Finding a new routine...

Home is definitely my 'new normal' again at this point - I've caught up with most of my friends; been to church 3 times and settled back into a routine of music practice, WASC and my other old activities as well as new ones...



My weekly schedule is becoming clear, and I’m throwing myself into this IMPACT! job. It’s so exciting and I can tell I’m going to learn and grow a lot through doing this – I only hope I can do the role justice, because I’m realizing the level of responsibility involved and it’s challenging, but in a good way. At the end of last week (4th-6th January), the 4 of us that now make up the team (trained youth worker and 3 of us as interns) went away to Northern Ireland to plan and renew the vision for the next 8 months. It was a really valuable time and we grew closer as a team as well as making a lot of progress with the planning etc…






I’m still looking for another (properly paid so I can start undoing my debts to my parents caused by South Africa) part time job, but haven’t heard anything back from the places I’ve applied yet. I’m not pushing things right now because I’m doing a theology course next week so need it free really anyway!
This week has been pretty good so far – the weekend was amazing, because I had Rock Solid and the pub with everyone (including Josh who was over for the weekend) on Friday, then back at WASC on Saturday, as well as a lovely long walk with Josh and THE BEST DAY on Sunday. Was at church from 9am, to practice music and then my gorgeous Maddy got baptized. Amazing day! The worship went so well, and Mads was fantastic in her talk…




Yesterday, Maddy and I went to Oxford for a free Spa day which was also brilliant.


I’m keen to get organizing with my new IMPACT! notebook so I’ll sign off. Also, exciting news coming up re: a car for me, and ordering my new guitar. As is obvious, I’ve decided not to worry about money in the near future, or I’ll never get anywhere!

Summer 2010

I've not blogged for pretty much the whole Summer (have been very busy) so thought I'd do a little update post with summaries of what I've been up to over the last month or so...

Baptism

On the morning of 18th July, I got baptised at my lovely church (SHCF). Our family friends were here for the weekend so my Hannah got to come to see me being baptised, -she'd never been to anything like that before so was intriuged... I'd had a series of baptism classes where we worked through a booklet and also ran through the practicalities of the baptism (where I'd stand, how to bend my knees properly etc). On the morning of the 18th I woke up early and was really nervous (actually threw up because I was so scared about saying my testimony in front of everyone). I got lots of lovely cards and presents once I got to church, though, and everything went really smoothly. As soon as I'd said my testimony I felt *so* happy because now was the bit I'd been looking forward to. When I got baptised it was one of the best moments of my life - that feeling of coming up out of the water was incredible and it was amazing that so many of my friends came to support me. Maddy told me she'd never seen me look so happy as when I got out of the pool, and seeing my gorgeous Hayley get baptised as well was amazing. Thank you, Lord <3







MCYC

MCYC camp is always the highlight of my year and this camp (Seniors 2) was no disappointment. It was such an amazing week of spending time with friends, teachings, worship and fun! God really spoke to me during the week, particularly about surrender (but that's for another post!) and our team (go Nigel!) beat everyone else on the sports day tug of war with ease!







France

Literally the day after I got home from camp, I flew out to Limoges to join Hayley and her family on the second week of their holiday. It was a really great week (despite my having to do UKCAT practice) and I loved the company, the trips out and Hayley's dad's great barbequeing!





Re:act

Re:act was a series of family fun days all around my town, run by Urban Saints and YFC, and I helped out on a couple of the days. It was a great week and loads of people enjoyed the free food and activites like face painting and hair braiding. Lots of people became Christians too which was great.






Ireland

This was my family holiday this year - Mum, Dad and I went to the south-west coast of Ireland for a week (as well as stopping off for a couple of days in Dublin). It was nice to spend some time with my parents and the weather was amazing! I also got very attached to the cats at the holiday house (who I named Nugget, Bertie and Horatio!) and am sad to leave them...







(I'll update tomorrow about UKCAT and results day because this post is getting way too long!)

Lots of lovee :) xxx

A strange Summer approaches...

Yesterday, I officially finished college for Summer. For the Summer holidays! The ones that children and teenagers make thousands of plans for; the ones that you spend the rest of the year dreaming and romanticising about. The very words 'Summer holidays' bring memories of dangling out of trees giggling as a child, that delicious smell of suncream on holiday and lying in the sun with wet hair...
But somehow, I'm not really excited. I think it's partially that it hasn't really sunk in that there's no more college for months, because I keep forgetting, but a bigger part of it is my feeling apprehensive about my university application - things like the UKCAT (booked for 17th August) and the personal statement I've somehow got to cut down from 6270 characters to under 4000 while still proving myself to be more worthy than the 15+ other people fighting for exactly the same coveted place on the course.



Right now, this is my bedside table. Reading these books and doubting myself doesn't make for the best night's sleep, but it's the only way I've been able to fit it in my schedule lately - hopefully I'll have a bit more time now I'm not at college, and can avoid thinking about university stuff just before I go to sleep.

All this is a bit of a cloud hanging over the Summer I see stretching out before me, because I'll have to be doing UKCAT practice among other things so the guilt whenever I relax will remain. But that didn't stop me from having a nice end-of-year celebratory sleepover at my Maddy's last night :). We ate ice cream out of the tubs in front of a film and went to sleep relatively early, so it was nice and relaxing, and I feel quite refreshed this morning.

Tonight I have a baptism class and am meeting my lovely Hayley, Becky and Beth for a late-afternoon coffee, but I'll be doing some serious room tidying for the rest of the morning/early afternoon. So instead of daydreaming and blogging I'd better get stuck in!

Love, love, love
xxxx

Happy times!

I haven't blogged for a while, but I've been so busy! The date I'd been longing for came and went, and I officially have NO MORE EXAMS, not even general studies! Yay!

I feel very free...




...saying that, my ambitions to do medicine at university mean that I can't really relax for the next months - I have my UKCAT (UK clinical aptitude test - like an IQ test for unis to distinguish between medical candidates) booked for August so I'm busy practising the methods for answering the different questions, although it's impossible to revise for, as such.


But today is a good, good day for several other reasons:



1)Tomorrow is my 17th Birthday - how old do I feel?!
2) I'm in Bristol for the university open day, and it feels like I'm coming home almost - I lived around here until I was 8.
3)Being in Bristol means I get to meet up with my old best friend, who I love to bits!
4) Well, for the past couple of years, I've been seriously thinking about getting baptised - I wasn't christened as a baby (and my parents are athiests) so I really felt that it was the right time to make a commitment to God in front of other people. So the date was set for the 18th July, and today I decided to tell my mum about it, as I was a little hesitant about telling my parents.
So I plucked up the courage in the car today, and after a few abortive attempts (I was really nervous so the words didn't seem to want to come out) just said "Mum, I'm getting baptised on the 18th July". She was surprised, and then worried that I'd been pressured into it, but when I assured her that it was totally my decision, and explained that I was doing it because I really believe in God, consider myself a Christian and want to make a commitment she was fine with it and said she would go... Yes!

This is a picture I love, that I took in France of my beautiful Hayley and her charming brother on the swings <3



So I'm so happy at the moment, and loving life.
Hope you're well :) love love love xxx