Day 10 - A busy day

Ok, I know those of you who know me well will probably say every day of mine is a busy day, but today was particularly busy.

Tho actually reflecting on it I didn't do that much stuff, its just I was rushing around the place so much...

This morning I was down the church, and I just had so many little bits and pieces to get done. Had a few chats about different stuff with other members of staff that were in, and ended up leaving much later than I wanted to, thus making me late for my 2pm lecture, something I always try to avoid(being late for lectures not the 2pm lecture)

When I eventually got there after a long wait for a bus at the train station(no I'm not losing it by waiting for buses at train stations, the buses go from outside) I discovered that my lecture which normally consisted of 250 people, had about 20 sitting in there. It turned out our normal lecturer was away in India for some reason, and instead we were having a lecture on creating a CV. Considering we'd already had this lecture twice before, many people had decided to leave. I decided I could make better use of the time by doing some coursework in the studio, so I also left... whether this was the right thing to do or not I don't know.

Then had another lecture, which was about digital audio and was very interesting(yes really, it was), but I just missed the bus which made me late for work at the theatre. I was about half an hour late in the end, but my boss didn't seem to mind. She knows I study all the way in Hatfield and I don't have a car, so understands when I'm occasionly running late(I don't make a habit of it... well... today I did)

Show was 'Fiddler on the Roof' being put on by Kings School, a christian school in Harpenden. There was 2 of us tech'ing it and I had an easy job as all I had to do was run 1 sound effect, keep an eye on three float mics, and make sure they were safe back stage and kept all the fire exits clear.

The show was very good as well, considering it was all school kids I was very impressed.

I'm now off to bed!

Day 9... I cant drive in my new trainers!

Ok everyone, it is official, my trainers are not fit for driving. Well they probably are, but its just I find it really difficult. They have quite thick soles and it makes it really difficult to feel where your feet are on the pedals. Ok, so it was also a good excuse to explain my poor driving in my lesson today, maybe passing that test is further away than I think.

My 2 main problems are that I sometimes panic and busy junctions and I don't check my mirrors enough. Simple enough things really, and hopefully I'll overcome them before my test.

In other news I'm trying to work out where and how I can record the sound of a steam train for a piece of coursework I'm doing to do with sound for radio. All the places that do steam are so far away, and without a car I don't think I will have much joy.
If anyone has any good ideas or wants to drive me to a steam railway this weekend, then let me know.

Not sure if anyone is actually reading any of these posts, I left my blog idle for so long I think people gave up.

Hopefully someone is somewhere and whoever you are, I promise I'll try to make the posts more interesting as we go along.

Day 8... and still tired.

Ok so had 2 proper nights sleep, and still feeling sleepy after the weekend away. Normally I can return back to normal after a day or 2 after a weekend away. But then again I did only get 6 hours sleep over the whole weekend, partly due to someones snoring... I won't mention any names...

Anyway, Tuesdays is my main Uni day so was there most of the day. Had some good lectures, learnt some cool stuff, and performed a piece of music that involved reading a magazine article... following on from the bottle hooting we performed last week.

The CU are having a week of outreach this week at the Uni, seem them about with fliers and stuff. Because I still live and work in Luton its been hard for me to get a long to the CU so far, but seeing them around and doing stuff made me thing maybe I should try and make an effort.

This evening I was leading worship at my friend Andy's prayer meeting for the charity he's trying to start. The charity is being set up to do work in Africa, where Andy went out to for a year about a year and a half ago. We watched a video from Blue Peter where one of the presenters had gone out to visit some orphans. It made me realise again how much poverty some people are in, and how less fortunate they are than us. I've seen it firsthand when I went to Bosnia, and when I went to Romania last year, but its so easy to forget and get sucked into our Western Consumer world. But part of me keeps saying I should do something more to help some of these people in some way, but I'm just not sure exactly what, when, where or how.

Day 7, has it been a week!

Well I am on day 7 do that means it has been a week since I started my crusade to blog every day for a month.

This is gonna be a short one as I'm tired, still recovering from the weekend away.

Today we had a staff day at church, which I was there for most of, which involved us watching and listening to some teaching DVD's and CD's. It was really good and although I was quite tired I got a lot from them.

It made me realise tho, that I spend so much time serving in the church that I often don't make enough time to take in and its something I should make an effort to do more often.

Did a bit of jamming through some songs with Liz my boss, and was accidently late for a shift at the theatre, sometimes I wish I could just jam all day. Shift was music club which this week was a performance by a solo pianist. My responsibilities involved fading up the lights at the beginning and then fading them down again at the end. The music was good and while listening to it I read through a sound and lighting magazine.

I finished the day by buying chicken which I ate when I got home.

What more could you ask for?

Day 4.... and 5 and 6! 11-14's Weekend away

Ok so I apologise, I didn't stick to my blogging every day thing. I have a good reason tho, as this weekend I have been in Standlake Ranch just outside of Oxford with 40 11-14 year olds, having lots of fun and talking to them about the bible and Jesus and stuff.

I was hoping there would be some form of wifi network present, but being in the middle of no where it seemed these facilities were not available.

So Friday morning, we loaded up about 9 cars and a van and headed off on our adventure. I was navigator in our car and I only managed to make one wrong turn(but considering I'd been there before and I had a map, that was a bit naff really)

Friday we went for a walk right the site, started our JAM sessions(Jesus And Me, not Jam as in Toast and Jam, and not the type done with musical instruments) and had some group time together. The group times were probably my fav part of the weekend. What we did was in the JAM times the kids had a bit from the bible they had to go and read on their own, and some questions about what they read to think about. Then we would get back into our groups to have a chat about what we'd just read and thought about.

