An Update, and Some Project 125 Stuff..

So once again I must start a blog post with an apology. I'm just not very consistent with posts. Some people update every other day, and I can only admire and be absolutely baffled by them. But hey, ho!

In case y'all hadn't noticed, IT'S CHRISTMAS! A very good time of the year. Yet, with my first AS exams looming in January, I get a feeling that this Christmas isn't going to be quite as care-free as previous years.
Nonetheless, I am determined to enjoy my holiday amidst revision. Two of my favourite people will be returning from uni, the tree is going up this afternoon, it's my second Christmas with Christ, family are coming to stay with us, the next few weeks of church, lots of giving and receiving of presents and, of course, the Dr. Who Christmas special to look forward to. I'm so excited that I may even try my hand at cooking again, having found a yummy recipe for 'Christmas Bread' by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose name is positively spectacular.

Also, come the new year, Beth Rutland and myself will be raising money for Project 125 in a Doctor Who related way. We will be competing to see which sucker lucky person will be able to eat the most fish fingers and custard. Yep, I wrote that right, fish fingers and custard.

For those of you, who aren't Doctor Who fans (although why you wouldn't be is beyond me), you will need to watch this clip for full understanding:



The idea is that hopefully kind people such as yourself will sponsor us, and we'll make a beautiful video as proof that we did indeed eat the fish custard. This is all for the girls dormitory in Serenje, so please sponsor us! If you want to, just leave a comment on this post, or donate on the JustGiving page leaving a comment of 'Fish Custard' so we know that's what it's for.

If I don't get a chance to blog again, although fingers crossed I will, HAPPY CHRISTMAS :)

p.s. You know you want to sponsor us

Seventeen

Okay, who was I kidding? I can't write a two part blog, my mind's already moved on.

Today is my 17th Birthday. I felt that deserved a blog post. Enjoy..


Seventeen things I've learnt in the past year:

1. Igloos are difficult to build.

2. Dubstep are not a band.

3. Doctor Who without David Tennant is possible.

4. My hair will not curl. After years of extra strength hairspray, trying to find the best curling irons, giving up on having ringlets and just using mousse and scrunching to get some sort of wave, I have accepted it. My hair is dead straight, and unless I do like prom, and spend two hours under one of those hair driers old ladies use, it's just not going to happen.

5. The time for panic is when you find yourself thinking in a foreign language- German Exchange of 2010.

6. I may not be able to cook, but I can bake. My kids are going to be fat.

7. No matter how far away he moves, you're never truly rid of Dave Hulme.

8. That people will bully you for having a butter tray, when you weren't even aware it was a weird thing.

9. Never leave a mobile phone in your pocket when you go on a roller coaster.

10. But don't worry so much if it's a Sony Ericsson W810i, in that case it will be still be working when the maintenance guys find it and return it to you.

11. That aeroplanes can't reverse (took me a while to get my head around this one).

12. The existence of Banter.

13. The existence of Church Banter.

14. Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates. They wanted to ransom him for 20 silver talents. Caesar laughed and demanded they ransom him for 50. His captors obeyed. Conclusion: Caesar was badman.

15. Microwave Popcorn- harder than it looks.

16. How to apply for a provisional driving licence and then stare at it wistfully for two and a half months until you're allowed to actually use it.

17. Things don't happen the way you planned them to, but it's more fun that way.


Year Number Seventeen - BRING IT ON.

What is Today's Subject?

Today's Subject is:

It's a good subject, don't you agree? Optimism (or blessing counting) is most definitely the best outlook for life. I can manage to be negative for perhaps a few days at most. On that rare occasion the sadness continues, I am blessed with great friends who will gatecrash my pity-party, eat all the cake, and burst all the metaphorical balloons. I don't know where I'd be without them.

Naturally, my friends are some of the most brilliant blessings in my life. But there are many more.
My college is a huge blessing. That I can study and learn and be educated is amazing. I love learning about new things, gathering up the knowledge, using it. And I get to do that every day. I'm also very aware of how fortunate I am. It is safe for me to go to school. Some teenage girls don't have that luxury.

