ACTUALLY LET'S START NOW.

Ok ok so the sermon today was a continuation in the series of sermons about evangelism. Sadly, the word often carries with it the connotations of annoying, rude, belligerent overzealous Christian on the street forcing pamphlets on you that you will promptly throw in the bin. It really shouldn't be like that, however, because how on earth is that showing anyone the love of God?

"Evangelism is not salesmanship. It is not urging people, pressing them, coercing them, overwhelming them or subduing them. Evangelism is telling a message. Evangelism is reporting the good news" (Richard C. Halverson)

So, reporting back from Pastor Daryl: there are three tools, or 'weapons' that we can use in evangelism.

1. Prayer
Jesus always went away by himself to a lonely place to pray before going into the public eye. If he needed to talk with God before evangelising, how much more do we?
Prayer is the only thing we can do to invoke God. “God does nothing except in answer to prayer.” (Wesley) I don't know if that's going too far, but it does hammer the point home. Also, I can't remember who, but someone said that God does His greatest works through prayer. If you think you can't do anything to help someone, you're wrong. So get praying!
Prayer is our shield against the attempts of Satan to poke and prod us away from God. Through prayer we can turn any of Satan's weapons against him - if he uses fear, then we can pray to God in that time of fear. If he uses anger, we can yell out to God to help us. If he uses jealousy, monetary concerns, illness, grief - we can pray. And by using these wounds as a springboard for more urgent, genuine prayer, we can really piss Satan off.
It's not us, but God who will bring whoever you're evangelising to, to Himself. We can't do it. So pray for them, even (or especially!) if they're really negative towards Christianity.

2. Gospel
This is the grounds on which we base our faith. The gospel is our evidence, and a bloody good bit of work it is too. It's far more historically solid than most of the definitive 'historical' texts, but so many people don't know that. So do your research, read up, and with a really solid knowledge base, you don't have to flounder when people ask you questions. (Just me or does this sound like an ad?? o_____o;; )

3. Your story

People like stories. Advertising knows this. All I have to say is, 'charter boat'.
You can tell people as much as you like about the gospel, the bible, etc etc, but if nothing's changed in your life, or you don't talk about how God's ridiculous grace and mercy and love have affected you, then your argument is pretty poor. Your story is one of the most compelling tools, so get to know it, and be able to explain very precisely how God has worked in your life. Write it down. Take an hour and 750 words and start from the beginning (a very good place to start). Then have a concise (not concise in the way that the Concise Oxford Dictionary is concise, though. Really properly - maybe 50 - 100 words if that, or do that 25 words or less thing) version, in case someone asks you and there's no time to go through the whole thing.

Pastor Daryl had a story in which another pastor was just leaving this boat party his family had been invited to, and he had one foot on the ladder of the party boat, one foot in the dinghy he was going back to his houseboat his family was holidaying on, and these people poked their heads over the side and said, 'Oi, why Christianity, why not any other religion? Aren't they pretty much the same?'. He had one sentence: 'The difference between do, and done'.

In any other religion, it's what you have to -do- to earn forgiveness, heaven, eternity, nirvana, enlightenment, whatever the goal is. But with Christianity, our sins are already paid for, in the most shockingly, seemingly irrationally generous way possible.

Ok I'll continue this next time!!!

Neglect

Alright so I've lapsed into my usual state of nothing happening in blog for a million years, then random whiney post, then nothing again. Sorry :( Here we go again...

I'm totally numb. I have no idea why, but I can't seem to feel anything about anything. I don't know whether it's just a low point generally or maybe I've thrown up all the walls subconsciously to try to protect myself from a breakdown, or maybe I'm cocooning, which is what Mum says I do when I've got a big performance up ahead. All I have, though, is a competition tomorrow night that I have no chance of winning anyway. It would take a hell of a lot of pain for me to decide I'd rather be numb than feel, so I don't know what's happening and it's worrying me a lot, in a sort of fuzzy, noncomittal way.

