My Fame-Aspiring Dad

Recently i have been searching people's names on the internet. You know, like the long lost friend you almost never had.

This included searching my own name and then to the people around me. Eventually it got down to searching members of my family and low and behold my dad's name turned up something amusing.

For those of you who don't know, my Dad is a model/actor. Unfortunately for him though, he hasn't made his big break as yet and is still an aspiring hopeful. That's the way it goes for most aspiring hopefuls in the talent agency business and that's the way it will probably remain for alot of them - hopefully not my dad!

Anyway....

I thought you might be interested to see my Father's gushing, online calling card (the thing they use to select who they want with).

I had to laugh....he's a funny man!

Tink xoxo

A Haunting Nightmare

I've been deciding whether or not to blog this because of it's personal nature but then i thought, Alisha? Personal??? What's my news, is your news. So i reconsidered and am about to share with you a dream i had and the way it made me feel. If at any point in the dream you feel as though you should not be reading this, feel free to leave my blog site immediately which i'm sure you will anyway. (Why people even come to this site, is beyond me anyway!)

Ok...I had the following dream:

The scene was the Earlwood Salvo building. It was my wedding day. (there's your indication that it's just a dream?!)

i was waiting outside the baby cry room/toilets with my veil bothering me, so i stuck the comb with the veil into my hair, because i hadn't already done so.

I nervously walked down the aisle, looking down at the white dress that managed to make me look decent, i wondered what the hell i was doing. I get to the end and standing there to greet me is my fiance/husband to be. His name i actually can remember but won't disclose here - his name i didn't recognise but in case he is a real person, but like i said, won't disclose here.

The service commenced. As we neared the vows, a thousand crazy thoughts ran wildly through my head in every direction, i had to make sense of it all. I know that the person was not who i wanted to marry because he was second best and i didn't want to marry or settle for someone who was second best. I wanted to leave and i didn't want to go ahead with the marriage but what about my parents, they would've been so disappointed in me. They paid so much money to put on my wedding and what? i wanted to spoil everything??? But if i didn't run away, i would've had to live with second best for the rest of my life, marriage isn't something you can get out of easily if at all and shouldn't be taken lightly. There was too many thoughts....what about the guests, what about the groom? He'd be crushed???? I just had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

So at the last moment, i turned around and ran back out of the hall and hid in the toilets, sobbing my heart out. I'd just spoiled everything, everyone would think i was an idiot. Only one person came to console me for the 3 or 4 hours that i trapped myself in the toilets as the guests and my family dwindled and went home and although i'm not going to say who it was here, and that he was the last person i expected to console me. As i sat sobbing in the toilets, i wasn't happy with his advice and through my tears and sobs, i yelled at him to pretty much go away and live his own perfect life because mine was far from perfect and i didn't need the reinforcement of the message.

When everyone had gone, i nervously vacated the toilets and walked out into the hall, it was all beautifully decorated and empty. One person remained. It was the person who was supposed to now be my husband. He was heartbroken, you could tell he'd been crying. I walked down the aisle again and sat beside him where he was sitting. None of us spoke but the mutual feeling that it was over could be heard in the silence from miles away.

THEN I WOKE UP......

It freaked me out?! I'm so scared to get married now. I don't wanna walk down the aisle and realise that i'm about to spend the rest of my life with someone i don't want to be with and at the last moment i don't want to realise my own wedding isn't where i want to be. I would be utterly devastated. I can just feel that sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach thinking about it!

Up until i was about 23ish, i never wanted to get married, i was against the whole marriage thing. In the whole world around me i saw how unhappy people seemed to be in a marriage and i didn't want my life to be like that, i didn't want to be trapped in it.

Then i changed my mind and decided that marriage can actually work if both parties put the effort into making it work and live Godly lives filled with love, compassion, forgiveness and understanding and who know each others weaknesses and strengths and are understanding of them. I saw 'normal' couples who had been married forever who were still happily in love and realised maybe there is a chance that it does actually work. So i changed my tune about the whole marriage issue.

THEN I DREAMT THAT?!

Marriage still freaks me out because i'm little miss independant and i don't think i need anyone but God to complete my life. But when it comes down to it, we all need a companion for life, someone to share our sorrows and joys with.