In Serenje, Zambia, girls of my age leave their homes in the countryside to go to school in the main town. The only accommodation their parents can afford for them is in the slums. They are vulnerable and unprotected and taken advantage of by men. Only 2% finish schooling, the rest return home, often pregnant or infected with HIV/AIDS. That's a horrific statistic, what if only 2% of girls at my college completed their A-levels? And the only difference between us and the girls in Serenje, is that of birth. We are blessed, blessed, blessed and should never take it for granted, but help others to have the same blessing. Donate to Project 125, so we can build a girls dormitory and these girls can be safe. Do it now!

So now that you've donated to Project 125, as I'm sure you have, I can go to bed. I'm ridiculously tired and need to sleep now.I'll most likely do a part 2 to this "Count Your Blessings" thing, because I wasn't actually going to talk about Project 125, it just wriggled its way in. I'm surprised by how much I want to see it happen, and indeed by how much it's gone and planted itself in my heart. I never particularly wanted it, but God just went and stuck it in there. He's brilliant like that.

Count Your Blessings, Not Your Worries.



To be continued.. (or just written properly without any strange side-tracks about Zambia)

Sorry All!

Well, I know it's been a while since I've updated, but in my defence, my life suddenly got super crazy busy.
One day, I'll have time to sit and do a real post.
Until then, YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS VIDEO (because I love it):



Blows me away. Every. Single. Time.
Hopefully I'll get a proper written post up soon, sorry!

Wordle

After seeing it on Simon Benham's Blog, I had to give this Wordle thing a try. Basically you feed it a load of words and it creates a cloud of them all, giving greater prominence to words which appear more frequently. I fed in all the text from every blog post I've ever written, and this is what it gave me..

(click on the picture for a larger view, trust me, it's worth it)

It makes me happy. I love how 'Buffy' and 'Aslan' snuck in there. But most of all, I love how 'God' is smack bam in the middle of it! I wouldn't have it any other way.

Sorting Out My Priorities

Capture It

It's been such a long time since I really flexed my writing muscles. I'm slowly unfurling that part of my mind from where it's been cramped and squished into a corner of my brain.

I'm stretched across my bed, occupied in watching the sky through my window. If I stare long enough I can almost fool myself that there isn't really a pane of glass. That there's in fact nothing separating me from the beauty of the outside world. Yet, I can't believe it. You see, the air is distinctly 'inside air'; still and lifeless. Outside, air flicks about you in little whips and flurries. With outside air, every breath is a tiny delight as the freshness rushes into you, waking you from inside out. And that's not how the air in my room feels.

Just so you know, the sky I'm seeing, and am more than a little captivated by is white, a brilliant white, and the clouds are great grey smudges. Curiously, they're not ugly smears, but soft and lovely; dark at the centre then fading and blending at the edges into lightness. They're drifting right now, slowly and almost solemnly from left to right. They don't look quite ready to release their rain. But I can imagine that later in the day, a stranger will curse at the same clouds for depositing a whole lot on him. Or perhaps he will lift up his arms and receive the raindrops as a gift. His choice.

Was there a point to all this writing?
Not particularly. But as I let my little chewed biro scrawl across my favourite notebook, I had a good think. And I decided that if there has to be a point, then that point is beauty. We experience beauty and then we want to capture it. Some people paint and draw, but that has never been a talent of mine, not even a little bit. I could simply take a photo of the view, but then I wouldn't be able to share the full, layered beauty of this exact moment. Because the beauty is not only in the gloriousness of the sky, but in so many other things too. The way the light gleams across my mirror and reveals that it's actually speckled with smudges, from top to toe. Or the empty mug beside me, around which the faintest wisp of 'tea smell' lingers. Or the curious mixture of sounds that is my ipod on shuffle. Or the quiet nagging ache in my elbows from leaning too long on them whilst writing this. Or suddenly, in the midst of everything, realising that I've dumped a pile of freshly ironed clothes on the floor where they're merely going to become creased again.

This is being alive. And I'm just trying to catch an inch of it with words.
All that beauty.