and some notes on today...

had a visit from Korea, Jasmine and Sharon (all from citylife) today, who came down to share lunch with us - was good to catch up with Korea, if in the usual disfunct (and subtley threatening) Korea way.

Here's to brilliant days :D

Yesterday we had Credo team (meeting), where we usually get all those involved with Credo (volunteers, etc) and talk about stuff integral to the running of Credo Cafe.

We did that for 15mins, and then we all went to fed square for ice cream!! And it was just such a perfect way to spend that beautiful arvo... I'm still a bit dubious over my pistachio flavour choice, but a perfect arvo nonetheless...

Will get some photos up soon (yo christop, you forgot to give me the arvo photos too)...

guess who's in the laneway :D

hehehehe, excuse the pun, but this stuff is right up my alley... jump to christop's laneway blog entry!!

The weekend before...

Croc Hunter died, Brocky died... and I've had a pretty busy week too :)

Bucks weekend turned out much better than I'd thought - I'd gone thinking that it was going to be just a weekend away where a bunch of guys play xbox, and came away instead with some great moments.

I'd taken the Friday off, and went down first - arrived at the house @ 5, had a fishy chip dinner and wandered around for a bit... Went down to this amazing, secluded beach at just sat there staring out at the ocean. It was overwhelming, the sense of power and vastness of the ocean, the approaching waves (and me becoming more and more aware of how far the stairs up the cliffs were), together with the dark, ominous clouds filling the sky entirely... and the darkening day. Almost terrifying, in a bizar way.

Skip forward to the next day, and we did the bucks thing by stripping Gidz down to his jocks, gave him two towels and a pair of sunnies and then dumped him in the middle of town for him to walk back to the house - We then drove off, coming back every now and again to take photos :P

After we got back, a whole bunch of life ex'ers had come up, and proceeded to assemble the Halo multiplayer, at which I thought I'd be left to my own devices to entertain myself. But as me and Wes were finding a place to house my bike, we stumbled into the garage of the place and onto a bonanza of wet suits, surf and boogie boards!! It was a freezing day, but our minds were quickly made up - we were going out!!

We dragged Gidz away from the multiplayer conflagaration, and had one of the most memorable weekends ever - three guys, facing the waves on this beach we had all to ourselves.

The top photo really sums it up for me - three good friends together in a last hurrah

More hero shots in nate's photos...

no respite... none at all...

... and the weekend looks just as stupid too :( Going down this arvo to Philip Island for Gideon's bucks weekend... should be ok... will be back Sunday arvo...

Some drafts due on Monday night for some group work and another assignment also due that day... blehhh... damn it, that's it, I'm going to sleep now...

So tired...

Got the mega huge ASS-ignment done, with a large donation of sleep going towards it :( Starting to crash, humongously... must hang on... complete this post...

Bound the thing (binding is the most stupid process in the world, grrr), dropped it off this arvo and got to salvage some of the brilliant weather of the day with Viki... walked down and around the Botanical Gardens, through parts that I'd never seen before and seemed so foreign and fantasy like... lost in this green wonderland... then again, that could have also been the sleep deprivation speaking... and spent the developing evening sitting by the flame at the war memorial... after which we went back into the city and to Golden Monkey, where oddly enough I was recognised by the waitress there... the one we were betting on that night Mikey :P

Quote for my day :P

"…The strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours."
(Future Grace, pg. 174)

From desiringGod

at the moment?

Working my way through a report that's due soon... want to get a lot of it done, so will probably continue posting randomly throughout the night :P

Also listening to Ryuichi Sakamoto's Forbidden Love, playing on this blog... it's been on repeat for me the last 6hrs or so :P

And the w/end?

Yet another blur :S Friday night I went for a jap buffet with Vee and est, which was mega funny - because they make you pay for excessive wastage, and we underestimated the amount of food they brought out. We ended up spending a lot of time eating not for enjoyment (tho the food wasn't bad) and mostly to save money :P After which we went to Stokers... which was ok...

Saturday I went on a mystery church date with Eco-Paul... who took me out to Oakleigh and a bus out to... Cheltenham? Where I only got to find out which church it was when I got there, and it was Bayside :S Talking to the hospitality guy there afterwards, turns out we knew quite a few similar people, which was quite disturbing... I mean, how far do you have to go until you can get away entirely from the degrees of separation thing...

After that I met up with bibi, mikey and vee and we all went to Golden Monkey, and inadvertantly had a blast meeting the promo people there :P All extremely beautiful, and all taken, but some were just really nice and spent a lot of the night talking to us :P Mikey was in halfie heaven...

Sunday afternoon woke up, pottered around a bit then met up with Viki... which was unreasonably fun as usual :S We went skating @ St Kilda again, this time @ night, and found ourselves in the most momenty-moments... on a pier... on a hill, looking out over the bay... and wondering by the end of the night, just where all the time had gone...

the week gone by...

... and then, it was Friday :S Can't believe it's already here, glad it is, tho there isn't much respite in immediately viewable sight.

Mikey & Kaiwin crashed over on Wed night cuz they missed their last train... amusing tales on Christop's site...

