And, as Sam says on page 385 of Return of the King... "Well, I'm back" (although I haven't been off on a trip farewelling a friend who didn't really recover from a year-long trip destroying the forces of evil (that i would have went on too) and went on a very long holiday - I've just been on uni holidays which is nowhere near as traumatic, dramatic or interesting. :P)

I'm back in Newcastle! :D hooray! My room is looking like it's been cleaned up (because mum has been in it :P) and there's some new and different clothes and BRAND NEW FRESH SHEETS!!! (hehe i'm not usually too fussed about the entire personal hygiene and clean stuff thing, but i really love fresh clean sheets ;P) so now i'm sitting here with the great easy jazz cd playing "in a sentimental mood" ... mmm... and thinking about going to sleep as i kinda do need to if i'm going to be awake at church tomorrow morning :P



I think this picture summarises me playing FFX (except I usually have a human head... and my ears aren't pointy like that... *sighs - I wish :P although preferably more elvish slightly less... 'foxy'...*).




It's great to be back ;)

-- Now playing - Maire Brennan - Perfect Time

Teach me to learn your ways

Carry me under your wings

In your perfect time

I can cook! I can cook!!! In a very inspired mood, I got up at 7:30 to cook mum and dad eggie in the basket before they went to work and preemptively cook some for joel who got up (surprisingly at 8) for breakfast too... by 7:45 i was regretting waking up after going to sleep at 1, but a couple of hours of FFX fixed that before helping mum cook a massive stirfry since she needed to bring something for a lunch she was going to then cleaning up then arguing with the centrelink website then doing some washing then helping mum cook a massive amount of food since our home fellowship group from church was coming around to our place tonight then cleaning up after - stuffed is an understatement but it's a good kind of stuffed :)

Hmmm I'm becoming rather domesticated - it's all the teapot's fault, I tell you!! I never used to be concerned about anything in the kitchen until that teapot came along!!! :P

-- Now playing - Julie London - Cry Me A River

Now you say you're lonely
You cry the whole night through
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you

While I'm in an epidemiologic articly mood... this is from an article in the Australian Doctor, 4/06, sourced from BMJ 1/4/2006, 332:745...

According to researchers from the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, a new condition has been observed called "Motivational deficiency disorder" (MoDeD). Characteristics include overwhelming and debilitating apathy, and in extreme cases it can fatally reduce the motivation to breathe. The condition affects up to one in 5 Australians and is estimated to cost the Australian economy about $2.4 billion in lost productivity every year.

The researchers say that treatment for MoDeD was showing promising early results in phase II trials, which are yet to be publish. Indolebant (Strivor), a cannabinoid CBI was effective and well tolerated. "One young man who could not leave his sofa is now working as an investment adviser in Sydney", said Professor Argos. "This disorder is poorly understood," he said. "It is underdiagnosed and undertreated."

The condition (which is obviously not real) was officially created at the conference on disease-mongering in Newcastle (hey!! I was at the Royal Newcastle while that thing was on!! all I thought was hey there's lots of doctors talking around a table of ... FREE FOOD!!!). While this article was obviously written to highlight disease-mongering (and promote the conference), it's worrying that people took the BMJ April Fool's edition seriously (e.g. typing in "indolebant" into google brings up some great articles (the second one even starts bagging out pharmaceutical companies and the fictional Healthtec that produces the fictional indolebant!!):

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1604867.htm - Couch potatoes are sick, need drugs (ABC science online)

http://www.999today.com/health/news/story/2977.html - Australian scientists discover new disease

and the Chicago Tribune's article on the disease being a fake - "There is a cure for a new disease called fictionosis" (http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-0604090324apr09,1,7989646.column?coll=chi-health-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true) was a result of writer of the article sending an email to the professor who wrote the MoDeD study, and her finding out that it wasn't real!!

