I'm not needed!!!

I’ve been thrown for 6 this morning… I had a late night last night which doesn’t help (man am I tired). And then this morning my youth pastor Ash told me he thinks I should leave in a few weeks. Altho I gave him the option – between me leaving in December and leaving in mid March I’m shocked/scared because he said December which means within weeks I’ll no longer have a church family, and no longer have that security… why was I ok about it until now?

There’s other stuff going on behind the scenes, which I don’t feel right writing about here. But I’m just completely stuffed now. My brain doesn’t want to function. It’s like he’s hurt me by doing what I wanted!?! Maybe I thought I was irreplaceable, indispensable, or needed or something… Guess I’m not as good as I thought I was!

I don't like this!

Aaaaahhhhh I hate this. I spend 5-10 minutes writing a blog and a good half an hour trying to get it to update. I dunno what i've done wrong previously that means they won't update but they won't and i'm frustrated... I've done everything blogger has told me to to fix the problem and emailed them. It eventually worked after i emailed them but now it's stuffing up again... it's not fair! Is it a sign that i'm not meant to have a blog?

Amanda's trip to work...

A story a friend wrote about her experience getting to work on Monday (she works in the city) when the trains weren’t working I thought it was very well written and kinda funny:

When you see more people streaming OUT of Box Hill Station than streaming IN at 7:30 in the morning, you know something is wrong.

And it is there that I am greeted with the lovely news,

"Due to a points failure at Camberwell, it is impossible for city-bound trains to depart from Box Hill. Please make your way to the tram depot on Whitehorse Rd. Trams leave every 10 minutes. Connex apologises for any inconvenience caused."

And so I join the multitude of buoyant Connex customers making their way to the Box Hill tram depot. We all secure a spot to stand on the tram, and immediately become quite familiar with one another. The first thing I notice is the heat. There's nothing like a few fellow passengers snuggled up to help you feel warm. Lucky it was still early morning on a 36 degree day.

Eventually we begin our journey, and thus start the phone calls;

"Hi Chase, it's Stace. Could you please print those documents emailed by Trace and add them to the folder on my desk? I'll have to meet you there, the trains are having problems."

"Hi, I'm on a tram in Kew because the trains aren't working. It's very slow in this traffic. I'll see you in a few hours."

And then there's the Asian lady. Imagine the accent...
"This is very slow." Yes - thanks for stating the obvious. Again.
"Do you think we can go down at Camberwell and catch an express train from there? They said change at Camberwell in the announcement". Now where might those "express trains" be coming from at Camberwell? You might have better luck sticking to the tram.
To the many passengers attempting to board the tram a short way into our trip she says, "No we can't fit any more. It's very squashy."
Twenty minutes later, about 10 minutes after Camberwell...
"This is very slow." Uhuh...
"Maybe I can change at Camberwell." Hmmm.

Every few minutes or so, the European man will say something. No, there's no earpiece attached. Is anyone listening?

And then there are the silent farts. My goodness there are some rippers! A look of disgust on the blonde lady's face...no more need be said.

As we enter the CBD, we approach the first tram stop on Collins St, accompanied by a mass of people wishing to board our already full tram. The Connex official does his best to help the situation. A Greek man - imagine a big thick Greek accent...
"Everyone move into the tram. Move down, don't stand near the door. Can you see how many people need to get on?"
He receives blank stares in return. Where exactly should we move? We're already sardined in - would you like us to sit on top of one another. Or on the roof?
"Ah, nobody understand what I say."
"Nobody cares what you said," responds one fed up passenger.

Eventually we reach King St...

And here I am at work, having arrived only an hour later than planned, but having enjoyed a morning full of the quirks of life :-)

Mud...

