Haven't written in over a year on this thing, but I think it might be good for me if I did, otherwise all my thoughts get stuck in my head and I get sucked into believe that the now is the only thing that matters and I get really dramatic and my housemates get annoyed and....well, the world goes up in flames. 

Australia is a beautiful place.  I have just returned from a very ridiculous camping trip to a place 4 hours away which I won't mention incase this little town possibly has some sort of investigation set up to trace illegal activity that may have occurred in the national park there....Nothing horrible, it's just that I couldn't help but build myself a little fire, but it was in a wok so it wasn't really a fire, more of a flaming dish, anyway enough to roast marshmallows to show my very unamerican mates how to make smoors.  We hadn't really done much planning due to our need for spontaneity,(which is quickly becoming my least favorite personal trait), and so the thought of sleeping three people in a car, proved to be much less enjoyable in the actual attempt.  Truthfully, I slept more contently then some others....but it isn't my fault that I can sleep almost anywhere, but ok, I'll stop rubbing it in your faces now.  Still it was worth it to think of what those few cars assumed that visited the lookout that night to find our steamy windowed vehicle.  This children is why it is important to never assume anything.  I found that out recently as well, but I would rather not expose my idioticies to the public, or to anyone for that matter....  why am I even bringing this up.  Ok, enough.  I need to spend some time outside in what could be the last day of my holidays that I won't be making coffee... : (   More later.

Songs and quotes by others are usaully impersonal, but really this is all I have to say right now.

"Wish I had what I needed to be on my own,

Cause I feel so defeated and I'm feeling alone,

And it all seems so helpless, and I have no plans,

I'm a plane in the sunset with no where to land.

And all I see it could never make me happy,

And all my sandcastles spend their time colapsing.

Let me know that You're near me,

Let me know Your touch,

Let me know that You love me,

And let that be enough.

It's my birthday tomorrow,

No one here could know

I was born this (Wednesday)

Twenty-two years ago

And I feel stuck watching yester-year repeating,

Yah, who am I just a kid who knows (she's) needy, 

Let me know that you hear me,

Let me know Your touch

Let me know that You love me

And let that be enough."

-Switchfoot

Couldn't be more true.

 Last week, Easter Production, this week Presence Conference, next week, I'm a camp counselor for high schoolers.  I'm really not complaining because I love being busy, if I don't have things to do I spend too much time in my room by myself looking out the window and wasting time worrying about what I will wear the next day and more importantly if I will get enough hours at Gloria Jeans to supply rent for the next two weeks.  Really, I am pretty sure the Bible talks against such unnecessary anxiety....

And so caught up in my whirlwind yesturday had to go to the bathroom so bad at the end of the sessions that I hurried out of the auditorium to the "toilets" as they are commonly called here where I leaned down to check for empty stalls and unfortuntately brought my head up a little to fast and sliced it on the edge of the tampon dispensor.  I just thought I had banged it really bad until I put my hand to the spot and brought it down to see it covered in blood.  Crap. I thought.  "Oh no, You need to go to first aid right now!"  said a little lady at the sinks.  She grabbed some toilet paper and put it too my head.  "Well, yes I probably should go, but I have to go to the bathroom first," who knows how long this could take, I thought.  I wasn't so freaked out as everyone in first aid seemed to be, but I think they just have to be super careful with head injuries and stuff.  I ended up getting two cute little sticks in the back of my head, luckily the cute wasn't deep enough that you could see my brain.  So Mom and Dad if you are wondering why there is a withdrawel from my account towards a medical clinic, this is why.

So with all this, going on I took the morning off today and decided to do some of the more neglected things in my life, like laundry.....and of course xanga.  I love all you Americans so far away, and all you non-Americans as well.  Take care friends.  Talk to you later. 

I'm sitting here listenig to "Fix You" by Coldplay thinking of all the times I heard this song. I closed my eyes for a moment and saw scenery floating by out the window of Ike, our REACH van, it looks like a movie in my mind, and I can see everyone sitting in the van with me, but everyone is in their own worlds, we are in seperate places even though so close in actually physical proximity.  

The last time I heard it, and I mean really heard it, was in a car in the parking lot of my church at home, it was always strange how me and my friend from God (as I like to refer to her), always hit those low points at the same time and we could sit there and cry about what we "lost that we couldn't replace," and really life wasn't so bad...... ....but I just turn to this....well, the emo side of me I guess, which, we all have, it just comes out more often in some than others.  But it's the kind of thing I really need to watch, because let's face it, wallowing can sort of take a hold of you and it can be kind of addicting.  Today I heard someone say that artists like to stay close enough to the place of pain so that they can draw from that creatively, this is so true, the melancoly attitude brings about beautiful works, but I wonder why God made it so it occurs this way....

I feel like I am two people sometimes, there is this incredibly extroverted me, the acting, dramatic me, and then there is this side that wants to be completely alone with my thoughts and not speak to anyone for days, and my Mr. Jekyll and Dr. Hyde are constantly at odds, but which is the real me, I haven't figured out yet.   

Tada! I am now offically an employee of Gloria Jeans, for those of you who don't know, it's a coffee shop company with franchises all over the world.  Ahhhh!  I am so excited!  This was truelly a God thing, I wanted to work in a coffee shop, but there just aren't that many around here, weird I know, right?  It's not like America, where there is a coffee shop on ever corner.  Anyways it's amazing in more ways than one because not only do I work with some friends from school, but my manager is from Cleveland, OH, (yes, an American!)  and he is a christian I assume since he came out here to go to Hillsong, met his wife and has been here ever since.....sounds like a good plan........    just kidding!  I will be coming home, I miss it too much.  It was really funny because I had been listening to him talk at orientation for a few hours and never even picked up on the fact that he had an American accent until he told me where he was from, this is probably due to the fact that I don't notice the aussie accents anymore either, although I agree with my american friend Andrea who told me, "I love listening to you talk, because I can actually understand everything you are saying!"  So true! 

You wouldn't believe the amount of miscommunications I have had because of accents.  For example, they use the phrase "full on" a lot here, but for the longest time I thought they were saying "forlorn,"  for everything they would say, "Oh, wow that's really forlorn."  Finally I asked what forlorn actually meant because I was pretty sure they didn't have the right definition, that's when I learned they were really saying, "full on."  

Every once in awhile people will imitate my accent, how offensive!  They make me should like a valley girl!  "Like, oh my gosh!"  Secretly though, I think that everyone here really wishes they were American, they think high school was just like "Saved by the Bell,"  and every other teen movie.  They know more American celebrites than I do!  No I am not putting them down in anyway, I'm not gonna lie, I want to be Australian, it just goes to prove that the grass always seems greener on the other side, but really, it's not.  Contentment, this is a forever battle, but maybe we weren't meant to be content on this world, maybe this is really as good as my life will ever be, maybe Heaven is the only thing that I can truelly expect to be better than the life I am experiencing right now.  Maybe I should stop focusing on tomorrow so much and just squeeze all the joy I can out of today.  Sorry I should like a fortune cookie again.  I'm done now.