In response to my last Jo sent me this. I needed it, I still need it.

Your Spirit Alive in the Laughter of Our Eyes”

Help us to let go
Of all You have forgiven a thousand times
to realise the forgiven exists no longer.
Liberate Your Spirit
from among the shame and guilt
that we have allowed to weigh us down.

Help us to forgive ourselves
And one another
and lighten up our world
to see the love and the laughter in each other’s eyes
the inner joy of forgiveness being realised.

Sometimes I am such a fucking bitch.

Sorry about the harsh language but I am feeling a little overwhelmed by own ickiness at the moment and that seems to be the only way to describe it. Well it doesn’t even come close but it is closer than some less full on language.

I should be practising a Spanish presentation but all I can think about is how shitty a human being I am.

Damn it.

Hey three assessments down and one to go.

Oh the relief and oh the relief that is too come when it is all done.

About six months ago I decided that I was going to read the whole Bible from start to finish. I know that this is not really the most creative way to do it but I really am a chronological order kind of person. It makes sense to me. Anyway I found Genesis really exciting and the first part of Exodus was pretty cool too but I really slowed on Leviticus, Numbers, Deutromy and Joshua and I mean really slowed which probably explains why it has taken me six months to reach Judges. I must admit I have not read that many stories that I have never heard before, a couple but not many, but I have enjoyed seeing how they all fit together, many people are related to each other that I didn’t know were at all.

Anyway so I am up to Judges and I reading along and I am thinking how stupid all the people are. You know the whole thing of everything’s good as the people are with God but then they go and worhip other gods and everything goes bad so then God sends someone to save them and everything is good again but then they start worshipping other gods again and so everything falls apart and God has to send another person to save them and the whole thing goes on and on. And I am still thinking come on this is so riduculous. But then I go out into the world and I start reading all those stupid Woman’s Day magazines that always make me feel bad and I start having little fights with Martin about the same stuff as always and I get all worried about money and I want more of it and then I think Emily you’re so stupid why do you keep the same things over and over that you know are bad for you and I realised that I am no different to the Israelis.

So I have started wearing some rosary beads around my neck as a constant reminder to seek only God.

I am very excited as I am blogging from my room. I have a very lovely new laptop computer that my lovely husband bought for me and then lovely David has hooked it up to wireless internet (I don’t know if one hooks up to wireless but I think you get the drift). Anyway now I can sit here on my bed, while I am supposed to be studying and blog instead. It is really wonderful (I thought I had better not use the adjective lovely again).

This willl probably mean that I blog a lot more. The fact that I am back from Adriana’s will also mean I blog a lot more too.

We liked living at Adriana’s house for a little while. It is a nice house, although I think I would go about decorating a little differently. It is in the middle of the bush so it is quite peaceful and relaxing and we made friends with the possums and the birds that would come and eat with us when we sat on the balcony. The possum even started eating from my hand which was very exciting. We also had lots of lovely (oh no that word again) friends come and eat with us like Des and Steve, and Ryan and Libby, and Jo and Jemma, and Gemma and Matt, and of course my mum and dad and Keith. I have become quite the little entertainer which I really enjoy.

I am getting frustrated by my work at the moment. I mean I find it all quite interesting, I am doing a policy analysis on the policies of “The Sopranos” and I love the Sopranos and I think I have some fairly good ideas about it all but it is so hard to get out all the thoughts that I have in my head out on to the computer in some kind of fashion that makes any sense at all. I guess that’s my life really. How often I think something and it comes out of my mouth or fingers (if I am writing) in such a different way and I just want to shove it all back in there. Maybe like this post that is oh so boring really and quite sort of random and all over the place.

I know that I have been very slack this last week in regards to blogging it is just that there is no internet at Adriana’s house, which is where we have been living for the past week and where we will be living for the next four weeks, so it is very difficult. It has been an good week, I think….