I don't know what I'm doing - or what it is I'm doing whatever it is I am doing things for. I've become supremely selfish, spending my whole day practising, and for what?? So that I can become better at viola. I get up, practise, go to rehearsal, laze around on facebook, have half-arsed conversations that I don't want to face anything big in, practise, eat the dinner my parents have prepared and that I'm 'too busy' to help with, then practise, then go to sleep and wonder why I'm feeling crap. I've become a really lame friend as well: I don't even know if I want to help my friends because I genuinely want to make their lives better or even just see them smile, or because I want to do it because it'll make me feel like I'm being a good friend. This post is selfish because come on, how am I helping anyone with this?? Sure I'm reading the bible and writing in my prayer journal, but is it because I want to or because I think I should? I don't know why I'm doing things. I want to show that Jesus is in my life but I'm doing a pretty shoddy job of it. And it's not like this post is going to help anyone but me, because it's really just an outlet for me to yell about how lame I am. I see people everywhere around me rejoicing in the work that they're doing for God, and in how they're spurring each other on and bringing people to Jesus, and making a difference in each other's lives, and FINALLY I can feel something, but I think it's just self-pity because, 'oh, I'm a crap person, boo-hoo'. I think to myself, I want to help!! But then either never get around to it because I'm busy bloody practising, or because I think they've gotten better when in fact it's just me not seeing the signs.

But of course, in these things, there are always things to be thankful for - just 10 minutes ago, God showed me a really practical way to help my friend, and it was something I'd been thinking about for a few weeks but never got around to doing. I need to make more time in my life for people.

Meh, sorry for the lame rant post! I shall actually update this thing more regularly and with not pooey angst from now.

bah.

KATIE IS VERY ANNOYED.

very very very.

Apart from being Extremely Excellent at Everything (oh look at the alliteration, teehee), God's also an Interesting Chap. Today I found out I have... dun dun dun... cold sores. PAH. This is tres annoying because I can't open my mouth properly and I have a huge choral workshop this weekend! Perfect timing! But another thing about cold sores is, they kick in with massive ferocity when you are STRESSED or WORN DOWN. I think this may be something along the lines of, Katie you idiot you're going to hurt yourself properly being as busy for this half of the year as you were in the first half. NOW CALM THE FRICK DOWN.

I know I'm not the only one to fall sick around now with something that screws up your 5am - 12 pm timetable, and I suppose it's actually a really good reminder to say no to stuff and to generally take it a bit easier, but in the meantime. This is going to look and feel so gross.

EURRGGHHH.

D:

D:

k back on topic next post I needed to get that out of my system. blarrrrrghhhh if you see me wearing a swine mask then you know why :P

TRALALALA.

Isn't it marvellous (yes. I said marvellous. In a serious context) when things that used to hurt start to not hurt? HOORAY. Things that used to sting and kind of gum your self or soul or whatever you want to call it (they don't quite bite because that would be going over the top, really now) start to stop doing that and just be. So you can lean back a little and look at them again and see hey now they're really not that bad.

TIME YOU ARE EXCELLENT.

I think it's time, anyway.

Although, if you associate that particular thing with a good time, which in my case is the case (oh my goodness I am incoherent. Apologies!), then you start to get a little bit of nostalgia for the pain. Is that masochistic? I'm not sure really XD

ANYWAY

after that rather nebulous start, let me apologise for not posting here in about a trillion years!!

A bit of hyperbole never hurt anyone :D

So. What's happened.

CAMP

was awesome. I learnt so many things. It made my everyday life seem kind of really busy and simultaneously really empty in comparison. While I was on camp, everything was about God, or somehow directly or nearly directly related to Him. It was amazing, seeing how different a huge group of Christians is compared to a huge group of non-Christians. Instead of snide gossip in the girls' toilets, there were snippets of singing, to which people would spontaneously join in, or happy chatter about how someone's day was or to do with the talks or how awesome Jesus is or something. That was one thing that really struck me. You can tell the difference :D
In relation to the talks, though, there were some really interesting, fundamental things that I learnt. They were mostly things I knew to be true already but hadn't realised. Eg! We are made in God's image. Yes. Simple. But it connects with everything that we are - and to keep to the topic of camp, the main one was that, because God is relational, so are we. We have this inbuilt desire to relate to people, to know them and to be known, properly, for who we are, and to communicate and connect with them. I don't know anyone who is a hermit. Even those who seem to not want to make friends or whatever, once you get to know them (thereby nullifying their not-wanting-to-make-friends thing), there lies that need. And therefore, whatever we do in our relationships with others, be they family or friends or definitely not friends or teachers or students or whoever, we are fulfilling this role that mirrors God's self. So we have to do it right, or we are changing what He intended. Because God loves everyone, so we must try our best to love everyone. It's not going to be possible all the time - we fail in everything else, so we'll definitely fail in this too. But it's really important to try as hard as we can to see the best in everyone, and also not to tear someone down for others - which we so easily and commonly do in gossip. I know for one that I am terrible at this for certain people: I won't have any preconceptions of people when I first meet them but if they give me a bad first impression, or if I hear a lot of negative gossip about them, it's really hard to change my mind if in fact they are a good person. And I further the gossip by needlessly bringing them up when there's a topic in conversation that relates to them.

