d-camp

Another camp over I and yet again got a huge amount out of it.

The youth band were so awesome. Its really cool to see a group of people that you have worked with worshiping God with all there heart and their music. Very encouraging.

On a more personal note an very significant revelation came to me while I was away. During the saturday night meeting we were led through an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Word. Not that this was anything new to me but because I was creating some atmospheric music with the keys I didn't really get an opportunity to join in the experience.

Earlier on in the afternoon everyone who I was with suddenly disappeared and so I took the opportunity to do some meditation. Over the past year and a bit I have been really struggling to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit work in me. For most of my life it has been a source of encouragement and support when I have needed it. All through my childhood years, Jesus was my best friend who was always by my side.

While Jesus is still my best friend, the overwhelming sense of him being close by my side has gone. Ever since I first felt the absence of the holy spirit, I have believed that there was something blocking me from God, some sin in my life that has held me back. While meditating in my cabin I yet again felt that sense of aloneness and separation from Jesus. Through much pain and many tears I begged God for the answer to why he has left me.

Then during the dinner I had a conversation with Heather which led into a discussion of different stages on the walk with Christ. She talked about the childhood stage where you simply accept everything to the adolescent stage when you begin to question those things that you knew to be true. She also talked about a stage that some people go through when the spirit leaves them completely. I was quite excited to find that Jesus is simply expecting me to trust in him. I don't need to feel the spirit within me all the time. If we ask to be filled by the spirit then we will be, regardless of whether we feel it or not. We need to do more than ask for God to fill us with the spirit, we need to be expectant that when we ask, we will be.

Even now that I know where Jesus is for me, I still do not know how long he expects me to wait for him. All I know is that he has a plan for me, even if it is ten years before I know what that is, I will be wait, trusting in Him alone.

My best friend

I've been trying to think of the best way for me to express myself on this blog and it has only just dawned on me that probbably the most insightful look on where I am in life and in my walk with God is through my music. So here is a song that I wrote to my best friend:

Broken I come here before you
Lay my life down at your feet
Weary of life and its burdens
Jesus, you're all that I need

So I lift my hands to you Lord
Open my heart to your ways
I stand in awe of your love and power
Fill me, Lord God, with your grace

Empty I stand at Your cross Lord
Left you up there far too long
My heart Lord you alone conquered
My best friend, my saviour, risen one

So I lift my hands to you Lord
Open my heart to your ways
I stand in awe of your love and power
Fill me, Lord God, with your grace

Em Em/D C

Em G D D/F#

G D/F# Em Em/D

C D G

C D G

Em Em/D C

D D/F# G Em

C D G

Introducing for the one and only time, Miss Penny Hinkler

This was a recent post sent to me by a good mate of mine expressing some encouraging points about a certain commentor that may have caused offense on my blog. I do warn you that if you do comment on his blog you may also get caught up in the imbecile alert panel (IAP) But this post is here as a warning to all, ignoring is the best solution. I also would like to warn that some of the posts on the site are highly highly offensive and not a place to go in a public place if you get what i mean...

And the greatest imbecile of the year award goes to…

Not many things in this world get me really angry.

Much less in the blogosphere. I don't think I've found a site that's made me angry. Sure, I've found heaps of stuff that bores me to breaking, and a fair bit of pathetic subject matter. That's everywhere.

Today was the first time I got angry over a blog.

And because I wanna do the right thing for my friends, and not just sit back and watch people who don't even know them, mock their looks, blogs and lives, taking action seemed like a good idea. Also, if I kept at it, someone may make a movie about me one day.

If you haven't been introduced to her already, may I warmly introduce to you Miss Penny Hinkler, and her site, aimed to seek out blog imbeciles and post her mind about them. Now, ok - we see stuff like this all the time on the net.

But check out this.

Yeah she's targeted two people I love ever so muchly (who might I add have taken it very well).

I laughed when I read her site for the first time. She has a point with a lot of blogs she talks about. She knows what's bad writing.

What I don't understand, is the fact that she can notice bad bloging so easily in others blogs, but totally miss it in her own.

Surely, Hinkler in her blogging superiority would have realised by now how mundane it is to read blog disses over and over again. No wonder it's only her and her strange friends contributing and enjoying this peculiar fetish.

Now, no doubt I will receive a backlash for writing this - but this isn't revenge. I think I'll call it... righteous retribution. This is a plead to Hinkler and co to stop doing this. I mean, I'll even ask nicely:

Please?

Music of the moment

Today has been a freaking fantastic day. From its beginnings in my Calculus lecture through rehearsals with Fundamentals to finding a tenor for my chamber choir; it has proven to be one of the best days I have had in Auckland. If that weren’t good enough, while I was round at Jono’s I got to experience some of the most awesome music I have ever heard. The Big Phat Band. Oh my goodness. This is the most tight band music, insane, crazy, wicked. Words do not even come close. And the vocal… you just have to hear it. The director of the group is a musician by the name of George Goodwin. An absolute legend in his own right he has some of the top jazz musicians in the world in this band. The dvd-audio we watched showed them recording live and it was flawless. Absolutely stunning.

Dream Theatre. Then I think I have found a band that tops Muse in my charts. The album is so well thought out. 70-something continuous minutes of pure epicness… And a final track that last 24 minutes and never gets boring. The chordal work is just so mind boggling that when something completely normal is used (like a perfect cadence used all over the place) it sounds really out of place.

