Graduation...

Whoa, and the ten months are up. If you blinked, you missed it. Another blink, and I will be back in Australia I assume... sheesh.

So yeah, we had our Graduation thing at church on Sunday and we each had to speak for a couple of minutes, which is always fun... Fiona preached and managed to incorporate each of us into her sermon in a big way, very impressive Fee, lol. And of course they showed a powerpoint presentation of all our stupid moments caught on camera - video or otherwise. Which included the bit where Sean was interviewing people about what they thought of the Igniters this year, and he asked Geoff, and Geoff fully paid me out, lol. I threw a hat at him on video :)

FUN fun fun :)

So we ate food including this awesome mango ice cream, and then had a party thing at the Ignite house, woot.

So this week was meant to be like time off for me. WHATEVER! Zoe had asked me to do these 4 big poster signs for the ROOTS conference, and they took a day to trace off the projector, and 2 days to paint. I got one guy to help with painting and he was awesome. Thanks Earl! And Alex helped with a bit of background painting too :) And today I am trying to finish these drawings Zoe and Geoff asked me to do, and then tomorrow I get to help set up for ROOTS at Jackson's Point.

Sandra came back from Norway on Tuesday? and said congratulations to me (meaning for graduating). I thought about what she was talking about for a while and then said, "Oh yeah, that!"

Maybe I should've explained that - she seemed somewhat confused as to my response...

Picture from http://www.en-power.co.uk/academia/images/mortarboard.jpg

O Canada...

Woot :)

So it's officially my last week of Ignite. *snif* We are cleaning the house :) But it's not my last week in Canada - I still get a couple of weeks after this one to wrap things up. This weekend just past saw us at Newport - I forget if it's the name of the place or the campsite. Anyway, it was for our final retreat. The bugs were HORRENDOUS. I have never seen such bad bugs anywhere. Apparently there is something good about the smog in Toronto - it keeps the bugs away... But the lake was really nice.

High points included: Seeing baby seagulls and seagulls eggs on this mini island that me and Mike canoed out to, swimming in the lake, taking 50 million photos of this tiny red squirrel that we saw and seeing rabbits, a chipmunk and a red headed woodpecker.

Low points included: Being swooped by the baby seagulls' parents whilst on the mini island..., the millions of bugs that included some that I swear were attracted to the bug repellent, killing a million mosquitoes in our cabin so I could sleep soundly... yeah.

So it was fun - we did campfires indoors to get away from the bugs, did some prayer and reflection stuff, played games and took a trip to this awesome chocolate/lollies shop - the Nutty Chocolatier. Pity I had no cash. Except they were charging for imported stuff I can get at home - a big Cadbury's block that's $3 at Big W cost like, $8.50. Not kidding.

No cash, that is, EXCEPT for the $2 that Mike paid me to make him a bagel ($1) and wash up his lunch plate and cutlery ($1). Slacker :)

I hate public speaking

I really really hate public speaking. And today for some reason, all technology decided it didn't like me.

So today I had to preach twice - once at the Korean Corps this morning, and once at 614 this afternoon. Holy mackerel. I had video clips to show for both of them right, and the clips were rather integral to the message I had for the Korean Corps. So of course, regardless of it being a near new computer that had been used last night to watch DVD's projected on the wall, today for my sermon they couldn't get the thing to work!!! I ended up describing the scenes (from Napoleon Dynamite) for the first two clips, and then we watched the screen of the laptop for the second couple of clips. Lucky the Korean Youth is a smallish congregation...

So then we were setting up for the clip to start at 614, and of course we find out that this laptop doesn't actually have a DVD player on it. The laptop that usually got used did, but it was Heathers', and she has moved to Melbourne for the time being. Yay for Grace - she made Kingsley go get her laptop from the office, and with a LOT of juggling - Grace was also on the worship team, and I was doing AV with Kingsley on the sound gear whilst we were sorting out my video clip stuff - we managed to get it all together. dude. I am so totally wasted. Wasted in this context meaning drained.

