Ascension

Ascension... I love that word. It just has so much power. It's one of my all time favourite words. Also, since I'm under quite a lot of pressure in terms of assignments at the moment, I decided to really push myself today. The result was an entire major assignment from start to finish inside 6 hours (including a 2 hour break in the middle for dinner and mythbusters... good show that). I know this sounds arrogant, but I just can't get over how fast I can work when I'm under pressure. Of course, I have to be under pretty extreme pressure to actually have to step it up from my normal semi-coherent state, but that's neither here nor there.

Another surprising thing is the more assignments I finish, the better I feel. It's a huge weight off my shoulders even though I'm not particularly stressed or worried about assignments. It's so good. I'm thinking of starting a separate blog dedicated to documenting the funny, crazy and stupid experiments and hacks I often do. I think it'd probly get more traffic than this blog... but I need this blog too. This is mine, my precious, a space where I can get up on my own soap box and not be heard!

The old people are attacking again! Every time I go out there are a couple who seem keen to have a word or two. An old lady dropped me home the other day too. I'm quite scared. Well, I'm chronically short of time these days so I'll have to continue this later in the week.

Frustrated

UGH UGH ARRRGH RRRRK UGH!!!

And I'm still upset. I was up till 3am last night doing an assignment. Now I have two more to do for next fri. Had youth group tonight. Too many screaming kids. Felt like ripping my hair out. Took my camera and some NEW spare batteries... which were flat. Didn't matter, Kat swooped on the camera and get a good 15-20 photos on the half used batteries that were in there. Oh wait, it's been a while since I blogged.

Last sunday I got a digital camera. It plays snake and tetris!! It does a pretty decent job, and I have enough photo editing software around that most of the photos come out alright. So far it's only seen much use as an interesting toy to annoy my housemates with. Now there's youth group, which is half the reason I bought it. It's doing very well for itself. So anyway, as I was saying, I suspected Kat would be the one to have a play with it. She's just a little more creative and artistic than Tash.

well I'm gonna leave it there cos my thoughts are just too confused at the moment...

so strange...

The last week I've just felt so out of place. I turned up to youth group and helped out... but it felt empty and it was so hard to control the kids. It's strange to think that I've only known tash and kat for 3-4 weeks, but a week without them would be so noticeable. I'm hoping that it's simply because I'm haivng trouble adapting to a new, more sociable lifestyle (ok, not that much more sociable... but I have my hopes). It would be seriously disturbing if I was actually that dependant on them.

Anyway, I refused to give in to the temptation of sinking back into computer games, and somehow managed to get to cell group thursday night (actually I just gave kenny a few good hard kicks...). I'm glad I did, it was really good. I learned a lot about wednesday night in hindsight. Grrr... I try to start at the beginning and then realise I'm not at the beginning. I was upset about a few things with the youth group meeting Wednesday night, I won't go into it and it wasn't huge but it was significant to me.

For a long time, I've thought the question to ask myself about doing something was "if there was no reward, would I still do it?". That's just totally the wrong attitude. It's not about how willing you are to sacrifice your time. A more correct question would be "If God told me to stop, would there be any hard feelings?". That's the way you really test your commitment to what God wants. That's why I was upset. I wasn't prepared to do it God's way. That's what I got from cell group anyway.

Needless to say, there was a lot of repenting going on thursday night. It's not that I feel bad or regret thinking the wrong way, it's just that I know I really was in the wrong and I don't want to go down that path again. I really should have gotten this earlier; God's been trying to tell me this for the past week. 3 times! And I still didn't get it!

The whole thing revolves around this verse:
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart"
-psalm 51:17

I didn't understand what that really meant until thursday. Now I know. Broken doesn't mean sadness, it means knowing and accepting you are wrong and giving yourself wholly to God's will. I think this is a personal thing, something people have to live through to understand.

Youth group was good last night, but I won't go into it now... I'm not in a mood to laugh at the moment. Maybe tomorrow...

