin things.

• I sometimes struggle to do my daily devotions, but then I remember that I own a bible, and I can speak the language in which it’s written. I have no excuses! But when I wake up and drag myself out of bed to do my bible reading over breakfast, I’m reminded what a privilege it is to commune with the Lord of the universe (and I can even do so while eating cereal!)

• Last week, I got to hang out with my sister. We had a couple of free hours on a school camp, and my sister was able to come and see me. My sister is awesome! She’s like me, except way cooler. There are very few people in the world that understand you the way that your family does, and nothing is quite like spending time with them.

I think that has made me happy enough to get back into the stuff I’m meant to be doing now, rather than wasting time blogging.

Greece 2.0

Greetings, Blogosphere!

I know it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me – my apologies. Life has been crazy busy. Even now, I can think of about five other things that I should be doing instead of writing, but I just don’t want to right now. So here I am instead. 

A few months ago, some of you will remember me writing about an upcoming trip to Greece. That has been and gone, and I managed to do most of the things on the list. I learnt a few traditional Greek songs and dances (at a conference, rather than the taverna, but hey!) I ate Greek Salad, ghalakto booreeko, dolmades, and almost died from caffeine overload when I drank the coffee. I spent three nights on the island of Naxos, and didn’t want to leave. I went up the Acropolis, and climbed the White Tower of Thessaloniki (on different days). The conference that I went to was inspiring. I met so many people who were really interested in the research that I’d done. It was just so exciting to spend a week in the company of people who are as passionate about music education as I am. To cut a long story short – I had an amazing time!

 Sunset over St George's beach on Naxos

 "If you like Pina Coladas..."

The Parthenon

On the ferry to Naxos

However, settling back into reality after an experience like that is always a bit difficult. I got back to Australia Sunday evening, went to work in the city Monday morning, and drove back to my town Monday afternoon. I’ve been working full time ever since, with busy weekends in between. Last week, I went away on a camp with the concert band that I conduct. That was really fun, but an exhausting kind of fun. Last weekend the concert band that I play in performed their annual concert; again, it was exhausting but fun. I’ve started a new job, one day a week at a local Christian school starting a classroom music programme. This is in addition to one day a week at a different primary school doing classroom music, two days at two high schools doing singing and percussion teaching, and often relief teaching on my ‘day off’, which is supposedly a day for preparation. To top it all off, I’ve had a cold that just took a really long time to shake. So lately, I’ve been really tired, but not yet sick enough to justify taking time out from my schedule.

I’m starting to get really annoyed at the hodge-podge of different jobs that I have to do to make up a full time work load. What I really want to do is just one job and to do it really well. Often, it takes as much time to prepare a day’s worth of lessons as a week’s. So my preparation time either spills into my personal time more than I think it should, or I go into classes underprepared and stressed – neither of which is much fun. However, with a lack of certainty in any of the positions that I have, I need to keep all my options open.  Either that, or throw everything in and move somewhere else to find a full time position. 

At the moment, in my current foul mood, what I want to do more than anything else is become a reclusive composer, preferably working from Naxos.  I do realise how impractical that is, so for now, I’ve decided to stick out for another year doing what I’m doing, and see what happens from there.

Current mood: Slightly Despondent

It’s another long weekend in my little corner of the world. I’ve actually been looking forward to it for quite a while, because for once, I’m not insanely busy, but I get the chance to just mooch around at home, reading and catching up on things that have been left undone of late. However, now that it’s here, this weekend is starting to look a little bit lonely. Before you give out too much sympathy, allow me to explain that my loneliness is entirely my own fault, because I have refused several invitations from friends, in anticipation of a joyous weekend of solitude. 

