hello out there?

Hey!

Are there people still out there there reading my blog? It would be nice to know.

Anyways... I have 2 more days of teaching left this year and then the staff christmas luncheon. I have sorta come to a point where I'm really glad that I'm finishing my teaching for the moment because these past few days/weeks have been really sucky. So that's kinda sad because it would have been nice to leave school on a brighter note.

From Car-O-Line

Get you started on Christmas

Phillip Jensen & Kel Richards - Another angle on Christmas from Audio Advice on Vimeo.

a heads up

Just letting you know that I have opened a tumblr blog and have been experimenting with it. That blog will most likely have to do with all things MTS related. So this blog shall live on another day.

From Car-O-Line

p.s: my tumblr will be released at a later date

EDIT: I decided to ditch the tumblr because it wasn't working out for me the way I wanted. My new blog is at carolinefreitag.blogspot.com :)

yucky pine nuts

I had some pine nuts in the fridge which said that they expired in may... but I didn't believe it so I ate one. And it tasted disgusting... and now I can't get the taste out of my mouth! It's so gross!!!

In other news... I met up with Cler and Chris yesterday and we read a chapter from the book 1-2-1 Discipling by Christine Dillon. It was a good read. The chapter we were reading was encouraging us to take a broader view of discipling. Often we think of it as the formal 1 hour set apart for bible reading that happens once a week. But discipling can also be about sharing your life with someone else - letting them hang around as you do the mundane tasks and see how you live Christ-like lives in everything. It sets the challenge to strive to be more like Christ in everything and then so be willing to share your life with someone else. Think about this - Jesus disciples followed him around everywhere and lived, ate and breathed with him. That time would have been so valuable for them in learning how to live God honouring lives.

From Car-O-Line

Man's authority over women?

Excerpt from: Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem

This point is often missed by evangelical feminists. They conclude that a difference in function necessarily involves a difference in essence; i.e., if men are in authority over women, then women must be inferior. The relationship between Christ and the Father shows us that this reasoning is flawed. One can possess a different function and still be equal in essence and worth. Women are equal to men in essence and in being; there is no ontological distinction, and yet they have a different function or role in church and home. Such differences do not logically imply inequality or inferiority, just as Christ’s subjection to the Father does not imply His inferiority. (pp120-121)

I find this paragraph cool. Do you?

From Car-O-Line

how to achieve zero jet lag

Howdy there!

I just got back from a 3 week visit to the United States of America. My first stop was San Francisco where I stayed with my cousin Wai Mei and her husband Lawrence. San Francisco is a really cool city and it was really easy to get around... although some of the roads were really steep! You don't want to be walking up hill... always go down hill.

Then I went to Washington DC to visit my Yee Mah (my auntie) her children and grandchildren. There is heaps to see in DC. All the museums are free and there are a lot of museums. We went to a lot and we didn't even see half of them.

So... here are my tips for achieving zero jet lag. I feel confident in giving you these tips because on the way to America I was severely jet lagged from the trip over, whereas on the trip back I'd learned my lesson and suffered from no jet lag. Here they are:

1. As soon as you get on the plane, change your watch to the time zone of your destination and eat and sleep accordingly.

2. Don't even think about what time it would be back home... this will just put you out of sync.

3. Take a neck pillow and an eye mask... this will help you to sleep when you need to.

I don't think I'm going to blog about my trip to America much more than this because it will be too much. Love to talk to you all in person and tell you all about it.

From Car-O-Line

P.S. I have photos on my facebook from the whole trip which can also give you more of an insight into my trip.

Discipline

I must admit, I'm not fantastic at discipline. At school I want to set rules and enforce them, but I also want to give a bit of leeway and be merciful. I think in the past I may have been a bit too lenient. Anyways, my year 7s had been really respectful for the first half of the year and had kept the rules so I let them have a bit more freedom. This term they have gone a bit crazy and I almost gave up on them. Though in the past two lessons I gave the class a seating plan and reiterated the rules. And it is paying off! Hooray! Discipline is important.

I'm glad I have a Father in heaven - God, who disciplines me because I am his child, he loves me and knows what is best for me. I hope I can have a well disciplined and orderly class so that they too will know that my discipline is done in love.

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." - Hebrews 12:7-11

From Car-O-Line

Food, Bible and Work

I was just thinking to myself, that ever since Masterchef stopped screening on tv, my Bible reading has been going down. Because I was so religious in watching Masterchef that I had to make the point of having Bible before Masterchef.

Anyways, I did manage to read some Bible this morning. I was reading some proverbs that were talking about work - and the repeated idea in those proverbs was that you work so that you can eat (Prov 16:26, 19:15, 20:13, 27:23-27).

So yes, it has got me thinking about work. You see next year I'll be doing MTS at my church which is very exciting. However it also makes school work at the moment less exciting. Though I need to remember that I still need to work hard and not be idle at school as this is pleasing to God (2 Thes 3:6-10). I also need to not make an idol of work, seeking the kingdom of God before career. Does that make sense?

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better times

Yesterday I had a really great day at school. I was pulling out all the rock instruments and jamming with my year 8 students. I also got to do some cool theory with my year 12s and then we celebrated by having an epic Queen sing-a-long. Such is the nature of teaching - good days and bad days. Praise God that it all seems to balance itself out.

I'm home today and have had a good day so far. I got to meet up with Anita and read the Bible together. Then I went over to Dad's place and went out to Maccas for lunch together. Then I came back home, did the laundry and read a bit more of the book A Call to Spiritual Reformation which is a totally awesome and challenging book.

