My Blue Heaven

Weekend update

Had quite a busy weekend, starting with dance class on Friday night. Ramon was away, but it was still pretty good. I haven’t been to an advanced jazz in a while. Stephen Clarke took the class, and his style is a very traditional theatre/broadway jazz, which I’m not really used to. It was challenging, but fun – it’s always good to do something different. After dance class, as I walked back into the city, I discovered The Rocks Markets by Moonlight was on again. So I took a wander through the various stalls, bought some dinner, and purchased a few new essential oils (Bergamot, Lemongrass and Rosemary) to add to my growing collection. 🙂

Saturday night I went to Ignite – which was a christian short film festival showing at Town Hall. T’was pretty cool. Some of the films were really well done – I liked the animation ones. A big group of us from WS came along, including a fair few of the Glue kids, which is a first. Very good to see! We went to Passionflower afterwards (like typical asians :P), and apparently some of them took stickers photos afterwards.. but I had to leave early to go to a friend’s birthday bash at Jackson’s On George.

Had myself quite a good time there – got my monthly clubbing fix, and caught up (albeit rather briefly) with many old friends from uni. Bit hard to chat with music blasting in your ear though, so I spent most of the time shakin it on the dance floor… or in the cage. Me and that cage are quite good friends now (this being the second time I’ve been there within the last few months). 😛 Got home around 4:30am. @_@

So anyway, tis Tuesday already and I’m still tired & recovering from the weekend. Not as young as I used to be… sucks, but I just don’t bounce back so easily these days. *sigh*

Current listening :: “Super Duper Love (Are You Digging On Me)” – Joss Stone

Curious

What’s with everyone spelling “anyhow” as “anyhoo” these days? I don’t get it! Why? *shakes head* I don’t get it…

In other news, Britney Spears new parfum Curious has finally been released here in Australia… as you will have undoubtedly noticed by the posters plastered all over the city. I took a whiff…. and I likey!!! Been looking for a new perfume lately… mmm… tempting… very tempting. Its a fresh floral, with a hint of fruity pear.. quite a summery scent. What do other folk think of it?

I got myself a sample and have been trying it out. I think it’s the top note of the perfume that I like the most (the white floral & Louisiana Magnolia?) Oh, and I really love the fact that it comes with an atomiser.. in that elegant vintage style. Very cool! 🙂 Think I will probably buy it. Heh.. seems I have a penchant for pop diva perfumes..

Anyways.

I like having my health and energy back. Was able to finally go to dance class at lunchtime yesterday. T’was fun. 🙂

[Update: 3:30pm]
Ok. I caved in, and am now the proud owner of “Curious” by Britney. Yay, a new perfume! Hee. I bought the shower gel as well, just to get the cute pink handbag freebie (a special offer for the opening week only). 🙂

Current listening :: “I’ve Just Begun (Having Fun)” – Britney Spears

Random updates

Am definitely on the mend now, with the help of a second round of antibiotics. The sinus pain still comes a little in the evening, but otherwise I’ve been feeling ok. I even went to the gym tonight after work (hope its not too soon to go.. but I’ve been itching to get some exercise in before I turn into too much of a couch potato!) Anyways, am aiming for an early night tonight, so I’ll have lots of energy for dance class tommorrow lunch time. Haven’t been to Farah’s UK Street Funk for weeks!

My weekend was rather uneventful. Spent the whole of Saturday at home, watching Stargate with Paul. 😀 I have now watched the entire of Season Two – in 4 days. *cough* So does that qualify me in the kingdom of the super-geek?

On Sunday I was gonna take a friend to Christians In The Media church in Annandale… but she piked. *sigh* Better luck next time huh.

On a random sci-fi note, did you know they’ve made a mini-series out of Ursula Le Guin’s “Wizard Of Earthsea” book? Called Earthsea, its due to show in the US in Dec. Dunno if it will ever come out here in Australia though. It looks kinda interesting… and has some not-bad actors in it… the main character, Ged, being played by Shawn Ashmore (“Iceman” from Xmen). Other actors include Danny Glover and Kristin Kreuk (Smallville).