The most recent was an invitation to the movies tonight. The girls from church are going to see ‘What to expect when you’re expecting’. The girl who invited me included a joke in the text message (at least, I’m hoping it was a joke) about the movie being a good lesson for our future someday. (WARNING: Chip-on-shoulder-rant approaching!) Even though I’m sure that statement was made in jest, it made me a little angry. Who’s to say that I’m ever going to marry and/or have children? God hasn’t revealed that particular part of his plan to me yet, and I sure don’t want anybody else making assumptions about my future matrimony. Also, as one of the ‘old young people’ at church, I was probably among the oldest of the girls this invitation was sent to. I’m not entirely sure it’s in good taste to joke about having babies with 17-year-old girls who haven’t left school, haven’t left home and haven’t seen anything of the world outside this tiny little town. I feel that the (slightly) older women around should be encouraging them to pursue their education, explore the world, meet people of interesting and diverse viewpoints, strengthen their faith and grow as people so that they can be a blessing to all the people around, not just a good wife and mother. And as a teacher, I really don’t want to spend the evening with girls who attend the school where I teach. To cut a long story short – no movie tonight.

My housemate (let’s call her Hannah) has a man-friend in town this weekend. I don’t really know how to define their relationship yet, but I’ve never had the chance to apply the term ‘flirtationship’, so we’ll use that for now. He’s been hanging around here a bit, which has set me on edge (in the least derogatory way possible.) It’s just a little bit awkward having somebody who is essentially a complete stranger to me hanging around in my house. I’m never sure whether to try to be sociable or give Hannah and her guy-date-thingy some space.  I haven’t exactly been feeling jealous of Hannah, because I’m genuinely happy for her and her guy-date-thingy, but I have been feeling like a third wheel, which is never entirely comfortable. 

To solve that problem, I’ve been delving into a book – Jane Eyre. (Side note: I can’t believe I haven’t read it before! I watched the movie years ago, so I vaguely remember the rough outline of the story, but the book’s amazing!) However, I’m falling in love with yet another fictional man, this time Mr Rochester. That’s all well and good while I’m lost in the pages of the book, but when I’m not reading, I just get a bit sad that he doesn’t exist in real life. Mr Rochester has now joined the list of fictional men that have spoiled real-life romance for me, which also includes the Beast (from Beauty and the Beast), Rhett Butler (from Gone with the Wind), Jake Henry (from Hustle), Severus Snape (from Harry Potter) and the guy who sings Some Enchanted Evening in South Pacific. 

However, during a break from reading about Mr Rochester this afternoon, I suddenly had this song stuck in my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmtsuJvp7YU 

It’s a setting of part of Psalm 42. Although the composer, Herbert Howells, was an agnostic, I still feel God speaking to me through this music. The soprano line at the end on the words ‘When shall I come (to appear before the presence of God)?’ conveys such longing. It really reminded me that although I’m surrounded by signs of earthly romance, I need to pursue a relationship with the only perfect man, who has already demonstrated his love for me by dying for me. Because although I am sometimes persuaded otherwise, this is all I truly need. 

And even fictional men have their weaknesses.

All the books!

Here we go - a slightly happier blog post :)

I'm not exactly sure where this list of books came from, but judging from the title, it had something to do with the BBC. Apparently, statistically speaking, on average a person will have only read six of these books. A few years ago, I set myself the rather enjoyable challenge of finishing half of them before my 25th birthday (which is still 18 months away). Of late, my efforts have been stalled slightly, by a combination of a ridiculously busy few weeks and a rather large book that has taken me a while to get through. However, I took a sick day today (a little bit unwarranted, but I really needed the day off) and managed to catch up on a bit of reading. So after my school reports are done, I think it might be time for another trip to the local library.

If anyone reading this loves books as much as I do, I'd really appreciate your feedback as to which eight of the 58 books I haven't read I should make it a priority to read before I'm officially a quarter of a century old. (Speaking of readers - shout out to the Russians! According to blog statistics, the country with the second highest number of page views of this blog is Russia. Go figure...)

BBC reading list

[x] 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
[x] 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
[ ] 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
[x] 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
[x] 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
[x] 6 The Bible - God (the whole thing)
[ ] 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
[x] 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
[x] 9 The Northern Lights- Philip Pullman
[x] 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

8/10

[x] 11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
[x] 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
[x] 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
[x] 14 Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare
[ ] 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
[x] 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
[ ] 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
[x] 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
[ ] 19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
[ ] 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

14/20

[x] 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
[ ] 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
[x] 23 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
[x] 24 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
[ ] 25 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
[ ] 26 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
[x] 27 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
[x] 28 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
[ ] 29 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
[ ] 30 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

