bleh

breakups are frikkin painful - yeah, some days are ok, maybe even good, but some days just suck. When I go through this crap, I keep wondering why anyone would put themselves out there like that (i.e. relationship) when there's the potential to feel this wonderful @ the end of it... :(

Congrats Kaos & Emma...

two of the people who are a part of the credo community brought a new life to the table Sunday night... Oscar-Ferdinand something something...

I was storing the bike for the night when Kaos came wandering up and told me the good news... I have no idea what it's like to have a kid, but the enthusiasm is unbelievable contagious... it was a pretty damn decent way to close out the weekend...

the weekend in brief...

Fri night I crashed Brave cell, was good to interrupt est again... Sat arvo went to iDream with Karen... a meeting that forced uncomfortable confrontation with emotions I'd been repressing, and hence something I probably really needed... coffee with karen... focus group with ange & mikey... late night kfc with mikey... Sun was jap fest with yeungs, al & vee (and assorted others), nap @ parents, ACF Rowville visit, dinner with ange and mikey... and then home to the city...

to my friends...

the last week has been an emotionally hard one, and could have been much, much harder if it weren't for my magnificent friends...

... my fellow resies (ali, chris, nomes and ray), who have put up with me so much, and have given me so much, you guys get me through the tough weeks...

... my closest friends, mikey, ange... I love having friends that I love so much...

... my fellow braves... al, vee, est, karen, wes... who are there with the life-saving hugs and add the much needed colour to my life...

I realised last night that at the vulnerable points of last week, there was always someone there to help me through, pick me up a little... and to those people, thank you... again

brrr...

rode home last night... was frikkin cold... so I got in, looked it up, and yeah... 7degrees (plus the wind chill @ 100+ klicks an hour)...

everyone meet christop...

I've been meaning to get around to doing this for the longest time, so here it is! Done! Christop's blog, fellow resie (and penguin for this week) has been linked on the righthand side, or you can just click here.

Or here... here... maybe here if you like this one better...

nate @ the movies...

thanks dre for the invite, but I figure I should lay off games for a bit... I WILL join you guys one day though :)

Last night @ nova I saw "Where the truth lies" - a mystery/murder type movie, arthouse-y (only showing in a few cinemas) and rated somewhat well... it wasn't bad... Tonight I saw MI3 @ Hoyts, Melb Central, and that wasn't bad either...

Have been actively attempting to rejoin life, after being a little inspired by my meeting fun people incident, and mikey/est pick-me-ups (refer to previous posts)...

And as such, have made it a point, that I won't be @ home moping & depressed - have started filling up my dance card, and once again am @ the point where there are things that I'm looking forward to... and not just getting through the day with as little pain as possible...

Which is why the last two movie nights have been nights I'd made it a point to see movies, by myself - which also brought up the question in my head, isn't that what movies are ideal for anyways... I mean, how much do you get to know/spend time with your friends when you go see a movie with them...

Anyways... they turned out really great... the cinemas were a place where I had no responsibilities, my life @ that point was not interruptable and the only person I had and wanted to worry about, was me... and after long days/weekend @ work, I dunno... it was just great...

Esp with the tickets @ nova being cheaper on Mondays, and the cinemas having such a comfy feel... those seats are great, and the cinema is small enough to feel personal, but the screen large enough to make it feel like something special is happening...

... I'm rambling... I should sleep :)

Fun meeting new people...

I'd forgotten what it was like to meet new, fun people... I got to meet Vicky, Karen's friend last night @ Donalds and that was fun. I gotta make it a point to meet fun, new people more often :D

On a side note, am going to be freer than usual these coming nights... so if any of you feel like doing something (esp if it's in the city), give me a hoi hoi... might see a movie tonight @ cheap-Monday-Nova...

Pick-me-ups...

Woke up felt, completely down and depressed... then the arvo came, and mikey and est proceed to cheer me up with their random banter! Here's a "rahaha" to good friends!

Weekend lowdown...

Common misconception: retreat over the weekend was a holiday... noooooooooo...

I mean, it was good and fun and all, but it was quite a working weekend - it wasn't just the resies and staff that went up, but for the 10 x Urban Seeders, there were also about 15-20 transitory people (homeless, unemployed, recovering drug users, etc), which was the whole point of the retreat, to give people opportunities that they might not normally have.