Tom and myself had the youngest group of boys, including 2 guys who don't really have a church background at all but started coming to church through the soccer fun weeks. It was a really good dynamic in the group having these guys mixed in with guys who have pretty much grown up in church. They all had some really good things to say and questions throughout the whole weekend, and I was really impressed with their approach to it all.

Other highlights to the weekend included a walk into the village, trip to the sports centre, horse riding(for watch I got to lead one of the horses and get very muddy in the process, and Tom and me having our hair and make up done(pics to follow).

Overall I think it was a great weekend away and my hope and prayer is that the kids got a lot out of it, both in terms of relationship building and learning about growing up as a Christian.

For me it was a very tiring weekend(which they always are) but it was a good kind of tired. I really enjoyed just being there, hanging out with the other leaders and kids, and trying my best to help them with their walks with God.

Day 3 - A bit late I know...

Ok so I know this is technically Friday but hey!

The reason being is that I finished work really late.

I was showing a film, which usually means you finish about 9, 9.30 at the latest. I was asked if I'd mind taking down the film when it finished, which normally takes half an hour so I thought thats fine be done by 10 can catch the 10.20 bus home.

Firstly the film went on for ages, didn't finish till 10pm. Then, whilst I was taking the film down, the film came off the platter, when i still had 5 reels to go, and its virtually impossible to get it back on when that happens. After some improvisation with glorious gaffa, and winding the film off really slowly, I eventually finished at 11.30pm!

I go away on the church 11-14's weekend away tomorrow, and my plan was to get home pack, and get an early night.

As you can see its about qurter to one, and I'm still in the middle of packing!

Roll on the weekend...

Day 2 - Romance is in the air... or not!

So Valentines Day comes round again and alas I have not yet found the one.

I didn't get any Valentines cards, but as someone else rightly pointed out today, I didn't send any so why should I expect to receive any, but i can only live in hope.

So the excitement of today, the leaders at church who commissioned me to make the DVD watched the final product this morning and apparantly they really like it (I wasn't there to hear this first hand but this is what I was told by my accomplice)

I'm glad they were pleased but more glad I've finished it as it had taken up a lot of time!

Went into Uni this morning for a lecture that lasted a little more than 45 minutes, which means I spent double the amount of time I was in the lecture in travelling there and back.

Then I returned to Luton to the church to get some bits and pieces done, ended up staying there till about 7.30pm, partly cos at one stage I locked my church keys in the church office which meant I couldn't get into any other parts of the building until my good friend Ron came down with his set of keys so we could retrieve my set. Oh what fun it was!

Then just been chilling out at home, cooked me some dinner as my bro had eaten and mum and dad are out, doing some ironing, watching TV.

So a pretty ok day as they go.

Day 1 - The Saga begins

Ok, so I could go back and tell you about everything that has happened since I last blogged properly, but that would take forever. If I have nothing exciting to talk about over the next 30 days then I might reflect on it, but for now we're going with up to date stuff.

So today I was at Uni, almost missed the bus, but luckily the driver was a friendly one and didn't drive off without me(and yes this has happened to me before)

This morning was a lecture on Logic Pro, a very powerful Audio editing and midi sequencer program. I was with it all until the last half hour of the lecture where I started to get be a lost and began day dreaming.

Anyway, this was followed by a performance lesson, for which we had to each bring in a glass bottle. In the half hour between lectures I realised I had forgotten mine, so went on a hunt through the Uni campus, only to find that they are not aloud to sell glass bottles anywhere on site!(Tho one nice bar girl told me I could probably find some in the recycling bin round the back on the Student Union) I eventually ventured to a nearby petrol station where I acquired a bottle of J20 nwhich I swiftly downed.

The lecture was quite fun. It consisted of us playing a piece of music which involved us filling our bottles with water, blowing across the top to make a sound, and gradually drinking the water so the pitch changed. Quite random I know, but it beats sitting and taking notes for an hour and a half.

This afternoons lecture was cancelled, so I returned to the church as I had a DVD to finish editing. This DVD is about our Life Groups(Small groups, cell groups, care groups, whatever you call them), and has been a little project I've been working on for the past few weeks, and I just finished about an hour ago.

Its been a good experience but editing videos takes a long time. Working it out I reckon I've spent atleast 30 hours on it over the last three weeks, and considering I only work 14 hours a week(and I have other work to do as well) its quite a lot of my time taken up.

I think I could have done it in less time, but I like to get things as good as possible, and cos I'm doing it on my old faithful laptop, it sometimes takes a while to render stuff. Anyway its done now, hopefully its what they want. I think its a bit American cheesy, but thats how they wanted so I guess I fulfilled the brief.

I'm now off to bed...

Returning to the world of blogging

Okay, I admit, I am probably the worlds worst blogger, forgive me if you can (Tom man I'm doing this for you!)

But I am attempting to make a return to the world of blogging whether this is a good or bad thing we are yet to find out.

To help me with this venture, I plan to blog everyday for the next 30 days (I remember hearing somewhere that if you do something for 30 days it becomes a habit)

I'll be honest and say this could get a bit boring by the 3rd day, but we'll see how it goes.

Some posts might be short some might be slightly shorter.

Some might be made during lectures, others might be written in staff meetings.

This will all add to the excitement!