19/30

[x] 31 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain

[ ] 32 Emma - Jane Austen
[ ] 33 Persuasion - Jane Austen
[x] 34 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
[x] 35 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
[x] 36 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
[ ] 37 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
[x] 38 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
[x] 39 Animal Farm - George Orwell
[ ] 40 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

25/40

[ ] 41 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[ ] 42 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
[x] 43 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
[x] 44 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
[ ] 45 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
[x] 46 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
[x] 47 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
[x] 48 Atonement - Ian McEwan
[x] 49 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
[ ] 50 Dune - Frank Herbert

31/50

[ ] 51 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
[ ] 52 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
[ ] 53 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
[ ] 54 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
[ ] 55 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
[ ] 56 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
[x] 57 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
[ ] 58 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[ ] 59 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
[ ] 60 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

32/60

[ ] 61 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
[x] 62 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
[ ] 63 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
[ ] 64 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
[ ] 65 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
[ ] 66 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
[ ] 67 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
[x] 68 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
[x] 69 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
[ ] 70 Dracula - Bram Stoker

35/70

[x] 71 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
[ ] 72 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
[ ] 73 Ulysses - James Joyce
[ ] 74 The Inferno - Dante
[ ] 75 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
[ ] 76 Germinal - Emile Zola
[ ] 77 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
[ ] 78 Possession - AS Byatt
[x] 79 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
[ ] 80 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

37/80

[ ] 81 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
[ ] 82 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
[ ] 83 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
[ ] 84 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
[x] 85 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
[ ] 86 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
[ ] 87 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
[x] 88 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
[ ] 89 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
[x] 90 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

40/90

[ ] 91 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
[ ] 92 Watership Down - Richard Adams
[ ] 93 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
[x] 94 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
[ ] 95 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
[ ] 96 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
[x] 97 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
[ ] 98 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

[ ] 99 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

[ ] 100 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

total 42

So Many Possibilities

I'm just feeling a bit confused at the moment. There are so many directions my life could take, and none of them stand out as 'the right one'. But first, some context.

I was dragged into my current job, kicking and screaming (metaphorically, of course). I had a few ideals of my dream first real job, and this one was the exact opposite. I wanted to stay in the city where I was living at the time, I wanted to teach classroom music at a high school. I ended up getting posted in another town 5 hours away, far too close to my parents, teaching at a primary school and singing teaching at a high school. The funny thing was, I loved it, and I still do. Except for the fact I'm meant to be writing the students' reports at the moment, I usually can't believe I get paid to have so much fun! However, I'm still doing a hodge-podge of different positions (3 jobs at 4 schools to be precise), none of which are permanent, and they don't add up to a full-time workload (although, that's probably a positive. I love my 3 day weekends!)

A few weeks ago, I was talking to the teacher in charge of music at one of the schools where I work. Let's call her Miranda music teacher. Miranda has been a fantastic, albeit unofficial mentor since I started working. She's planning to retire at the end of next year, and was talking to me about the possibility of me taking over her position. That would be a full time role in the same town where I'm living now. However, that means I couldn't keep going with the singing and percussion teaching that I'm doing now, which I love doing. The instrumental teaching is only 2 1/2 days per week at the moment, but I inherited two very small programmes, which have been growing since I've been here, so it could increase to three or four days a week over the next few years very easily. I also work one day a week at a primary school that really needs a full time music specialist (that they claim the budget won't cover!) In a lot of ways, although I find primary classroom work more stressful, I see it as being more important than the instrumental work. So arguing my way into a full-time position at that school is another possibility. I've also been head-hunted by both the Christian schools in town, who heard on the grapevine that there was an underemployed music teacher living in their midst. Overall, the biggest consideration is how long I want to stay in town, and why I'm deciding to stay.

It always takes me a while to settle into a new town, but I'm starting to feel like I've made it here. I've found a great church, made a lot of close friends, and have found things to do in the evenings besides watching TV. And now that I've moved out of home (again), even living in the same town as my parents is a positive thing about being here. There are still a lot of things that I miss about my old city, but each time I go back for a visit, I find that I've drifted out of the loop a little bit further. Essentially there are two tangible things keeping me here. When I think about it, both of them are pretty stupid things to base major life decisions upon.