I AM A BAD HAT, PEPITO.

However, on the flip side, when we do relationships right, then the results are amazing. By loving others, we are honouring God's creation, and therefore God.


Ummm I kinda lost track of my train of thought there. I FELL OFF THE TRAIN.
ai-yoh.

Well whatever, I'll start doing some of the talks in blog form next time :) More coherently, I promise!

Italian hot chocolates

are awesome. I thought I should let you know that. It is my dream to make one someday. I make sure my dreams are achievable sometimes :D

[EDIT: wow ok apparently blogger deleted half of my post.. bleh!]

So I have been on tour for the last few days!!! An interesting time. It was only from Sunday till Tuesday, starting with a lovely 3:30 wakeup call to get on a 6:00 flight which was delayed by an hour. Oh Jetstar, how I love thee. XDD As it was, we got to Newcastle mid morning and went to a farmers market which was really lots of fun and lots of food :D:D:D I got some tea!!! Yay!! The concert that afternoon was as a part of a choral concert so we got some audience, which was really good, and I think it went really well too. After the concert all three choirs went to the pub for dinner and two of the guys from Sola managed to spend $80 on drinks and wake up bright and cheery the next morning. Well bright and cheery is overdoing it but, without extreme pain at Katie and my loud wakeup calls.

Next day we drove to Sydney, stopping at some rather odd places (a closed wildlife park and a very small port/rubbish tip of sorts), thanks GPS. Sydney is amazing, there's so much to see and do and EAT. Hom nom nom. Our hotel was INCREDIBLE so so so posh!!! We were sharing 6 to a room so we could afford it XD;;; And we were right next to a ramen shop so that was awesome too :D Our concert was in a beautiful Anglican cathedral in the CBD, but was extremely cold and because we don't know a lot of people down there, there was only a small audience XD That was ok though, it was an intimate concert... XDDD The performance didn't go quite as we had expected but the audience seemed to enjoy it, which is the main thing :) After, instead of going drinking, we all went back to the hotel and played games until 2 am which was EXTREMELY WIN. Although I am not so good at them it was so fun anyway!!

The next morning we got up and went to a Chinese bakery that Katie knew about (btw this is not me speaking in the third person, there is another Katie in the choir :P) and got delicious cheap breakfast and then split ways. I went off to the northern suburbs to look for a viola bow, and ended up walking like 5 k because a store had moved without me knowing! That was fun... Ahhh Sydney transport is so expensive *A*;; $17 for a daily ticket... ouch. Still. The trains are so so convenient and the buses aren't half bad.

***READ FROM HERE FOR LESS RAMBLE :D:D

For some reason I didn't feel like the tour was quite long enough... Usually tours are really good times to get to know each other better, and I got a lot closer to Ruby and Katie and Lana, but it would have been good to have a few more days. Also what was interesting is how tiredness and stress and whatnot affect people - some of them retreat inside themselves and become quiet, some pretend it's not happening and try to go about as they usually would, and some lash out. I think I might have been on the receiving end of one of the attacks, and I think it's kind of sad how people don't realise that they're doing it or how it makes the other person feel. Although you realise that it's probably not that you're a bad person, it still really hurts. I guess maybe I have an inferiority complex or something, but I was made to feel really really small and stupid, and it was probably half me anyway because I was also tired, but I realised that I've been doing this to other people as well and I'm really really sorry - to anyone who I've made feel like this, I definitely do not mean to do it and I'm trying super hard from now to think about things before I say them, especially when I'm tired or hungry (I get really grumpy when I'm hungry!!).

Lately I've been reading 1 and 2 Corinthians, and a few things really resonated with these kinds of situations:


1 Corinthians 16:13 "Do everything in love" and 2 Corinthians 5:16 - 17 "So from now on, regard no one from a worldy point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

The first one is self-explanatory. If you're going to do something that's going to impact on someone (which is pretty much anything), think about it first. Think about whether it's going to help them at all, or comfort them, or give them what they need, whether it be strength, encouragement, guidance, support, or a reality check, or anything else. And then think about how you're going to do it, so that if it's something that might hurt them at first, you present it in the gentlest way possible, without losing the message.

The second one is something I hadn't thought about before I read this. Yes, people have faults. Everyone has faults. But if God, if Christ can forgive them, then how much more should we. We shouldn't even expect people to not sin against us, because we are on the same level as everyone. I know I have trouble with this because I assume the best in everyone at first, and when I'm badly hurt or disappointed I can't get that out of my head. Pretty much, rather than communicating and behaving around people according to their sins, behave as you would around someone who's been reconciled with Christ, who's been forgiven by the dude who made the universe and everything and is super enormous and awesome and can I please have your signature?