I know that I’ve read Wizard Of Earthsea.. but for the life of me, I can’t remember what its about. I’ve gone out and bought the Earthsea series (all four books in one volume), and have started reading, but still have no recollection of its content. I think I must have been in primary school when I read it – when I also read Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit. This is a pretty old book too, published back in 1971.

Anyways, better finish eating this orange and get to bed. My early night is about to become a not-so-early night. :\

Current listening :: Coltrane’s bell tinkling as he stretches out languidly, lying in my doorway.. so cute!

And again

Decided to make use of the 2 day doctors cert and stay home again today. I think the penicillin seems to be helping. On Wed and yesterday I had these really bad pains on the right side of my face, near and above my teeth – I seriously thought I had a toothache. So yesterday it got so bad, I decided to go see the dentist. Had my teeth cleaned and had an x-ray taken, which showed nothing was wrong with the teeth. Seems the pain is being caused by my sinus’s being blocked/an infection – which is what the doctor had thought too. That gave me some relief.. coz here I was stressing over the propsects of root canal, pulling out teeth etc etc. Heh. *phew*

At least this sinus thing is fairly easily fixable, albeit a bit painful. Hopefully this dosage of penicillin should kill it good.

Anyways… off to watch some more Stargate. I went and hired SEVEN Stargate dvd’s yesterday.. hee! (Which I thought were Season 1, but actually they’re Season 2 episodes. Doh!)

Sick again

Once again I’m home sick. Ugh… 🙁 Been up and down for the last 3 weeks, but just haven’t been able to throw this cough. Now my body is starting to lose the battle again (ever since last weekends busyness) – so I finally saw the doctor yesterday, who recommended I stay home the next 2 days, gave me a doctors cert and put me on some penicillin. Hopefully I’ll be able to get over this by the weekend.

Anyway, it is rather nice to be able to stay home and relax. Got up at 11:30am… had some brekky.. played with the cat.. watched Honey on dvd… and now methinks a nice long soak in a bath is in order. Ciao folks. 🙂

Bedraggled

Last night I decided (on a bit of a whim) that Coltrane was looking like he needed a bath. Muahahaha. So poor lil kitty got just that…. a nice, warm, very wet bath. Since mum and Paul were busy fixing the stove, I had to handle him on my own – and ended up with an extremely wet front of my t-shirt.

I towel dried him off afterwards, but he still felt the need to lick down every inch of his body for about the next hour. Here’s a piccy of his royal cuteness. 🙂

One of these days, I think I’ll take a video (or some photos) of the process. 😛

Current listening :: “The Lovecats” – The Cure (Heh.. this song is so cool.. bah da bah bah bah bah bah da bah bah bah bah bah bah bah da..)

Mondayitis

Ugh. I hate Mondays. Particularly when work is boooooring. :\

So I decided to update and clean up a few bits and pieces around the joint. I even got geeky and explored the functionality of Movable Type more.. and discovered I can actually create and include modules (eg header html) into my templates. How convenient! Now I only have to change the header and side nav code in one place. 🙂 Really should have looked into this before… but I’m a lazy bum. I also changed the individual blog entry pages, so that they display comments at the bottom. And lastly, I’ve FINALLY updated my cam archives. Six new pages, for the last 6 months of laziness! *feeling of accomplishment*

Weekend Update

So back to my regular weekend update. I had a rather busy and eventful weekend! Packed with early mornings, bible talks, planning meetings, meeting lots of new people, and a 21st birthday party!

On Friday night, I FINALLY caught up with one of my closest girlfriends, Vron, after about 6 months of “We-soooo-have-to-catch-up-sometime”. 😛 It was really good to be able to chat with a close and trusted friend.. and just share, sort through and get some girly analysis of some issues & problems I’d been dealing with lately. Gotta do it more often! I’d forgotten how much it helped to talk/rant to a good friend about things.