Tonight I'm going to Cathedral Cross Training. I've been for the last 3 weeks and it's been really good. Philip Jensen has been giving a short talk on different issues Christians face and then there has been training time. I'm learning how to use Just for Starters to follow up a new Christian. It's proving to be a great set of studies and I look forward to be able to use them sometime.

From Car-O-Line

hard times

Why does adolescence have to be so hard for teenagers, because seriously it makes teaching them a whole lot more frustrating. So, we're up to term 3 at school and so much changed over the holidays. For example, in my year 7 class, one girl has totally changed her friendship groups and is sitting at the opposite end of the classroom as her old best friend, the boys are pretending to be 'men' by throwing things and running around. Woe is me!

On a more positive note, I think my year 8s are becoming more mature which is lovely. They have already put me through a lot of crap this year and I think they are starting to respect me more because I've been patient with them.

Won't even bother talking about my year 12s.

From Car-O-Line

p.s: sorry for the whinge, I'll try to blog about more positive things next time.

epic exercise

I have a new twitter so feel free to follow me on that: www.twitter.com/carolinefreitag

Yesterday I went for a swim, my first lap swimming in over a year. I only did 500m but it was such a good feeling. I already feel addicted to it again. I thought about going again today but I didn't want to look like a weirdo to the pool staff and thought consecutive days of swimming may be a bit much. So instead I went for an epic walk. There was a huge hill and the sun was beating down on me and I was in a sweat. But it felt good too.

After that bout of exercise, I went home. But then later I walked out to the shops again. I bought a ceramic tower heater and I've got it on now and it's working wonders. I have to say though it was pretty annoying to carry home.

At the moment I'm watching a doco called Life on ABC iView. There is some pretty amazing footage. They must have tiny tiny cameras because they've got images of a tadpole swimming in the centre of a fern which has a small amount of water. I like learning about living things (animals and plants).

From Car-O-Line

blogging

I just spent an epic amount of time catching up on reading everyone's blog. It seems to me that people write shorter blogs more frequently now instead of writing one large post a month. For me I don't think my life is that interesting at the moment to allow for short frequent posts.

By the way, I wish to dedicate this post to Elsie who is still reading my blog despite my lack of posting.

Going back to school this term turned out to be quite depressing. I had such a lovely school holidays and got to go away for a weekend with Rob, and the contrast of holidays and school was just so great. But I've now got over myself and am happy to say that I've made it through the first 2 weeks of school.

Today I had a day off but I still woke up early (6:45). It feels good to have all this time in the morning. I cleaned up the study so that I can actually use the desk. It's quite a nice bright room too and it beats sitting on the couch with the laptop on my lap. It'll be better for my back too.

I don't know what else to blog so I think I'll just finish here.

From Car-O-Line

Recommendations

Wow, I haven't posted anything on here for ages. Truth is... I don't really know what to be blogging about. I feel I've exhausted the topics of early marriage and the beginnings of a teaching career. But I thought about something to blog about today - YAY! I'd like to make some recommendations:

I would like to recommend "The Pilgrim's Podcast." Search it in iTunes or on Google and you'll find it. Basically it's two Christian guys who have a 30-40 minute chat with another Christian person about stuff. And it's really good! I'm not the kind of person who is good at listening to online talks or podcasts (I start staring out the window and lose concentration) but these 'chats' are really interesting and funny. I recently listened to them interviewing Andrew Thorburn (about SRE vs Ethics, as well as church planting), Col Marshall (about the book 'The Trellis and the Vine" as well as discipleship) and Steve Chong (about his church Kirkplace as well as how he encourages ministry in his congregation). From listening to those podcasts, I've been reminded about the importance of deep relationships in discipling as well as the importance of keep the Word central. You should go have a listen for yourselves. There are lots of different topics on offer.

I've also started reading te book "A call to spiritual reformation" by DA Carson. Rob has been bugging me for ages to read this book and I've finally started. And now I can see why he has been so excited about it. It's a really helpful read on how to pray. It looks at a few of Paul's prayers to see what were his priorities and motivations for his prayers. I tell you what... Paul is just an awesome person. God truly blessed him. I have to say though that reading this book is not always comfortable, as it often challenges me about my own prayers, what I pray for and what I don't pray for. But lets not get all depressed here... just read the book and put it into practise!

Now I don't know if this recommendation is worthy but hear me out, I've gone mental over MasterChef. Yes the show is great and I don't know why I love it so much but I'm a big fan. So much so that I realised that maybe I was starting to make it an idol in my life. So here's my recommendation - Bible before MasterChef. That is, now I'm making it a priority to read my Bible before MasterChef. It's a good thing to do.

From Car-O-Line

Holiday Projects

So this holidays I've had two major projects going on. I found a dress pattern online that I wanted to make, and I set up a fish tank.

The Dress:
Here is the dress pattern, and here are my results. I still have to do the hemming and a few zig-zag stitches but it's pretty much done!




The Tank:
I got this fish tank from a friend and I've set it up ready for fish. Left the tank to settle for two weeks and today I went and bought the fishies! I got a ryukin which is the orange one - and I decided to name it 'Orange.' I also got a black moor which is the black one - and I let Rob pick the name for it. He's called it 'Scrambles the death dealer' which is a reference to Metalocalypse (some crazy heavy metal cartoon). Here's a video!

Now I just have to get some school work done.

From Car-O-Line