Stir it up in our hearts God, stir it up in our hearts, a passion for your name...

Evening.

I love life. Really though, I do.
I spent the majority of my day completing my personal statement, so how I am feeling in an optimistic mood right now is beyond me. The personal statement is about 200 words too long, I think, and even at that I feel as though I ended up leaving a lot of stuff out. I'm pretty pleased with it if I must say so myself. It sounds a lot better than I'd anticipated.

I feel really close to God at the minute, and it's awesome. I'm just praying that I'll be able to stay focused, especially since I'm heading back to school in five days.
I also have a feeling that big things are going to happen. God is amazing, so I know they will. It just takes a bit of patience. Nicola and I are going to the prayer room tomorrow afternoon to do some, well, praying as it is a prayer room afterall.

I'm quite looking forward to going back to school because, even if it does end up being stressful, I know for certainty that that stress can only be a fraction of the stress imposed upon me when I had to do art, when every night of my life was spent wanting to set fire to my paint set, or any other art equipment as a matter of fact. I truly hated it at times. Yet, for some reason, I still think I'll miss it- I'll definitely miss the banter of the class, if anything. Not doing art anymore, I hope, will make more more grateful for being blessed with a talent for art so then I might paint more often ( anything I like of course, as there'll be no restrictions), thus I will enjoy it a lot more.

I'm also looking forward to the concept of seeing my friends again every single day. Although I've seen them all quite a lot this summer, I quite miss our little geekish gatherings at the table in the 6th form centre every break and lunch time. It's amazing how many discussions about food have taken place there. Not only do I look forward to seeing my friends though, I also get quite excited about seeing my teachers, which probably makes me sound really cool I'm sure, not that I've ever pretended to be anything of the sort. I've always got on really well with my teachers. It does my head in, as we would say in good ol' norn iron, to hear people slagging off their teachers like they feel no emotion. They are human, after all. I have done it before though, because before last year, I did experience the occasional scumbag for a teacher...cough Mr McKillen.

I am quite excited about Catherine coming home too, because I miss her and conversations I've had this week have made me feel really blessed to have a best friend at all, never mind such a fantastic one.

This is pretty much the soppiest blog I've ever written.

A little sop every once in a while is good for the health, I reckon.

Until next time,
Ciao.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Hello there.

It is 11.35 pm and I had 4 and a half hours sleep last night, so apologies if this blog fails to make sense.

I'll try to keep my eyes open.

Went to the last night of outreach last night, which was fantastic. Nicola gave her testimony- well she talked about how God was there for her when she had the problem with her legs. It was very inspirational. I just love hearing how God has helped people, as it reminds me how awesome he is. Ashamedly, sometimes I forget.

Sarah stayed over at mine last night, and we stayed up talking until 5.30 am, or something ridiculous like that. Needless to say, I am now completely and utterly exhausted. It was really nice having a proper chat though.

Tonight I went to Mark's Moldova Crew reunion BBQ, which was great fun and rather tasty, particularly the upside down pineapple cake, which I gobbled down in about a tenth of a second, like a big fatty. I'm now regretting sitting so close to the BBQ, even though looking at the cooking meat was temporarily satisfying; because it now means that my hair smells like it is on fire.

My prayers this week have had one particular focus, and they're getting answered, bit by bit. I just hope everything soon begins to make sense.

Hasta luego.

There's a shield in our hand and a sword at our side, there's a fire in our spirits than cannot be denied.

Gutentag.

The sun has got it's hat on, hip hip hip hurray. It's only 19 degrees or something outside, yet I feel on the verge of combustion. I'm not complaining though, because it's the best day we've had this summer.

Nikki and I decided we'd take advantage of today's nice weather, so we walked in to Carrick and sat on a lovely wee bench by the sea and ate lunch or, rather, a marshmallow feast. We sat about on a wall for about half an hour, admiring the beautiful scenery until we had to literally force ourselves to get up. I really do take it for granted sometimes that I live in such a pretty town you know. I'm generally too busy going to mauds to stop, take a look around me, and admire the view. I'm going to try to do that more often.

Went out for lunch in town yesterday with Nikki, Natalie, Lauren and Adeline. We went to Roast, which is usually pretty nice and is also quite good value for money. This time, lunch was a bit different. Our paninis and wraps were lovely as always and perhaps the salad would have been nice had it not been infested with a colony of bugs, or "wee beasts" as Adeline calls them.
Yep, no joke, our salads had bugs living inside them. Lauren, being Lauren of course, went up and complained and as a result, we got free lunches plus about 8 free traybakes on top. So, it actually worked out quite well in the end.

