Day 395: Commitments

Sundays tend to be one of the best days of the week. Today was no exception. Last night before I went to sleep, I got a message from one of my leaders asking if I could pull a last minute rescue for the TV crew since they were shot on people. So naturally, I accepted. I couldn't ever really turn down an opportunity to work on TV, so it was awesome to do that. I then served with choir, which was so much fun doing again; it's nice to be back in action like this. After the service, I went to pick up a cable to connect my camera to my computer; the reason why is because I recently got a 30 day trial for a stop motion program. It took a good 20 minutes to put a two second video together, but seeing how simple the program makes the process makes me want to strongly consider getting the full program. The evening service was awesome too; we got to hear from Sanga (always a blessing, this guy), and all the college students got prayed over. This is just the beginning of the week, but I can't wait to see how it unfolds.

God bless,
Steven

Day 394: Dr. Seuss's Lair

This day was awesome!! It started late due to sleeping in, but once I was out of bed, things got rolling. I just relaxed through most of the afternoon, and around 4:15 I headed to church to help with the evening service. I was asked by my friend Hanna to sub for her since she was at the Powerhouse Retreat; I'm nothing if I'm not flexible. This time, I got to reacquaint myself with the prez desk; to be honest, it's not necessarily my favorite responsibility in the studio, but someone's gotta do it. I pretty much had a crash course on how to operate prez, and fortunately I was trained by Rob and James, two of the best in the crew. The service was very good; Julia A'Bell gave a fantastic message on selfless living. TV is becoming more natural to me now that I'm getting more involved; I definitely stoked to see what gets accomplished this semester. When I got home, I found this massive fort constructed in my living room; turns out the guys finally got the chance to do what we wanted to do in 223. We were messaged by our friends Katherine and Caitlin that they wanted to have a big dinner with us (Caitlin is my roommate Michael's girlfriend, and Katherine is one of our good friends that finished college last semester. They actually made dinner for us, and we ate in the fort while watching Louie Giglio's Indescribable. It reminded me of when Alison and Becca would make dinner with us, so it's like nothing really changed. Boy, do I miss my mom's cooking...

God bless,
Steven

Day 393: From Rookie To Not Rookie

Right now, a lot of people from college are currently at the Powerhouse Retreat, a 3 day thing far from Sydney where we get another opportunity to have a full out God encounter. Things is, Powerhouse and I haven't really gotten along for the past year, and based on the testimonies I got from friends about last year's PH Retreat, I figured I would be better off not going. So I didn't; benefits did come of this though. For one, I got to be one of the last people to say goodbye to my friend Celeste, who is on her way back to Texas for only God knows how long. We all fought the urge to get all teary-eyed, and fortunately we succeeded. In all seriousness, Celeste was one of my best friends in college; we helped each other out in so many ways we were practically brother and sister. That's my favorite part of this college; it isn't just a studying environment, but more of a family environment. Especially here in the city campus, being so close to one another makes it so easy to build strong, lasting relationships with people; I could go to every building here in the Meritons and visit a friend of some sort. Now that second year is here, we see how many of our friends from last year have gone forward in their lives, and those of us that remain have the opportunity of building our friendships even further. Today, Donny and I got to help out a new student, a South African named Josh. He's in the same situation I was in last year, where everyone in my flat went to the retreat and I was alone in an unfamiliar place with no one to hang out with. I refused to let that happen to him, so we took him out for lunch and walked around the area to help him get familiar with Sydney. He's a cool guy, and I hope this year will be as much of a blessing as it was for me; one thing us veterans have noticed is that this new intake of students are considerably younger. Many of them are straight out of high school, so their young mentality shows in the way they act around here; so far, I've heard at least 4 people in the Meritons tell the kids to be quiet when they're out in the courtyard making noise while people are trying to sleep. I know I wasn't THAT loud a year ago, but I understand the situation completely. All I know is that I need to start filming, and soon. College News won't put itself together.