Then Vee came down last night, and we went adventuring until the wee hours of the morn... which will remain unspecified as my dad sometimes comes by this blog :P

Which leaves us with Fri! Woke up, had lunch, cleaned up Credo, fixed the right hand mirror on my bike, and will now meander thru other assorted tasks... hopefully a work weekend ahead of me tho, hope to get a lot of good h/work done tomorrow and Sunday...

hehehe...

... ok ok, back down to earth now... but it's a bit fun to go through these crazy, obsessive moods every now and again :P

funny how...

...you can have seen someone the previous day, and yet feel like it's been forever since you last talked to them. When you repeatedly refresh your inbox hoping for their reply, even though you know they're away for those days... and when that reply finally comes, you hang onto every word that's said... and everything around you reminds you of them.

moments...

I've been blessed with some pretty special moments lately...

...skating/walking along the beach the beach and sitting at the end of a pier until that stars came out...

...spending some great and ridiculous times with some precious friends on the rooftop, on bean bags, huddled under blankets...

...spending a night by a lake watching the ducks swim by in the dim light...

...long phone calls with kindred spirits...

Life... has been pretty blessed :)

guess who's back... back again :)

As life settles down once again and I'm sitting here pondering the journey since my last post, it's a bit mind boggling the incredible distance I've come in a matter of a few months :S

Rather than attempt to type it all out, I figure I'll instead post some pics of my travels, to give a small snapshot of where I've been - there are more photos if you click the nates photos link on the right :)

you notice the door is shut... with a "be right back" sign, swinging from the doorknob...

... after being reminded of blogspace recently, I figured I should leave some sort of note explaining something...

Haven't blogged for ages, and I'm actually fantastically happy that I haven't been :D Life after exams have been extremely fun - have been getting into all sorts of strife and trouble, but in a mischievious, fun, fun way... well... fun now... will probably come back and bite in the proverbial buttocks, but eh... fun, fun :P

My last post was a bit painful, but in brief, am in a great place now, thanks though, those who have been concerned and for those praying for me :)

Life for me is so busy and fun, that I haven't the time to blog about it, which is great - will probably start dropping more notes here when life starts to slow down... it will eventually... right... I mean... it has to... I'll need to sleep sometime...

Blogging to clear the head... and leave a trail of crumbs..

Intermission from the last post...

I blog for numerous reasons, but primarily it serves as an avenue to release some of the "explosive diarrhoea" that congests my head, and heart... as well as to mark out my journey, so I can see where I've come from...

So here's a bit of a whinge about pain and heartbreak... I HATE being vulnerable :( Recently things have been great, I thought, hey... I'm getting over the breakup hump... and I think I still am... but there are little things, thoughts that come in and just derail that sometimes... there's still so much stuff inside that I've just been working so hard to hold up... so that life continues, study, work, friends... just keep swimming... been intense times of sadness... of wanting to cry... but not being able to...

Random thoughts... incoherence... yep... looks like a post that fits on my blog... back to study...

And finally, onto Sunday...

... this one was always going to take a bit of time to compose...

Sunday morning I actually work up earlish and made it down to Life Expedition... I was quite proud of that, until Tim decided to go overboard... and I found myself lamenting getting there @ 10:30am and still being in the seat @ 12:45pm... but, along with the Flinders Street bumpage last night, was really good to connect with the streeties that go there... grabbed takeaway lunch and headed home to hit the books...

Hit the books until 7, when I thought I'd make my way down to the Sunday dinners in Credo... was getting ready to head down when tremendous noises occurred... lotta banging...

I got down there to a shaken Ali - he'd been in the middle of a violent episode involving two huge drunk guys... who had literally thrown chairs at people, raised them to whack others, thrown bowls with such force as to break on impact... the police were called and took the one guy that had done all these things away...

Dinner went on... had a bowl of stuff and was talking to 'nomes when I heard a streetie discretely telling someone that the other guy was back... and so I inconspicuously headed out into the laneway to see what was up.

He was there, with another guy, drinking a bottle of Port and just being drunk... Ray was there talking with the other guy... and so I sat down with them, to make sure things were ok... started talking to them... well, as much as you can communicate with wasted people... and we sat there for the hour or so... was bloody freezing...

Eventually he falls asleep, and Christop has joined us by then... we start talking about what to do about getting them home... when Ray came out, nudged me and said as discretely as she could that we need to get them out NOW... cuz the Sunday night volunteers had called the cops again... I had but a moment to process that information when I looked up, and blinked hard... two cops walking were bearing down on us... I was like... frikking heck, this is bad...

To be continued...

Saturday's transgressions...

Woke up shamelessly late, and met up with Wes & Sas, Gids & Sue (yup, I was the fifth wheel) for Wes's birthday dinner (@ Crown), and I found the night really enjoyable... which yes... surprised me :) I think it's a sign that I'm finally getting over the hill of the last month...

I thought I'd try and style my hair after months of not bothering, so I went to the shops to get some stuff... given my orientation, I thought this product would be quite apt for me (look at the redish square highlight on the right of the image)...



Which resulted in...



Dunno readers... did I "create the ultimate Manga look"? :P

After the dinner, and a stop @ the Flinders Station steps, I met up with Mari (the tiniest Japanese girl that's 30!!) for a Kirin @ Robot Sushi, and then walked her home... wasn't a bad way to end the night, really...