Sleeping in a cabin with two loud snorers and a sleep-talker, playing ping pong, going on long walks with magnificent views, seeing the new growth over the fireburnt forests, learning that to deal with an epileptic case is to sing and play guitar for them in the shower, learning how responsive the police in the region are to calls, sharing an aussie bbq with english girls and driving the four hours home, half asleep...

I think that just about sums it up... will get photos up when I get them off my cam...

There's so much to do... and so much to do...

Not that I even have that much time that I can spare to be here, but I've also realised that this is one of the only ways my family and those close to me know what I'm doing...

In brief, I'm off to Credo Retreat (we're going to Halls Gap, Grampians) tomorrow arvo, back on Sunday evening, just so you guys know that I'm not lying in a gutter unconscious somewhere :P

Credo Retreat is where we, the staff, organised a getaway for those who come to lunch - when you don't have much, you don't have many holidaying options. We'll be heading up with about 10 staff and 25 lunchers...

The last week or so has been extremely busy with preparations, and uni work. Today for example, I'd felt pretty pleased after allocating every single minute of my day to necessary and urgent tasks (breaks? what are they?) when a situation with a girl needing crisis accommodation suddenly came up - a huge example of the interrupt-ability of a resie life :S I'm sure glad there's five of us...

Take care, those few nate-blog readers, and I'll update when I return :)

Always learning...

... it really is funny, how the more you learn, the more you realise how little you know :)

I'm lucky enough to have someone as travelled as Uncle TT as a mentor, and this is an excerpt from one of my correspondance e-mails:

"... there isn't a week that goes by where I'm not stretched, and not forced to dig deeper into God for strength. Am still learning so much about the ministry of reaching those in need, and realising that the bigger and more exciting things that happen here, such as diffusing fights on the street, are just as important as chopping the vegetables for every lunch, or sweeping the floors."

What to say...

... like my sis, it's a bit contradicting, but haven't been here for awhile because a lot has happened...

... some of the stuff, I was uncomfortable with sharing to all. But nonetheless, here I am once again.

It's a bit funny, because the way I open up to people, is slowly, cautiously... and I have a feeling that it'll be the same as my blog. That the posts will be a little less personal, until post by post, me and blog-gy are close enough again...

But, with every journey of a thousand steps (do I sound wise??? :P), here's me taking the first one... oh, and hi to all, esp those I haven't seen in awhile :)

Zzzzz... *honk*...

Another story to add to my collection :S

Just came back from downstairs (laneway), where we (me, ray, chris and 'nomes) foiled a robbery :P

I'd gone to sleep early, since about 9, when I was woken by a honk... and the scurrying of resies...

"what's going on...???" "They're in Rays car..." ":S"

Ray had left her car in the laneway for the last couple of days, and there were now people in it - so four resies dazed from slumber wandered down, not quite knowing what they'd do...

By the time we'd gotten there, there were two users left (caught a glimpse of other people walking down the laneway), going through their bag looking for something... we just asked if things were ok, and if they needed a hand with anything...

The mentioned something about being ripped by someone (heroin dealer), asked if we had any freshies (not so shocking to me now, in the span of two weeks :S) and after a bit more, they wandered away down the laneway...

Rays car was fine, as much as we could tell tonight anyways - they'd (the users) left the doors unlocked, and there wasn't anything to steal...

So four resies wandered back upstairs in their PJs

:S

Just when I thought I'm good with the whole working around syringes thing, I get to see the whole process of getting three caps of heroin into ya... cutting it out of the weird bizar waterballoon things, drawing the liquid out... mixing... tapping out all the bubbles... and then the injecting... in broad daylight...

I was sitting in the laneway with two other ex-users, who are good friends, and it was so good to have them there - I felt safe-ish.

I know I'm here working with this stuff, and all, but it's still a little freaky and confronting when it happens on the floor in front of you...

Not to mention...

... when I woke up @ 7pm (Sat), I got up, made myself human with a shower and cleaned up my room...

Christop (fellow resie @ Urban Seed) was filling in for the education team, and was the tour guide for a Christian group of Young Adults from Bayswater @ 8:30pm - I thought I'd tag along, for moral support, Chris is a really good guy.