Anyone who's reading this, I challenge you to go out and do everything in love, and not act towards people's weaknesses but their strengths. Ou!!!

Children/Adults

Ok just had to administer some intense damage control then. Dad's overseas so Mum has to do all this stuff on her own, including looking after her own parents and also Popo (Dad's mum) and Guche (Dad's sister) and her son Timmy pretty much as well as us, so she has a big job. She doesn't get mad too much but when she does, she goes there all the way. No half-arsed blowouts. The thing that gets me most when she does blow her top is that she becomes really, really unreasonable. She says things over and over and when you can't come up with a new, innovative way to answer it, she gets mad at you for that. Then moves the topic onto some other random thing, and you just can't stop the flow. And it made me think that, even the adults I respect and look up to most can act like children sometimes. Today she slammed the door in my face when I suggested that talking behind people's backs when you know they can hear you might not feel so good for them. Even I, the most juvenile of people most of the time, haven't done that. I think that the best thing to do, at least for Mum, is to DEFINITELY NOT TRY TO GO AWAY AND LET THEM COOL DOWN although that's what I would like in her situation. For Mum, the best thing to do is to show her love. To tell her, in a low, soothing voice (lol) that we're sorry and we make mistakes and that we're just not good at this being good children thing, which is true. Lying will just make it worse. Then once she's calmed down go give her a hug.

I guess I don't really understand because I never really yell at people, except Ben and Hsieh (sorry guys!!! I know I'm bad at this and you totally don't deserve it nearly every time >.<) and I'm trying to not do that because it's just silly! I tend to shut up, walk away, then either fume to myself, this blog, or the dogs, work it out and try to see it from their perspective, then go and say hey can you do this a different way, or say nothing at all. The latter probably is a really stupid thing to do because it doesn't change anything. When it's something that really matters, I usually don't get angry, I get sad instead, or I get super super mad/frustrated/despairing at myself. Sadness is good in a way because it doesn't hurt the other person, which is why I'd prefer to be sad rather than angry, but it's also a passive emotion - it doesn't get anything done, and if you let it go too far you start to do this whole stupid self pity thing which is SO LAME. It's cyclic and has pointy teeth that it likes to nip you with at random times and you're like oh sorry peeps, gotta go mope for a bit, brb. /you get into a rhythm of feeling like crap at a certain time when you know you're not going to be around people. It's really lame. Don't do it. JUST SAY NO.

Well whatever. I went to see Patricia's concert AND IT WAS AMAZING I WANT TO BE LIKE HER WHEN I GROW UP. maaaaaan. She's so awesome. And when I went to congratulate her afterwards she got in first and the first thing she said to me was, Katie your recording was great!! Seriously. Who does that. She just pulled off an incredible concert and you don't even say, 'did you like it?'. SELFLESS TO THE EXTREME CUBED. She was giving a talk to the MOST (musically outstanding students t-something) kids on Monday night and she asked me to play a bit of Bach to them which I did and it was reaaaally weird. It was in the dining room so it was kinda like playing to kids at camp when they're tired/hungry. They were a really good audience but I still got super nervous!! haha. AND THEN IT WAS FONDUE NIGHT AND WE ATE LOTS OF CHOCOLATES AND WATCHED ENCHANTED AND IT WAS AWESOME.

<3 you girls!!!!

So-La tour on Sunday, yay can't wait!!! :D:D:D

A new Chopin Liszt, Ysaye.

Ok so that was surpassingly lame.

Anyway this is going to be a fairly boring post intended to remind me what I have to do NOW THAT I AM ON BLISSFUL HOLIDAYS.

(There is a figurative and metaphorical cookie at the bottom for those of you who read through it, or just scroll down. Whatever floats your boat :P)

1. Clean my room. Properly. Namely, emptying everything out of everywhere, tossing everything I don't need/really want, putting all the rest of the stuff in boxes, figuring out which bits of furniture are broken beyond all hope of repair by use of gaffa tape, and putting it back.

2. Practise for, and record Bach for the Harmer. Write application and get references.

3. Arrange a gazillion lots of gig music.

4. Alter/fix clothes that need it.

5. SLEEP.

That's pretty much it!!! Yay!!!!!

Ok so cookie. For those of you (see: anonymous) who aren't Christian this is going to be a let down :P

OK SO KATIE ANALOGY TIME. I'm kind of embarrassed to be seeing all these analogies everywhere but whatever. They're kinda cute.

