Finding each piece slowly

little update

2005-06-06T14:14:00.000+01:00

Now it seems that only time I write in this is when I am at my parent's house in cornwall! The main reason for that is that my laptop has died, yes, the second one in a year. What do I do to them??!!
Well I thought I'd let you (whoever reads this!) know that I am finally becoming a student, shock, horror and amazement! I went on the UCAS website and found that I still had time to apply. I'm hoping to do a BA in Social Work in Preston. UCLAN would not usually be my first choice of unis but that fact that I'll be in Preston for a while because of Jon getting the youth worker job there, I thought I'd give it a go! Almost finished my personal statement and now I'm waiting for my reference.
I'm in Cornwall until Friday and the boredom is already setting in..at least it gives me time to catch up and do the things that I've put off or that I havent had time for!

ethics in trade

2005-03-27T19:14:00.000+01:00

Been musing about all this fair trade and ethical trading stuff for quite a while now, ever since the Tearfund Lift the Label Campaign. I even got involved and wrote a letter to the Arcadia group which owns Topshop, Topman, Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge. That's all I did however, and since then I have continued to buy from (predominantly) those stores, does that make me a hypocrit and devalue the letter that I wrote. What can we do to get involved? My church has become a FairTrade stockist and promoter which I think is great and we continually sell FairTrade products and have Tear Craft stalls etc. As Christians should we be getting more involved in FairTrade, etc, going beyond merely wearing a white wristband and having a white band on our websites? Surely one of the main roles of the Church is to speak out for those who cannot defend themselves. Getting involved in community projects in our own areas, writing to MPs supporting charities. I know that we cannot pull ourselves in all directions and become tireless 'do-gooders' in effect but surely we can get involved in some way and put ourselves out every now and again. I'm not going on a self-important rant here, I'm as slack as most people, but I want to make a difference in as many ways as possible, living a life that makes an impact in whatever way, whether that is through the schools work, local community work or signing petitions, who knows. I guess it is up to us, God and our own consciousness and calling.I know that I want to get off my bum and at least try more than I do now to think more ethically minded and more community minded.

Coldplay tickets!

2005-03-25T17:51:00.000Z

Just thought I'd mention that I'm going to see Coldplay in Bolton!! woooooooooooo

home...

2005-03-25T11:36:00.000Z

Back in lovely Cornwall for a little while, gutted that the weather is poor though, was looking forward to sitting in the garden sunning myself, ah well, can't have it all. It's weird I call Preston home and Cornwall home, which is it? Last time I was in Cornwall for Christmas I called Preston home and watched my mum's face fall and then say, 'But that's not your home, here is your home.' I suppose 'home' isn't necessarily a specific place, if you've lived in different places for most of your life it is where you are at the time.When I lived in Armenia I still referred to Enlgland as home yet when I used to come back it was never the same. Some one in Armenia, a wise man working for UMCOR said, 'Once you leave you can never go back home', I really found this to be true. Places change while you are away and so do you, I think you often forget this. I guess I'm learning to appreciate the place I'm at, and not look to somewhere else. Not sure why I wrote all this, but I guess that's what happens, when I start typing rambling follows..

round the corner..?

2005-03-09T19:53:00.000Z

Got a bit of unexpected time before a music practice so thought I'd blog a little. There are so many great, intelligent blogs out there at the mo, one being http://walkergirls.blogspot.com, and I know that I don't have the time to even compete, but I'll just write a few little simple thoughts, every now and again..

by the way that last post was actually a mistake, decided to leave it though! yeh lazy..

It's bizarre how fast life and perception of your own life can change so quickly. 2 months ago I was single and quite happy about it really. You know what it's like, you go through fazes.. even to the point of complaining down the phone to my mother saying that I was gonna be an old spinster living in a house of cats, you know the scary old lady at the end of the road, on whose door kids knock and then run! I know, I know pathetic, which is what my mum said!! After some thinking and reflecting over some stuff over Christmas I was ready for whatever God was gonna give me. Praying about stuff, I really felt that God was saying don't make any big life decisions yet just wait, something big is around the corner. Now, I had no idea what, but trusted and carried on with all my stuff here in Preston. Didn't know I'd fall for my best boy mate. Apparently all my friends did, despite my many protestations! I don't want this to be a soppy post at all, but I just think that it's cool that God doesn't give us all the answers and that he just waits for us to just wait on him and not try to be a Martha but a Mary, just sit at his feet and concentrate on him, all else will follow..

love..