I went to Kmart last night, not a big surprise, I love shopping there, can always get a bargain… last night I went for something for my car and ended up with that plus a DVD, and that was after telling myself no to about 10 other things! I’m pathetic. Anyway, so I walk outside to my car and look and there’s a row of cars that have a layer of mud over them. It’s as though they had been bush bashing for the weekend and then it rained a little – only enough to clump the mud together, not actually wash it off. My car too had the layer of mud but as I have a wagon the rear window had a space where the windscreen wiper had smudged the mud in an attempt at removing it. As you drive around the area nearly every car looks the same, those that don’t you make the assumption they weren’t doing overtime on Tuesday night so there cars were already parked in the garage at 5.15pm or they were and they have a carport at work… They could possibly have been in a different area but this isn’t as fun as the other options. So what happened? Well, after a REALLY nice weekend of weather in the high 20’s early 30’s (warm to hot) and then two days of 36 (HOT) the dust was in the air along with the smoke carried down by the winds from a fire a few hours out of the city and all of that led to the pidly amount of rain that fell on Tuesday coming down more as if God were cleaning the garden path after a mudslide rather than he’d turned on the tap… And 90% of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne have brown cars. This number seems to be decreasing as more ppl take their car to the car wash – as I did last night coz I just couldn’t handle it!!! That and there was a mother of a moth stuck in the grill with it’s wings entangled and head sticking out. I didn’t want to touch it so I needed a high power hose to remove it! I didn’t do a great job but it was a start and it definitely looks better. I have to say that despite the crappy rain I love Melbourne’s weather. After the attempt at a shower was over I went to a friends house ‘for dinner and a beer’. Well dinner never ended up happening as time got away from us and a beer turned into 4 before I realised the time and that I’d be over the legal limit for another hour or two and that’s even if I did stop then. I arrived to him working in his garden so took up a seat on his steps (a big mistake – but I didn’t realise I’d be sitting there for 3hrs). And after he’d finished the garden stuff we sat in his back yard talking until Midnight… Just to clarify before anyone gets the wrong idea this guy is the ex of a good friend so there’s none of that business going on! Just want to be clear on that. That is what I love about Melbourne and about summer in general. You can have some crappy, random weather but you can also have some awesome weather. I’m looking forward to the rest of summer now hoping there’s going to be more of the same. I can handle washing my car regularly if there’s beer as a reward! :)

From Monday (06/11/06):

I’m in a bit of a weird mood today. When did it start??? Hmmm… the mood itself only started this morning, probably not long after I got into work. I can’t really explain what type of mood it is. I’m a little grumpy (work related), tired (was studying late last night), emotional (think mostly coz of Nai’s wedding on Monday) and just generally not feeling great mentally. Healthwise I feel fine…

I had a weird dream last night. I think I might have got a bit too friendly with a close friend of mine (who is male and gay) but then I’m not sure! I remember he was there and I know we were close, but I’m like that with all of those guys, just not sure if in the dream we crossed any lines of friendship… That’s just got me frustrated this morning. But at the same time I don’t want to know anything more… just in case!

I went to Nai’s wedding on Monday, she was beautiful! So were the bridesmaids. The day in general just went really well, normally after a wedding you have a few things you could say that didn’t go so well, but none of that really happened. I think the worst that happened was she was really nervous but she got over that reasonably quickly. Everyone seemed to have fun and it was just lovely… Renee was a great bride, when I spoke to her she was really relaxed in the days leading up and the bridesmaid’s said she was really relaxed when getting ready and stuff on the day. I got a bit emotional at one point during the ceremony, and then later on during the reception. I think it had a lot to do with being so happy for her/them, and also I realized for the first time just how much they loved each other. That sounds kinda silly but because of the relationship Nai and I have I knew of all the bad stuff (well a lot of it anyway) that happened between them, and sometimes I heard about the nice things they did and stuff but I had never seen them really in love. But on Monday, I could just tell, just by the little things they did. It was so nice, and it also made me a little jealous that she had found the love that’ll last a lifetime… and I’m still single (or should that be single again?)… But in no way does that jealousy or whatever it is outweigh my happiness for her… It’s kinda cool how we find out how others show love, I would have thought I’d be really frustrated if I were Nai at how he didn’t really show it, but he just didn’t show it the way I’d want him too, she’s secure in his love and that’s awesome…