They are doing renovations at work so that has meant for me lots of noise with concrete cutters and hammers and other renovation tools that make lots of noise. It is a little anoying but it will be good once it is done. It also means that we don’t have a kitchen right now so the table and fridge and watever else have all been set up in the space right outside my office.

This has been good in that I have gotton to know some of the really lovely and kind people who give up their time to work in the shops but unfortunatlely today it has proved to be quite distressing. It seems that a small group of our volunteers are complete racists. Today I heard about the “stupid people who don’t speak English” and “the mean, nasty muslims who are the cause of the world’s problems” not to mention “the dole bludgers who take advantage of the society” and questions about how we are going to ensure that poeple don’t get more than one hamper. It made me so angy. I just can’t believe that attitude and especially not here where the motto we follow is “be kind and love for love is your first gift to the poor”. Here where we are told “do not blame the poor”. And here where it is Jesus Christ that we follow.

Of course by the time I had formulated a response in my head and had calmed myself down enough not to be nasty as well the conversation had finished and I had lost my opportunity to say something. Not that I would probably have the guts to anyway but these kind of attitudes upset me so and I feel I must say say something beacuse it is probably not nastiness that leads to these kind of attitudes but ignorance.

I am feeling so overwhelmed by work right now and so inadequate. Really not a very nice feeling.

God, please help me to be better.

I have enjoyed reading everyone’s blogs so much today that I thought I better write something. Tom’s blog about U2 was so descriptive, while I was reading I relived the moment and it was great. Steve’s post about U2 was also so cool. Great to hear what was going on for others and there is no way you could beat Chris’s photo of Bono. That was awesome. Apart from U2 though Lesley’s post left me thinking and I was so excited to hear that David will soon be arriving in Nagaland. Also Happy Birthday Sam. Blogs work better than those Birthday reminders. We will do everything we can to be there on Saturday night. Not to mention I have seen Howie and Jenny’s wedding photos and caught up on much of Australian politics without having to read the newspaper.

So keep blogging people I am enjoying every moment of it.

Well I said that I would be at least 500m from U2 but it turns out that it was more like 2 metres (I think but I am really bad at estimating distnce). It was awesome, absolutely unbelieveable, incredible and so, so fun. They do rock. I bought U2 on U2 yesterday so if anyone wants to come around and read it, it will be on our coffee table.

The rest of the weekend was pretty good too. With a big sleep in and pancakes on Saturday morning I was off to a good start. It was particularly good when I I looked at the clock and saw 11.45. My initail reaction was oh no I have to study but then I realised that I didn’t. Yay for finishing uni for the year. In the afternoon Libby, Ryan and I went to Coogee. We went on the bus which made it more fun. I like catching new buses. After a swim and some reading on the beach mum and Keityh came adn we walked around to Tamarama to look at Sculptures by the Sea. We didn’t run into Jenny and Robert but it was still cool. It was my forst time so I was kind of blown away. Unfortunately getting home was not so fun. I won’t go into details but it took about two hours. I was not happy at all but Ran and Libby were. I am going to try to be more like that. We did finally make it to Helen’s drink which were nice. Always good to catch up with the Belrose crew and Happy Birthday Helen.

Sunday, after a bit of a crappy start where Martin and I went out to Silverwater jail to visit our friend we discovered they had moved him. No notice. no phone call to tell us that ou appointment had been cancelled. I can’t believe how inhumane that system is. We came back to Newtown and took a cruise done King Street. The Newtown festival was on so we listened to some music and looked in book shops. We ended up at Broadway so we visited Jem at the Oxfam shop which is so the coolest shop and it has so many Peruvian things in it which are lovely.

In the evening we went to Rough Edges. Another calm (in a Rough Edges kind of way) night and we also had Laksa at S Thada which was yummy. I had forgotton how good they were and so cheap.

Tonight I am going to be within at least 500m of U2. Praise the Lord. They are going to rock.

I really wish that I wasn’t at work. I am so excited and time is going so slowly…..

“ALMOST two-thirds of Australians are prepared to pay more tax and more for essentials if it helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Herald/ACNielsen poll.” Sydney Morning Herald.

Yay, maybe Australians aren’t as bad as I have previously thought.

I went and saw Ngapartji Ngaparji tonight. This is what they call a theatre experience where you go along and learn some Pitjantjatjara (Aboriginal language of Northern Territory) and sing some songs and then listen to a story about one of the actors families acted out. Learning the language was fun. They taught us words about family my mum is my ngunytju and my dad is my mama and Gemma is my kangkuru. Martin is wiru (beautiful). I know that’s not family but I liked the word and I wanted to talk about Martin. They also taught us about how family works and who marries who. There are lots of laws that I don’t fully understand so Iwon’t go into it but it was interestinh. The story like many was very sad. It made me really angry.

I am glad I wnet and saw this today as in class today my lecturer told us that the uni now had a relationship with someone who teaches language in the Northern Territory and they want people to do their practicums there. I was thinking that I would like to do this and tonight made me quite excited about the idea. A bit scared as the whole thing is so complex and I worry that I really have no idea what I can/should do but I think that I should at leat try.

Hopefully I can go again tommorrrow.