The first is my students. As an instrumental teacher, I teach the same kids over long periods of time, rather than getting new ones each year or semester. Part of me wants to see my first crop of year 8s through to year 12, and see what my choir is like when it's full of kids I've been teaching for five years instead of one.

The other is Garry. Yes, as in Garry the guy-I-kinda-like. We get along really well. He's a fun person to hang around with. I feel I can just be myself with him, and conversation just flows. However, he's never given me any indication that he wants to be anything more than friends. And I'm being the good little Christian woman who kissed dating goodbye and is just waiting for him to pursue me. (Actully, I never kissed dating goodbye, dating has never really said 'howdy'.) See how ridiculous it is, for me to base decisions upon a relationship that maybe potentially could possibly happen in the distant future!

So what do I do? Do I hang around here in one or more of any number of jobs, loving life but somewhat stagnating? Or do I venture forth in search of new horizons? Do I passively wait for Garry to figure out where things stand between us, or do I declare undying love for him, secure in the knowledge that if everything goes horribly wrong, the UK worker's visa application doesn't take too long :P

Sorry about the long-winded whinge, anonymous internet traffic, and thankyou for listening. I'll try to make sure the next post is significantly sunnier.

Boys can be silly

I have to justify this statement by citing some conversations that I have been a part of over the last week. For the purposes of keeping all things anonymous, let's refer to these particular members of the male persuasion as Barry from bible study, Freddie the friend-of-a-friend, and Garry the guy-I-kinda-like.

(In the context of a discussion on polygamy)
Barry: "I can't even find one wife, where am I going to get two?"
Fisher: "You're sitting at a table with company that includes three gorgeous, age-appropriate, Christian girls, none of whom, to my knowledge, you have ever asked out, and you say that you can't find a wife?" (This was in my head.)

Freddie: "Hey, I haven't seen you for ages. Do you want to catch up for coffee sometime?"
Fisher: Totally unsolicited freak-out and stretching of the truth in order to avoid said coffee and catch-up at all costs.

Garry: "..." (except for a facebook like)
Fisher: "You're the most amazing man I've ever met and our babies will be smart AND beautiful!" (Again, this was in my head.)

Okay, so perhaps judging from these conversations all laid out, I might be the silly one. It's just so much more satisfying to blame everyone else for my problems. I'm not particularly proud of any of the responses I made (even though they were mostly in my head).

On a previous occasion, I have gotten quite angry at a friend who wanted to play the simple game with the complicated name: 'Let's-take-all-the-single-people-over-the-age-of-sixteen-at-church-and-decide-who-would-make-cute-couples'. Church, although a good place to meet potential life partners who share values, interests and faith, is not a match-making agency, and shouldn't be treated as such. Church should be a place where everyone is accepted, even if they've reached the ripe old age of twenty-three without settling down with a spouse and children. It irks me when it is assumed that two single people around the same age and attending the same church must be right for each other (which is exactly what I did the other evening). So sorry, Barry, for trying to set you up and not simply accepting you as you are.

I spent a fair bit of time with Freddie over the weekend. We saw each other at a mutual friend's wedding, and he spent the whole night being very friendly - coming over to my table to chat several times and asking me to dance. We did spend a fair bit of time on the D-floor, which involved plenty of twirling and a close waltz grip. (Had I known, I would have worn a skirt with a bit of a flare, rather than my fairly basic shift dress.)He spent the whole night, unlike Stephen Sondheim's musical theatre heros, being both charming and sincere. The signals I was getting were on the border of friendship and flirtation. And so I did what I usually do when faced with an uncertain, possibly romantic, situation - I panicked. I spent ages the next day composing a reply text that contained no out-and-out lies, but neglected to mention the fact that I could have seen him, but chose not to -  mainly out of fear. After the last time I was in a similar situation, I promised that I wouldn't let my fear of relationships hold me back from having adventures. So much for promises made to myself....

And Garry...I think two out of three justifications aren't bad. He can remain a silly boy!

Holy Week #Likeaboss

Confession: I totally stole this!

The pastor at the church I used to attend while I was at uni posted on Facebook a step-by-step guide to Holy Week. Here 'tis...

Embrace your inner Anglican and do holy week #likeaboss

1) Today or tomorrow: Put a palm branch in a vase at the centre of your table and pray each night for the Messiah's peace.