Thanks for clinical pharmacologist Professor David Henry for showing the world a great Aussie sense of humour :P hmmm now that I know that I'm suffering from MoDed and need treatment... where do i get my hands on this indolebant stuff.... Healthtec!! Help me out!!

Save the last email for strong bad!!!!


http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail150.html - The sesquicentennial strong bad email!!

In other news... my digital camera is out of batteries (and has been since easter) and the charger is in newcastle :( which means that i'll just have to treasure all of those fantastic sunsets from our balcony in Tamworth in my head and not share them with any of you. MWAHAHA. and it also means that i can't post a pic of my beautiful new teapot!! It even spills stuff from the base like a proper teapot and keeps your tea hot for hours!!

Mum and I went shopping today :) it's fun to shop with mum, even in Tamworth ;D and it's not fun to drive out of a carpark at sunset with peak hour traffic and a large ute blocking your view as you turn right - aaaagh! And I went and saw the dentist who is nice :) and Dr Dad gave me a flu needle :( :P at least i hopefully won't get sick again :D

Oooh time for inspector rex! Ever since they killer Moser it hasn't been the same :(

-- Now playing - Simon and Garfunkel - Old Friends/Bookends

The sounds of the city
Sifting through the trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends
Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy

How time flies... it's wednesday night on the second week of the holidays already!! After doing a very minimal amount of work these holidays, I have decided (yet again) to put my nose to the grindstone and get stuff done that is due first week back. Or I'll just be up to 1am doing my PBL on tuesday night again as usual. *sighs* :P

For the first time tonight, I've yelled "SEND IN THE CLOWNS!!!!" at spicks and specks which i recorded because the second last ep of prison break was on ;) and I WAS RIGHT!!!! (and Al was wrong!!!!) and there wasn't anyone around :( which takes the wind out of the sails somewhat but i still got it right!!! (well, i figured if i yelled out 'send in the clowns!!!' every time they started singing i was bound to get it right one day.. :P)

Agh it's 11:30 again... Dr Dad tells me to go to sleep or I shall remain coughing as i have been for the last 5 weeks - I've upgraded from Symbicort to Seretide! pink dragon!! :P

I find it ironic that the major "enemy" figure in FFX is called "Sin". After wasting so much time on that game this holidays, I've been thinking (in the time when i haven't been playing or occasionally doing something else) about what justifies me wasting so much time on the game - and there isn't much standing in favour of it... while playing it is fun and a good way to unwind, i've been playing it so much that there isn't much to unwind from! however, FFX is a really really good game and if anyone has a lot of time on their hands... :P it's great!

Jesus made the emphatic statement; "If your arm causes you to sin - cut it off!" Today, we might also say; "If your computer causes you to sin - throw it out!" "If your TV causes you to sin - unplug it." "If beer causes you to sin - quit buying it!" (http://onefamilyoutreach.com/bible/Romans/ro_06_12-23.html) - if the playstation becomes an ungodly addiction, it's going over the balcony!

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. . . . In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."—Hebrews 12:1-2, 4

-- Jeram made me feel dumb. again. (this part is in tiny print because Joyce, being a proud human, does not like being wrong or looking silly :P but appreciates it because it makes me laugh and keeps me humble :P)

-- Now playing - Idea of North - No More Blues

Up 'til now, I had tried to escape life
Jump on a plane and take off far from problems and strife
But it didn't work
'Cause problems have this habit of chasing you around
not letting go - no matter where you try
to run away to -
they will turn you round and force you to look them right in the face

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

And I now have a new 3rd favourite (as Dan so kindly reminds me Nightmare Before Christmas is still my 2nd favourite movie and LOTR is 1st that goes without question) movie. Hugo Weaving does a great job in making a Guy Fawkes mask sinister at times while blissful at others - it's incredible how much emotion can be created even without change of expression. And I guess the movie hit a soft point for me in that Evey ends up falling in love with a concept without ever seeing the man - it's like the "man" didn't even exist because after all, he was an idea - and ideas are bulletproof.