SO maybe i'll just continue to give love a chance and let the dream pass me by and not phase me. However, it has still been haunting me all day?!

Some dreams are so stupid!

Tink xoxo

PS: If you're a boy and you're reading this, sorry for the mush!

New Work Computer

The time has come for me to receive a brand spanking new work computer and after 4 and half years in my job, it's about time!!! tehe...

My new fandangled toy is most awesome!!!! I think i am in love with it....is it possible to be in love with a computer?

The keyboard is so soft, the laser mouse has a scroll ball, the monitor is no longer a 'box' but rather a flat, skinny panel, the hard drive no longer sits under my desk on the floor but now sits underneath my monitor and has a dvd drive for those long lunch time breaks (why not chuck on a dvd to pass the hour!), i can now preview photos before opening them as it has a thumbnails view (mind you all this works for me on my home computer) and last but definately not least by any means, i can now properly shut down my computer without having to turn it off, before, i had to close all my programs and then just press the on/off button as it would literally take half an hour to shut down.

It's so fandangled that i'd love to take it home and bring my home computer to use at work heheh - switch! But nevertheless....

So, thanks to my boss, i am now enjoying my work in a new way and you know what?

LIFE'S GOOD in an IBM kind of way!!

I love my new work computer!

Tink xoxo

Earlwood House Party

By now, you should all know that I never blog about anything soon after it has happened, it's usually at least a couple of weeks before I even think about blogging about it.

So that is the case with this next blog, sorry. But if i said sorry everytime i was late blogging about something, well, this would become one huge apologetic blog space!

A couple of weeks ago, Earlwood Youth Group had their House Party. The Corps House Party is in September at the same place apparently. If you don't know what a House Party is (and sometimes the lingo stumps even me) it's just like a retreat or a holiday specifically to draw closer to God and come closer together as a group. In our case, it was just a weekend House Party, which they usually are for convenience sake.

It was such a good weekend and went really well but then because i helped organise the weekend, naturally i am fairly biased about it all. But i say it really did go well because we had so much positive feedback from it - whoopi!!!

I think it was good bonding time for the whole group. It united us in a way that couldn't have been achieved in any other way but a house party.

Stuff didn't always go to plan, like some of the sessions and stuff but the Holy Spirit moved in the most powerful way. Lots of people renewed their devotion to God and people were given a fresh passion to take the good news of Jesus Christ into the world around them by first building relationships with people. We learnt that if there isn't a relationship with someone then they're not likely to accept the gospel presented to them.

We were encouraged to think and pray for 3 of our non-Christian friends and commit to building stronger relationships with them to eventually see them enter the family of God. It was really awesome.

Just think. A theory as simple as relationship-building can be so powerful!

It was a great weekend and we were all encouraged to make full use of the makeshift prayer room, which everyone did!

Great, awesome things are happening with the youth of Earlwood and the House Party was a great way to make the newer people feel more deeply involved and apart of our Youth Group.

It was just tops!

Tink xoxo

Karaoke - NO FEAR MOOJ!!!

Ok already, so i'm in love with the freakin' karaoke host, IDIOT.........goshhhhhhh.........

Why me, why do i have to fall for someone sooooo ignorant, so belittling, so demeaning, and soooo frustrating like i wanna scream and someone sooooo old?!

WHY???

Because his smile and his precious eyes are just so warm and inviting!!! And he's funny, and i love his yoda impression and when he sings with me (very rarely) my knees go like jelly and my heart melts and when he looks at me and smiles that goofy dumb smile i just get weak....

GAHHHHHHHH.......STUPID.......GOSHHHHHHHHH......

Tink xoxo

Jury Duty

Last week I had the privilidge of doing jury duty.

Some people probly wouldn't call it a privilidge but i thought it was. It made me feel like i was contributing to society. Even though i didn't do much and the part i played was small, i've done my bit - for another year at least anyway!

I got my summons for jury duty to be in court on the 15th March. pfft yea right. My hearing got cancelled or something and it wasn't til the 16th that i was in court. All the anticipation building up just got worse.

