They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!

Ha! Love it.

Friendly Friends.

I like having friends, I've discovered.
I've always sort of had friends, I guess, but only recently have I had any real friends.
I've usually been one of the favourites in my friendship groups, I hope I don't sound like I'm bragging or anything, that's just the way it normally is/was. But even though I was the 'favourite', my friends never really cared about me, and loved me. I mean, they'd say they did, but I never really felt it.

Just recently, as in late last year/early this year, have I had any friends who are of great value to me, and treat me like I'm of great value to them. I've always wanted friends like this. Always. And I always wondered why I didn't have fantastic friends, why my friends didn't mean everything to me like they meant everything to other people.
I still don't know the answer to that question.

Having friends who love you is pretty much one of the best things in the world.

The other day, for example, was a time when I felt loved; I'd missed youth on Friday because of Veta camp, and on Sunday night at church, more people than I'd expected commented on how they'd missed me on Friday, and how it was weird that I wasn't there. I know they were just words, but they were said with meaning, and they meant a lot to me.
"Wow, people actually missed me!" I've never had that feeling before.

I've always been really shy, and quiet. I think I assumed that my presence just always goes unnoticed... apparently not so.


One of the strange things is as well, that I don't know if I'd consider myself to be close friends with a lot of these people. That might just be me beating myself up and saying that 'they don't really like you that much', but I don't know them a whole lot... and still, some of the friends and acquaintances I've made recently are the best friends I've ever had.

Music

Hmm..... nothing to really blog about, so here are some bands I've been getting into lately:

Lazy Susan
Damien Rice
Thank you, Chongy

Phoenix
Imogen Heap
Frou Frou
Brooke Frasier
Thank you, Taylor Twins

Hmm... So you should really get into it. Whoever you are.

Also I still love Sufjan Stevens, & Switchfoot & Muse & etc...
I really want Switchfoot's new album, Oh! Gavity.

Doo doo.
END.

VETAMORPHUS.
You should all do VETAMORPHUS.
Even though, if you're reading this, the chances are you have already done Veta, as the only people who really even know about my blog are old VETArans.

Ha. I'm awesome.

Anyway, I went on Veta retreat 1. last weekend, and it was good.
The part I thought was the best was actually the bible study of the genealogy of Jesus, which I thought would be boring.
I don't read my bible much, which may be strange considering I'm a 'Christian kid' but it just never really appealed to me, and then I felt bad because at church people would blab on about how reading the bible is essential and blah blah blah.
That's all well and good, I know reading the bible is good, and when I'd feel bad, I'd beat myself up and make stupid promises, like 'I'll read my bible 10 minutes every day.'

Unless you are good at keeping those sorts of promises, don't make them. You just feel bad later.

Anyway, I think the reason I hardly ever read my bible is because I don't know how! Did they teach me in kid's church? No. How about in youth? Maybe, but I don't remember, and there was nothing extensive. Connect groups? Hardly, maybe had the most of the three and still had scarcely anything.

I think there are a lot of Christians out there who don't know how to read the bible. Because no one teaches us. Maybe that's something I should talk to my youth leader about.

Well, we looked deep into the genealogy of Jesus and got so much more out of it than I ever thought we could. I really had no idea that you could look at the bible like that and get so much out of it.
I still don't know exactly how to read the bible, but I expect I'll learn a little from VETAMORPHUS. Coolies.

The part of the camp that wasn't so good was the fact that I didn't know anybody. I knew Digger though, so that was fun.
But everybody seemed to come from the same church or school, and their peer groups had started three weeks before, whereas my group only stared the Wednesday before the camp.
But everyone had their own little clique, and if you joined in their group discussion they talked about stuff back home, that you didn't know about.

I just hate that left out feeling, and feeling awkward standing around seeing the groups of people talk away. It doesn't help that a lot of the other people are loud personalities and I'm extremely shy in situations where I don't know people.
Although one girl, Kristy, saw me one time when I was by myself and asked me if I wanted to join them, so that was nice, she didn't really know anyone either.

Highlights of camp:
1. First bible study.
2. The other sessions were good as well. I like sessions. I'm a sessiony sort of person. I wish teachers were as passionate as the people on camp.
3. The beach. Love the beach. Went swimming in my clothes.
4. Listening to Switchfoot on... Sam's? iPod. (I had a song stuck in my head and I was annoyed that I wasn't going to hear it on the weekend, then I did, and t was satisfying.)
5. Using initiative! I asked Cheryl if they need more singers for worship which they did, so I joined and that was fun.