Today I spent most of my time doing one of playing viola, driving somewhere, running somewhere with food that I don't have time to sit and eat in my mouth/falling out of my mouth, getting lost, or pulling over to the side of the road to consult my refidex with a healthy soundtrack of profanity. I think I've sworn more today than I have in the last 6 months .____.;;; Either way. I was thinking, in one of the rare times in which I knew where I was going, that God is kind of like a map. As opposed to a GPS. Because He doesn't tell you everything exactly as it's coming up, in a super annoying electronic voice, accompanied by conveniently colour coded graphics and little arrows. And reminders every 500 m that, in 1580 m, turn left at Greenwood Rd. He lets you get lost, He lets you get frustrated and pull over and say where the hell am I??? And He is a WHOLE FRICKIN LOT BETTER THAN STUPID GOOGLE MAPS. If you just look, you'll find where to go. It's ok to keep pulling over to see if you're on course. And He won't give you stupid directions that send you wiggling around in weird wormy paths when in fact you could just be going along one road for the whole way instead.

Yeah.

Extended metaphor, fin.

Going to early session of church tomorrow, wonder what it'll be like! Also Patricia's having a concert WHICH WILL BE AWESOME and I'm going to give her banana bread that I made :D:D:D

Tralalala holidays!

Someone tell me the opening hours please D:

Much do I dread the day that it closes.

Today has rekindled my love and hate of the city. Well. not love really. But I do quite like it, mainly because it has the best sushi, ever (hooray for Top Sushi!!), but I despise it because of everyone smoking there. I swear I increase my breath control by 133.2% every time I go there, I hold my breath so often. Blargh.

In other matters, $5 jeans! Woo!

Keep head up, keep head up.

Time.

Bleh, the button for 'new post' on my dashboard has broken! Gotta gaffa tape it back up...

Anyway. It is raining and I have a cup of tea and a heater and I should be studying but whatever, I just finished a recording so I want a few hours off :P
The last week or so has been weirdly really difficult for me - not most of the time, when I'm busy doing something, or around other people, but when I've got time to myself, I find myself getting really sad. I really really want holidays RIGHT NAO PLZ but also I'm sort of afraid that, with more time, I'll just stagnate on whatever's happening in my head and it'll grow. Not on me. Like a tumor. Tumor should have another u after the o. It looks kind of Americanised now. Meh. I guess I'm being a pretty lame Christian, because all this worry is useless, and it's about something I really have no control over. It means that I obviously don't trust God enough to say, 'ok, You're SUPER EXTREMELY AWESOME and are going to do what's best for everyone, and because I'm here fretting about something I can't go out and change, I'll let you do that and not try to be You because that would fail in spectacular flames and whatnot'.

I know in my head that He'll take care of me, no matter who I am. I know it in my heart too. But this subject just keeps popping up and tapping me on the shoulder and saying HEY KATIE REMEMBER ME I'M GOING TO SCREW UP YOUR LIFE YAYAH. Whiiiich is miserable for me and anyone who happens to be around me at the time. I'm sorry if I've been a lame friend lately :( It's not something which I'll see any results of, really, for a long long time, and I won't know if what I hope for is going to be realised or not. I guess I need to let it go, but I also don't want to. I think I'm afraid that if I stop worrying about it I'll stop caring about it? I'm not really even sure.

Myeh, got exram to study for. Got recording to practise for. Got HINDEMITH TO LEARN YAY!! Got banana bread to bake for Patricia and Reka and hope that that might stop them fading away into jobs they have to do for wooni.

P.S. I don't really know what's up with the title of this post?

This much.

Today at church, a speaker with a particularly inspiring story came to tell us about her experiences. And it made me realise something that I had always heard and kind of known but not really thought about or understood, even in any small part - 'Jesus loves you'. It's the thing that you see on Sunday School posters or hokey signs, that you become desensitised to. Or that's what I became anyway. Cliches are almost always based in truth - and this is one of them. Jesus does love you. Think of the person you most love, and then put it to the power of about a gazillion. That's probably not enough. I can't really grasp how enormous His love is, but even in my lack of understanding, just realising that He does love me, is enough - it's amazing. I mean far out. He's the frickin creator of the universe, and He cares about us??? Not just an arbitrary glance every now and then when He can get around to it, or even a kind of 'this is my fairly alright creation which has managed to screw itself up but whatever I still think it's interesting' attitude. And something else the speaker said - nothing you do can make Him love you any less. Similarly, nothing you do can increase His love for you. (how do you increase infinity anyway?) So even if you don't follow what He has in plan for you, it's not going to make Him hate you, only, you will have missed out on something pretty damn awesome, so you don't need to feel like a criminal (although we are). If you think you've done exactly what He's told you to, followed every rule almost always, etc etc, there's also no reason to become smug in your ways. There's no excuse, really, because it's not what we've done that we can be proud of, because we'll always fail in some way. BUT THAT'S OK BECAUSE IT WON'T MAKE HIM HATE US. Or even love us less!