I handed in one asssessment.
I got given two new ones.
I dressed up in retro to celebrate Libby’s 21st birthday party and danced to a whole Bob Marley CD, Martin was vrey happy.
Gemma came home, Yay.
She gave me a cool outfit from India.
I went to mass, I like communion and I love the choir there.
I went to Monday Club, twice.
We cooked vege nachos there once, someone said it was the best food she had ever eaten.
I watched Andrew Denton, twice and last night was his last for the year, I was very disappointed.
I finally payed for the car insurance, very slack.
I drank chai with Jai, but she was late so it only lasted about 20 minutes, still fun though.
I worked three days, I won’t comment on that, too negative.
I went to a trivia night, $5000 was raised for Hannah’s school.
I actually knew a couple of answers, our team still came like third last though.
I ate brakfast at the Tropicana to celebrate Martin’s one year in Australia. Again too much to say about that to comment.

Well that’s not in order, the whole chronological order thing gets a bit tiring sometimes, but that is some of it anyway.

Well I am here at university trying to fill in an hour before I meet Jai for coffee (I mean Chai, yay Chai makes me so happy) and trying to decide if I want to go to Spanish or not. Sorry that is not the way I want to put it, I know I don’t want to go to Spanish but I am trying to decide if I will. It feels silly not to as I am here but I am so tired from being here all day and I just find it so boring, I relly don’t think I could sit through it. I also just read and email from the teacher that was reminding us that we have to attend 80% of class if we want to pass which means we can only have 4 days off and as some us have already had four we bet to be careful as we don’t want any surprises. That email pissed me off so bad for some reason, it was so patronising and rude and as I am not one of the one who has had four days off I have had one I just feel like not going.

I am always so relieved when Thursday is over. Thursday is my hard day you see, it’s the day I leave home at 8.15am and I return at 9.45pm. That’s a long day. I am especially relieved today as I had a Spanish test and as always it is great when they are over. Mind you I am not feeling that good about it. It was really hard. I want to learn another language, I am bored with Spanish at the moment, firstly the teacher drives me crazy, she is so boring sometimes I think about scratching my eyes out I am so bored. well maybe not but I am pretty bored. I also think when you first start learning a language you learn so much so fast and it is really fun whereas now I am at a stage where I have totally plateaued out and I feel like I am learning one or two words a week and it’s not really keeping me that motivated. The final reason I want to learn another language is cause well I want to. How cool would it be to be like multilingual it would be great and then I can to communicate with more people.

I have to say though I find language hard, it does not come at all natuarally to me and the idea also in partly freaks me out.

Ther once was an inventor whose work it was to invent new danced. His aim was to invent the perfect dance, which of course is an impossiblity. At the end of each day, enraged, he would fling his day’s work out onto the street in disgust. The peasants of the town woyld seixe upon these imperfect dances and dance them with great joy and gusto. The invento worked on in earnest deication. Alone. The peasants danced their lives away. Together. And so life goes on.

Leunig, how much do I quote but oh how good is he.

I have just finsished reading a really good book, it is called “why warriors lie down and die”. I feel a bit nervous about describing it. I am afraid I may say something that could come across as patronising or trivialise the issues in trying to sum it up in this small blog post so I thought I would start with what the back of the book said:

“Why warriors lay down and die is essential reading for anyone intereested in indigenous peoples. It provides hope and new direction for those simply searching for answers to why “the problems” seem to persist in Aboriginal communities. It also offers insights for those who want a greater understanding of the issues involved in achieving true reconcilitaion”.

It certainly did that for me. I have in the past felt so helpless when considering the plight of the aboriginal people. It all seemed so complicated and so big and I just didn’t understand any of it. It also seemed like the suppport of non aborigianl people was not very helpful or very much wanted by the indigenous people. It all seemed so hopeless. This book however explains really clearly some of the issues and how they came to be. For the first time I feel like I have a tiny bit of understanding. It is also very hopeful in that the situation can change and there is things that one, as a non aboriginal Australian can do.

I also think it is a great book to read for anyone interested in cross cultural communication at all. So many things that happened to me while I was overseas that I didn’t understand now make a little bit more sense to me when I consider the cultural stuff that was going on. I can also understand a little more some of the challenges that Martin faces everyday in such a different culture.

It made me realise how it important it is that I know something of the culture and the language of the places that I hope to visit one day. This will mean I can avoid some of those things happening again and also so that I can offer people the best possible support.