'The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.'

I read this yesterday in a little lame joke/quote book I have.
What would you actually do if you knew you would never be found out?
What would would you do if you knew you could never be found out by God?

As impossible as that is, it's a scary thought, and I really have no idea what I would do, but I wonder what I would be capable of. I'm generally a follow-the-rules person as a principle, but would my morals stand by me if I knew no one would ever find out what I'd done? Would I still carry the guilt, the shame, if I'd done something terrible?

I'd like to think that I wouldn't do something terrible, but the truth is, I really don't know.

Post Mission Blues.

Well, I might have figured it out.
The reason I got Post Mission Blues so bad this year is because I had nothing to go home to.
Sure there was youth, but that's once a week, and school is a downside, not an upside.
When I think about the changes in my life recently, the only reason I didn't want to leave beach mission so much, besides all the great people and kids/teens/families, is because I didn't want to go back home.

I really hate being at home, more than anything right now.
So much so that sometimes I refer to it as 'house' rather than 'home'.
I dread being at home.
It wouldn't be so bad if I could go somewhere to escape, but there's nowhere to go. My bedroom is the size of a box, and I have the privacy of a flea...as unrelated as fleas are...I just wanted to write flea...can we all move on? Good.
I can't drive either. Well, I can, but not by myself.

Anyway, I feel slightly better, to have figured out the deep, dark root of my PMB, but also feel slightly worse to face the fact that I hate it here.

Begin to hope...

The Sword is Mightier than the Pen

Haha, I made this movie last year when I was bored, and my media teacher thought it was awesome!
He's only slightly delusional, but hey, what can you do?

Would you rather be able to turn invisible, or be able to fly?

I would definitely rather be able to fly.
While I would love to be able to turn invisible and do all sorts of cool things, I think I would end up in a big mess, I would abuse the power.
I was talking about that to someone who'd rather be able to turn invisible than fly, and they said "Yeah, it's not such a big problem for me 'cause I'm not a Christian."
I was talking to him again later, and he said that if you ever want to reach out to someone who's not a Christian, don't call them 'un-saved'. He's been to his sister's youth group a few times, and when he'd talk to people they'd say things like "Oh, so you're unsaved."
What the hell? It just turned him right off, as I'm sure it would turn off anyone who wasn't a Christian.
How would a Christian feel walking into a group of 'un-saved' people if they all said "Oh, so you're a Christian."?
I would hate it.
People are making too much of an 'us and them' of Christians and non Christians, and it's the opposite of effective.

Umm, I forgive you?

Dang, I hate it when I'm around people who know I'm a Christian, and they apologize to me for everything they do wrong and every time they swear.
It's as if they've some how offended me, or they feel like I think they're below me.
I don't. At all.
I really don't care if someone swears around me, I'd rather people be themselves than feel like they have to tip toe around me.
I'm a Christian because I believe in God, and the birth, death, resurrection and all that jazz of Jesus, bad words don't really come into my relationship with God.
And I don't feel like I'm above other people just because I believe in God. Not at all.

The thing is, I never tell people off when they swear around me, so why do they feel like they have to apologize?

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... sorry, just felt like typing with this little toy, plastic axe that no one seems to know the origin of...

Anyway, why do they feel like they have to apologize?
I hate how Christians are just put into a tight-ass group by society.
People who put us into groups sometimes annoy me, but not nearly as much as the people who are stereotypical Christians, the people who give everyone else another reason to hate God, even though they themselves claim to love God.
You know the ones?
They ARE judgmental, and they think their way is the best way, and they get uptight about the most stupid things, like Harry Potter, or swearing, which brings me back to the fact that it's these sort of people who put us into these categories, and make others feel like they have to apologize to us...

What an original title.

So, this is my fist blog, not ever, but my first here.
Maybe it's obvious that this is my first blog, but anyway...
I don't know why I'm writing a blog, o why I don't just use MySpace.
I suppose, because I don't really know anyone on here, I don't have to write my blog for them. I do anyway, so what's the point? I always write my blogs for other people. Okay, maybe not specifically for other people, but I always write it based on what others with think. I don't lie, but I'm probably not being exactly true, because I always edit things out to sound like the person I want to be.

I even do this in my journal, I write things down, but I'm always conscious of what people would think reading it, so I write things based on that.
I'm even doing it now. Yes, right this very second. I'm writing this based on how it makes YOU think of me.

Sometimes even my thought patterns are like that. Gosh, how the hell do I make it stop?