Eventually the day came and i arrived at the court at 9am. You go into a room with about 100 other people and have to wait around all day. It's crazy. They split you into groups and off you go into an empty court room to familiarise yourself with what a court room is like because i suppose they hope or anticipate that you've never been in one before - i haven't. They told us that this case we were all 'up' for would go for 3 weeks, opposed to the day before where they were up for a crazy 16 week case. CRAZY!!!

Then you go back to the waiting room and do some more waiting. You watch a video about jury duty with some lamo actors and you just keep on waiting. There were a few odd characters to say the least. A wide mix of society. One creepy surfy guy was trying to hit on another girl the whole time geez!!! Up until this point it's all pretty novel really.

The moment comes when they march you all off to court, this time into an occupied room. We all went into the same room, so in this small court room are the accused, defendants, judge, you name it and then 100 of us! There was only one court case on that day!!

For the first time in my life, in true old school style, gentlemen were made to give up their seats for the women. It weirded me out because hey, men and women should be equal, after all we're all created no better than each other, mere humans. But it was nice.

Once we were seated, they outlined the case (two brothers, very ordinary and respectable looking, who had been charged with the intent of murder, they didn't actually kill the guy but got very close to it!), then they read about two pages worth of associated names to the case. It's at that point that you have to declare if you know anyone on the case, if so, you get excused from the case. They then ask the accused to face the potential jurors (us) so that we can inspect them incase we know them.

For me, this was really hard, having to look them in the eyes. This will sound crazy but i felt bad for them. I know, you're thinking, 'you're a weirdo, they almost killed someone' but they just looked like two ordinary guys about my age who had got themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and possibly committed a crime. They honestly reminded me of two naughty but innocent little boys. The time that the judge gave us to inspect them was far too long. Ok, yep, they've possibly done something horribly wrong but it was humiliating for them and by looking at them i knew how humiliated they were. I can hear you saying that they're criminals but goshhh....ya had to be there! All i could do was glance at them and then look away, i couldn't possibly keep looking at them, it was embarressing.

The time came for the jury to be selected. This was particularly nervewracking!!! They choose 12 people to be on the jury, so off they start by pulling 12 people out of a ballot (hat), thankfully my number wasn't called. Once they've got your heart racing and have chosen the 12, the accused is then free to challenge the selected jury. That means that judging purely by what you look like and roughly your age, they can say they don't want that person on their case, it's really nothing personal though. The first time they went through they picked out about 4 or 5 poeple to sit back down. So your heart starts racing again as they select another 4 or 5 to replace those people. They're then free to challenge those newly selected people. They did. they challenged another 3. Off your heart goes again! This time they challenged 1 more person and the jury was selected.

RIGMAROLE!!!!!!!

My heart was pounding that fast and that hard that i thought all the systems in my body were about to shut down and i would die. It didn't happen though. I was so nervous and scared of being on the case that all i could think of to do was to pray for the whole thing. So i prayed for the accused (God have absolute mercy), i prayed for the defendants, i prayed for the jury, i prayed for the judge, i prayed for the witnesses to come, i prayed for the prosecutors and during the whole process, i prayed that my name would not be pulled out of the ballot (what a selfish prayer)! Thankfully God answered the last prayer. I couldn't imagine being on the case for 3 weeks and not being able to share about it with anyone but the other jurors! I went away an emotional wreck as it was, goshhhhh what's wrong with me?!

I just felt so sad that those young guys had gone and wasted their whole lives. It made me feel physically ill to know that they'd possibly be spending some of their best years behind bars. Society is so unwell, and it makes me so sad!!! Everywhere you turn you can read something about hate or violence or aggravation. Very rarely do we ever read anything about love and joyous things and how often do you read something in the newspaper that is wonderful and joyous and flick past it to something more interesting to do with stuff that's wrong with the world. Make sense?

Jury duty was a novelty up until i entered the court room and was hit in the face with the reality of it all. It's not a tv show, it's not a movie, it's someone's real life, someone's pain and anguish for the mistakes they've made. My name is off the roll for another year and i pray that i don't get called up again for longer than that. Having to face up to the shape that our world is in isn't fun but ignoring it is probably worse. There are some serious problems out there and even though it's not really fine to go on being oblivious to everything, stuff like jury duty is really important for us to see the reasons we need to be sharing God's message of love to his people.

