Parties Suck

Okay, so the title is slightly misleading. I actually quite enjoy parties. Having said that, my definition of a party is rather broad. I consider two or more people in the same room to be a party of sorts. Different parties have different moods. There are quiet tea-drinking and highbrow ideas-discussing parties. There are movie nights in with a small group of close friends. There are rowdy gatherings at the pub. There are sophisticated neighbourly gatherings on the balcony next door. There are birthday picnics in the backyard. There are Christmas parties. There are dinner parties. And then there is my going-away party, which has inspired this post.

Next year, I have a new job, teaching music at a high school in a different town. I'm looking forward to a fresh start, but quite upset to be leaving a good community behind, all at the same time. If I had any technological competency, now would be a good time for me to place a .GIF of Troy from 'Community' ugly crying and screaming "MY EMOTIONS!!!!!". Too many emotions at once, let's leave that for another day, shall we?

My idea for an awesome going-away shindig was to charter a boat for a sunset harbour cruise. What better way to farewell the beautiful town where I have lived for the past four years? However, there is a huge price difference between the smaller boat and the larger boat. So I have been compiling a guest list, to see if I can be justified in taking the smaller boat. This is the source of my angst. When compiling a limited guest list, my thoughts progress along the following lines:

"I like these people, I want them to be at my party."
(This might be enough guest list logic for some people...)
"But Reginald doesn't know anybody else on the guest list!"
"I suppose I'll have to invite Reginald's friend Eric."
"But Eric will want to bring his wife, Penelope"
"But if I invite Penelope, her friend Esme will be so offended to miss out on an invite."
"If Penelope and Esme come, I'll have to invite the rest of our basketball team from three seasons ago."
"And now the basketball team all want to bring their partners as well"
Guest list has suddenly gone from 20 to 500.

Now you can see why most of the parties I've hosted in my "grown-up" life have been picnics in parks!

A slightly feminist mini rant

Maybe I sometimes get a bit too picky over the use of language, and the unintentional meanings that come out of a flippant or occasionally even well-meant phrase. This morning, a friend posted on the book-of-face an article entitled '8 Things my father taught me about respecting women'. Now while I appreciated the sentiments behind the article, I did have a problem with the title of the first point: 'That's Someone's Daughter'.

I do have several questions and concerns about this statement. Firstly, it places a woman's worth in her relationships, rather than in herself. This value of women's relationships over women's value in and of herself is an unhealthy bent of our society. It does beg the question - what if that woman isn't someone's daughter? What if she lost her parents, either through death or other circumstances? Does this mean that she is not worthy of respect?

The same value of a woman's relationship over a woman herself can sometimes be seen in dating and hookup culture. If I want to reject a man's advances, I usually do so with a polite yet firm "I'm not interested." Funnily enough, this doesn't always work (not even in my best teacher voice!) If I feel threatened by the situation, I will lie and say that I have a boyfriend. There are unfortunately many men in the world who respect the 'ownership' of my absent, non-existent partner over and above the respect offered to the wishes of a woman who is actually there.

So while I acknowledge the sentiment behind the "That's Someone's Daughter" argument, a much more positive turn of phrase would be "Remember that women are people too'. A woman's personhood is what gives her worth, rather than her relationships. Men of the world - continue to follow the advice in the article (pay for her dinner, walk her to the door, etc.) but do so while remembering rule number one: Remember that women are people too. Sometimes a woman will prefer to pay for her own dinner, or drive herself home after an evening out. If that is the case, listen to her, respect her wishes, remember that she is a person too.

I think this may well be the golden rule of feminism - Remember that women are people too!

Breakfast

You know what I love? I really like eating breakfast. It is the thing that motivates me to get out of bed in the morning. It is always so tasty and delicious and happifying. See how much I love breakfast? I even need to make up words to describe my love for it.

The only bad thing I can think of concerning this rather wonderful meal is the sheer variety. On any given morning, I will want to eat multiple things, but my stomach just can't handle that much food all at once.

So you want a list of my favourite breakfast foods? I'm so glad you asked. Well, I suppose I could do so for you...