HOW AWESOME IS THAT. I THINK IT IS AWESOME. I WOULD LIKE TO RECOMMEND TO YOU THE AWESOMENESS OF GOD BECAUSE HE'S EXTREMELY RAD AND EVEN TYPING IN ALL CAPS LOOKS ABOUT THE SIZE OF A PIECE OF LINT FROM THE DRYER, ONE OF THE REALLY SMALL ONES THAT ARE SUPER HARD TO GET OFF YOUR CLOTHES, TO GOD.

Apologies for yelling in your head :D

Dancing

Something came to mind the other day - living as a Christian, or as someone who's on their way to becoming one, is a little bit like dancing. By dancing I don't mean the Aussie guy shuffle or random flailings, but something that has structure and set moves and meaning. God is the guy, we are the girl - His job is to lead, and ours is to follow and try our best to not screw up. It's possible to know very little about the moves and bumble your way along, but as the dance progresses, you can observe people who are more skilled than you and copy them, and do more justice to God's leading. Maybe you can then develop your own style - and the dance becomes yours. Maybe eventually it takes hardly a gesture or a step from Him for you to know what to do, maybe it becomes a conversation between the two of you. But if you want to show off your own moves, or if you have no idea what to do, you might go spinning off into the crowd and lose sight of your partner. Of course you can continue dancing by yourself, but then the dance loses a dimension. You might resist your partner's leading, if He wants you to do something that you don't - which can get you into all sorts of mess, maybe you trip over your own feet or someone else's or just overbalance and fall.

I'm not sure right now what my partner wants me to do, and although I'm trying to be open to anything, my own desires are getting in the way and I'm afraid that I'm being too stubborn to follow properly. I can see other people dancing so harmoniously that I get more confused, because what God wants me to do isn't necessarily the same as what He wants other people to do. I want to be able to dance with grace and humility and kindness.


(Sorry for the extended metaphor, it was a bit lame <_>;; )

Dear God,

Thank-you for magnificent young grass and wayward dogs and shoes hanging from the sky. Amen :)

A change from usual!

Ok so I have decided to use this blog as something better than just an outlet for the occasional mopings of my miserable little life. I've been thinking about this - and I thought it would be a good idea to, rather than sharing only the bad things, share something awesomely excellent (or at least to me!) - where I can see God in my life. If I were to put everything it would be a friggin tome, so I'm just going to put some things which stand out to me once a week or so.

Some crap has been happening in my life recently - and I've come to realise that most of it is my fault. Not in the obvious way, but in that I was too cowardly to go ahead and do things when God was telling me to, because they were unpleasant for me and I was being a blind optomist. What has been overwhelming in the last few days for me is the enormity of His kindness and forgiveness. Although unknowingly, and not because of anything I did as such, but what I didn't do, I was taking one of His children away from Him, one who was clinging desperately to Jesus. In my ignorance, I blindly continued this until my friend finally brought it up, and had the bravery to do something about it. God had been telling me that this was happening, but I refused to believe it - I thought, I can make things better, we'll work it out by ourselves, it'll be fine. We just need some time. Clearly this was not the case.
However, that's not the real point of this - it's that, when I found out that I was getting in between my friend and God, I was mortified - even though I'm definitely not perfect, I never wanted to do something like that. I had done the most horrible thing to my friend without knowing. I was already hurting, but this hurt so much more. So I cried to God to forgive me, knowing that in no way do I deserve it, but instead of punishing me, He took away my pain. And I thought. How amazing. How illogical. Who, when having something good taken away from them, takes away something bad from the person who's committed the crime against them?? Repaying a bad deed with a good one. I don't think I really realised how vast God's love and forgiveness is. Then I read something in a book:

If there is something you think you can't possibly be forgiven for, think again, because you've already committed the greatest crime - and that is killing Jesus with your sin. You have already committed this sin, you have caused the only innocent to be charged with your own sin, and if God can forgive that, then how much easier it would be to forgive a lesser crime.

Hooray for Jesus!!!!


P.S. I also saw something today that made me giggle - two adolescent ducks were swimming one behind the other and dipping their heads in the water to eat or something, but then the one behind got all enthusiastic and rammed into the one in front's bum and the one in front was all BLUFAWENFAJA. :D

...

It still hurts.