RARRRRRRRRRRR.......the evil in society is sooo bothersome?! Be gone before someone drops a house on you too!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tink xoxo

RYLA Wrap-up

Well, by now i'm sure it hasn't taken you too long to figure out that I've given up blogging about RYLA!!! I can't be bothered with it anymore but i can't exactly just leave it hanging like it was i suppose. So i'll finish up (a month later).

I guess i just wanted to say that i met alot of really great people at that camp. People that i KNOW i'm going to be friends with for the rest of my life. Good quality people. I learnt things about reactions and the different responses we have to things. I learnt not to be so judgemental. i learnt so many things and became a slightly more mature person (don't get worried, not too mature).

This weekend is ten pin bowling and so i'll get to catch up with them all once again, i'm really excited about it.

I just want to tell you a bit about the people that i met.

James
He is great. I think he is my bruda from another muda!! We just clicked!!! I was standing behind him a line at camp one day and he turned to me and asked if he knew me from somewhere, i had to say no. But we established that we both loved acting and being drama queens and from that day on we just became the greatest of chums. One person even asked me whether we'd known each other before camp and we had to admit that we didn't know eachother from a bar of soap. I will say though, James teases me too much!!! James, if you're reading this i'm sorry but i don't know what trenching is and the wig thing....well, we're just not going to go there - IT'S NOT FUNNY !!! A word of warning as well, he cheats when you play card games with him and he thinks it's funny, well it's not!

Tim
Tim is the bomb, he thinks all my jokes are funny and he loves how crazy i am. He has the most amazing smile from ear to ear and his laugh is just contagious!!! Many a crazy hilarity was shared with Tim. My first encounter with Tim was beating him in 500. That was great. So we always set out to beat each other in a game of 500 now (which we have to do sometime soon!). One thing that was funny inparticular was when i reached for the jug of water and knocked over a glass and it went all over him haha...it's making me chuckle even thinking about it. It may not seem funny to you but at the time, goshhh, it was hilarious. And ladies, if you want a dancing partner, Tim is the man, he goes off!!! A note for Tim, 8 of hearts is not as funny as you think it is!!! So stoppp laughing at me or i'll find someone to stalk you and you know who i'm thinking of!!!!!!!

Andrew
Aw, now andrew was a darl, such a heartbreaker really! His smile is also ear to ear and it's really quite disappointing when he's not smiling because when he smiles, you just feel like you're doing something right!!! He's a gun when it comes to playing 500!!! It's nothing personal but i just don't want to be his partner in 500 ever again. He's too good and he's a strategy player which isn't good when you play randomly like me!!! So sorry Andrew but you and Tim will have to play together because, i have to beat Tim and i refuse to play with you anymore....hahaha, were you my partner in 8 of hearts? I'm so sorry!!!! Anyway, he's just a fantastic person reallly!!!

Beth
Beth is a sweet heart!!! She is an art teacher and a quite good photographer. She told us a story about her students and how she went out of her way to make the learning process for them and i just thought that was incredible. I said that i wished i'd had teachers like that at school who really wanted to see me learn as much as i possibly could. She genuinely cares for people and does what she can for others and i liked that about her - she's a really great person!!!

Gel (short for Geraldine)
GOSHHHHHH, this chick is most awesome!!!! i loved her to death and a half. You can have the most awesome conversations with her and she has some really great stuff to say. One night we stayed up chatting til like 3 or 4am and it was just cool. She's also a most caring person (actually there were alot of caring people at RYLA) and she really believed in things i could do, along with so many other people! Why can't we have these people around us all the time?! She spoke about some really personal things at the speech night and it was something i really admired her for, having the guts to speak about stuff that is close to her heart and not worrying what others people think of her. Wow, yea, a most awesome friend!

Liz S
The last two chicks, liz and gel were in my room and Liz was cool. She had such a soothing, gentleness about her. She wasn't ever stressed out and was cool, calm and collected! The greatest thing about liz was that she came from near a town i used to live in and so we were both on the same wave length about certain classes of people in society. She understood a part of my life that i'd come through. It was so good to talk to someone who was familiar with a place i once called home for 6 years. That was truly wicked! She also was to be a miss showgirl in a local show - wow, i knew a miss showgirl. She was really pretty too. I was so lucky to make friends with all the pretty people. Actually come to think of it, i was probly the only ugly one at the camp - woah, i really am lucky!!! But anyway, liz was the bomb, she has a cool laugh!!

