Back to school... again.

Well today was the first day back at school. We all gathered in our first class and then our teacher sent us right back out for a break cause the class room was too cold...I know, it sounds wussy. My 7:30 AM English class room at Military college was much colder and we were just lucky if we got out early. But that's how the laid back system works down here. The rest of the classes went about like normal with chapel, TV/media tutorial and finished the day in a quick meeting for equipment booking.

We skipped Power House tonight (youth group for 18-25 year olds) because our first house inspection is on Friday and the owner is coming with his father to examine the house. We gave it a pretty good cleaning on Sunday, so tomorrow we are going to work on detailing the little nooks and crannies. This inspection is especially important because if the owner is not happy with how us five, male, American, college students (all these things have really bad reps over here...hence the reluctance to rent to us in the first place) he can kick us to the curb. Also, Bearden and I's multicam assessment is due on Friday as well, along with another Colour assessment on Monday. So this weekend will be a no-nonsense one.

Writing checks and breaking necks

I suppose it's time to write another entry. It's been a pretty chill break. Sara (Canada) and Sophi (Mexico) have been spending a good bit of time around the "Atlanta House", which honestly has nice way to balance out the overflow of testosterone. Our meals have been hot and hearty and our sink and counters clean. 

Josh practicing Latin dancing, Stephan DJ-ing, girls cooking, and me in the middle of it.

I'm renowned for my bear-hugs...my mam maw told me so.

Yesterday, we went with Sophi to pick up her new hatch at the Suzuki dealership in the city. It was the first time I had ever drove off the lot in a brand new car, and probably will be the last... Dave Ramsey always said to buy used. Stephan drove home because Sophie's license was expired. There was no close calls and we never missed a turn. It reminded me of the first time I drove our rental around last year in Cairns while waiting for my dad to check the standby list at the airport. Driving on the left side of the road is really as hard as you make it, and Stephan played it cool the entire way.

We didn't go surfing today because once again a lack of a ride. I'm starting to consider selling my board for a longer one, a door or small canoe would help me mount the waves quite nicely methinks. 

Instead, today was a lovely lazy one. Chilled out at the house watched a few movies, ate left overs, and filled out  job applications (I'm trying to get a job at Bunnings, it's like an Australian Home Depot). The past few days have been amazing days Colour Conference recovery, I'm actually ready get back in the regular swing of things. Which is probably a good thing because we start back tomorrow.

Here's a few random stories or things I have learned about different cultures (and my own) talking to all these different people from different nationalities:

-In China,  it's perfectly acceptable to hold your bowl up to your gaping mouth and shovel rice in with a clicking pair of chopsticks. Whereas in Korea, all dishware stays table-side and any noise besides quite conversation is considered extremely rude.

-As part of my job working registers, I had to ask each customer if they were interested in donating five dollars to the Queensland flood relief by buying Hillsong's cover of the "It Is Well With My Soul" hymn. One older lady, while I was giving my spiel, waved her hand to cut me off and said "I have cancer. Do you really think I have time to worry about Queensland?" Before I time to come up with anything to  sympathetic to reply,  she handed her card over the counter to me and asked casually "Credit please."

-NO ONE says " Put another shrimp on the barbie." down here! I swear if one more person from back in the states says that again with an embarrassing attempt at an Aussie accent, I'm gonna lose it. In fact, go ahead and toss "You call that a knife? THIS is a knife." and "Crikey" out the window. However, you can tack on a "Hey?" at the end of a sentence where you want people to agree with you. Example: "It's was hot out, HEY?"  if you want to say you like some thing, you could say you are "Keen on it".

-"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads." — Dr. Seuss....This is the reason I try to keep my blogs from being too lengthy. I know what it's like to go to a blog and be overwhelmed with a massive chunk of text. So I try to just pack it into a a condensed, read-worthy blast of information.

I stumbled upon this picture, and realized the man in the picture is me 50 years from now. The good news I take from this? I have an awesome spread in the mountains by a lake, still wearing flannels and I have have a beard full of wisdom and stories. This is currently the background for my computer.