So,

So, this blog is pretty much a rant place or something I go to when I want to whine about the world. I'm not sure why anyone reads it because it must be a pretty depressing thing to read - I don't update it regularly and so it's only the things I bottle up that come out here. I really am not such a miserable person as this makes me out to be, it's just that I am happy most of the time and I'm cool with telling people that I'm happy, but often I don't want to say why I'm sad but I need to get it out somehow. Therefore, this exists! So to continue a well-ingrained (engrained? whatever.) tradition, here goes.

Once again, I am stuck with people problems. I've come to realise that with any kind of relationship comes expectations - with my friends, I expect them to enjoy my company (or why would they be my friends otherwise?), I expect them to share things about themselves, I expect them to sometimes make a little time for me and talk with me. I expect them to expect these things of me as well. Of somebody who is perhaps more or different than/to a friend, I expect different things - but there are expectations nonetheless. If I didn't expect anything of anyone, then why bother forming or working on a relationship? It wouldn't mean much at all. Maybe this is just me trying to rationalise me being selfish and attention-seeking but it seems to make sense to me. However - these are with equals - with God, I can't expect anything because I have no idea how He works, and I am most certainly not His equal. I can only be grateful to Him, with as much of me as there is, whatever happens, because I cannot possibly fathom what things He has planned out.
But I have no qualms with God! This is about people. Sometimes people think they know themselves inside out, they've either been by themself or had the time or circumstance to think about themself and they're pretty sure they know everything there is to know. Much to my chagrin, that seems to me a little (little? lol.) selfish, or at least self-absorbed. What about your impact on other people? Rather than just analysing someone really hard for the first small amount of time you're getting to know someone and then pidgeonholing them, what about keeping your mind open and realising that people change, and that they don't deserve to be judged so strictly by you? What about not finding how you can have power over people and playing with that? It makes me really sad to see a friend do all of these things and not be sure what to say to them, because while I know that, to me, this is pretty much manipulating people (and we all do, to some extent - it can be completely benign or it can be more malicious), I also don't want to change people just because of my opinion. I want to try to get them to realise this of their own accord, through hints that might be spoken or not, but what if the person doesn't get it? I suppose I should tell them outright and say, what you're doing makes me sad, but why should they change themself on knowing that? It's not really a big deal, one person being sad because of something you do. Then there's the problem of timing and I don't want to say anything about it right now because it's such a busy time and having yet another thing to think about could destroy minds. But if I wait till the holidays it might be too late - not to change them, but for me. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh I don't know anymore. All I can hope is that God knows what He's doing and if I keep asking for help and relying on Him that it will all end up according to plan. It still makes me sad though.

Or

Or maybe I should man up and face it.

Screw you, bad timing.

How...

... do you know what you're actually thinking? I've been pondering a few things probably a good measure too much lately, which has a kind of bell curve if you were to graph its usefulness. I've reached the hill down, and it's VERY confusing. I've considered the fact that, in fact, I may be tricking myself into believing things to make myself seem like a better person to myself, or just because I'm afraid of facing the truth. Now I'm not even sure what I'm doing things for, or wanting to do things for, and this is a perplexing concept - and it links back to the last post, which you can read if you feel like confusing yourself with badly structured writing. I've also found myself upset about some things that probably wouldn't make me so agitated if I just didn't think about them so much. And although usually once you've gotten upset about something once, you can find some resolution, but this one keeps coming back.

I think I need to become my dog for a while and only worry about what's happening right now >.<>;; Thank-you to those who would actually read these things, especially to my lovely wifey <3>w<

Obsessions...

... are not necessarily entirely creepy. I have an obsession with the idea of selfishness. This is a quite inadequate description, so I'll explain - I habitually examine my actions and analyse them to try to find whether they are selfish or not. This stems from a fight/being-yelled-at session with my mum a few years ago. I can't even remember what it was about now, but it was something about me being selfish (and I do realise that blogging is a pretty self centered action anyway, but this is annoying me no end), and as usual she was right. After she had finished being mad at me, however, I went overboard in the whole self criticism thing and got sort of crazy. In the horribly stereotypical, I-want-to-die-I'm-such-a-disgusting-person way. -152 points for Katie!! Anyway, some interesting turns in life have happened recently and have dragged this subject back on top of my brain, so now I'm having a deeply confusing discussion with myself - how do you define if something's selfish? Is it when you do something solely for yourself? Is it when you always talk about yourself? What if something is making you afraid to talk about someone else - for example, could it be considered gossiping? Might you offend someone by talking about them, or their actions, even if it's in front of them? Maybe you're just afraid of being ignorant. And does blaming yourself for something bad that's happening make you self centered? What if you can't do anything about it by changing yourself, but instead it's someone else, and you're too blinded by your own selfish obsession with selfishness to see it and try to help?
I'm pretty confused.

