Hiya!

I'm in Singapore!

Boarding now so I have to leave. Bye!

It seemed that I had a lot to talk about my day so I thought I would post about it. So here's my day summed up into nice little summed up points:

I caught lots of public transport
One bus and four trains! And on the train on the way to Hurstville, a whole bunch of little St Georgians got on at Kogarah, and I remembered how I used to be rude and self-absorbed when I was their age too.

I have a different job
I'm now doing basic admin stuff instead of finance stuff, which has it's ups and downs. The finance stuff was fun but it will be nice having a little less responsibility.  On top of that...

I'm changing desks
So I won't be sitting near the kitchen and see everyone as the walk past. That's definitely sad. So I won't see some people as often as I do... such as Ian Channell and David Pullen. But I have no choice so tough titties.

My teeth hurt
I broke my retainer the other day while eating a Fizzer, so I went to the dentist to get it fixed. Now my front few teeth hurt because it's pushing against them, and I have a big wad of glue in my mouth. :( It feels like I have braces again. It was fun going back to the dentist because it reminds me of high school; going to the dentist after school and then going to the chemist next door to get some Nurofen.

I have broadband
Well, we got it yesterday, but I still have it so it still classifies as today's happenings. So now I have the internet in my room and have used msn more in the past two days than I have in the past two years.

I bought plane pants
They're actually called beach pants, but they're really comfy so I'm going to wear them on the plane.

I'm somewhat lonely
Luke went to Papua New Guinea for two and a half weeks on Saturday, so I am a lot lonelier than I normally would be. I don't have a lunch buddy at work, and I don't have anyone to hang out with at night. Well, I do have people I could do these things with, but they're not Luke so it's not quite the same. :(

So that's my fun fun day. I hope to have more fun things to tell you about in the future.

xoxo

Just thought I'd mention that I have a MySpace:


www.myspace.com/elyxxe

I don't use it to blog; only to comment and stuff. So don't have a cry, LiveJournal!

Ian Channell is soooo itching to get on the blog. He just walked past my desk and said, "Well, Elyse" and once someone says something like that, you'd expect to hear something else. But he didn't say anything. He just said, "that was all really". It was pretty funny.

And Maria, who I work with and is from Argentina, calls Tupperware "Tuppers". I think that's very cute and funny.

And the other night, I was on the phone to Luke and I asked him something and he didn't answer and all I heard was breathing. After a while he didn't say anything so I figured he was asleep, which he was. I must be pretty boring to talk to - I put people to sleep. It was funny though. :D

And we went away on the weekend and we went to the beach and chucked rocks and rode bikes (or attempted to) and other fun stuff. And on the way home we got trapped in bushfire and had to wait about an hour for the highway to open again. And it was fun spending the weekend together. :D

And Dina told someone about my blog who read it and emailed Ian Channell about how they read it and this put me ina somewhat awkward position at work when he came to talk to me this morning. :S

So if you do funny stuff, you'll get mentioned on my blog. That's the message to everyone.

I like Luke Nowell

On the weekend I went with some other people to Design For Life, which was run by the Salvos for young people to think about God's design for their life. We looked at how past experiences have shaped who we are today, our passions, spiritual gifts and values. I guess one of the things I learnt fromthe weekend is that I know alot about my passions, what I'm like, what I do, etc, but I still feel like I'm still working out who I really am... if that makes any sense.

Anyway, on Sunday night I was praying about this. I remember that I was praying that I'll be able to find out who I am. And then I prayed something that I somewhat regret now: I prayed that God would put me through whatever situation he wanted to, no matter how bad it was, that would shape me and challenge me and grow me so that I can work out who I am and the person he's made me to be.

Last night (so that's one day after praying that), I found myself in a position where I feel rather helpless, an emormous amount of uncertainty, a lot of sadness, very alone and extremely scared about the final outcome of it all. Even though I feel that I'm in a bad place right now, I know that God hasn't done this just to hurt me. I know that through this he will answer my prayer, and that I will be challenged and that I will come out of it knowing more about myself. I guess in the meantime, I just need to rely I God to get me through.

So be careful what you pray for because God never leaves a prayer unanswered.

On another lighter note, I'm thinking seriously about transferring to do either Arts/Law or Law. Before the weekend I was considering doing a post-graduate law degree. During the weekend I felt that God was confirming this, but now I feel a real sense of urgency to do this. Why hold back what God wants to do in life?