Also, as always, I go out with a song that in some sort of way seems to fit the entry or that I'm keen on at the moment. I think this works quite nicely...

Thus passes the age Colour Conference.

Well, as of an hour ago we finished up the two week stint of woman's Colour Conference.

I had been put on register for the checking people out at one of the temporary all things Hillsong stores. I wasn't all to thrilled with my job at first, not due to it's lack of glamor, in fact, being a register clerk was pretty legit compared to some of the other jobs. However, math and I have never been on good terms. Before this week I couldn't imagine doing the simple subtractions in my head with the customer staring at their money in my hand tapping their foot with a line of people. However, after I figured out how to use the machines the math part came pretty easy. By the time it was all said and done, I knew more about the customers credit cards than they did. Some of the cards have chips built in them that we could use on a swipe pad, but of the hundreds of people I checked out,  Only 7 were able to use them.

The hours differed for everyone. Mine was from 8 AM till 10 PM. Although the hours were long, we had some generation breaks when all the ladies were in session, which we took the utilized to get off our throbbing, tired feet. It made me miss my old job at BWAC a little bit where I had a chair available to me at any point during the day. But overall, I'm proud to be part of the experience.

The next few days is a little bit of a break for us. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday we have off. I'm not sure what Monday holds, but tomorrow means sleep and Tuesday means surfing.

I normally try to find a song that sort of relates to the them or feel of my entry...this one is an exception. But I listened to it while walking home and I like the video.

So, there's this pirate right...

Well, today was our our day for getting ready for Colour 2. I was put on the HMA team (Hillsong Music Australia). More or less I spent the majority of the day setting up cardboard displays for Hillsongs new Aftermath album, stocking up the merchandise stands with basically everything  Hillsong has recorded in the past 20 years.
The whole campus had new tents set up, along with the down stairs being transformed into a white walled display room for all things Hillsong. It's hard not to be proud to be apart of something so massive like this. I don't know any other church in the world that could pull something like this off at such a professional caliber while using regular volunteers.

We got done with work at 1, but some of us stayed behind to help the girls with the heart shaped confetti seeing as  going back home and sitting around didn't sound too appealing. Afterward, some people came over and spent the afternoon chill'n  and talking in the hammocks. At night we watched a horrible movie that I had been led to believe was pretty good called "Buried", It's about a guy who wakes up in a coffin underground....90 minutes and a dozen frantic phone calls later, he dies. Roll credits.

But in good news, I got to tell my pirate joke several times today. So it was a good day. Also, this is a good song.

Stood up.

Today, we had planned on devoting to surfing seeing as we had the day off.  My ride was supposed to pick me up at the church this morning. So I made a breakfast made up of 1 orange, 3 eggs (scrambled like a Waffle House pro), and a protien shake (The protien powder was detonated by one of our friends back in the states who sent us a gift card charged with a substantial amount for some of the local stores. Donor, you know who you are and from the bottom of our hearts we thank you). Then, I headed out in the rain ready to brave the waves, surf board underarm, hood over head, and ipod in ears. However, when I got to the church, my ride was no where to be found. After an hour and 1/2 I helped some guy unload a Thrifty moving truck full of Colour Conference supplies then trudged home in disappointment. Josh and Bearden's ride showed up later and they were able to go, which honestly was fine by me cause they seem to be far more into then I am.

A few hours later Stephan and I headed back to the church to finish shooting the last clip for our Exchange festival video. It was a shot of a year holding up a sign, it took all of 2 minutes film. I then went to the Swim School down the road and dropped off my application. It's unlikely that I'll be getting any work with them despite my certifications or my WSI position at my old pool seeing as they only take instructors they personally trained...a course which takes 30 hours to complete. 

We then met up with some of our Canadian friends and grabbed some groceries for chicken tacos and a movie. Later we all came back to the house and chilled out for a little while. It's good to have a group that we can just veg out with.

