I'm changing...

Hello!!! It has been a very long time since I posted. How sad for you all. It turns out that I have lots of free time today so I'm going to write about things.

Last weekend Rob and I had our pre-wedding photo shoot with Linda. It was an awesome fun time. Linda is very funny. And I don't really know why. She just makes me laugh a lot. Hello Linda if you are reading this :) - are you going to blog about me too? I hope so.

Other wedding planning stuff is boring and isn't going away yet. Oh well. I'm still very excited about the wedding and having a break from work and being able to settle into a new home. I was talking with Chris and she was asking me how I coped with change... because she said she doesn't cope with change well... and I'll be going through a lot of change. To tell you the truth, I haven't had to deal with much significant change throughout my life... so it will be interesting to see how I do cope with change. Please pray that all the big changes that are about to happen for me wont be too traumatic and that I'll cope well. Gotta keep on trusting in God - he's the best!

You may notice that I changed my blog header to a fully sick graffiti picture of my blog name. This is because I've been working down in the south west hood and I'm full gangsta now. But seriously... the kids at school showed me this website that changed any text to graffiti which is fun to play with. I'm getting used to it there... but it's not fun being the pleb casual teacher... so often I get put on to do the very annoying jobs. Work is toil.

In other news though... today I took a sick day from the south west and took a casual day at a local selective girls high school. OMGOSH it was such a change!!! The girls were actually self motivated and did all the work! And they knew stuff about music and were able to compose! And the teacher left actual work for me to teach to the classes (I took the music classes). It was pretty awesome. There were times when the girls were getting chatty... but they were actually discussing the work! THEY WERE DISCUSSING THE WORK!!! Such a culture shock. Hooray for now being in the school's casual teacher book... hopefully I'll get work in the future.

Tomorrow I'm picking up my wedding dress which is exciting. EXCITING! (I'm so excitable today... is that a proper grammatical sentence?)

Rob has been doing up our new place and now we have quite a good amount of furniture. So it's looking very homey and nice. Feels like you could live in it. Only 4 weeks to go! :O

Well I wont bore you any longer.

From Car-O-Line

Quick Post

I've only got 15 minutes until I go to a 6 hour child protection training course so I must be quick.

I've been teaching at a school since week 5 of this term. It's a temporary position for a full time music teacher. So I've been teaching a lot of music. I like teaching, although, because I'm the temporary teacher I don't really get to teach what I want to teach. So sometimes I have to think really hard about how to teach something (like Indian music or HipHop or Rock). Every now and then I try to slip in some 19th Century music or Opera. Also because I'm a temporary, it's taken me a while to get a hold on some of the kids. It's pretty ok now... still about 2 classes who are just really disrespectful... and it's not nice to be disrespected. So that's a little frustrating. But anyways, next week is my last week there.

Wedding planning has been going smoothly too. We have bridesmaid dresses!

Not much else has been happening besides school. I've been reading Genesis, Proverbs and Luke. Genesis just keeps on reminding me that we are sinful but God is loving and faithful. Proverbs has some really funny things in it - but it also reminds me how much I need wisdom (especially as I teach in school). Luke has been a very exciting book to read. Jesus is a very surprising person.

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heat wave

It is really really hot! Just thought I'd point out the obvious.

Did you know:
-Wedding dresses can take up to 6 months to make
-The cost of buying a suit is only slightly higher than the cost of hiring a suit
-You can receive a discount if you have a reception in winter. You also receive a discount if you have a reception in January

I'm all full of exciting information and insightful insights today.

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news

It's been a while. So here is some news.

-I'm still unemployed but just recently had two interviews. Just waiting for some casual days to pop up too.
-I'm engaged to Rob :)
-Being engaged is kinda hectic because there is so much to plan and so many people to have to keep happy... but it's not too bad.

That's all from me. When there is more news to share I will. And hopefully my next post will be a bit more interesting.

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Gypsies and Birthdays

Woo! Here are some pics from Jazz in the Domain (17/01/09). It was an awesome night of gypsy jazz music. I totally loved it. I love the thick brass sound and rhythmic energy. Check out www.myspace.com/dochgypsydance and www.myspace.com/fanfareciocarlia for a sample of what gypsy jazz is.