On such a high. Will most definitely sleep very little.

Week of the movie

This week really has been the week of the movie. I really don’t think that I have ever had a week where I have watched so many movies, videos or other.

I have to say that the civic theatre is far funkier than I remember it being at Mamma Mia and it has to be the coolest place ever to watch a movie. It is International Film Festival Week in Auckland at the moment and for some reason I was dragged to a James Dean classic Rebel without a cause from the 1960’s. Thoroughly wicked movie, its most explicit scenes included a passionate, though tongue-less…I don’t think I will even deem to call it a kiss – they just kinda pushed their lips together… and special effects included a car driving off a cliff after a chicken run exploding on the rocks. Mighty stuff.

The Fantastic Four. I think I am almost getting a little sick of Marvel comics turned into movies. Some very cool effects – Mr. Fantastic freaked me out a little with his hand going under the door (remind anyone of shutting a door on their hands?) – and it really helped to explain The Incredibles a bit. Unfortunately, these Marvel comics follow such a similar plot with the same kind of ending (anyone else notice a parallel with Spiderman?) that they have become way to predictable. You think they could really come up with something a little more original. Like War of the Worlds…Hmm what can I say, thought aliens were wicked but what kind of ending is “oh yeah they died of the common cold” – so not convinced. But I guess that was H.G. Wells’ fault.

For some reason the maiming of people with axes and knifes seems so much more brutal than the use of a sword or a pistol. The opening scenes in Gangs of New York left sickness in my stomach that set the scene for a pretty good movie on the whole. Although I have to say I was quite disappointed that the ‘spoiling’ of DiCaprio’s face included a small black scar on his otherwise blemish-less cheek. The story of the early beginnings of New York was certainly interesting – quite a nice insight into western society in a day where democracy was preached and yet police had so little power to actually uphold it.

Far too many movies, not really enough work. Oh well. I guess that is the life of a music student.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Well I’ve just finished reading the latest Harry Potter book and have come to some interesting revelations.

There is some kind of magic in the magic of Harry Potter that is so tangible it feels almost real. The incessant desire to find out what happens next, what Malfoy is up to? Is Snape really trustworthy? What piece of the puzzle have I not quite figured out yet? In fact I think it is in the genius of J. K Rowling that has me so compelled.

I am a person who is intrigued by the mystery of Harry Potter. One of those people who like to figure out what is going on in a plot before they are actually told what happens. I think there is some failure in the writing, in that we cannot figure out what is going on before we are told, we can only guess. This is indeed the reason that compels us to keep going. It is J. K Rowling’s genius that to solve the mystery, we must read the entire book, indeed all of them. Each book gives us only a small piece of the puzzles plot and one without the others would make very little sense (except maybe the first) Indeed it is the most drawn out 7-book plot that I have ever read. There is more to J.K Rowling that simply good writing; I feel she is also a very shrewd businesswoman.

The only thing that I can say is that I am irritated by the time I have spent thinking about a book that has done more to annoy me that it is has to entertain me.

just a simple random question

is there anyone who visits this blog (which is a stupid parameter) who goes to Auckland Uni and is doing Maths 150 - i think im going to be all alone... oh well, if there is id love to know about it =)

The Unfortunate Truth of being an adult...

I have finally experienced the horrid side of independence...stuff costs. My mum finally convinced me the other day that after two years of avoiding the dentist I should probably go and see him. To my utter delight he said something about "really heathly teeth"- Woohoo, no stupid fillings for me. But then to my horror, he asked for 100 bucks just to tell me my teeth were heathly - what a rip off. It then dawned on me that mum did not have the slightest intention of paying and I was loaded with a fat bill that I dont really want. I know since then that I am actually got off very light - several people I know have to have lots of dental work and I should be happy with a hundred dollar bill. Still, it seems criminal to charge someone just to look at their teeth and say there was no problem. I think everyone should be dentists - theres a lot of money to be made...

Half a world away, but right at home none the less...

Although it was on the other side of the world, it was no less effective - i was scared.

In contrast to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the bombings in London seem to have had a distinctly different response. Perhaps it is only my own reaction but there seems to be a greater feeling of sadness and fear. What am I saying.. Of course it is my own individual reaction... It took quite a few hours for it to sink in exactly how many people that I knew who lived in and around London. In fact, I dont think I have ever felt as scared as I was when I started remembering all those I knew there.

It certainly has made me revisit my values in life. Something I think we all should do more often.

If only life were so simple:

hmmmph...holidays

Holidays can be really really crap. I thought after a really stressful *cough* first semester that a holiday where I had nothing planned was going to be exactly what I needed. After the tour with the Youth Choir, I was expecting that doing nothing was going to be quite good.

But oh how tedious and boring nothing can be. My body yearns for intellectual, social, creative stimulation. If only the university semester would begin sooner. Not that a mathmatics paper is particuarily interesting...but it sure would beat sleeping in bed all day, for the 6th day in a row. Why can I find no motivation even to write music, or play music, or read or exercise (..no explaination needed there..) what is there to do by ones self!!!!

Never again will I plan to do nothing for a holiday...

How boring...

It seems that over recent weeks I have fallen into the vicious cycle of the commentor. (as opposed to the blogger)Instead of finding new and original ideas, I have to feed off others good (or bad) blogs. How sad indeed.