a Friday night

If I told you I spent Friday evening in the company of some friends and some strangers, in a blacklit room smelling of BO, where would you think I spent it?

You guessed it - laser tag with the youth group. Lucky for me (and for the chance that I will ever play again), we played two rounds. The first round, I was completely hopeless. I kept forgetting to put my left hand on my gun, and was therefore frustrated when the gun wouldn't shoot. By the last few minutes, I'd finally realized this (even though we'd been told beforehand) and was starting to get the hang of it. The second round, I tagged along with Jesse, covering each other, and even shot one of the bases (although apparently not enough times to get the points... rookie mistake :) We then defended a small stretch of the upstairs with the other youth leaders. That round - where I felt more competent and remembered to hold my gun correctly - was a lot more fun.

As for everything else - it goes! We are very excited for Easter in just over a week. It will be nice to have a long weekend and a chance to celebrate. Mom's Easter package arrived this week, including a 'Reeseter Bunny' for Jesse and sugar-free peeps for me. I was ecstatic; peeps were my favorite, and I haven't been able to eat them for the past 4 Easters. (For the uninitiated, wikipedia on peeps.)

Now we're enjoying watching AFL on our new-to-us tv, which is sitting in our new-to-us tv cabinet, courtesy of friends who were remodeling. We should be going to bed... but it's fun to pretend we're not old and boring.

imposter!

No, this post is not about identity theft.

Maybe.

It's merely a brief shout-out to my fellow recent brides (or even not-so-recent, or even a couple of grooms I know of, but I digress...) who have changed their last names since being married. No one at my new place of employment knows me by my maiden name; in fact, I think I could count on one hand the number of people in this country who remember it. Even a few months after the fact, I still stare rather confusedly (word?) at my facebook page, or my work email address; I fight looking perplexed when introduced to others around the workplace. I feel like an imposter, going by this new name. Perhaps it's intensified by the fact that my husband's first name is similar to my own, so I really have taken his whole name.

Just a thought.

Oh, and tail-end funny story that has nothing to do with the rest of this post. There was a guy on the train going home the other day who was playing songs loudly on his mobile phone. Some of the other passengers and possibly a train-person asked him to quiet down, and he didn't like it. His response to their request to turn it off: "What do you think this is, America?" What indeed. Certainly, there would be a hefty punishment for such blatant noise on any train in America. [huh?] I just laughed to myself, and continued reading my book.

new job, new routine

As many of you know, I got the job I was interviewed for! It has been almost two weeks now (they called me on a Monday evening to offer me the job, and asked if I could start Tuesday at noon!), and I'm really enjoying it so far. There is still a lot to learn, but most days I'm up for the challenge :)

I've been taking the train to and from Newcastle each day, which means getting up a good 3 hours earlier than I had been (and thus going to bed much earlier each night), but is well worth it, given that we don't have to buy a car and pay for it, insurance, and registration ('rego' here), as well as gas (petrol here) and parking. That, and I can't get an Aussie license until I've been here 6 months, so I'm sure that would complicate things. But the nice thing about the train is that it takes about the same amount of time to get to Newcastle as driving would, plus I don't have to deal with driving. I've been able to do a lot of reading, which caps each end of the day off nicely. There's a short walk to and from the office, and Jesse's been dropping me off at our train station in the mornings and often picks me up at the end of the day. So I'm getting limited exercise out of the deal :)

Jesse's been helping out by doing more of the grocery shopping (or should I say, all of the grocery shopping) and we've been making dinner together, which is fun. Evening activities are quite a bit more tiring for me now, but we're continuing to monitor our schedules and make sure we still have time for 'us'.

As a brief update on my grandmother's story, things are still progressing in amazing ways in that situation. It would seem that there is redemption at every turn, and I'm watching the story unfold in anticipation to see the new ways God will use it for good.

As I settle into my new routine, I'll try to post more, but be aware that it may not happen - due to both time constraints and personal convictions about posting too much about work online. We'll see!

forgiveness

Saturday, we received word that my grandmother had been assaulted for her purse in her own driveway, in a relatively tame area within the suburbs of Syracuse.  She was taken to the hospital, held for observation overnight, and then released after satisfactory test results.  My mom was able to travel there, and all her siblings were around too, so it was good for them all to be together.  She's now home, in good spirits, and getting around ok.

They actually caught the guy who attacked her, and even recovered some of the money he'd stolen.  One of the investigators apparently called my aunt, and told her that he had said to the guy [my paraphrase, as I don't know the exact words], "that woman you assaulted, she's still in the hospital, but she wants you to know she forgives you."  Apparently, the man just broke down and cried.  Powerful.

When Jesse and I had first heard what had happened, he suggested we pray.  I was so angry, I couldn't close my eyes (an odd defiance, to be sure, but the truth).  He prayed for her health, and that something redemptive might come of the situation.  I was still quite upset.  Yes, taking food because your family's hungry is one thing, but hurting a woman for her money - that's another.  At least, in my mind it was.  By the second time we prayed together for the situation, I was able to fully participate; to truly ask for redemption to come out of the messed up event that had occurred.