Credo

So I've been thinking lately: what principles do I follow in my life? If I had to lay out my identity as a set of rules, what would it look like. Well it'd be something like this:
- Do whatever God asks first and foremost. More importantly, do it because God asked, and not because of any other benefits I see in it. I think this distinction is very important to my identity, because I believe that even if I'm doing something that is good, if I'm doing it for the wrong reasons then I'm not glorifying God first and foremost.
- After God's requests comes uni. God put me here, God pointed me to this course... Not applying myself would be a bit of a breach of trust.
- After all this, I help people. Anyone really, I just enjoy helping people. If someone has a problem, I'll try my hardest to help find a solution. One thing that annoys me about a lot of people is how they're always telling me how much they helped so-and-so, etc. While I sometimes do, I try not to say those things to make myself appear better in front of people. I'm happy enough with simply having helped the person.
- At this point in the hierarchy things get complicated. Right now, here is alternatively filled with self pity and joy in God. Sometimes both within 5 minutes. I focus myself as best I can, but it's hard. There are some memories I've just learned not to bring up, because they tend to depress me rather quickly.
- Right down here comes chasing after girls (not because I don't want to, but rather because I force myself not to). This isn't very important to me at the moment, seeing that I spend almost half the nights in a week going out somewhere, and the other half are filled with assignments. Also I'm quite shy and bad at getting to know people, so it's very hard for me to get to know the girl I'd currently like to get to know. But don't read into this, my interests change almost as quickly as my moods. Mainly because it's all somewhat of a forbidden fruit at the moment and I'm not considering things seriously.

***

OK, I just got back from a youth group meeting. It was razy, as usual, and featured stu jumping on half of us. We got a lot of stuff sorted out, including timetables, responsibilities and weekly themes. All in all, it was probably our shortest and most productive meeting to date. I feel like kind of an organiser; I was the one pushing for a lot of the details to be written down/responsibilities handed out. Not sure why it was just me, but I really do like to see plans that we've committed to set in concrete. If people know who's responsible for what, then it's harder to forget or become confused.

Anyway, enough serious stuff. I have finally learned the secret to prayer as an umbrella! Unluckily for me, the prayer is planning. See it don't work if it's a spur of the moment thing, but if ya know where you need to be and when the following day, then a prayer and night and a prayer in the morning and things will be arranged. It's really quite good. If only I had the foresight to ask for my clothes to finish drying before it rained again too.... oh well.

I reviewed the next generation videogame consoles today too. Some may find my judgements superficial, but bare in mind that I devoted more than 2 hours of my time to this comparison. The Nintendo Revolution wins without a doubt, the schmick black box and backwards compatibility all the way to original nes is a sure winner.

Bringing up a close second is the playstation3, also compatible back to playstation1. Unfortunately, the ps3's controller suffers from some strange disease. Most reviewers refer to it as the "batarang" but every time I see it, all I can think is "wang". Also, the ps3 can drive up to 2 HDTV screens and simultaneously view more than 100 movies. But I hate channel surfing, so it only gets second.

Bringing up the rear is the xbox 360, rather geriatric in comparison to the other two consoles. There is no guaranteed backwards compatibility, but microsoft claims that bestsellers (whatever they are) will be able to run on it. Also, the controller looks like it had one wedgie too many in its highschool years. It's interesting to note that the ps3 and xbox360 both use the same cpu chips (IBM CELL... ok so the ps has 1 more powerful one and the xbox has 2 less powerful ones) and the Revolution uses another IBM chip of as yet unknown origin. I suspect it's a CELL based chip.

So now I'm off to have dinner and go to teh starwars opening screening! WOOOO!!!!

Now in 4D!

Life is great, but hard and confusing at the same time. I should be doing my assignment right now... but I feel like procrastinating. I've been so random lately that it's frustrating even me. I'm sure that if you left me alone for long enough (say 30 mins) with only a lamp stand, I'd form an emotional attachment to it. I'm just that kinda guy.

I spose I should explain a little about my assignment. I have to write a program that can run a poker hand in a functional language. For people who didn't get that the first time, I have to write it basically like f(x) = x + 1 ... etc and then chain a whole heap of them together to do something useful. In this case decide who wins in poker. It's an interesting break from normal programming, but very hard to debug (if there's a problem, it won't even tell me where it hit the problem). Fortunately, I've eben able to find my mistakes so far. I might not be so lucky when this gets more complex.

Also, I had uni today. It started raining heavily when I was halfway there, so by the time I got there I was thoroughly soaked (even wearing a raincoat). So I had to spend several hours in wet clothes before I could get home. I've felt fairly tired all day and I'm pretty sure that's why. Let me repeat again: prayer is too holy to work as an umbrella... except maybe if you're a mad prophet man who's angry at his people for turning away from God. Then it can do wonders.

My friend (Neil) grabbed my mobile during class and started looking at all my text messages. He saw that most of them were from tash... they were actually just letting me know when to be ready for things so she could pick me up and stuff but he only interpreted it as the obvious. When I explained, he still didn't get it and told me I should find out who she likes and pay him to reject her, then be there to pick up the pieces. The plan is so devilish that it's almost worth it... I am seriously tempted. Unfortunately I don't think I could be that cruel... maybe nice guys really do finish last ;-)

One last thing that happened today was that I had a deep thunk, and a brilliant invention emerged (I don't know why I'm putting it here, I haven't patented it yet). I call it: the COOKIEMUFFIN. The idea is to make normal chocolate muffins, and chuck chunks of cookie dough into it just before you put it in the oven. What comes out should be a mixture between muffin and cookie, with all the advantages of both. That's the theory anyway. I'm not sure I have the culinary skill to carry it out, but I'm determined to test it someday soon. Well, I've gotta program now so I guess I'll post this...