2005-03-05T12:33:00.000Z

eye opening

2005-02-06T16:10:00.000Z

Well it's been over a week, well nearer to 2 weeks actually and I havent been regularly blogging.. however I do have an excuse I have been staying at Jon and Lewis' all week so that we didnt have to get up so early and could drive straight to the school instead of having to pick up Si, pick up the music gear and then me and THEN get to the school. 6.30 is plenty early enough for me thank you very much. Well the week was amazing and we totally felt the prayer support while we were in the school. I enjoyed it so much, despite the challenge and the hard work. Felt like I was banging my head against a very sturdy brick wall at times but then you'd get a break through and all would be worth while. Considering we're a rock band (or moshers!) and this school had all of um one mosher, a very downtrodden year 8 boy and the rest where into their drum n basss, garage, r n b, etc. we were welcomed by so many of the kids. By the end of the week I had my little year 7 girls following me around and even earned the respect of some of the yr 10 and yr 11 girls, mostly through singing and helping in their performing arts lessons. Its shocking what the majority of these kids have to cope with and think is normal in their lives. Talking to two year 7 girls for example. One had an alchoholic dad who 'choked' her once but she's forgiven him and now her mum and dad are getting back together again, her brother is in prison for murder but her other brother actually did it. The other girl's dad was a drug addict who she didn't see and her uncle was in prison for dealing. Now these are just two of the stories and these were told in such a matter of fact way as if this was totally normal. What can you say to that, how can you even begin to help? What we realised this week is that one of the most important things for these kids is stability and trust. This week has really opened my eyes and helped get my priorites straight. If God can help me make a difference in any of these kids lives then my life has been 'successful'. What else can matter in comparison?

an attempt to get back into the habit..

2005-01-24T20:54:00.000Z

After being told in an almost rebuke like sense, by John, (hehe) I am now going to endeavor to get it sorted and get back into all this blogging malarky!
We are doing a whole weeks work in a school with a bad rep for being rough next week. Its gonna be intense and hard going but I'm actually looking forward to it. Had a meeting with one of the teachers last week who is a Christian. Was so good and eye opening. He said something which I totally agree with... 'every child had a story'. It's so true, everyone has stuff going on in their lives that has a knock on affect to their behaviour. We don't know all of what is going on in the life of the obnoxious boy in the corner (!), patience is the key and loads of prayer. If you could pray into our week that would be very much appreciated. It is such a privilege to serve God in this way and meet young people where they are at, even if it is just to make one small difference. All we can do is be obediant and have faith, who knows what effect we are having.

packing..

2005-01-04T11:00:00.000Z

It's been so long since I've written and lots has happened that I don't know where to start or what to even write! Not the best start! Really I am writing this as a delaying tactic as the task of packing is looming and with all my stuff scattered throughout the house it'll take a while. A few more hours and I'll be on the road back up to Leyland.. only takes 6 hours! Had a great time being at home, was weird at first but good overall, had some really memorable times. Spent the day with Lucy and Daisy in Truro yesterday, and as we always do, we had such a laugh. I love being with people that you are so comfortable with that you don't need to make an effort to keep up the conversation, worry about what you're saying, how you're acting, etc, you can just be you.
Well suppose I actually need to get on with all this packing.. nice.

bad news...

2004-12-04T18:44:00.000Z

Unfortunately I won't be regularly posting on this for a while. I no longer have the internet and won't be getting it again till January. So I will only be posting when I'm at Lewis and Jon's. However they will be especially good blogs as I will save them up rather than just writing mindless drivel/ramblings! Then again by the time I actually get to type up my thoughts I will have probably forgotten everything and my mind will go blank... we shall have to see!
Ooh recording went well btw, was a bit uncertain at one point as we were rapidly running out of time, but it all got done. yay!!

2004-11-28T15:22:00.000Z

Yes, yes it made so little sense I decided to highlight it twice, just in case you hadn't realised...
Silly computer, wouldn't load the post so I did it again and it still didn't load, thankfully I didn't try another time, cuz that would have been embarrassing..
So, yeh, anyway, this may be the last blog for a whole week, how will you or even I cope. The reason for the lack of blogging is that we are in studio recording our EP, should be good.

no sense

2004-11-27T19:48:00.000Z

yes, I was right, it is random and makes no sense the day after...