1) Cereal: My go-to cereal is plain old weetbix, but I do occasionally like to shake things up with cornflakes (best served with banana and honey) or the really yummy cranberry cereal, the official name of which I can't currently remember. Muesli is another delicious one. A few years ago, I stayed with a family that made their own muesli with oats, almonds, cranberries, dried apricots, pepitas and finely grated fresh ginger.

2) Overnight Oats: I suppose this is technically part of the cereal family. I love putting oats and chopped apple and milk in the fridge overnight and finding them perfect in the morning.

3) Toast/bread: My parents have recently given me a breadmaker - best invention ever. Some evenings I put the bread mix in the machine and set the timer for the bread to be perfectly baked as soon as I wake up in the morning. Butter is the best thing to spread on freshly made bread, but I will be slightly more adventurous with my toast condiments. Favourites include peanut butter, honey and home made jams.

4) Yoghurt: Nothing beats a good old-fashioned pot set yoghurt. This will usually be served with my cereal.

5) Pancakes: These are definitely not an everyday thing in my house, but are a great weekend breakfast. I have discovered that it is possible to cook pancakes in my sandwich press, which saves on washing up. Winner!

6) Smoothies: A fairly recent acquisition to my breakfast repertoire. All my smoothie recipes (I use the term 'recipe' very loosely) start with milk and banana, but will often include the addition of spices, frozen berries, chia seeds and leafy green things.

7) Eggs Benedict: I used to be the kind of girl who would order pancakes when eating out at breakfast time, but I have now seen the light of a good eggs benedict. Definitely a café food though, far too fiddly for me to bother with at home.

8) Tea or Coffee: Yes, I need some caffeine to start my day. Sorry blogosphere, I'm not one of those food writers. I love gluten, dairy, refined sugar and meat. I will also occasionally eat things that come out of a packet

Now if you'll excuse me, I have discovered a rather large collection of granola recipes that are begging to be cooked this afternoon so I can enjoy them for breakfast tomorrow...

My collection of awesome

Inspired by a number of friends who have been blogging more regularly over the immediate past days and weeks (including one who posts a picture of almost every cup of tea he drinks), I have resolved to post more often. Today's post, creatively entitled "My Collection of Awesome", is just that: A list of things that happened today that received the ranking 'Awesome'.

1) A good drive - Last night I visited a good friend in Northam. Today I had the long drive home. Most long drives I do are along the same stretch of highway. This time, I took a different route home, through the back blocks of the Central Wheatbelt. The wheat was ripe on both sides of the road, the scenery was quite different from that I was used to, I visited quite a few tiny little out of the way towns, including the town where my parents met. I spent the drive time in prayer (it was so nice to have the uninterrupted time!) and singing along to Tori Amos albums and the Wicked soundtrack (Original cast recording, of course). Overall opinion - Awesome!

2) A Physio Appointment - I have been very slowly working my way through the Couch to 5K running programme, in order to punch my family history of heart disease in the face! A couple of weeks ago, I was on one of my tri-weekly runs and noticed a niggle in my right knee. Since it hadn't fixed itself after a couple of rest weeks, I booked an appointment with the physio (who happened to be my housemate's sister). After acupuncture and crazy strong massages in muscles that I didn't even realise were tense, the knee-niggle is all gone! And now I have some exercises to do to stop it coming back. On a scale of one to ten, I rate the physio appointment as: Awesome!

I do realise that the blog of awesome is already a thing, so maybe I should come up with a new word for next time.

25 before 25

A few years ago, I was on the cusp of a new era in my life. I was mere weeks away from finishing my time as a student and venturing forth into the working world. It was then that I came across another blogger's 40 before 40 list (ie. 40 things he wanted to accomplish before his 40th birthday). New beginnings are always a good time to take stock of your life, and so I wrote my own version of the list. However, being much younger, I made the list shorter, and gave myself a shorter time frame - enter the 25 before 25 list!

Last Saturday was my 24th birthday. I was going to have a quiet dinner with my family, but they suggested a barbecue at a nearby beach. When we got there, I saw my friends from church also having a barbecue. For a few seconds I was quite upset, because I thought they had forgotten to invite me. But then I saw the banner reading 'Happy Birthday', and realised that it was a party for me. Surprise!