On Saturday night, I went to Carmen’s 21st. It was fun – a murder mystery party. I was Tracy Douglas – a barmaid who was inspired by the movie Cocktail to incorporate dancing into her bar tending routine? Heh. Took some fun pics on my camera phone. 😀

Annandale Mission

Saturday and Sunday day were spent at this mission planning weekend for an urban mission that will be held in the inner west area (Annandale/Glebe/Leichardt/Stanmore) for a week in early Dec. It’s based at and run by Christians In The Media/Annandale Community church, in Annandale. I’m still deciding on my involvement – but will probably be attending full time… it does sound pretty exciting! The theme is “Where is God…?” and they’ll be running many different events for 7 days – in the mornings, during the day and evenings – such as visiting nursing homes & retirement villages, primary school activities, conversation stalls and activities in the local village/park area, leafletting, door-knocking, jazz night, men’s breakfast, women’s gingerbread night etc.

This has all come up rather suddenly for me – being invited to go on Friday (the day before the meeting!), I had to make a quick decision. So I went to check it out on Saturday – but ended up enjoying the day enough to go back on Sunday! People are very friendly, and it actually sounds kinda fun (tho hard work too of course).

One thing I quite enjoyed during the weekend were the talks by Dominic Steele. He’s a really good speaker! We heard 3 talks on 1 Corinthians 8, 9, 10. A few points that I found very relevent/challenging:

• In the first talk (1 Cor 8), we learnt that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up (esp relevent to my highly knowledgeable asian evangelical church upbringing). It shouldn’t be knowledge that is the ultimate influence on our decisions, but rather love. When knowledge is your basis (like it was for the Corinthians), the more you know, the more arrogant you can become, and then the truth is that you really don’t know what you think you know. Err.. get it? 😉 Also, knowledge teaches we have freedom.. but love will govern how we use our freedom – so we should be careful that our knowledge doesn’t become a stumbling block to others, such as a younger/weaker christian.
• The 2nd talk on 1 Cor 9 concentrated on putting aside your rights so as to win those who don’t know God. Becoming all things for all men, so as to win them. Was quite a practical talk.
• The final talk was the most challenging – about making sure we don’t miss the prize. The challenge to make sure we use our freedom to serve others. “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial”.

So yeh, that’s a basic summary of the talks. I was challenged that very Sunday night, just after hearing these talks, to put it into practice. Don’t you hate how its so so much harder in reality. 😛 Loving others is not easy.. and I admit, I’m not very good at it.

Current listening :: “King Of The Dancehall” – Beenie Man

You Got Served

Watched You Got Served last night with Paul. T’was a pretty cool movie with some absolutely awesome dancing! 🙂 I quite enjoyed it, despite the at-times dodgy acting. AND I saw my Dance Workshop teachers in the movie! Look out for Teresa Espinosa (with bright red hair) in the middle of the movie, as the main, rather fiesty dancer in an all girl troupe, dancing against Wade’s (white guy) group. And Kevin Maher is in Elgin & David’s (the main guys) troupe in the very final dance sequence – the dance off between the two finalists at the big bounce.

Also watch out for the really cool guy in Wade’s troupe in the Big Bounce comp – the featured guy with rubber limbs. Amazing stuff!!!

Anyway, I’m off – have been “inspired” by the movie and am going to Darrio’s Hip Hop class again – this time the intermediate class (which will hopefully be more challenging and more interesting than last weeks Mon night beginners class).

I’m having such an ugly/fat/bad hair day. Ugh. :\ Hopefully dancing, followed by a nice hot shower will change that. 🙂

Current listening :: “Everything Begins And Ends At Exactly The Right Time” – Bluebottle Kiss

Ch-ch-changes

I had so much that I wanted to blog about on the weekend, but now that I’m sitting in front of the computer, I can’t think of anything. Perhaps my brain has gone into monday-arvo-itis mode. A serious condition to the detriment of any intelligent thought. Hm. Anyways. Lets see if we can get these thoughts down..