no sense

2004-11-27T19:46:00.000Z

yes, i was right, makes no sense whatsoever

Awake

2004-11-26T23:37:00.000Z

feeling so awake, think I had too much chocolate and dr pepper today. Considering yesterday I had to go home early from work as I was so out of it. Started to watch Breakfast at Tiffanies (Audrey Hepburn, what a legend) on the sofa but fell asleep! Um.. listening to Dashboard Confessional at the mo, was in a upbeat mood, but Chris Carraba has an uncanny knack of making you feel a little depressed, the man is always heart broken, poor guy. Had youth tonight, first time I'd seen the guys since the weekend away, not all were there, however I did not escape the teasing.. one of the lads who wasn't there tonight, fancies me so all the others think it is hilarious to go on and on about it and make sleazy jokes, nice. Ah well I'll survive! Um.. realising that I am rambling and this post is jumping about everywhere.. think I should try and go to bed. I know this won't make any sense when I check this in the morning!

mmm.. brandon boyd

2004-11-26T23:31:00.000Z

just wanted to say that Lewis (guitarist in my band) got the new Incubus dvd today and what can I say? It's immense, they are such a tight awesome band. Big inspiration to us. And well Brandon Boyd isn't exactly ugly... but it's his voice I love the most.. honest!

back safe and sound

2004-11-21T15:22:00.000Z

Aah, back home after a weekend of snow! Now all we have is greyness, wind and rain. nice. Was an interesting weekend. Our guys were the oldest there so I was a bit worried that the weekend might be too young for them, but they really enjoyed it, thankfully. Mark Ritchie spoke twice and those of you who've heard him before will know how good (and funny!) he is. Certainly made our guys think, so we'll have to wait and see if something comes of it.

2004-11-19T16:38:00.000Z

I thought I'd do a quick entry before I go off for this youth weekend away. PLEEEAASE pray that I get some sleep as I have very busy week ahead prepping for recording and I don't want to be in a bad mood!!
Had a horrendus day yesterday.. our boss came for a visit to see how we were doing and watching in on our lunch club. Why is it that every week it goes really well and then when you are assessed anything that could go wrong does! I'm not going to bore you with the details but to be honest Mark didn't seem to bothered, I think he understood that a lot of stuff wasn't our fault. At least he loved our music!

correction..

2004-11-17T19:58:00.000Z

Realised that I could be interpretted at being a bit arrogant in that last blog concerning our music!! Didn't mean to I just love what we are doing at the mo anf, personally, think it is good. But then again, you may disagree!

Recording

2004-11-17T19:55:00.000Z

Yay! We are are recording our CD in less than 2 weeks! Excited, but then also slightly apprehensive as we aren't totally ready for it yet! We're got about 5 songs basically sorted when we really want about 7. We have another song in process, its got the music, but I need to work on some lyrics. So then it's just one more to go. I'm much happier with this year's songs over last years. We found our sound a lot quicker whereas with the other band last year it took us till about Easter! Expect quite a soul/funk, Incubus/chilis/rage sound (it is good, believe me). When we've recorded I'll see if i can somehow get a track on here so that you can have a listen... though it may be beyond my knowledge of actually being able to! We'll see though.

ucbonesicanarmy (yes, yes I know, I stole the phrase..)

2004-11-15T20:04:00.000Z

Had a great prayer time with the band this morning. I was supposed to be doing the devotion this morning but forgot, (oops), so decided to give everyone a time of private prayer/reflection/bible reading, and then we'd meet up, chat and pray together. When I was praying I turned Ezekial chapter 37, the valley of dry bones, straight away which is unusal as Ezekiah is one of those books that tend to hide from me, you know that ones I mean! Anyway I read it and thought that sometimes we can look at things, people, situations through our eyes. We might see hopelessness but God always sees hope and wants us to have to faith to believe that it is there and that He can work miracles in seemingly dire situations. I'm taking some boys from the drop in youth club that my church run to a weekend away run by Youth Alive called Infuse. I want to see them have a positive encounter with God. So many people have told me stories of people becoming a Christian at this weekend over the previous years and I'd love to see God work miracles in those guys lives and start the healing process that so many need. Now I don't believe that this is a magic cure, quick fix, get them saved and thats great, Praise the Lord, let's move on to someone else, type thing (still following?). I want it to be the first step on their journey in a relationship with God that we as a leadership team can help guide and nurture them on. So please, if you remember, pray for these guys over the coming weekend.
Woah, went on longer than I thought I was going to and didn't even end up writing what I intended to write! Ah well!

no photos

2004-11-15T19:56:00.000Z

You might have noticed the lack of photos on my blog, well it will not be picture free for much longer... hurrah! I hear you say (..um..yes) The only reason why I don't have any on is that the internet is on my old decrepid laptop whose CD drive has broken and I have very few recent photos on it. However, I'm getting the internet on my lovely new laptop at the end of the month and that has a working CD drive and lots of photos, including the ones from our album photo shoot (oooh). So there you go. In case you actually were wondering.. which you probably weren't..