HAPPY 21st, ANNA!!

As another day closes i think i can honestly say this time, I am truly content.

-- Now playing - From the musical "Wicked" - For Good

It well may be
That we will never meet again in this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend:

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you: - because i knew you -
I have been changed for good

And so another day comes to a close.

Went to Autumn school again tonight but kinda tired so not much soaked in... had a driving lesson and i learned to look over my shoulders and turn my head around when reversing and everything that doesn't involve staring straight forward out the windscreen (scary!!!)

Watching Joel play Ratchet and Clank 3 on the PS2 maybe letting him loose on the gaming consoles this hols is not a good thing with COD:UF as well - we were going to start WoW again for 2 weeks but i've found that I've developed a certain amount of disgust regarding life in an imaginary world - escapism doesn't even cover it. While it is undeniably fun, it is also dangerously addictive... it isn't inherently evil to play mmorpgs, just like it isn't inherently evil to drink alcohol. And could those two or three or fifty hours of your life been potentially put to better use? While I don't think playing computer games is wrong, it's a fine line between having fun and making friends through/over/because of them and turning them into your life's passion that distracts you from the real life that, unlike the game, isn't infinite. (She says, as she again embarks on FF8 and 10)

Had a great thunderstorm tonight :D more 'raining' on the driving logbook - power kept jumping in and out of autumn school - brownouts! I'm glad it held off until tonight though ;) ... it's raining i'm pouring the old man is snoring :P

It's incredible it's thursday morning already!! (well 12:25am counts, surely!) and almost a week of the holidays is gone - need to get stuck into the books again!! Sleep is definitely required ;)

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you:
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

Song of Solomon 8:4

-- Now playing - Natalie Merchant - Kind and Generous

You've been so kind and generous, I don't know how you keep on giving
For your kindness I'm in debt to you
For your selflessness, my admiration
For everything you've done, you know I'm bound,
I'm bound to thank you for it....

Oh, I want to thank you for so many gifts you gave with love and tenderness,
I wanna thank you
I want to thank you for your generosity, the love and the honesty that you gave me
I want to thank you, show my gratitude, my love and my respect for you,
I wanna thank you

It's been a great Easter :)

Easter camp: @ Dave and Kathy Wark's (approx. 45? minutes out of town i.e. Tamworth), Friday to Monday, with Trinity Youth Group! It was cold and muddy and lots and lots of fun! Catching up with friends, sitting around the fire, eating lots of great food, listening to some really great talks! and it was just great to remember and celebrate that Jesus died and rose again! We had a fantastic easter camp concert (as per tradition) - which has been properly revived with another great song from the guys ;) and after 4 days of little sleep and no showers for most (but i got showers because i was sick and sleeping over at little miss "I'm getting too old be a camper so i'm coming back as a cook and i live 10 minutes drive away"'s house!) coming back home to a long sleep was good too.

Joel (my big little brother who is taller than me :( ;p) is playing Call of Duty (UF) on the laptop - gunfire resonates through the house yet again even though there isn't a LAN going on... speaking of LAN, I'm definitely going to have to organise one for the Tamworthian gaming crowd this holidays - all takers email me :P

Time for bed it is going to be a long day tomorrow...

-- Now Playing - Clannad - Farewell Love

Secrets I left behind, farewell now
A new world to desire, to desire
Change the pictures, change the pages
It matters little how I knew you

Voices of memories, I hear you
A book of stories told, stories old
Dreams of good times, dreams of sad times
And foolish moments we will always share

Má bhíonn tú liom
Bí liom, a stór mo chroí
Má bhíonn tú liom
Bí liom, a mhíle grá
Má bhíonn tú liom

the mentions that everyone deserves (or want and definitely don't deserve ;p):

Mike, Malithi and Krish are the best. and they can STOP WHINGING!! :P hehe had a great today - take home messages are: mike and malithi do best in public health when they have had 180ml of scotch each prior to class, tomato and bacon on chicken ravioli is not inedible but not the best, and do NOT look out onto the other balcony from mike's place (you guys know what i mean ;p)

Andy is the new and upcoming big thing in Australian Musical Theatre. (hehe is that good enough? :P) i thought the zip folder was going to be the midis so i had a pleasant surprise when i found zipped wmas!!! they sound really really good - my favourite's For a Moment... I get to say i know you when you become famous! :P

3 more sleeps until easter camp!!