Sandra says my sermon was good, but we need to work on my endings - the whole body language screaming I want to get out of here and go sit down thing was a dead giveaway. Yeah. My body language was dead on.

Oh, and Bec? You are famous, cos I used a pic of you in there as well :)

Ottawa

Our (me, Grace, Kingsley, Dion Oxford and Dan the Gateway Chaplain) trip to Ottawa went from last Thursday lunch till last Friday night. Ottawa wasn't all that...

I guess the highlights were: going to Parliament (the question session where the public can view them) and watching the members harass each other in TWO languages rather than one... it was rather amusing. We got to hang at the PMO ( Prime Ministers' Office) because we were visiting with a lady who is some important prime minster lawyer person. yeah. I suck with details. Except the annoying security screening meant that I had to walk around with baggy jeans on and no belt...

We (me and Grace) stayed with a chick who lives on an army base, and she was pretty cool. And all the guys got to stay with Dani and her husband - Dani was the lawyer chick who was showing us around and telling us about social justice stuff in government. So that was pretty sweet.

Other than that, we had some decent Indian curry stuff for food, and I got to drive some on the way back home :)

Pics above are: us eating Indian food, Parliament house and inside the PMO (Prime Ministers Office)

al;skdngfpaein ctfg[n

Yeah. I was feeling like I couldn't be bothered with a title. Should probably be "random stuff I can remember from the last time I blogged". Or maybe even longer...

So. In no particular order:

We went to the Ontario East Youth Councils (25-27 May) where we got to run games and prayer stuff, and later scored free t-shirts, yay us.

614 had a garage sale (June 2) instead of door knocking for our Red Shield Appeal. Funny as all anything :) I got to sell clothes. Fill a shopping bag for $1, then it went to 50c. Joy was like a megaphone in the $2 section. They could hear her down the street - she went on for hours! "Once you go black you can never bring it back! Only $2! Money doesn't grow in your pocket!" and other such memorable (and completely mystifying) slogans echoing around the parking lot, lol. She's such a classic. I wonder if anyone got a photo of her that I can get my hands on...

Me, Fiona, Kingsley and Sherry Feltmate went to the Hillsong United concert in Toronto on Saturday night (June 2nd). Starfield (a Canadian band) was playing there as well. I think I lost about 20% of my hearing. It was SO LOUD holy mackerel... cool songs though. The queue to get in was horrendous, first with the parking lot queue, then with the entry queue...

It was funny, some guy that I forget the name of came up to speak, and the instant he started talking I was giggling my head off at his accent, it was so classic. I'm like, man he sounds so cool. And yet funny at the same time. Unfortunately for me, his was an Australian accent, lol. It was so hilarious though!!! By the time he'd finished talking I'd gotten used to it, but it was still so random to hear his accent at the start and for it to be so foreign to me. Classic :) Aussie accents rule :) *sigh*

ummmmmmmmmmm. I have to put together 2 sermons for this Sunday... One is on the 3 dudes in the firery furnace (Daniel 3), and the other one is about the Israelites being whiney babies as the escaped Egypt with the whole red sea bit and everything (Exodus 14). I am being slack and using video clips for both of them. Pirates of the Caribbean II and Napoleon Dynamite at this stage. Have I piqued your curiosity yet? Any ideas for the Exodus 14/Napoleon Dynamite one would be taken into consideration :) fun fun fun.

And I have to think up a painting/drawing or something on the theme of "Others" for SARoots - the conference. I hate themed pictures. They never sell either. So you spend a tonne of money to make a point and are left with a mediocre picture that makes that point. woot. I am trying to come up with something less obvious and more worthy of the title "artwork" and NO I am not going to go abstract, that is so CHEATING. Completely retarded...

We went to Ottawa. I will do another blog for that. Might as well....

Heather Power moved to Melbourne, Australia a week or more ago for this job she got, and last night Heather Stump came back from her month long mission trip to Africa... and I have conveniently forgotten which country... sorry Heather!!! So yeah.

Later!