Things have been changing in my life. This whole year seems like one big change. And its not gonna stop next year. I don’t cope well with change at the best of times. So this ain’t gonna be pretty. *sigh* Kazzart = barely coping with everything.

Ok specifics. I’m actually gonna talk about what I’m talking about for once. 😛 Last week, after much thought and prayer and talking to a few close, trusted friends.. I made the decision to step down from leadership at Glue for term 4 this year. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to continue with Glue next year anyway, but I guess I’m gonna stop earlier than originally planned.

My reasons are varied, but mainly its because I know I’m not able to be 100% committed to this ministry, and I’m not able to put in 100% effort. I just don’t have the enthusiasm and fire for this anymore – I don’t want to lead… and it’s been something that I’ve struggled with since early this year. I finally decided, if I have to force myself to do this (and that wasn’t really working anyway, as my co-leader can attest), then its better to not do it, than do it out of obligation alone. I’m not serving for the right reasons anymore. I guess I need a break, to take a step back, think through things, search myself and just get refocussed again. I think this is something that may take me well into the new year to do…

It was a hard decision to make, for many reasons. Firstly, I really do care for the kids in my bible study group – and I will miss them, esp the ones I’ve formed closer relationships with over the past couple of years. I don’t want to disappoint them, or leave them in the lurch. Also, a part of me kept saying I shouldn’t “quit”.. and wonders whether I should feel like a failure for doing so. Then finally, youth group on Friday nights is something I have been going to for.. over 10 years now – since I was the high school kid! So leaving this is not easy for me.

But on the brighter side of things, having this extra time free will allow me the opportunity to do other things. Such as meet up with some old friends that I never seemed to find the time to meet with. One such girlfriend used to go to our church, but stopped last year sometime. I’d been meaning to meet up with her regularly.. but it’s now been ~6 months since we last caught up. So I’m gonna be meeting up with her for dinner next Friday night. 🙂

Man this is turning into a mega-long post. Ok almost finished. Another big change is set to take place next year – I might be leaving WSCCC to go to a different church. Not sure of the details, such as exactly when, and how this changeover will take place. Could be a gradual shift over the first part of next year. But yeh, this was something I’d been thinking about since at least half way through this year, if not earlier. I’m not gonna get into the reasons for this too, otherwise I’m gonna be here all night. But its got to do with needing a change, something that will help me refocus again. Hard to explain, but I feel that I’ve been gradually but surely moved in this direction.. that this is God’s will for me. And it’s a scary and difficult thing for me. I’ve been at WS for over 10 years. It’s been my home in so many ways. I’m gonna be really sad to leave. But, I think (and hope!) there will be many new and exciting opportunities awaiting me, and many new relationships to form. I guess we’ll just see where God takes me with this one, huh.

Ok last point I promise! Just thought I’d mention, my grandmother (in the UK) passed away yesterday morning, at 3am. We’re all ok – we’ve been expecting it for the last few months. She was very old, 92 I think, and lived a full life. She was also a christian, so I guess for us there is no sadness as we will be sure to see her again, in a much better place than this earth. 🙂 For myself in particular, I wasn’t ever very close to her, and hadn’t seen her for about 10 years. So I don’t really feel like I’ve lost very much, as I didn’t really know her.

Current listening :: “Hands Of Christ” – Selah

Stargate season finale

Ugh. Can’t believe season 7 of stargate is over now. And can’t believe how the season finale ended. But that said, it was an awesome eposide which had me on the edge of my seat the whole 2 hours! Very cool stuff. Can’t wait for episode 8 to air. Anyone know when thats gonna happen??

Anyways, home time for me. Ciao all. Have a great weekend. Wish it was warmer, but oh well.

Current listening :: “King Of The Dancehall” – Beenie Man