Sali
Naww, sali is beautiful. She is just the bestest. Her and james would have to have been my most favourite people at camp (and tim). They both loved drama/acting and sali just has a heart of gold and the most warm smile ever!!! Note to Sali and james, i don't play tarot card games, they're evil!!! Something that caught me off-guard about sali was that she was an important person and i didn't even know until the end of camp. She's organising the whole RYLA Ball and that flipped me out - she's a VIP, yet she took the form of an ordinary camper. That weirded me out fully! But goshhh she is sooooo nice!! I miss her and james, they're good company!

Alison M
Alison asked alot about stuff i believed in and it was a great opportunity for me to be able to share with her my beliefs on God, on dying, on heaven and hell and just about stuff like that. She's also a great listener and she laughs at my lamo jokes. So i warmed to her instantly tehehe....but Kylie and i found out that she comes from where we come from. So we live close by. She's actually the one organising this whole ten pin bowling thing, gosh, it's gonna be so much fun!!!

So as you can see i made some great friends. Of course, there were a million other nice people but i don't think any of them stole my heart as much as these people did.

Sorry you didn't get a full account of my RYLA week but just know that it was an awesome week and i went away from that camp really honestly sad to have to go back to real life, outside of the support network and the constant encouragement that people gave you making you believe you could do anything. It was honestly a place like no other, where people genuinely cared for each other and helped each other get to their full potential without making that person feel uncomfortable or laughed at.

Oh RYLA i miss you so. If anyone ever has the chance to go, don't pass up the opportunity because you think it's geeky, it's really quite life changing!!!

Tink xoxo

PS: Tomorrow night, Tuesday 21st, our club has asked each of us that they sponsored to finally speak about what we learnt and got out of RYLA. Scary - i hate public speaking!!!

Farewell Little Blue Meanie

Tomorrow will be a sad day and the end of a journey. Tomorrow I will say goodbye to my first car, a little Daihatsu Charade Hatchback named the Blue Meanie.

The first time i sat myself in the little Blue Meanie was in the year 1999. I'd only ever use it to go to my first ever job - McDonalds. It was a half an hour trip and so the little Blue Meanie and I would trek there and back whenever i had a shift.

I guess all the problems with our relationship started happening in 2000. It being my first car and everything, i wasn't aware that the poor dear needed to be changed of oil and water every now and then and that the levels needed regular updating which is why oil went through my radiator and my engine, blowing gaskets and you name it. That wasn't a good thing apparently! So it was sick for a while until a reconditioned engine was put in and it was purring like a cat again. WASTE OF MONEY!!! But i was very grateful to my parents as they paid for it and i didn't want to see my baby die just yet.

After it had that major work, traces of oil could still be found in parts but the mechanic said he did his best to flush it of oil, that's how much of it there was.

In 2001, my little Blue Meanie delivered me from the wild scrub to the big smoke where i was to live from then til the present. So you can imagine it did some pretty long trips.

Many minor things went went wrong with my little Blue Meanie over time but nothing major. It was one of those cars that seemed more appropriate to wind the windows down than crank the air con.

Towards the end of 2002/start of 2003 my little Blue Meanie decided to give up completely. Often i'd make frequent trips back to the Southern Highlands for various visits to friends places. On one trip i noticed (and this is what i'm positive i saw!) that there was an orange flame coming out of my exhaust as i pushed the Blue Meanie up a hill. I got terrified that if someone were to throw their cigerrette butt out the window i would go up in flames that's how bad it started getting!!!

One day in 2003 on the way to church, i was sitting at a set of lights and by this stage it would expel alot of black smoke upon acceleration, and some cops were sitting behind me. Unfortunately, if it hadn't turned red, i would've been fine. But coming to a complete stop meant that upon take off, the cops would....well, cop...a lot of black smoke. So on went their siren and over to the side i was ordered to pull. There they let me off with a warning to have my car looked at by a mechanic and i, very willingly, obliged. Upon take off and further inspection of my car they again pulled me over - all this on a sunday morning where i was metres away from my church building! - they decided that my car would have a defect notice stamped on it and that i was not to drive it on the road except to a mechanic where it would get fixed.