The reason I want to do law is because I'd love to do legal aid. I think there's an enormous power in knowledge and to be able to give that knowledge to those who have no access to it would be great.

Anyway, have to go home now. :D

I was thinking about changing my layout, but I don't know what to change it to. Oh well.

Gee. I don't update very often these days, so when I do, I don't really know what to write because too much has happened.

I don't even know if anyone even reads this thing, so I don't know if I should bother writing much. Umm...

I went to Belgrave Heights is Victoria a couple of weekends ago for a social justice conference run by the Urban Neighbours of Hope. They were as strange as their name suggests (interpret that how you will). Tony Campolo was the best speaker and he talked about how a lot of the time Christians seem to forget our mission to the poor. I guess sometime Christianity can have a focus on yourself and your own growth and development, but I feel blessed to have been brought up in the Salvation Army where there is a huge focus on the poor. He also said that we should be "red letter Christians"; the red letters being how they make all the Jesus words red in the bible. We should do what Jesus taught us to do. I thought that was interesting since you generally assume that the crux of Christianity is being like Jesus and becoming more like Jesus. I guess it comes back to forgetting others and watering down what he taught as well.

I guess I always know in the back of my head how privileged I am, and I often think about how lucky I am to have an education, a house, money, clothes, clean water and everything else. But I think the weekend encouraged me to think about what I'm going to do with what I have and how I'm going to use that to help those that don't have.

On that same train of thought, Kenya is getting closer and closer. It's already September, leaving less than three months before we go. I sort of don't know what to expect but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm a little scared at the same time... mainly because of all the freaky diseases they warn you about over and over again. Apparently you have to make sure you dry your clothes in a clothes dryer because there are little parasites in the water that die if you heat them and if you don't they can crawl from your clothes into your skin!!! I guess i'm also wondering how I'll change, and how much. People have usually changed when they come back from mission trips, so I wonder what will happen to me. I hope I don't turn into a self-righteous tool. I'm sure I won't though. :S

I'll miss people while I'm gone though(especially Luke :D). But three or four weeks shouldn't be too bad.

But before Kenya is three whole other months I have to live of uni and assignments and youth group and church stuff.

Byeeee
xoxo

I think I might go home at 4:30 today. And I can because I have the car. I don't have to stay 'til, like, 6:30 or something.

The great thing about Winter is that you get to wear pants. As such, you don't have to shave your legs. In the past, I normaly would in the Winter, but since I'm not having to wear a skirt five days a week this year, I haven't been bothered. As such, my legs are getting a little hairy. But a couple of weeks ago I could be bothered, so I began doing my left leg. See, I don't shave. I use a dipilitory creme. And once I'd done one leg, I ran out of creme, so the other leg stayed hairy. So now I have one leg hairier than the other. :(

Good news everyone! Ian Channell is back!

So it turns out he wasn't dead, but he was on holidays. That's a relief. What would the young people and children in this territory do without their Ian? Grow up I suppose... I don't know...

Anyway, I was sitting at my desk yesterday morning and I checked my instant message contact list to see that Ian was online!!! No way! But I thought maybe someone was pretending to be him, or that he was logged in down at Woop Woop or something. And then Suzanne told me that the guy that always stops and chats and talks about my blog is back and that she saw him! No way!!! Way!

So yea, while I was still sitting at my desk, he walked past and I couldn't believe my eyes! He was alive! Yippee!! So we had a chat, and then Cecil came over and Ian Channell told Cecil that he went to the North Queensland division's youth councils (how floppin' rude is that? He went to there's but didn't come to ours, when he was back from holidays!!) He might have seen Shelley while he was there (speaking of Shelley, she's coming to visit soon... yay!)

But what's funny is that at the end of the conversation, he said "I'd better not talk to you too much or it will end up on the blog". Little does he know (until he checks the blog) that he ended up on my blog when he wasn't even around! Hohoho.

In other news, Luke's 21st is on Saturday. So I bought a dress and I have to buy shoes and a wig and coral lipstick. I think that's all I need. Weehee. I think I know what I'm getting him as a present. I need to work out if he'd like it though. I don't want to say what I'm getting on here because he reads this. :S

In other news, we have an excursion today! And pay day is tomorrow! And I'm applying for a passport this arvo! And I paid my deposit for Kenya! And I've booked in for vaccinations! And I went to bed at 9pm last night!

ARGH!! Chris Witts just rang!! He's like, so famous and stuff! OMG!!! And when I see him in the lift and stuff, I'm like, "Oh my gosh! He's famous!!!"