So we're there, just sitting on the steps with this group, introducing everyone... when a girl, when it came to her turn, that looked so familiar, pointed her finger at me with her mouth open, going "I KNOW you!!"...

T'was Judith!! Judith Briscoe, who'd been @ ACF oh-so long ago... it was just bizar :S

At the end of the city walk, I caught her for a few minutes, and she said she was doing well, with a son (name's "Kylam"?) of age one and her partner Adam (?).

She sends a shout-out also, to those who remember her from her ACF days :)

God has a pretty whack sense of destiny...

... or at least, an bizar sense of humour :S

Just came back from a night @ Boulevard, which was pretty good - a great way to unwind after a mega-stressful week.

Ami and the girls offered me a lift back, which I declined; I figured the walk will do me good, and the weather wasn't too bad.

I walked back along St Kilda Rd... past the National Gallery, with the serene, oh-so-still water in front of it... there was no one around, so it was quiet-ish, it was a really nice way to end a night, I found myself thinking.

Crossed the road @ Flinders, was walking towards Macca's where @ 4:15ish in the morning, I recognised Sheree, pacing around outside McD's, with a mob of other assorted street people.

I stopped to say hello, but she was pretty tense - her friend had gotten stabbed by someone else she was fairly close to, and whilst she was able to talk to me, she obviously hadn't been having a good time lately.

Then some guy came along, some guy that appeared to be middle-class, and started trying to be funny with the bunch, was pretty obviously drunk.

Sheree didn't have much tolerance - she fully started verbally telling him to get lost. This girl, who was 30ish, had been on the streets since forever, and been through more things than I will take the liberty to write here, and tough as nails, like fully, was not about to back down.

And there I was, right in between a bunch of people that have some of the hardest lives in Melbourne, and some drunk idiot.

I've had no experience in this, really. I've been taught things like the 7 laws of the learner, have led cell groups, be preached @ for umpteen years. But where I was? That was real... that was in your face, and that was (in my head) "Nathan, so what are you going to do NOW. This ain't a group of affluent asian kids, you ain't know nothing"

I put myself between the two, my arm around the drunk idiot and said "mate, let's take a walk". He kept going on about being able to take on all of the, kept posturing, and I kept asking what his name was...

After a few attempts, I walked with him down the street, where a distance on he wanted to head off, and he did.

I walked halfway back to Sheree, stopped outside the Commonwealth Bank, and just softly bashed my head backwards onto the wall.

Walked back to Sheree, she told me, tensely, but as a friend, that she wasn't in the mood to talk given the stabbing, etc, and I told her that's fine, she should do what she needs to do, that I just wanted to say hello, and that I was going to head back then.

I dunno God... it's like you really don't want me to be bored, huh...

Sometimes, you just gotta laugh... or cry...

Last night, before I settled down to study @ about 2am, I was down in the laneway - two guys came up and were asking from some "freshies", and I wasn't quite sure what they meant. After talking to them for a bit, by the fluorescent light of the laneway, I'd learnt that one of them (an aboriginal) was just out of jail, and really hating life... both of them re-iterating that life in jail was so much better, like a holiday?!

I asked if he'd be able to make do without a "freshie", and he told me he had just gone through the laneway bin and found a used one - at that point I realised it was a clean syringe he was after, and had just pulled out of the bin one that had been used.

We're not an injecting house or anything (well, in Vic they don't exist), so we aren't able to carry fresh syringes, but after that, I almost wished we did...

Chatted for a bit more, then went upstairs to study... just shaking my head @ the bizar-ness of my life...

Woo hoo!!

After a test on Sunday, 2000 word essay for Tuesday, a test on Wednesday, reports by Thursday night, and a test this morning (Sat), I'm DONE for mid-semester!!

ALL this along with my regular Urban Seed duties too :S

Finished the test @ 10:30am this morning, came home and slept till 7pm :D Feels good to be semi-alive again, that's for sure...

Ah well...

Looks like Piano Stories will have to wait for another time - Mikey & other's are going to be working the ACF Easter play, and it won't nearly be the same without them, so here's hanging out for a Piano Stories IV...