UNROADWORTHY?????

Great! This was just what i needed! So i took it to be serviced only to hear that my gear box and engine had well and truly died so badly that the mechanic refused to do work on it as it was a waste of money on my behalf! Yes, very nice and caring and thoughtful of him but what about me?????

So the Blue Meanie and I drove on home. One day i needed desperately to get to Roselands and because it's a shopping centre that's not far from me i decided no-one would notice that i had driven there and back. At this stage, my car not only was dead (pffft not only??) but there was a special way of changing gears to keep my car going. Red lights were not friends with the Blue Meanie!!! So out we trekked. We got through the first set of lights - fine. It was the second set of lights that did the dash! The car stalled and i couldn't for the life of me make the Blue Meanie come back to life - it was really dying and taking its last breath! So in a fit of panic, jumped outta the car left everything still in it, phone, wallet etc, left the doors unlocked and ran across the road - i was hysterical, it was peak hour, my car had a legal defect notice on it and it was sitting stranded at the lights all doors and windows open, this would get me into serious legal trouble if the cops found out!!! I ran into the petrol station and dunno what i asked, perhaps if someone could help me push it??? They all declined so i ran back to my car, so hysterical i couldn't even cry, opened the door and pushed my car to the next set of lights which were red. Can you believe that not one person stopped to help - IN PEAK HOUR?! So as i approached the red light i prayed it would go green because one more stop and i wouldn't be able to get going again and plus, if it went green i could glide down the hill, around the corner and out of sight! IT WENT GREEN!!! So down i went, but you will not believe this, at the bottom just as i neared it, the lights went red!!! aaaarrrrgggghhhhh, how was i ever going to get enough momentum to go around the floppin' corner, especially as it was flat, no hill!!! So i parked my car, jumped out and asked the person behind me to nudge my car around the corner (i figured if my car was dead, it wouldn't mind being pushed from behind with a few scratches) they agreed. The lights went green and....NOTHING.....they kept driving on grrrrrrr, so i got out again, pushed my car around another corner (still no help) and parked there, i'm lucky it was just a small car! I was so hysterical by this stage that my mouth was void of all saliva....i had been forgetting to salivate or even swallow, my lips, my tongue, my gums, all drier than ever!!! So i quickly tried refreshing my mouth and it took quite a lot of swallows to gain normal salivation! I phoned a friend and asked what to do, once she arrived, we phoned another friend and he referred us to a cheap towing service.

A couple of times during my stay around the corner, i saw some cops patrolling the road - phewp, lucky!!! I think i must've been on the radio that day - broken down navy blue daihatsu charade has broken down, delays are occuring along King Georges Road. *Sighs*...

The tow truck towed me home and to this day is where the little Blue Meanie has sat ever since. 8 Months went by before i acquired my current Hyundai Excel - the Black Falcon (another story in itself!). But for 3 years the little Blue Meanie has sat in pain, desolate and alone out the back of my unit.

Today a man came to my door asking if he could purchase my car for wrecking. I said it would be fine. He paid some money. An arrangement was made. And he will be collecting the little Blue Meanie tomorrow afternoon for destruction.

Finally, after5 years of fun and laughter, my little Blue Meanie can be laid to rest.

Farewell Blue Meanie, don't be scared, there will be no more pain and your last dying moments will only last for a few seconds. It has been fun, i will miss you, you have been my first true car and it is with deep sadness that i must say goodbye! I will always remember you.

With fondest car memories
~*Tinkerbelle*~ xoxo

Camping Out Bush

This weekend just gone (3rd - 5th March) i went camping with Dina Hunter, Luke Nowell and Elyse Dickson. It was fun. We didn't do much, coz there wasn't much to do but it was nice just to get away from everything and relax. It's amazing how dependant on business we can become. I guess the only thing we couldn't get away from were our mobile phones, despite the fact we weren't even in reception!

After departing from our families and saying our goodbyes, we trekked our way out to a camp site area called Bendeela, which is just out of Kangaroo Valley. It's really nice and my family would often camp there when we lived in Bowral. So i gave Dina a running commentary on the town i called home for 6 years. On the way home, we drove past my old high school and it was a little odd seeing it for the first time in 6 or so years.