2) On a night this week (preferably Thursday) have a (passover like) meal with some friends and wash each other's feet.

3) On Friday, go to church, then come come and YouTube Miserere and play at full volume

4) On holy Saturday, consider the burial of Jesus.

5) On Easter Sunday, go twice as crazy as you would at Christmas. Eat wonderful food, drink wonderful drinks, be with people you love. Tell them: "Christ has risen" (They should say "He has risen indeed!").
For soundtrack, try Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. Or track '70's with Keith Green's Easter Song. Or even U2's Window in the Skies. Celebrate like the resurrection actually happened.


I may not be following the guide exactly, but I'm doing an okay job. Especially since I'm not really an Anglican. 

I completely missed Palm Sunday, since I spent the morning driving 5 hours home from a friend's wedding and the afternoon playing in a concert. And there aren't too many palm trees around here, so I can't use them to decorate my house. 

I am however, having friends around for dinner on Thursday night.We're going to eat roast lamb and flat bread, and watch The Passion of the Christ. I might have the buckets and towels ready for some improptu foot washing, but I doubt that will happen. 

I will be going to church on Good Friday, because I'm on the music team. After coming home, I'll definitely bust out Allegri's Miserere, but from a CD rather than Youtube. And I should probably look up a translation, since my Latin is getting a little rusty.

My plans for Saturday are still a bit up in the air. I'll definitely find some time to contemplate Jesus' burial

And bring on Easter Sunday. After waking up ridiculously early to play at an Easter dawn service, I'll go to church, and after that to a Christian music festival. I'm totally up for greeting everyone with 'He is risen!'.


My favourite sentence that my ex-pastor wrote in that status update is 'Celebrate like the resurrection actually happened.' Sometimes it's all too easy to forget the cross, or take it for granted, but it is central to my faith. Easter often gets overshadowed by Christmas in our culture, but if you think about it, Christmas is just a prelude to Easter. It is a lot easier to think about Sweet baby Jesus in the manger than it is to contemplate the horrors of the crucifixion. All that pain, all that suffering for my sin. Just because God loved me, despite my inherent unloveliness. Enough to seek me out when I was actively rebelling against him. How amazing is the God that I serve!?

Things that make me go :)

A list of moments/events/objects in the last few days that have given me a sense of satisfaction.

1) A cafe lunch at a significantly lower cost.
My housemate is a waitress, and she occasionally brings home leftovers for me. Tuscan spinach pie for lunch - why thankyou!

2) Students with a can-do attitude.
As a singing teacher, I often ask my students to sing solo, so that I can hear and correct what they are doing. Today, two of my students agreed without the slightest look of fear on their faces, and their lack of nerves was reflected in the awesome tone they produced.

3) A busy weekend ahead.
I'm going camping with the church youth group tonight, coming back just in time for a friend's birthday party, leaving that to go to a brass band social, crashing into bed Saturday night in order to be refreshed for church and my housewarming party on Sunday.

4) A fridge full of delicious food that I'm going to assemble in interesting combinations.
I'm planning to make a roast vegie salad and a lemon cheesecake for this weekend.

5) A parcel arriving.
The sheet music that I ordered for my choir weeks ago finally arrived.

6) Happy emails
I want to arrange a cool song for my choir, so I emailed the composer to ask for arranging rights. She emailed back and said she was happy to give them to me. I also emailed my old lecturer from uni asking if my school choir could do a workshop with his university choir. He emailed back and said he thought it was a great idea.

7) Sunshine
I know that my mood shouldn't be so dependent on the weather, but it's impossible not to be hapy when the windows and doors of your house are open to the sun and the breeze.

8) An awesome bible study group.
I've joined a new group this year, and I'm loving it so much. Its mainly the sort of people I've referred to before as the 'old young people', and after living in town for just over a year, I'm finally starting to feel like I know these people and can relax around them. The leaders are a married couple with young kids. I hadn't met them until about 4 weeks ago, but they're just so cool. She in particular has a friendly-sarcastic sense of humor that matches mine really well.

9) Finally getting my fitness levels up so that I can enjoy basketball.
Even though we only have one or two games left, I feel so much healthier from playing in this season. I've only scored one goal, but that's not too bad considering this is the first season I've ever played.