Tonight I'm going back to the outreach thing, and doing the same tomorrow night. Sarah is also coming too, yay!

In just over a week, I'll be traipsing down prince andrew way with my school bag at an unearlthy hour. WOOPEE.

Bis Bald.

Beneath my feet, the earth is ready. I know it's time for heaven's rain...

It is the 19th of August 2007.

That is scary.

Not only has this been the quickest summer ever, but L6 was, without a doubt, the quickest school year ever. One minute I'm trying Mrs Stirling's malteaser buns for the first time, and the next minute I'm getting the results of my AS levels, which, by the way, went absolutely fine; 3 As and a B in English Lit, despite my food poisoning. Cannot. Believe. It.

I seriously thought I had failed King Lear. I thought I'd maybe get about 10 out of 90 for effort. I have considered the likely possibility that the examiners may have fallen asleep while marking my paper and dreamt they had read another essay. Oh well, all I care about is that I will never have to flick through another copy of King Lear again in my life. Yeehah.
In a few months, once I'm studying Wife of Bath, no doubt I'll regret ever saying I hated King Lear and will be begging to study it again.

I am currently feeling very content with regards to the whole university application process, not particularly confident, but content. I feel as though there is no point in worrying about since, after all, there is nothing I can really do if they don't accept me. I have done my best and if they aren't happy with that, well...screw them, to put it bluntly.

It scares me to think that this time next year I will ( fingers crossed) be preparing to move out, which means growing up. I do not feel particularly ready for this, so part of me is terrified. On the other hand, I'm quite excited to begin a whole new chapter of my life, pardon the cheese.
I'm also quite sad that my school years are coming to an end, because although it hasn't always been a barrels of laughs, which I can only put down to stupidly choosing art for GCSE and AS, some of my funniest, fondest memories have taken place there.

Right now, though, I am concentrating on enjoying the last few weeks of my summer holidays, though with a distinctive lack of sun, it's hard to believe that it is summer, and has been for the past 2 months. Tomorrow, I plan to go in to Carrick, renew my library book, which I have not yet got round to reading, put money in my virtually empty bank account and then go to an outreach thing in Downshire Presby in the evening, which should be fun.

On Tuesday, I'm intending to go in to town with a few girlies from school to meet up with Adeline, who's going back to France soon, for lunch, which will be lovely as I haven't seen her in ages and would love to see her before she goes back home. I seriously dread the thought of getting some other french assistant next year unless, of course, they're hot and, in which case, are obviously of the male gender.

I'm not sure what plans I have for the rest of the week, except for heading down to Downshire for a few days and then going to Skid's barbecue on saturday night, which'll be a laugh I'm sure, and full of lots of reminiscing about good ol' Moldova. I'll have to think of more activities than that though, or I'll find myself bored and wishing my other half, who has buggered off to the middle of nowhere for 2 weeks, was just around the corner.

This was an unintentionally long blog. I purposely tried to make it short and, evidently, failed miserably.


I would love to write a book some day. However, that is a story for some other time.

Bonne nuit, mes amies fantastiques.

x

Summer 07

Hello there.



Since I haven't blogged in more than a month, it's going to be a tad difficult for me to remember every single detail of what's been going on in my life, but I'll try.

As you may have guessed, I made it back from Moldova and, unsurprisingly, managed to return with the same milk-bottle skin I went out with. You'd think that the "62" degrees heat in Chisinau would have had some sort of effect on me, other than just making me 7 lbs lighter- which was mainly because of the fact that I was constantly perspiring every drop of liquid that went into my body. That's one thing I can confidently say I do not miss; waking up every morning in a puddle of sweat, delightful though it was.

Everything else, however, I do miss and would do anything to be able to do it all over again.
Okay, so before I went, I'll admit I wasn't feeling terribly enthusiastic and, to be honest, I was so overcome with anxiety that I hadn't really thought about the possibility of it being life-changing.
Funny thing is, everything that I thought was going to be hard to cope with was, and yet, somehow, it all became part of the experience.