Anyway we got to camping at about 9:30/10pm and proceeded to set up our tents with our car headlights on. Poles and tents galore, no instructions! We managed to set ourselves up well enough to be able to sleep (although our tent was more of a teepee rather than a tent tehehe...).

At about 12:30/1am we all climbed into our sleeping bags and nodded off.

I hadn't really slept well that night due to excess noise from the 'f'ing people (as that was all their vocab seemed to consist of) and therefore i woke up pretty darn early so at 8:30am, like a little kid who needs other people to be awake with them to be happy, i started playing all the song on my phone so that my roomie would wake up. And wake up she did, to my ring tone, inspector gadget.

After i played through all of my tunes, including the peaceful wind chimes, i got outta bed and folded all the window flaps up to let the cool morning air in. This seemed to wake the rest of the camp up and before long we were all seated around the table having a bite to eat for breakfast! Mind you, breakfast was at about 11:00am. We also made friends with Professor Plum and Reverend Green (two ducks with purple and green wings).

When breakfast was done, all four of us headed up to the toilet block (no showers) and got our first glimspe of the grottiness of the bathroom. Honestly, we might as well have just dug holes in the ground and it could possibly have been more hygenic than these were!!! Used sanitary napkins on the ground, toilet paper everywhere, one lady even told the story of one day coming in only to find the sink filled with faeces! The smell of them was ghastly. It reminded me that not all people are clean or hygenic people and don't respect property that isn't theirs. I was going to spare you the details, but you'd never have got the idea!!! You still really haven't!!!

After we had freshened up (although how i can say that is beyond me), we made a quick stop at the tents, and then headed to the water. Since the last time i visited the area (about 2000) the water level has dropped significantly, tree stumps are even visible above the water now. So we blew up our floatie (little boat raft thing) and jumped in. It was so nice especially on such a scorcher of a day.

Luke found a couple of trees high enough to jump into the water. Funnily enough, the water did actually get quite deep. We acquainted ourselves with some little boys and girls who thought they were the coolest. We all got out for a bit and then got back in and were bombarded by scouts. We watched as they canoed around us, laughing every now and then at their boats tipping over. Although we soon caught on and realised that it must've been part of their activities to tip their boats because before we knew, everyone's boats were tipping over. It wasn't quite as fun after that, so we got out and headed back to camp for some lunchtime tucker.
Between lunch and dinner, nothing happened. It was a quiet afternoon where Luke and Elyse slept and Dina and myself entertained ourselves, mostly just lying around in the blow up boat, chatting, coking and snacking with a bit of music playing in the car.

One of the highlights of our time at Bendeela was joinging in with the waving of fellow campers. It seems to be the customary thing to do to wave at another camper, there is some kind of mutual understanding. So our afternoon also consisted of waving to the people driving by, especially the canoe men (otherwise known as camoe nen in my fit of dyslexia)

Just before it got dark, we decided to cook dinner, even though we weren't really hungry, we decided it would be better to cook in the daylight rather than in the dark. So we turned on the gas, we lit the burners and BOOM the flame from the end burner jumped to the gas hose! We quickly turned the gas off and then the burner and blew out the flame. After several more attempts, even with the gas only turned on a little bit, we had to ditch all efforts and put it down to a leak in the hose.

That night, we ate cold meat sandwiches because we couldn't cook our meat on the bbq. I was very sad. After dinner us girls decided to play some games so we started with Panic. Luke went off for a wander while we played. It was a fun game, a bit racist ie. name 5 things that are white. There were other fun questions like name 5 tools and 5 pies. After a game won by Elyse, we started making our own up, always a good time killer! It wasn't til the next morning that we found the 5 things starting with M card. We didn't really need it though, we only played two games of Panic! It started to get very dark and we started to get a little anxious about our friend. After trying to amuse ourselves for a little while longer, telling non existent sickle and axe man tales, we all turned in for the night. Five minutes later we heard Luke stumble back into camp confessing that he had fallen asleep by the lake and was freezing cold!

As we drifted off to sleep, a friendly wombat came to join us (outside the tent!) and we could hear him munching on some grass, pretty soon we were sleeping!