theology

2004-11-11T17:06:00.000Z

Linking on from last post. Had a seminar today about 'The Bible and the afterlife' from our friend Steve who is a 3rd year theological student. Was very interesting and helped me with some things I'd been pondering over lately. He spoke about Exclusivist (only people with relationships with Jesus get into heaven everyone else goes to hell), Inclusivist (um can't really remember that one!) and Universalism (God is a God of love and wouldn't let anyone go to hell), basically different theologies on the after life. Now before I go any further, please do not shout 'Heresy' at your computer screen to me. I'm trying to recall what was said and may not be 100% accurate (those of you who know me will know my memory isn't amazing!) plus the quick summaries of the theories are not to be considered completely reliable explanations!!
Anyway, I'd been thinking that the whole concept of hell for non-Christians (basically exclusivist.. i think) was hard to swallow. I couldn't comprehend how God would do that when difficult times were for correction throughout Bible. However was prepared to accept it if that's the way things were. Hearing about these theories has made me think more. Obviously you are never gonna find a watertight theology and an ability to understand all the Bible, but our perception of it will surely reflect on our attitude to life, evangelism etc. Now I can't say I agree with any of the above theories but they have def made me think and increased the desire to do some research into them... now it's just finding the time!

debating

2004-11-10T16:12:00.000Z

Been having some interesting debates lately on the way to doing assemblies in the van. All of them rooting from the good old Calvinism v Armenianism debate! Does God choose us, if he does then why us? Does that mean God has favourites? etc. Finding it all very interesting, Jon has even bought one of John Calvin’s thesis’, a translation from one written in the 1500s!

girls vs boys

2004-11-06T14:01:00.000Z

now don't get me wrong I like boys, well, I'm in a band with 3 of them and spend most of my life with them, but there's only so many conversations about willies, etc that a girl can take!! I haven't spent any time with any of my girl mates since, um last Friday so thats over a week ago! I think I may actually go mad, or turn into a boy... dunno which is worse! Had the conversation about if you were a boy/girl for a day what would you do? The guys came up with the usual answers that I don't need to go into but I said that I wouldn't really want to, couldn't think of a reason why I would! I'm making myself sound like a really girly girl or a full blown feminist here, when I'm neither, honest. I love the guys in my band to bits and have the upmost respect for them, plus they make me laugh a lot! However there is nothing like scouring Topshop for a bargain or sitting in a coffee shop for hours chatting. I love being a girl.
hmm.. not really sure why I wrote all that..

poor replacement

2004-11-04T16:24:00.001Z

Argh, wrote a new post and now I've lost it! Honest, I wrote it earlier offline but for some reason when I came to post it messed up and here I am writing another one! So annoying... it was quite good aswell!
Did a lunch club at a high school today went well, had 40 kids there. Did an illustration about that fact that Jesus died for us all but it is up to us as to whether we choose to accept him.. so we bought 40 (good guess eh?) doughnuts and then gave each child one, however, for each one given out a price had to be paid. Jon did one press up at a time (as opposed to in a row..) for each doughtnut given, even if the child (sorry young person) didn't want it. Aaah, I hear you say, clever. Should have seen Jon's face as more and more and more young people came through the door for the club!
Primary assembly tomorrow which is always fun. Although in the last one we did on Respect I was pied by Si and Lewis! Shaving foam is so hard to get out of your ear! That reminds me, half way though one Respect assembly I asked Jon to move his mic stand and then, in the mic, he went 'tut women'. Yes Jon, that's great, how to discredit everything we've just said about respecting people!! It was highly amusing!
Have a feeling I'm just rambling rubbish, my other post that got lost was way better.. trust me

Conformist

2004-10-23T22:23:00.000+01:00

Yes, yes I know, I have given in and succumbed to the need to fit in and have started up my own blog! Well I don't want to be left out, do I?! Though technically I had one of these years ago, yes, back in the day when I was fifteen! I cringe now at the thought I some of the stuff I wrote. Before you go looking for it, it is locked. It dawned on me one day how embarrassing it would be if someone I knew found it and read it so I password protected it and I don't even know what the password for it is! So there you go.
Umm.. anyway
Don't know how often I will write on this but like Liam and J say it is a good way of letting people know what I am up to without, either, writing a million (ok, slight exaggeration..) emails or one of those irritatingly impersonal, yet quick and easy bulk emails. So watch this space for my inane ramblings, hmm.. not really selling it well..