Promoted!

I should really stop complaining about the stuff God is doing in my life... but I complain only in jest and God knows I'm really very grateful. Well, I got called out again tonight. Some kids from my youth group gave their lives to God. I, not knowing when to keep my mouth shut, asked if they wanted to have a bit of a read and discussion of the Bible at youth group. They jumped at the idea of course. I'm sliding down this slippery slope and I can't see the bottom. I'm picking up speed, too.

I really should learn how to lead a bible study about now. That'd be great. Well, I'm willing but scared.

****

It's 2am, and I just finished a game of warcraft 3. I actually don't like playing it much cos it wastes so much time I could be spending productively. But ya get that in a house full of bludgers. I wonder what would happen if I told all my friends about this site. That would probably be really bad. Especially if I put in it the stuff I think I'm gonna have to soon. I mean, most people are confused but my feelings towards some people at the moment are in spin cycle. Come to think of it, so's my mood. I'm up, I'm down, I'm up, I'm down, I'm up....

So exhausting.... oh the things I'd like to say but somehow can't. It's probably for the best. I don't know what I'm looking for, I guess I'm just waiting for God to tap me on the shoulder and say "She's the one". Wishful thinking, I'm sure. We all make choices, mine is to mature as a person before I go muddling my identity in a relationship. I wonder what girls actually think of me when they get to know me... it'd be interesting to know the honest truth. Probably disappointing too. Come to think of it, I wonder what everyone else thinks of me. It'd be interesting to know. Very interesting. I mean knowing the good and the bad here, not just what they'd choose to share.

I guess I could list some people and say what I think of them... I wonder if it'd make a difference if I knew they were going to read this. It would be a very interesting experiment, I might try to tomorrow when it's not 2am.

Note to self

*Prayer is not a useful umbrella
I was on the way to uni today, and it started to rain. It was just light so I ignored it. Then it got heavier, and so I started praying as hard as I could that I'd get to uni dry. It worked, if we define dry as not drowned. Next time I think I'll just stop and pull my raincoat out of my bag.

*Maths sucks
I got my results from the test I thought I nailed last friday. I was fairly confident of at least 90%. I got 50%, and I'm still not quite sure why. So I'm now officially going for a fail in maths. I just don't get it, I pray hard, study hard and work hard. Then I get the results back and I find out that a blind monkey with alzheimer's could beat me. I just wish I knew what was going on. The really depressing thing is that maths is probably my strongest subject.

*Stabbity death
Right now I'm feeling a lot of hate. I hate myself for not performing to the levels I know I should be in maths, I hate my housemates for messing up our internet access so badly that I can only load a page every 10 minutes or so. But most of all, I hate myself and I keep beating myself up over the marks I'm getting. I get a feeling the answer I'm looking for involves a rather large kitchen knife and lots of stabbing motions.

Right now, I just want to escape from everything. I don't want to have to face this life tomorrow, I don't even want to face it right now. There's so much work to get done by the end of the semester and I feel so tired and broken down. I just wanna be somewhere I can let my hair down, have a laugh at my predicament and relax. For now, I just have to grin and bear it (well actually in my case, I have a lock on my bedroom door so I can just lock myself in and cry like a little wussy girl).

Wow, just wow...

I actually had a pretty bad day today. It was raining so I didn't go to uni, and my housemates were all at home for the day too. They were *really* annoyin me. I'd just curled up on my bed in despair when my phone went off. It was tash asking me if I wanted to go to the no limits night service. I'm never one to turn down some more of God, so I went along.

Most speakers at conferences are good, but every so often one has a talk that blows everything else away. It's something that's not entirely old or new. It's something that takes a lot of what you know and are familiar with, and builds on it. Something that changes world perceptions profoundly. Tonight was one of those talks. I'm not going to begin to try repeating it here, because I don't think I can do justice in the communication. Instead I'll say this: it totally changed my view of prayer.

Prayer isn't about asking God for what you want. Prayer is about submitting to God and telling him what you need. There's a second part to this: God often seems like he doesn't answer our prayers. He likes to wait until things are at their lowest, when you know that only He can help you. Then He'll begin to work. God loves showing off. Prayer also isn't about talking to someone outside and above you. God lives within you, and that's where you should be when you pray. Forget regarding Him as up there in Heaven somewhere looking down, He's inside us ALL!!