In other news, my new back pack came in the mail today! It's a Kelty bag that I have been wanting for sometime now, and after receiving some "fun money" I was able to finally get it. I'm completely thrilled with it. After looking it over and examining it, I can see that it was designed very shrewdly by an avid backpacker. Kelty bags have a hump placed over the lower back to help offset the weight, it actually helps TREMENDOUSLY with load adjustment.  Also, it has a MOLLE system (a series of nylon loops sewn onto the bag for attaching things) on the bottom for strapping sleeping bags, which would have came in handy on my Colorado trip last August. It's also MUCH lighter than my North Face top-loader (which means it has a lid on top that you have to unzip and reach in to get to your gear.)

First Day of Colour

My first time I visited Hillsong, I looked at all the wall of windows that covered the building and thought to myself "I feel bad for the guy who has to clean all those." A year later, I walk in, they hand me a squeegee and tell me to get to it.  We will spend the next few days working on deep cleaning the church property for Colour Conference next week.  Right now, the conference is happening at the Sydney entertainment center (the Exchange film festival will also be host there next month) so all the girls are there working today. I find it much easier to battle of negative thinking towards these long hours of labor, by viewing Hillsong as my church, not the college I go to during the week.

I was talking about my bucket list with a friend back home the other day. I actually don't have a list of things I would like to do before I die.  Instead I have a "Decade List" I started in 2008 and I have heaped more things onto it over the years. But as of this writing, here's what it contains (some of them all already checked off):

1.) Live in another country for a little while.

2.) Learn a martial art.

3.) Get a motorcycle.

4.) Buy a handgun and learn to use it (better).

5.) Go to Alaska with my Dad.

6.) Get a tattoo

7.)Backpack South America 

8.) Have something published.

9.) Hike the Appalachian Trail.

Like I said, I started this list in 2008. Which means I have to have all these things done by the time I'm 28...chump change.

 

Caleb suggested I listen to this band the other night. It seemed like a good choice for this post.

Fast forward.

I feel like I'm stuck in fast forward. A day only seems like a few hours and a week really feels like a couple of days or so. I'm normally always anxious for something to finish up so I can jump on to the next adventure that I had lined up. In all honesty, there's only been a handful of times in my life when I was without restlessness, especially the year leading up to me moving over here. I spent 2010 trying to get it to speed up, and now I'll spend 2011 trying to get it to slow down.

Yesterday, our Mexican friend who has recently "adopted" us, came over last night and cooked us a diner of T-bones, mashed potatoes and vegetables.  Although I like to think Josh and I can hold our own in the kitchen, no product of our cooking skills could hold a candle to what Sofie brought to the table. Some of our Canadian friends came over as well to eat with us and play a few hands of poker. It was all in all a really good night, I'm glad we have them often.

Today, Bearden and I, along with the rest of the 1st semesters,  were rostered to run Chapel this morning.  We both got up early so we could get their first and have dibs on camera ops. It turned out to be a smart move, Bearden wanted to run the main camera (camera 2 = follows the speaker  or worship leader at all times) and the camera I wanted is set up on a platform in the back (camera 3). It does the long pull out out shots and close up on the instruments. While using it, I had to toss aside everything I have learned about setting up a good shot and was told to put shots out of focus and even shake the camera to make it look sporadic. Once it was all cut-in it actually gave it the trendy Hillsong look.

I did some running for the first time here the other night. Not to bad. I couldn't measure how far I ran seeing as I was running in a circuit around the neighborhood, but it's probably just chump change compared to the 15 miles I used to run weekly. This song was the first on my shuffle. Turns out it's actually a really good choice for night running.

"The sea's only gifts are harsh blows..."

"...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head..." -Primo Levi (from book Bear Meat)

Well, today we got to test out those boards we bought last Sunday. We met someone with a car and headed to a beach about an hour away called Dee Why (I thought it was D.Y., which could have stood for something that makes sense). It was overcast and apart from the few spread out swimmers and other (more experienced) surfers, the beach was ours. I was thrashed a few times by the tallest waves I have ever encountered while clinging to my willy board like a wet cat. About an hour, a litter of salt water, a chaffed chest and a pair of banged up knees later, I finally managed to stand up on the board and ride a wave for a few wobbly seconds. It stared raining so we went and grabbed lunch at fish and chips place that claimed to have the freshest offerings in town. After lunch, it was back to the waves....

