First Day of School

So back to the life of a student.... Ahh, nothing like it. I'm already forgetting how to push the buttons. So we have survived one week of being back in the groove of studying... Well - I have studied, Reuben - not so much. You might have noticed that Reuben's first blog coincided with the beginning of "study". Interesting... Procrastinating begins. Here's some very pansy pictures of us on our first day going to college with our backpacks on. How embarassing.

After one week of greek, I've discovered that having a greek surname really hasn't helped me as much as I had hoped. Surely being married to someone with actual greek heritage in their blood would mean some greek speak would slip into my brain through osmosis. Sadly not. It's going okay, I now know a lot of fancy words like declension, article, and pronoun. Well, maybe pronoun is not so fancy.

We've just come back this weekend from the 1st year weekend away, at a place called Port Hacking. The campsites over here are awesome. Sorry, but heaps better than adelaide ones! One of the first things I saw when I walked in was a crazy looking coffee machine. No International Dirt for us! And... they have a full on waterslide. Like, this thing goes for metres! It was way too cold to use it, only the mentally unstable did this, but it was a cool feature anyway. It was a tiring, but good weekend. We got to know a lot of people a little bit, and a few people a little bit more. We got to know our first year group, who we will apparently be spending a lot of time with, and going on mission with in a short while.

Must go learn greek now.

Greek schmeek...

Man I wish i'd paid more attention during English! dative? genitive? these are the questions I'd normally ask Tamie, rather than know myself.

The reason for the title on the previous post is that my head is currently full of greek. bah! But as i've quickly found, it would be a whole lot easier if I actually knew english grammar...and i'm still searching for a decent "alphabet song" to put the greek alphabet to. It's just not the same learning an alphabet without a song.

The average nerd level in the class is quite high. Many people particuarly people who have come from doing MAP in NSW have already been learning greek (which I don't quite understand...dont they have enough 'hands-on' things for them to do?) so most people already know the stuff i'm just learning.

I'm still waiting for someone to show off by saying the greek alphabet in reverse. That will be the icing on the cake :-)

Well i should probably go and learn some vocab before we head to tea. Jodie's mum has shouted us tea out which we're really looking forward to. We're trying our second thai restaurant on king street (there are MANY of them!) called thai potong. If i remeber the camera we'll fill you in on details...


and just for interest:


Apparently this is how it all looked on papyrus... and below is the equivalent in english (with the letters in all caps and no spaces/punctuation). It was surprising actually...you can pretty easily decode the english!

Alpha, Beta, Cornetto

Today may have been one of the best days i will have in my entire life...I have often dreamed of this happening, but today it actually did!

Jodie and I were walking back from the laundromat, just about to turn onto our our street when from the back of a refrigerated delivery van...out jumped a man...who stopped us and asked did we want a box of cornettos.

Taken back by the offer and feeling the need to pinch myself to ensure that it wasn't one of said dreams i reached out and took their ice-creamy goodness in my hands. They were real and it wasn't a dream...nice!

Jodie asked why he was giving us free ice cream and apparently they had given him too many boxes to fill the order and he didn't want to have to get rid of them. Anyway, the rule is don't accept *Sweets* from strangers isn't it?!

Finally, something to do

Well things are really underway for us now. And jodie seems a whole lot happier as a result...i think me being bored was getting to her for some reason :-)

Thanks to her very efficient unpacking and arranging of our house i've had about a week and a half with very little to do except the normal touristy things. That and finding the perfect fruit and veg shop. It's been an entertaining obsession searching for that perfect combination of price, and freshness...last time i checked we'd settled on Woolworths. Looks like oligopolies are a good thing after all!

Things got better on thursday when the internet finally got switched on. Woohoo! finally something to do with my computer...

For anyone who is interested, (i like to believe that it is possible) we signed up with iiNet who have released a new product called "naked bradband". You get ADSL internet without having to pay line rental and instead you can make phone calls over the internet. I wasn't too sure what calls would be like but so far it's been great! I'd highly recommend it for it's cost effectiveness.

Anyway, enough techo talk!

Friday and Saturday also easily filled themselves with sermon preparation. I started my student minister job at St. John's Maroubra on Sunday and Jim (the Rector) got me preaching at all three services. The earliest was at 7:30! yes, 7:30!!! neither of us were particuarly impressed at getting up that early, but the service was good and the people there were just great!
Actually people at all the services were great...a really genuine and welcoming bunch.

Had lunch with Jim, his wife Bec (who is a sensational cook) and their kids. Loved it are looking forward to working for him for the next while. Reckon there will be a lot to learn from him - he's a good minster.

We finished Sunday totally exhausted but really positive about church.

Then there was today...first day of college!!

We made it there on the bus. very full and with the usual stench of B.O. will be good to get student cards on thursday. The deal is pretty good for students here - half price tickets, so will cost us about $1 each to travel. That will be 1 reasonably priced thing so far in Sydney. I think Jodie will be posting soon about some of the shocks we've had with the cost of things...

First up was a chapel service and John Woodhouse, the principal speaking on phil 2:5-11. This was the highlight of the day for me. Paul's call to his hearers and us is that we might have the same mind as Christ. as we know, the outrageous claim of this Gospel that we believe is that thinking like Christ means thinking that the essence of being like God is being a servant. And of course it's not just thinking that but living it out. I found that a great way to start...being called once again to live life without envy, jealousy, malice, divison but instead to serve and seek the good of others first for God's glory.

The rest of the day was a whole lot of orientation stuff as you'd expect. lunch was great. We get lunch provided everyday and had some great conversations around the table. Said grace at the start AND the end of the meal (don't ask!)

Day finished with an extremely boring but important (i guess) seminar on child protection..

Jodie and I both enjoyed meeting people we'll be studying with she's already found a fellow reality tv fan - Megan who i'm sure you'll be hearing more about.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully get to know people a bit better and Greek starts. 8:45 in the morning...

cheerio!