And then something strange happened. I'm not normally one to take too much stock in visions, talking in tongues, etc. I remain skeptical unless I can see/feel God's presence in it. I tend to think of this more as a "testing of spirits" than actually doubting. I don't doubt, but it's kinda strange when it actually happens to you. Suddenly you're not able to discount a lot of things you used to. I know I saw a vision from God, but I have no idea what it means or why I saw it. I saw a white outline of a cross on a black background, with magenta fire burning from the inner edges of the white lines. Then I fell, or probably more precisely leapt through. I have no doubt it was real, I kept seeing flashes of light when I closed my eyes earlier in the night... as if I'd just missed something. I think that was it.

Darren (my pastor) thinks it signifies something big in my life that I need to let go of to move forwards. I don't discount the possibility, it sounds quite likely. Even if I don't know what it is that I need to let go of. But there's a niggling little voice in the corner of my mind that says it's not about me per se. I get the feeling it has something to do with the future. I don't know, I'll have to do some more praying. After tonight I really feel like the horizons for my prayer have been broadened. I have to thank tash and trin so much for dragging me along... I owe a lot to them, and they're a great encouragement when I'm feeling down.

Looking back on my blog, it's amazing how much of this is deep God stuff, considering I'm constantly feeling that I don't acknowledge him enough in my life. Ahhh well, "Where your treasure is, there also your heart lies".

Rocking on

Well, I got 25% in my maths test today. I studied for about 3 hours for it yesterday, and when I finished the test I was sure I'd get 100%. Then they put up the answers. This whole week has been disappointing uni-wise. I handed in an assignment that I couldn't even bring myself to finish debugging on monday. I felt so dead and disappointed. All I can remember about tuesday is lying around feeling tired. Uni's really gonna be a struggle to keep going with, and I'm gonna need God in a big way. Now I understand why so many people drop out. But I can't. Giving up would not only disappoint God, it would destroy everything about my identity. I base my self image and actions on trying my hardest and never giving up. God wants no less of me, so I have to make it a core part of myself.

But that's depressing stuff best left for another day. I'm not overly upset about it, because God's been blessing me in other ways. For one, I got to go out with tash and trin to the opening for the no limits conference tonight. Tash's mum was there. She's great, one of those mums you instantly like and feel comfortable around - the kind who's a little crazy and treats everyone like one of the extended family. One thing bothers me though: she keeps grinning at me conspiratorially. It's not that it scares me, I just have no idea how to interpret it.

The talk itself was important too... got me thinking about a few things. I don't know where my life is going, I'm just following God pretty blindly. At the moment, I'm doing an awful lot of things on a whim. And they're things that God wants me to do. But I have no vision, no idea where my life is headed. Well, things are starting to move in patterns. Even the greatest vision has to start with a little faith. I really want to start walking in faith, to show God that I'm willing and ready. I want to walk the most fulfilling path, even if it's the hardest.

The past week has been hard, there've been a lot of challenges, but it's somehow different to before. I come home tired, but full of energy. I struggle with things and get depressed, but I'm content at the same time. Things are strange. The weekend was one of profound growth for me. God's been tipping my world view upside down and shaking it, and things are sorting themselves out. It's times like this that it's great to be me. I'm not depressed any more, being single causes me no pain, and feelings towards relationships aren't a problem. I don't need to carry my pain around any more, and I know I belong here, in a unique and irreplaceable slot. Wow, is that the time? I should probably be getting to bed soon...

...or not

Remember that question I asked a little while ago? The answer is a resounding no. I am meant to be single, however depressing that seems at the moment. When I'm less tired it'll be ok... but right now I just feel like putting my fist through a wall. I just finished dinner, and I feel so bad I'm probably going to throw up a bit later. I hate being depressed. And to all those out there who have any sort of a relationship going at the moment, I envy you with the envy of a thousand thirsty camels watching another camel drink water. I mean it too.

So now I'm here all alone. I hate talking about relationships... it gets me so down. If it's not mentioned, I'm usually pretty good. I guess I'm just not good at connecting with people, or maybe the kind of people I can connect with just aren't around. I don't like thinking about that second possibility, I hate the thought of being really alone. It's funny that I don't like being alone, cos I'm a bit of a loner and tend to spend a lot of time alone. Weird eh?

Also, I got a letter today saying that I got on the dean's merit list for my uni... whatever that means. I'm meant to turn up to some party type thing sometime soon as part of a "congratulations" or something. I might turn up... or I might not. The great thing about being a loner is that nothing is expected either way. Who knows, maybe I'll meet some new friends there. One can always hope. A point of interest that struck me on the letter is that if I can keep my grades high enough, I'll be awarded class 1 honours. It sounds kinda cool and I'd like to get that. If I can bring myself to work any more on these terrible assignments that is.