God bless,
Steven

Day 392: Game Time, or TV Time

Today marked the first real school day of my second year of college. It started at 5:30, since our rehearsal time was 6:15; as a result of that, I am very tired as I'm typing this blog. The rehearsal went alright; there were a couple delays, but we kept it together on time anyway (at least TV was ready; the others, not so sure). TV had such a strong team today; we even got help from our old leaders, Logan and Vanessa! Our first session was awesome; we got to hear from our college vice president, Mark Hopkins, as he gave an intro to college life for the new students. The other sessions featured Julia A'Bell and Catrina Henderson, our principal; it's awesome how God put such an amazing team together in this church. Every single leader in the church is an expert at what they do, so naturally we can consider it an honor to be taught by them. The rest of the day was dedicated to my dear friend Celeste; this was her last night in Australia (at least until she can have enough funds to come back), and thank God she had a blast. we invited a bunch of her closest friends to come and celebrate her time here in HILC, and we all hung out and munched on all kinds of snacks while listening to music. I found this day to be an awesome one; the next two should be interesting, since most of the college is away at the Powerhouse Retreat. Ah, the memories...

God bless,
Steven

Day 391: Team Building Missions

I'm a bit concerned about how my inner nerd can break out on occasion. I don't mind it, since some of the best parts of my life growing up were consumed by nerd-dom, but I wonder if that affects the way people see me. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but one can still wonder. Take today for example; the nerd I know I can be truly shined today. I found myself reliving the glory days filled with comic books, video games, and music that no one around me listens to; but it's these kinds of days that make me appreciate what I've been through to be here at this present day and age. Checking my email I received a newsletter update from Marvel, since I signed up for it way back when I was all about Marvel comics. They were advertising some big Fantastic Four news in an upcoming series, but what really got my attention was something I had a small phase of a while back: wallpapers. Instead of trying to describe them, I'll just post them to see for yourself:



You gotta admit, this looks pretty darn awesome. I love how these superheroes that have been around for decades are getting a proper introduction to the rest of the non-comic book reading world.



Josh and I want to plan an event where we get as many Americans as possible to invade the local movie theater to watch Captain America: The First Avenger while wearing red, white, and blue; seems like a good plan to me. But until then, I only have to wait a few months before this one is unleashed:



It should be great. The afternoon, as much as I hate to say it, was consumed by something called Phantasy Star Online; Donny, Josh, Kappa, and myself went through an entire four player game from beginning to end; fortunately our gaming skills made it possible. I know that seems like a waste of time, but I found it to be something memorable; if anything, it showed me what connections I have to people in college. Sure, lots of people went out to the beach or in the city; but we enjoyed just hanging out in a living room sharing laughs and incredible game experience while trying to complete these massive quests across many worlds. We celebrated by having a rather large dinner (since it's actually Australia Day, similar to the 4th of July) and watching a few movie classics. This was our last real day of vacation; kind of glad it got to end with a bang.

God bless,
Steven

Day 390: Enrollment 2011

This morning was one that gave a little deja vu to my brain. Last year, I went through this incredibly long process of enrolling into college; from payment, to student ID, fieldwork, accommodation, and eventually enrollment, I was there for quite a while until everything was settled. This year was surprisingly shorter; the only thing that took a while was the line for getting in. Because God provided the money to cover my first semester, I didn't have to go through the payment section which was the longest line the whole morning. I was pretty much done within 15 minutes, so it was relieving. In the afternoon I went with Celeste to Eastgardens so she could get a couple things taken care of; I just realized I haven't mentioned that here. My good friend Celeste will be heading back to Texas on Friday because of financial struggle; probably the roughest news I've heard in Australia so far. God's in control though, so we know she's coming back soon. Tonight, we had connect group with our new group leader Damien (to whom I credit recommending the 50mm lens for my camera). We pretty much just had a barbecue/farewell party for one of our good friends, Bart. Bart came from the Netherlands to intern in Australia for two months, so now he will be returning home; he's a really cool guy, and I'm glad I got to know him. After connect, Donny, Josh, and I went out for a "flat walk", just walking through Moore Park and talking about life and other silly things; I seriously couldn't imagine college life without them. I feel so blessed to have them as flatmates, and with our new flatmate Michael, things are even better. I'm telling you, this year is going to be good!

God bless,
Steven

Day 389: Good Friends, Good Pizza

To be honest, I had things planned for today, but I just didn't do many of them. However, did pick up a couple shirts I ordered before my break; very pleased with them. I remembered that Threadless has this deal that if you take pictures of you with your shirts, each picture goes towards store credit. I'll probably being doing that sometime soon, but we'll see. It's really cool seeing so many new students around, but I feel like I won't be connecting with many of them. That doesn't bother me though, so it's all good.

God bless,
Steven