So with the beginning of a new year, and only one year left to complete the 25 before 25 list, I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of how I'm going.

1. Read all of the Bible - This is going okay. Last year I finished all the obscure OT books. This year, I'm doing a read through the Bible in a year plan, just to make sure I haven't missed anything.  
2.  Go to ISME conference in Thessolonika - Done and dusted!
3. Visit France - At the time I was writing the list, my sister and brinlaw (brother-in-law) were planning a long holiday through Europe, and suggested that I visit them in France. That didn't end up happening, and I don't think I'll have time in the next year for another Euro-trip.
4. Finish learning ‘Another Look at Autumn’ - This is a crazy-difficult but beautiful piano piece that I started learning about 5 years ago. I might finally get around to it...
5. Finish Thesis - Done and dusted!
6. Learn guitar - I have a few chords in my repertoire. I don't think I'll ever be a brilliant guitarist, but I managed to convince a group of 6-year-olds that I was good enough to audition for X-factor!
7. Walk a leg of the Bibblemun track - Hasn't happened yet, but I've done a lot of other walk trails near where I live.
8. Take up horn again - Done! I've started playing in a local concert band.
9. Finish all the Plants vs Zombies challenges and gain the golden sunflower trophy - A couple of levels are too hard. I haven't given up completely, but I won't be too upset if this doesn't happen.
10. Shave for a cure (probably colour!) - This one seemed like a good idea at the time, but again, won't be too upset if it doesn't happen.
11. Do a paid singing gig - At the time, I had just turned down a gig because I had a prior commitment. Still a bit grumpy about it! Now that I've moved away from the city, I don't think the offer will come up again.
12. Keep my house clean so that it is a pleasant place to relax and to socialise – This is in progress. I am not the tidiest person in the world, but I like being hospitable. These two facets of my personality often clash!
13. Act in another musical - This year, the local theatre company is producing The Phantom of the Opera. I'm definitely going to audition.
14. Finish 50 books on the BBC reading list - Almost done. I'm partway into book 49 (Dune by Frank Herbert)
15. Learn to sew - Mum taught me to sew in high school, but I had since forgotten. I'm getting back into it.
16. Attend church more regularly  - At the time I wrote this list, I was at a bit of a low point in my walk with Jesus. Since moving to my new town, I've been a regular attendee at a local church. This has been very encouraging.
17. Get Christmas shopping finished 1 week before Christmas - yet another vain attempt to become more organised. We'll see how next year goes...
18. Go to an AFL game - I'm an Australian, yet I've never been to an AFL game. We'll see what this year holds.
19. Do dance lessons - I've done a short Lindy Hop course (the idea was to meet some friends, but everyone else in the class was middle aged plus!), and I've gone to a West Coast Swing open night.
20. Do singing lessons - Check. My line manager gave me a few lessons.
21. Regain Bronze medallion - I really should get a wriggle on with this one - lifesaving qualifications are so useful to have. Plus, more swimming would be great for my overall fitness levels.
22. Compose a piece of choral music from scratch - I've been doing more arranging than composing lately, but again, we'll see what happens.
23. Buy an Ipod - still hasn't happened. There's a little part of me that wants to see how far through life I can get without owning one.
24. Go to Mandurah - At the time, I didn't think I would leave the city for a substantial period. Mandurah is a nearby town that would have been fun for a day trip with friends. This one may not happen, but I won't mind.
25. Initiate social interactions at least fortnightly - Remember when I wrote this list, I was about to leave uni, so random hangouts between classes were becoming a thing of the past. I don't think I've stuck to the at least fortnightly part of the clause, particularly during the school term, but I am getting better at initiating time with friends.

From going through this list, it's become clear that my life has changed dramatically in the last few years. Some of the items on the list are no longer relevant. Some of them I just threw in to round out the list to 25. Some of them I still care about, but won't happen in the next 12 months. In that case, I don't see a problem with pushing them onto the 30 before 30 list.

What's on your xx before xx list?

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