As I've thought about this, I think about Jesus' words in Matthew 5.21-48, where Jesus challenges his listeners' view of the law.  Over and over, he says, "You have heard this action is wrong - but I'm saying it's your HEART that's in the wrong place"  (clearly, my paraphrase).  Where was my heart? Crying for justice, for vengeance, if I'm honest.  It was only when confronted with Grandma's forgiveness that I could begin to see the broken situation for what it was: depravity, desperation the likes of which I hadn't personally experienced.  Does it excuse this man's behavior?  Of course not.  But it goes a long way to bring my heart to where it needs to be - saddened that this happened at all.  Committed to orient myself toward God, to leaving vengeance in God's hands.  Cognizant of the ways I allow my heart to be in the wrong place, while doing "right" things.

That man you put on a cross, he wants you to know he forgives you.

de-layed

(This subject is dedicated to one of my favorite movies, The Terminal.  I won't get into why I love it so much just now.)

This update is somewhat delayed.  We attended the annual Pastors' retreat for the district, and it was a wonderful time of learning, meeting, discussing, praying, and staying up way too late with our friends (who do we think we are, college students?).  There were many good things about the conference, and we left not only feeling recharged, but also with some good ideas for how to allow our congregations to "catch the fire" (this is a reference to an obscure joke/prank I once heard about between two religion profs at HC; if you are unfamiliar with it, I will enlighten you.) and continue building up the church, through church planting and other means.  Following the conference, we spent the remaining day with friends at Koorong and hanging out at their place, then headed to Newtown for dinner with a friend from the conference we attended earlier in January and his family.  It was great to meet them, enjoy some delicious food, and relish conversation with friends.

During our time at the retreat, Jesse and I brought our mobile internet (we may only have 2G/month, but it uses the mobile phone network, so we can bring it with us places).  It was a good thing too; I had forgotten my phone charger, and received an email that one of the companies I'd  applied for would like me to come in for an interview.  Between limited cell reception and time constraints on both ends, we finally connected and I set up to go in for an interview on Thursday (yesterday).  I thought it went very well.  We will find out if they thought so too.

On the home front, we are in need of groceries (having been away through late Wednesday night) and some cleaning.  Right before we left, temperatures were so high, that we dragged the futon mattress into the living room (where the a/c is) and camped out for a couple nights.  Now, temps have been in the low 20's, with some rain, and we are enjoying the cool break (and a chance to sleep on our real, comfortable mattress).

That's about all there is with us for now.  We're relaxing until youth group tonight, with cricket on tv this afternoon.  If I'm feeling motivated (and take advantage of the cool weather), I may even tackle some of that cleaning; for now, there are au gratin potatoes in the oven (we DID have some potatoes) and I'm catching up on email.

minutiae

Aqua class yesterday was exhausting, but good.

I received a stuffed loon from my father-in-law for Christmas.  Visitors like to squeeze it so it makes its loon call, which is actually quite accurate.  Some of the visitors don't seem to believe that loons actually sound like that.  Jesse is not usually amused by the loon call.  I like it, because it reminds me of the Adirondacks.  Cool mountain air and friends at Star Lake - great times.

I like the word "minutiae" because of all the vowels at the end.  In third grade, I would try spelling my name different ways, just to see the vowels interact on the end: Jessey, Jessiey, Jessiy, etc.  My teacher made me stop, unless I wanted to be called "Jessie."

A friend emailed me today asking some questions about our wedding (planning, etc.); I wrote her back a novel and attached two substantial excel spreadsheets.  Yikes.

Our house is staying cooler, as we're turning on the ac before it gets too hot.

This post brought to you by all the "25 things" notes I've been reading on facebook. :)

a time to socialize

Since my last, semi-defeated job hunt post, I've found a couple more opportunities, which I've applied for.  We'll see what comes of those.  In weather news, it was hot today, but not crazy hot, and I was able to get two loads of laundry done.  Scintillating stuff, I know.

Friday afternoon, Jesse took me out to lunch and to see Bride Wars.  He's well aware that a movie is, in some ways, a "quick trip home," even if I never lived in NYC.  For a chick flick, it had some good character development, and wasn't completely predictable.  It provided the entertainment I desired, and it was nice to have a surprise date.  In the evening, we had the first youth group of the year, which went quite well.  Saturday, after a day of tidying up the house and relaxing, we went bowling with the young adults, plus some of their friends.  I didn't do too badly; but anyone who's ever seen me bowl knows that I didn't break any records either :)

Sunday night, we headed to Sydney and had a great time hanging out, talking, watching cricket and tennis with our gracious hosts.  Monday morning, we had a Super Bowl party with friends of a friend, which was cool - the Aussie commentators were quite interesting, as was watching our poor host (a Cardinals fan) suffer through the game.  We had pizza and snacks, but not nearly to the magnitude of Super Bowl parties past.  It's hard to eat that much when the game starts just after 10am!  After the game, we drove back home, then to a family's house for dinner and a lot of laughter. 

It's been nice to spend so many days in the company of other people.  On the way to dinner last night, I saw my first wild kangaroos; I'd seen several at the Melbourne Zoo, but never any in the wild.  That was an exciting milestone.

This evening, I'm taking a break at home.  Jesse's playing soccer, and I'm looking forward to a quiet evening of tv, laundry, and possibly some scrapbooking.  I realize that I'm typically home, and you'd think I would jump at the chance to get out of the house.  While that may be true, it's in the cool of the evening that I can actually feel motivated to  get things done - fun or otherwise - so it's nice to have the option now and then.