I bought myself an early birthday present. Early because I will actually be away for my birthday (yay holidays!) and I wanted to practise a bit before I went away.
A phone pic which explains the weird lighting
It's a Canon 550D. Love it!
A digital SLR is something I've been eyeing off pretty much since they turned up on the market all those years ago - but when they first came out a basic one was several thousand. Not exactly in a schoolgirls price range! But one of the nice things is that technology just keeps getting cheaper and I decided it was a good time to try it out.
I have generally been more about the composition of photos - never really understood all the different settings (That was always my Dad's department) but with my whiz-bang new camera I decided I should try to learn and take full advantage of all the manual settings.
I discovered this blog while looking for SLR tips on Pintrest. Aimee is doing an amazing series of 'lessons' on using your DSLR. I have been playing around with Aperture (that's the first setting she talks about - haven't gotten any further yet!) and hope to post my experiments soon.
Until then, here is a picture I took today, nothing fancy, but had to post something!
First few weeks of college is over. I was completely overwhelmed by meeting new people, getting assignments and reading lists, finding where my classes are, navigating the library. But now I'm feeling more settled, moving around the campus with purpose and recognising people from classes. It's a very small Bible college which is nice. Not as anonymous as university was.
It's lovely to be in such an open, evangelical Christian environment. Conversations at the lunch table are amazing. Everyone has a reason they are here, many are completing their study for a purpose; they are hoping to become a minister or a missionary. Some already have appointments all around the globe that they will go to when they finish their study. I feel a bit of a minority; I don't have any real plans for when I finish my study.
When I tell people I am going to Bible college they ask if I am going to be a minister (this is usually from people outside my church, those inside my church share my beliefs about women ministers). But going into full time ministry isn't on my agenda at the moment. Mission has always interested me (I recently read that Missionary kids are more likely than other Christians to be involved in cross cultural mission when they are adults; interesting), but at the moment I don't have immediate plans.
Rather the opportunity to study came up unexpectantly. God used situations in my life to give me the push I needed to study now, not just think 'I'll do that someday'.
At this stage I am planning to stay as an early childhood teacher. As far as 'professions' go, I can't imagine anything else. I love working with children and helping them learn. Most of my life I never thought I would have a career. I thought I would be married and having children before I finished uni, so work never really entered my consciousness. But obviously that wasn't God's plan :). He has decided this is the best place for me now.
When I finish this degree I'll still be me; a bubble-blowing, dancing, communication-modelling, singing, story book reading, block building, relationship-negotiating, behaviour guiding, fine motor strengthening, confidence building, tear-soothing, (insert 100 other roles), early childhood teacher - with a deeper understanding of my God and my Faith.
Until God decides to give me a push in another direction. Because I've stopped trying to work out what God's plan is for me until it happens. I'll love Him, and follow His word and wait to see what He has in store.
One of the subjects I am taking this semester is Spiritual Formation for Cross Cultural Mission, it looks at different things to prepare you for serving in another culture. I initially took it because it looked interesting and I'm interested in hearing about other cultures. I did think it would be good to look at it from the perspective of being a Missionary Kid (MK).
I didn't expect to be so quickly dealing with thoughts and feelings I thought I had dealt with long ago about growing up as an MK. It gives me another perspective, to look at it from a spiritual point of view, how God molds us as we move between cultures to leave behind our cultural prejudices and become more like him.
I have chosen to do one of my assignments on MK's and picked up an article called "Emotional and Behavioural Patterns of Adult MK's" by David Wickstorm - spent the whole time thinking "Whoa, that's me!". I am enjoying it, it's nice to have an environment where I can talk freely about my experiences and be constantly challenged to look to God, not look inward while thinking about these things.
My flatmates didn't know who The Wiggles were until they moved in with me. Being an early childhood teacher I decided this would not do and so tried to introduce them to The Wiggles by singing Hot Potato one night when I was over tired and hyped up on caffine. Surprisingly this did not pursuade them The Wiggles was something they were missing out on :).
I believe that children should be exposed to a range of musical styles, not just the hoppy-boppy kiddie pop that is excruciatingly popular. However it can be difficult to find ‘non-kid’/popular music that has lyrics that are appropriate (Not just swearing, I’ve mentioned before about having issues with young children singing about romantic love). I feel The Wiggles do this better than most kids bands, writing songs from a range of different cultural backgrounds and also different styles of music.
When I heard that several Australian artist had done covers of Wiggles songs to celebrate The Wiggles 20th anniversary I was intrigued. I listened to a few of the songs before I bought the album, because covers can go badly and I had doubts about people treating it as a joke album rather than an actual music album.
Instead I was pleasantly surprised. While some songs I think are alot better in their original form (i.e. when The Wiggles sing them), many take on new and exciting lives when done by different artists. Sarah Blasko’s reworking of ‘I love it when it rains’ is a beautiful lullaby. Hot Potato (by The Living End) and Shaky Shaky (Sons Of Rico) are two of my favourites.
When I play this CD for kids I get different reactions, but mostly they love it. Sometimes they look confused, as if you say “I know this song, but something’s not right”, some little boys love to rock out and play air guitar, while others will happily dance along to all of them.
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An interesting side note, one of my flat mates happened to meet Anthony from The Wiggles but didn't recognise him. Once Anthony told him what he did Colin asked if they could take a photo to send to me becasue his "flatmate loves you guys" (I hope he told Anthony I was an Early Childhood teacher not just some random 20 year old who listened to kids music all day! :) ). When Colin sent me the message I screamed and did a happy dance, cos, you know, I am an early childhood teacher ;).
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And the notes I had written down from the sermon were;
"We will suffer and expect to suffer in this life. But we can also expect to be comforted by God in our suffering.
One of the reasons is so that we can comfort those who are also suffering."
The comfort from a friend who has walked the path I am walking is one that reminds me that God was with them through that time, so He will be with me. *
May I not be overcome by my trials, but allow God and friends to comfort me. And may I use these times to be able to reach out to others who are hurting and point them to God.
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*That's not to say that people can not comfort you if they haven't experienced what you are going through. I have had many wonderful friends who have let me cry on their shoulder and spoken amazing truths to me who are living and live a completely different set of circumstances to me. The ones who do this best point me to God, rather than try to make me believe that they understand exactly how I am feeling.
My Canadian friends are now my new flatmates :). It's fun seeing Australia and Australian culture through their eyes.
Being out of towners they tend to do those touristy activites that you keep meaning to do, but figure cos you live here you can do them whenever but never get around to doing. Today I tagged along with them to climb the Pylon of the Harbour Bridge.
It was pretty cool, way less steps than I was anticipating, we got amazing panoramic views of the city as well as a bit of history of the bridge.
Well worth it, so much more affordable than the Bridge climb ($11 rather than $200+; yes please!) and no where near as daunting if height aren't your thing.
I've been trying to write a post about knowing God's will and direction in your life. But at the moment it's all just a disjointed mess of thoughts and words.
Instead I'll share my exciting news - I'm going back to study! Something I had thought I would do at some point but not this soon after finishing uni :). And about a month ago I had absolutely no plans to study, hadn't even crossed my mind; but God closed the door on the direction I was sure he was leading me and this opportunity came up suddenly and I thought, "Why not?"
I've organised to work part time and study part time; the plan is that in two years I will have a Graduate Diploma of Divinity. It's all been very sudden, each decision made within days - and now I start in one week!