After getting home, we relaxed for a little bit before were invited to go ice skating. Turns out there's a rink right next to the church and I have never noticed it before. The ironic thing is I left my home a frozen waste land, yearning for warmth, now I'm spending my Friday night skating around on ice. It was actually my first time, and I was actually surprised at how easy it was. I never  fell down, even the Canadians were impressed.

Other highlights this week:

-finished the majority of our filming for our Exchange festival project.

-One of the Mexican girls have adopted Bearden, Stephan and I and now we go over to her hour every Tuesday night for diner.

-We went dumpster diving again. Found a crate and came up with a system where I can lash a few of them together, hang them in my closet and fashion a place to organize my clothes. I need a system cause I'm starting to merge all the neat little piles folded on the high self into one big pile...on the floor.

I'm curious to know what people want to read more about. What to add? What to leave out? More of this, less of that. Or just questions in general, just leave a comment below.

Busses, trains, ferries...and surf boards.

Yesterday, I was just chill'n out in my room when Josh and Bearden storm in blurting out some crazy talk about surf boards. The next thing I know, we are cruising up the river in a ferry vessel called Rivercat. It took all the way to Circle Quay, which is where all the famous stuff like the Opera House and Sydney Bridge. It's funny to think back on the first time I saw these places and was so stoked and snapping pictures left and right. Now, I get about I as excited for these places as I did whenever I passed Turner Field or the Varsity on my way to Atlanta.

We took another ferry to Manly beach. After exploring the hilly streets and sub-divisions, we found the seller's apartment. You would think toting surf boards around the beach would make us feel like we fit right in, but I actually felt really out of place. The fact I was wearing jeans and TOMS might have had something to do with it.

Sleeping on the ferry with the surf board between my legs.

This one of them. The whole process of getting them took us just over eight hours of public trans through and around Sydney.

Today, we filmed  a little bit of a video we are working on to submit in the up coming Exchange festival. Today we interviewed one of the pastors in the park/garden near our house. I don't think I'm at liberty to disclose what it is about yet. After filming, Bearden and I had editing class from 4:15 till 7:00. Today we basically learned a little about formatting videos and creating DVD menus. 

Hopefully readers are getting a taste for my music preference by now.

Future adventure prospects.

So I tried to do a video for this entry, but I couldn't get it to upload so looks like I'm sticking to typing out text. Last night I worked camera 4 (first time using them)  for the youth. Camera 4 is set up back in the far right corner of the auditorium so it can get shots from partly behind the stage and be able to pan over the audience. Unfortunately it is the most boring camera to work. The only tricks I could do was a slow pull out and gradual pan  left over the crowd, and that was all the director who was talking to us from the control room over the headsets wanted from me. I have found the more I learn about tv/media, the less I know.
Today looks like it's going to be a slow one. Bear Grylls is speaking at Hillsong tonight, but I'm not going to be able to go because the tickets sold out in under 24 hours two weeks ago. Time is going so fast here! I have been here for two months now, but it feels like maybe three weeks.  In hindsight, I see how important going to Sydney was that first week. It was there that we met the majority of the people we still hang out with now. The people we grouped together with back then, are the same people we  group with now.

I dearly miss camping. I used to go out about once a month or so back home, and now I have been on an outdoors hiatus for about four months now (the weather was not permitting the last few months I was home). I'm going to try going to the Blue Mountains  sometime in the upcoming months. I also would like to visit New Zealand sometime while I'm here. I have met a few people that live there and I'm hoping I could  backpack and hostel jump my way around. As far as my long term adventures go, I'm thinking South America...

First stop, Quito Ecuador. I was there for a few months on a mission trip, but I feel like I was to young to really enjoy it.

                                                     

Then Mancha Pinchu in Peru.

And finally Roi de Janerio.

 I know a lot of people are wondering "Why is he thinking about visiting other countries, he just moved to one!" But I don't plan on going on this little adventure for awhile, in fact,  maybe not even till after I'm married. Also, those close to me know I never stop dreaming up adventures to go on.

                                         REALLY good song, not so good video. But it fits.