I don't know how to answer any of these questions but I'm going to try looking outside of my own faults, and see if it's something outside that maybe I can help: actively, or by stepping back.


Frickin' obsessions.

hrm!

So. Blog eh. This must mean katie is ridiculously bored, or simply is procrastinating from practising. Oh well!

I don't actually remember when I last wrote in this thing but I'm assuming not since new year. Several things have happened!

1. it became 2009
2. I went overseas on tour with the Tagiev Chamber Orchestra, henceforth to be known as TCO
3. Our water tank filled up a bit
4. I got a credit card, and proceeded to put myself very close to debt land (although I blame this on going overseas)

A bit about the tour. Probably more than a bit.
It was a random kind of tour. We went to Shanghai, Estonia, Seville (in Spain), and New York. Shanghai was depressing and grey, although I think we just didn't go to any cultural places so it was the bad part of the city we saw. Many of us got ridiculous eared hats, which proceeded to get us lots of stares (even more than usual - instruments attract a lot of attention). Best part of it was probably the high school orchestra we played with in our concert there - they were fantastic.

Tallinn (in Estonia) was amazing. We had about 3 hours of true daylight or less every day, there was SNOW. Snow is excellent. We enjoyed it very much. By enjoy I mean threw ourselves in and chucked bits of it violently at each other, and kicked at each other, and shook off trees. It was WINNAHHHHH. xD. I was homestaying there with a family from the orchestra who came to Australia early last year, which was great because not only did they look after us, there was homecooked food which was a relief after being violently sick from oily Shanghai food. I now have a recipe for carrot and potato soup from Estonia. Hooray for soup!! It was not so cold as I expected there, only about -4 or -6, so it was pretty comfortable what with all our clothes xD Their history there is pretty fantastic too, they had a singing revolution in the late 1980s! Must research that more. We went to the Baltic Sea on our bus tour, and promptly fell through what we thought was the beach covered by snow, but was actually thin ice, into the water. It was awesome XDDD. Wish we could have had longer in Estonia, it's such an interesting and beautiful country.

Going back in time again, we got to Madrid, and found snow. That was odd. But we were not to stay there, our destination was Seville. Seville was beautiful and very very old, but rainy, which kind of made everything unbearably cold and wet (especially feet) so we weren't able to enjoy it so much :( we did however find a Haagen Dazs store and guzzled on that and were happy for a while. Starbucks hot chocolates were similarly joy-inducing. Spanish people are super super friendly but mostly can't speak a word of English which was amusing. They also had trams, which were a novelty for us Brisbaneites, and we nearly got very slowly run down quite a few times, to our amusement.

New York. is. insane. I lived there when I was little, but didn't really notice anything except for our apartment, the footpath, the awnings on all the buildings which say what number they are, and school. You go to Broadway (which we did, and some of us - Michael, his mum, Lily, her mum, Kate and I - went to see Wicked, which was MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME OMG MUST SEE AGAIN /rant) and everything is there. Literally everything. They have enough theatres to house all the productions in the world, I swear. Then you go to Lincoln Centre and everything classical music, dance, etc is there. And then there are all the art galleries - the Met, the Guggenheim, blah blah blah didn't get to see them but they were THERE. Oh, for Brisboring to have a tenth of the culture that NY does. It was also ridiculously cold - even for their standards! -16 celsius half the time, -10 the rest. It meant that our feet froze the minute you stepped out of the building/bus/whatever, but also that it actually snowed on us. It was brilliant!! Our concert there was pretty milestone-y - we got to play in the Weill Recital Hall which is smaller than the concert hall, but beautiful and with magnificent acoustics. Sadly on our day off, we were taken to this factory outlet shopping village thing in woop woop New Jersey, and had to stay there all day - if we had known this we totally would have done our own thing and gone to Manhattan instead. So lame!! So we got up early the morning we left, and I saw the sunrise and freaked and took a million photos, and we went into Central Park and I went sheet music shopping (!!!!!!! so good!!! XDDD) and saw a bit more of the city before we had to leave.

I was a bit iffy about the company on the tour beforehand - most of us are kids (like, 13 or 14) and I didn't really connect with them in rehearsals, but 4 of us - Michael, Hamish, Lily and I - formed a nuclear family and were awesome together. Lily was driven insane =3

Now I am back and disliking Brisbane summer quite a lot. Oh well. Such is life! At least I have (or had... most of it is gone now lol!! XD) 3 kg of chocolate to console me with.