The next morning (Sunday, if you've lost track) we packed up shop, squeezed tents into bags, rested for a spell, and drove on home.

It was a very lovely, peaceful and relaxing weekend!

Tink xoxo

Team RYLA 06 - Monday

Blogging about RYLA day by day has been weird for me (and i'm sorry it hasn't been as frequent as i said) because it's dawned on me, simply because of what i'm about to blog on, that our days were in fact, incredibly long and yet i hadn't even noticed it until now.

So...Monday at Camp RYLA....

The club 'Toastmasters' came to speak to us about public speaking, i was really keen for this because i realy love all that sort of stuff, not that i'm good at it but that i love it!

They demonstrated all sorts of good and bad ways to public speak. Andrew Garven was one of the speakers and i didn't even know he was into all that sort of stuff, he did a really great job. In fact, they were all great and they had a little bit of everything included in their talks. The only negative i thought was that all the speakers seemed extremely structured and unnatural, that was a set back for me, i prefer a speaker to sound natural if they're going to speak without notes. But it's not a negative negative but rather a negative positive coz although they were a bit structured, they were still really captivating and good.

The turn for us to have a go came around and we were split into about 8 groups of about 10. We each had to get up and do an impromptu speech for one minute on a topic we were given. Some of them were so random and irratating, like the one i got and so when i had to speak i started off fine but just lost track of what i was saying and broke down half way through saying 'thanks for listening but i don't want to do this anymore' and i sat down. Half the group didn't even know i was nervous as all heck apparently. After our talks the group had to give negative and positive feedback and it was nice to hear the positives. One being that i have an engaging and captivating way of presenting something (too bad, i can't deliver the content, eh!?) . It was also good to hear the negatives all of which i'm all too aware of!

So we learnt about impromptu speaking. We then were taught about prepared speaking. After that we were informed that there would be public speaking that night from the groups.

One person to host/mc the group, one person to give a prepared speech and one person to give the feedback to the speaker. I wanted to MC it but they put my name forward to speak. It was a definate no because i knew i'd freeze and couldn't do it. But there was another girl, Kerrie who wanted to MC it. Orginally we both agreed to MCing it but i thought that would be weird so I opted out and besides it gave Kerrie and opportunity to do something she wasn't overly familiar or comfortable with, so it was probably more beneficial for her and after all, RYLA was all about going outside your comfort zone!!!

It was a relatively long night listening to all the groups speaking, but still very enjoyable, alot of laughs but also alot of feeling, especially for the more serious topics. Each speaker spoke on a passion of theirs and so it was interesting getting a glimpse into other people's lives and what made them passionate, i enjoyed it.

After 'speech night' we were required to keep working on our Tuesday Night Dinner Project. I wasn't looking forward to that coz it was boring. It wasn't as late as Sunday night but alot more dull. Yet again the SAA's didn't really have alot of planning to do, our planning came on the actual night (although i suspect quite a lot of it could've been done on the Sunday and Monday night!).

I think it was on Monday night it was raining quite heavily and so becoming bored with not doing anything, i headed on over to the decor people to see what they were getting up to. That day we had all done some finger painting (oh my gosh...) as the theme was Australiana or something and they wanted some hand paintings to represent aboriginal painting i'm guessing. While we waited to smoosh our hands in gooey paint, one chap, in front of me, James, turned to me and asked, 'do i know you from somewhere?' to which i replied, 'not that i know of' however we both established our love for acting/theatre/drama/creative arts and from that day on, it was as though we had known each other for a long time. He is a great friend to this day even if at times i am not!

So Monday night, in with the decor people......they finished up what they were doing, most people going to bed and so Anita, Kylie and myself decided that we should hunt down a guitar and have a praise and worship time because the lack of Christan music was becoming noticeable. So we grabbed my very old Hillsong book, a guitar and jammed at midnight praising our Lord. It was an awesome witnessing opportunity as 4 or 5 guys came in half way through just having some serious conversation about the dinner (hehe old women!). We just kept right on singing etc to which at one point they asked us if they were bothering us and we said no...and kept on singing....hehehe....it was nice, but by the end of it, we just wanted to fall asleep.

So we packed up our things, said our goodnites and departed to our sleeping holes.

More days to come, we're not even half way there yet!

Tink xoxo