If anything, it taught me a few lessons- one being that I should never ever complain about the state of public toilets. A bit of pee on the seat seems petty when you're faced with the obstacle of having no seat at all, just a- quite literally- crappy hole to go in. Once you got used to the whole idea of squatting and the hindrance of trying to avoid peeing on your foot, it really wasn't so bad. There were plenty of bugs in there to keep you company, including the occasional moth, I discovered, one of which managed to fly right up the hole when I was trying to go, which is always a nice surprise I must say.

The food was another thing. I can now officially say that I have tasted fish porridge, complete with brine to top it all off. It was as delicious as it sounds. Actually though, this was about the only inedible meal at the kids camp. The rest were completely fine. I only really had a problem with their eagerness to give us hot chocolate with lunch ( which was generally some sort of hot soup), which never seems so appetising when you think you are actually going to turn to dust in the 40-something degree heat.

These problems, however, became so frivolous after the first couple of days of being there. To our surprise, the whole 'we can't speak romanian' thing wasn't that much of a problem. You don't always need words, I've learnt, to show someone that you care or to make them smile. Therefore, we managed to make friends with the kids pretty quickly and we saw their attitude towards us change almost instantly, once they discovered we weren't freaks.
I wasn't really sure what to expect from the kids camp to tell the truth- I didn't really think that it would have such an impact on me, but it did. Even the simple things like "twins day" and the secret friend day, as well as the postbox day were great- just playing with the kids and getting to know them was fantastic and it was gratifying to see that things like the trampoline, which we bought them, could bring them such joy.

After our fantastic week at the kids camp, I was really quite sad to be leaving; an emotion I didn't envisage I'd be feeling at the end of the trip, the first time I laid my eyes upon the fishy porridge dish. We had a lot of banter at that camp- it was where we discovered iced water can give you throat disease, people sometimes poo in showers, there are wolves in moldova and that Clare screams in her sleep, and it was there that the obsession with twosies began.

After our week there, we travelled back to Chisinau to stay with Niclae and his family ( also home of big ears, the "friendly dogs" and is also where Babuska Valia got naked). The only real problem with staying in the city was that we had to travel back and forth to the village every day- which is highly entertaining when you're sitting in a van that doesnt have working gears, has seats that are coming off, is lacking in seat belts, and you're driving through forests to try to get to the village. Of course, the roads aren't quite as bad in the city- they're smoother that is. The only problem you have to face there is deciding which lane to drive in and how fast you're going to drive, because rules don't seem to apply there. Scary, but incredibly fun nevertheless.

Working in the village was amazing. Sweaty, but amazing. The difference we made there is probably beyond what any of us can imagine- because noone really seemed to care about those villagers before we came, so just being part of a team that was able to go in and change things for them for the better is something I'll always remember. We may not have seen anyone directly become a christian while we were there, but what we did see was lots of what-were-once-frowns turn to smiles, and so through our action, we will have hopefully planted a seed and shown the people God's love.

Although I'm glad to be home, for obvious reasons such as being able to use a toilet that flushes, I really do miss Moldova. We made wonderful friendships with some fantastic people out there and I hope that some day we'll have the opportunity to go back.

* * * *
Right now, it is 12.30 am, which means it is the 10th of August, which means the day of doom is only six days away...dun dun dun. I'm trying not to get stressed, but it's unavoidable. The only reassurance I have is that I've done well in art, which really isn't that helpful ultimately, since it's the one I want to drop. Woopee. I'm just crossing my fingers that my failure to string a sentence together in the french oral will not jeopardise my grade and that my made up facts about Brittany will go unnoticed by the examiners.

I'm hoping to spend this week doing things to keep me occupied. I'm just back from seeing Hairspray in the cinema with Caters, which was one of the best films I've seen in a long time. Yesterday Caters and I went to Sarah's for a day of lost-watching and chocolate fountain dipping or, rather, spoon-licking. I think I may have gained about a stone there, and then another one later that day when I went for dinner with Caters, David, her Aunt, Uncle and little cousins.

Tomorrow, or should I say today, will be spent making an attempt at my personal statement, as I have been procrastinating the idea of writing it for quite some time. On Saturday I'm hoping to go see Bluetree perform at the castle, which should be fun. I refuse to discuss the following week since it is the week I shall fall into a state of depression and the whole world will discover that I am a waster, and I will have to make the choice between working in McDonalds or Burger King for the rest of my life.

Bring it on.

Okey dokey man.