-- Now Playing - Sum Assault - Distance

Moments always pass me by
Though I never even try
Noone ever lived a lie
We do our least resistance
We do our keep your distance

It feels like the last couple of days have been stretched out to weeks - i almost announced 'well i'm back to the blog' since i couldn't remember when i last blogged (then realised it was only 2 days ago) - it's been a bit hectic with sleep or lack thereof ;) after the assignment due in today and the test for anatomy i think i'm going to head back to the books for the rest of the term - 1 week until home and easter camp!

Random song on media player brings up enya - I've decided i really don't like enya any more... the hmm and mmm and la la la actually gets irritating instead of soothing :P how changeable the human is ;)

I hereby declare tonight 'catch up with sleep night' and waking up late this morning ;) Blood pressure tute! yay! :D

---

-- Now playing - george - Jaded

I don't want you to make me jaded
I don't want to give you the power to make me raise my voice
I don't want you to make me jaded
I don't want to give you the pleasure of seeing me cry
I just want to find a beautiful face
And remember why I am standing here
I just want to be at that beautiful place
And remember why we're standing here

How to survive moving to uni, starting a big course and life in general....

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on
your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will
make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Easter camp in.. 10 days!!!

which means.... holidays in 10 days!!!

And it's 1:15 in the morning and i'm still jumping!! :P naps are good but they mean you can't get to sleep at night... oh well ;) I'm becoming an expert at solitaire... that game is going to get chucked out the window or DELETED!!! one day when i'm in a bad mood - i can just tell...

Should probably go to bed though off to town tomorrow for a lecture and a tute and it's going to be a good day :) and the assignment's nearly done - all i need to do is get off my butt and do some work once in a while and look what happens! :D

One day i'm going to get myself organised... :)

---

-- Now Playing - Metallica with San Francisco Symphony - Nothing Else Matters

So close no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trust in who we are
And nothing else matters

Cleaning up photos on computer - look what i found!! All i need to do is photoshop evie in that gap between me and andy and we'd have a great photo of lindavala... hmm that's a pretty good idea, actually...

I managed to get most of the assignment done today... even with a 3 hour nap :P hehe

well there you go - i'm back off to church :)

---

-- Now playing - Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American (thanks, Jeram!)

I'm not alone because the TV's on, yeah
I'm not crazy 'cause I take the right pills, every day and rest

Despite best/somewhat/occasional efforts to get some work done with this weekend...

Woke up, got dressed, went out for the whole day with Mary and did a little bit of work but then got home and then went to the NCS elegant evening tonight - heaps of fun :) learnt how to salsa, waltz and some rock and roll thing, met lots of people, got to know lots of people better :) got back to uni and watched the rest of a dodgy harrison ford movie with jeram and mary...

so it was a great day, but i've managed to do achieve nothing academically with it ;) which means that tomorrow afternoon i'm going to disappear off msn and put head down and do some work!! (if anyone sees me on msn tomorrow afternoon, please remind me that i typed this!!)

Thank God for daylight savings (or lack of) - just when you need it the clock goes back an hour ;) well it's most definitely time for bed!

---

-- Now playing - Straylight Run - Mistakes we knew we were making

So we bottled and shelved all our regrets
Let them ferment and came back to our senses
Drove back home and slept a few days
Woke up and laughed at how stupid we used to be