10) My tea shelf
This feels a bit like I'm clutching at straws to round the list out to ten items, but it's true. I'm living in an older style house, and the stove in the kitchen has a mantlepiece above it. I've turned this almost into a shrine to tea. It makes me so happy to look up at that shelf and see rooibos, chamomile, lady grey, peach and rasberry, lemon and ginger, orange pekoe, english breakfast, an espresso mug, coffee grounds, caramel latte, hot chocolate, milo and a teapot all in the one place.

11)I've thought of one more
When you're reading a book (currently Tess of the D'Urbervilles) and you come across a delicious simile (describing the sun coming through clouds at dusk as 'a piece of day left behind by accident').

Two weekends

Disclaimer: No deep philosophical truths will be expounded or explored in this post. I just want to write about awesome stuff that I do on weekends.

This weekend is a long weekend. This doesn't really affect me, because I don't work Mondays anyway, but it did mean that I was able to go camping with a bunch of friends. I don't particularly like packing for camping, or cleaning up afterwards, but it was all worthwhile on a weekend like this. Six of us went, all mates from church, and part of the group that I refer to as the "old young people" - that is, those of us who feel a bit awkward going to youth group, because we finished high school a long time ago, but we still get invited because we're not married yet. (Is that an issue in other churches? Or do I just have a massive chip on my shoulder that I should get rid of?)

We went to an inlet about half an hour out of town. There was a lovely calm river for kayaking, a decent surf break, and plenty of fishing opportunities in both river and sea. And everybody had a fantastic time. My 'role' was food coordinator, because although I hate fulfiling stereotypes, I really enjoy cooking when I'm camping. Probably because I really like eating. We ate delicious sausages, fried potatoes, onions, lamb chops, salad, pancakes, fish that we'd caught, biscuits, lolly snakes (which I taught my friend how to tie in a knot in her mouth), bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes and mushrooms (although not all at the same time). We weren't allowed to have a camp fire, so instead of toasting the marshmallows, we ended up playing chubby bunnies, which I haven't done since primary school. One morning, I woke up a couple of hours before everyone else, and went for a long walk on the beach by myself and watched the sunrise. That was amazing, seeing a long stretch of beach with no other people within sight or earshot. The 4WD tracks on the beach and the windfarm in the distance were the only evidence that other people existed. I turned off my phone and didn't wind my watch, because half the fun of camping is having no idea what time it is, but eating when you're hungry, going to bed when you're tired and stopping fishing when it gets dark and cold.

Now please don't take this the wrong way, but one of the things I enjoyed best about this trip was spending time with the men who came with us. (I feel like I have to justify this statement by saying that I'm a single woman, I live with another woman, I work with mainly women, my students are mainly teenage girls and I need some testosterone in my life to balance this out!) At my church, it sometimes seems that there isn't much socialising between the sexes, which is a real shame because everybody is unique and special, and has something to offer, and we shouldn't immediately dismiss people simly by their gender. Plus,I don't think it's cool to walk into church and see a row of guys and a row of girls (and never the twain shall meet). So the moral of the story is that I enjoyed getting to know some of the men from my church a bit better (and there's nothing quite like convincing not one man but two to cook pancakes for me :P).

This weekend contrasted a lot with last weekend. I spent a little bit too much time on a couch at my friend's place, eating junk food and staring at a screen while all three Lord of the Rings extended editions played. That was great too, in a very different way. It was so much fun quoting our way through the movies (that I hadn't seen for a very long time, but still remembered really well).

So at the moment, now that I've had a post-camping shower (hello, my friendly hot water tap!) I'm just feeling incredibly satisfied, and grateful to God for his creation, for living in a town that has such beauty on its doorstep, and for wonderful friends that could share all this with me.