Anyway, must go! I have to sleep because tomorrow is a big day of... (wait for it) MORE ASSIGNMENTS!!! YAY!!!! Oh the sarcasm.... what an empty life I lead. Maybe I'll just give up and ring tash and see if she wants to do something. Even if she doesn't, just the excitement of ringing another person will be enough to last me the day :\

blogging in dvorak... not!

so I'm learning dvorak. It's harder than I thought. Maybe I'm too entrenched in my qwerty ways. No, it's getting easier. It still sucks. Please read this slowly cos it took a long time to write. if I calm myself and think slowly and clearly then it's not too bad. I'm starting to think that learning dvorak in the middle of assignment season is bad. It's tempting just to switch back but I know that If I go back then this will all have been for nothing. Incidentally I'm finding it easier to type with my eyes closed. I think it's finally starting to settle in. that doesn't really mean much though. Music is pretty annoying too but I suspect it helps in the concentration dept too. While this is all very nerdy, I'm hoping that in a week or so it'll be useful.

Enough of that. On with things! Ever opened up your Bible for the night and think "oh crap"? I'm not a big believer in reading too hard into what I just randomly open up to, but this just jumped out of the page. GAHH!!! That's it!!! No more dvorak till tomorrow. I've had about enough pain and I'm fed up with it. Time to get in the zone and finish assignments! Oh sorry, spose I should get back to my point.

Yeah, that page... it jumped out at me big. I guess I've been ignoring it a bit, but the main reason God called me to help with the youth group is to tell these kids the good news. I got a little bit of a wake-up call about that last night. I shut the bible after reading the first 4 words of course, and had a lie-down. The truth is that even though I'm not an especially bad leader, I don't particularly like being given responsibility and I'm shy so I find it hard to confront people about things. I guess this really has to change. Dramatically. The next six months could be painful. And/or fun. But definitely scary. I wonder what else will happen.

Anyway, the assignment is coming along nicely and might be finished sometime next week... did I mention it was due friday?

I'm still not decided about yesterday's dichotomy, and I think the next few weeks could be fairly hard. Hopefully God will help me out, He seems to have given helpful hints so far and things tend to just happen when He's involved. Just gotta keep my focus on God and His glory, which is kinda hard when I have my own interests too... at least they coincide, but I have to make sure I do things for the right reasons.

I had a really weird dream (weird even for me) last night and I'm frustrated cos I can't remember it. On that note I'll leave everyone in peace and go look for some food... it's getting late and I do indeed have a huge day tomorrow.

The account of the Lamb Shank

I had lamb roast for dinner. It was nice, for someone accustomed to cheap sausages and even cheaper schnitzels. Very nice. I am deeply satisfied. In other news I felt inexplicably tired today and my assignment has remained largely undone. This shall be rectified tomorrow (hopefully... probably... maybe...). Also, I declare tomorrow the day of the roast lamb sandwich!

Actually, today has given me more than its fair share of struggle, considering I didn't go anywhere but church and haven't done much but sit in my room for the rest of the day. I've been thinking about a lot of things. Mainly about being single and not being single and how I wish I could just turn my hormones off sometimes. Until recently I was fairly sure God wanted me to stay single. I was hardly crazy about the idea, but I was content and all in all it wasn't too bad. Then I met some great people. My resolve has just eroded away. It's bad not because I don't like the idea of being in a relationship, but because I know I don't have the time or maturity for that kinda thing and it goes against the message I thought I was getting.

A lot of little questions are unanswered, and as much as I pray I'm pretty sure they'll remain unanswered at the moment. Is being single better? Could I just be friends? How do I stop my emotions going too far? Is this what God wants? Am I putting myself first too much here? If it turns ugly, would that ruin things at church and make it weird? If I hold back because I'm afraid to get involved, will that deprive me of something important again? If I don't hold back is it even possible for me not to get involved? I have no answers... and I doubt God will answer many of those questions except in hindsight. Why wouldn't he answer them? Because the answers to most of those questions contain a key to the future I'm uncertain about... and me going into the future holding that key would probably make me rely less on God and more on myself.

And so I'm left at an impasse. Do I go ahead and plunge face first off the cliff, or will that just ruin everything? Hmmmm... put like that, and thinking about what God would probably push me to do, I'm scared. Cliffs are dangerous. I should know, I've plummeted from my fair share. If you won't answer anything else God, please answer this: is this what you want?