Greece

I found out the most exciting news ever today! The final year project that originally inspired this blog (as a form of procrastination) is venturing out into the big wide world. Last year, I submitted my paper to the International Society of Music Education (ISME) for consideration, and now they've asked me to present it at their conference in Thessaloniki. I'm so excited that I have butterflies, but in a good way, and I keep randomly bursting into the happy dance (which involves much waving of fists and squeaking). So come July, I'm going to catch a plane from a southern hemisphere winter to a Greek summer! Since I'm in a bit of a list-ie mood (lists help calm me down), here's a list of things I want to do in Greece:

1) I want to spend time lying on the beach. I know I live by the sea, and lying on the beach is something I can do all the time anyway, but this will be a Greek beach. I won't spend too long doing that, because I'm not flying halfway across the world to sleep, and I'll get badly sunburnt, but a few hours one morning/afternoon would be amazing! Plus, I'll be away for the whole school holidays, so I'll need a little bit of down time before I start teaching again.

2) I want to go to an Island for a night or two. Again, I'm going to be spending most of my time in Thessaloniki, but you can't go to Greece and not set foot on an Island.

3) I want to try all the different foods. My sweet tooth is looking forward to baklava and ghalacto booreeko. . And my brother enjoys cooking Greek dishes, so I'd like to see how his moussaka and Greek salad compare to the real thing. And the same for takeaway dishes like kebabs (soovlakee). Even though I'm a cereal junkie at breakfast time, I'm going to try living without it for the two weeks I'm there and having the local fare of bread (psomee), yoghurt (to yaoortee) and coffee (kafe).

4) Even though I don't go to clubs or bars that much, I really want to spend an evening at an oozeree and try  ouzo and chat to the locals in my extremely broken Greek.

5) The nerd in me wants to go to the Areopagus, and recite Paul's "Men of Athens" speech.

6) I want to see the view from the Acropolis, even though it will be swarming with tourists.

7) If possible, I want to find some people that still do folk dancing, and wouldn't mind a random tourist with two left feet joining.

Basically, expect photos in a few months time :)

Because every new house is a chance to reinvent yourself a little...

That’s a modified line of a poem that a friend of a friend of mine from uni days wrote. (Originally, it was ‘Because every new friend is a chance to reinvent yourself a little...’.) I’ve been thinking about it lately, because I’ve recently moved into a new house. While I still love my parents to bits, living with them again was slowly turning me back into my eighteen-year-old-self, which is not a great place to be in your mid twenties. So I’ve moved into a sharehouse with a friend from church. It’s been pretty awesome, but there are always little personality quirks that you only find out about someone after moving in with them. As far as it goes, my housemate is pretty awesome, and I’m hoping that writing out her annoying traits will help me to realise how small and insignificant they are. Here goes...

Things that slightly annoy me about my housemate:

1)      She often listens to commercial radio. I would describe my taste in music as broad and eclectic. I enjoy listening to classical music, jazz, and indie music. Commercial radio, with the same mix of songs every day, inane presenters and constant advertising drives me up the wall.

2)      We have very different tastes in food. If I only have 15 minutes for lunch, I’ll probably knock up a quick sandwich, or go hunting in the fridge for leftovers, and grab a piece of fruit. She’s more likely to polish off a packet of savoury biscuits, and has barely touched the well-stocked fruit bowl since we moved in. (See, it’s really petty, and not a big deal, but it annoys me!) I’m also of the opinion that most meals are made better by the addition of one or more of avocado, olives, sundried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, and various curry spices. All of which are foods that she doesn’t like. To the point of picking them out of her meals, rather than just grinning and bearing with it.

3)      We have differing opinions on how long dishes should be left before washing. Which usually results in either the sink crawling with ants, or me doing the vast majority of the dishes. Sometimes both. Same goes for sweeping, vacuuming, weeding and making sure the bathroom sink isn’t too mouldy.

4)      She insists on hanging up the shower mat folded, which does look neater, but also means that it never dries properly.

5)      She’s much more sociable than I am. One of my friends has recently moved away to go to uni, and I was going to have her around for a casual afternoon tea. Housemate got wind of my plan, and decided to invite most of the girls from church around for a tea party (for which I ended up doing the majority of the preparation.)

None of these qualities are deal breakers. And I haven’t mentioned this girl’s generosity of spirit, or her sense of fun, or the way that we encourage each other in our Christian walk or everyday life. And her relaxed nature and sociability are probably qualities that I should encourage in myself. 

So I am being reinvented (a little) by my experience of living with this girl, even if it is just gaining patience in the little things that don’t matter. As the saying goes:

Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things