Yesterday was mum's birthday. So last night we had a party with people from her Bible study group. It was a heaps fun time. We ate lots of food and talked. Those ladies are so funny (and a bit cheeky at times). They got me to read out these jokes about senior citizens which were hilarious.






Today I decided to get back into the music culture thing... so I did some score reading of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Awesome piece of music. I'm into opera at the moment. I'm still a little sad I wont be able to go to Opera in the Domain.

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My Titanic Moment

I love Dee Why beach. I went there yesterday and last Sunday. The water there is so blue and clear. And you can walk in 3 metres and the water is up to your shoulders already. A great beach for swimming. The waves are also a decent size and you can ride them. I rode a few waves and it's such an awesome feeling. You feel like you're flying on a cloud of whitewash water. It was a bit like a Titanic moment LOL.

A few music teacher jobs have recently popped up so I've been applying for them. One of them is for a private school and one is for a new government school. I'm still all for public education so hopefully I'll hear something soon.

I just finished reading the book of Zechariah using The Daily Reading Bible. Zechariah can be quite confusing at times. There is a lot of unusual imagery and lots of "he said: "thus he said..."" But I got through it. I think one of the overriding messages of Zechariah is that God is bringing his Kingdom and he wants you to draw near to him. One thing cool about reading Zechariah in light of the New Testament is that we see that Jesus brings about the Kingdom. So there is cause for much rejoicing. Heaps of Zechariah is quoted in the Gospels. In Zechariah you see God as loving, merciful, jealous, wrathful... it's jam packed and you should read it!!!

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P.S.: I have photos from Jazz in the Domain which was awesome! I'll blog about it next time.

photos for the week

Today is an extremely hot day. I didn't open any curtains or windows at all in attempt to keep the heat on the outside... but it's still hot. I went for a swim this morning... did 1km. The pool was busy. Heaps of people escaping the heat (yet it is an indoor heated pool ).

Photo time:

Scared Jet with the flash... he's still doing good

My desk!!! Can you tell that I cleaned it?

My new laptop stand... need to get a keyboard to plug into it.

All my folders with units of works and resources... I just need a shelf that will fit them all now.

About a month ago I bought material to make a dress known as the infinity dress. The pattern looked so easy and the dress looked nice... so I bought material in haste. Yet I only ended up making it today. It was very very quick to make! Probably only 2 hours. There were a few fiddley bits... so next time I'll know what to do for an even better product. But I'm still pretty happy with it.



Same dress... different ways to wear it :O It's cool!!!

From Car-O-Line

buying, fishing, relaxing, reading, writing...

I have spent a lot of money post-Christmas. I think I have a slight obsession with receiving packages in the mail/deliveries. I bought this awesome cake pan and a laptop stand off ebay. I've also bought clothes. And I bought a whole stack of folders and stationary to organise all my music resources. I'll post pictures sometime.

Update on Jettison... he's doing fine and swims around happily in his bowl. I've been spending a lot of time on the internet researching Betta Splendens. I've worked out a way of easily cleaning Jet's bowl whilst not disturbing him too much which is good. I'm hoping to video him (it'll be easier than taking a still photo) and then I'll upload it for you guys to see.

So far in my holidays... I've been to Muswellbrook to visit family with my parents and Rob for two days which was nice and relaxing. Had quite a bit of chill time at home. Spent a week away at Naomi's new place near Coffs Harbour - went to the beach and other general relaxing.

Two of my friends had engagement parties last weekend. They were fun and it was especially nice to catch up with high school friends.

I read the first two books in the Twilight series. I'm hooked. I wanna read more!!! I saw the movie too and I liked it (though the book was heaps better). I also saw High School Musical 3 and was surprisedly surprised at how good it was. It was awesome in fact!!!

I am currently reading through Zechariah and it's been a little tough and hard to understand... but where I'm up to now... it's a little clearer. Some of the visions in the earlier chapters of the book are just plain confusing! But as a whole... the book has a lot to say about Jesus... so that has been cool.

I'm also reading Prayer and the Voice of God. It is a very easy book to read and quite succinct. If you are having difficulties with prayer... I recommend this book. It has given me a new-found love for prayer and motivation to pray more.

This week I started writing "units of work" for my future music teaching. I've written units on 'the concepts of music,' 'instruments of the orchestra,' classical period, baroque period, romantic period, jazz and world music (some didn't take long to write though because I had models already for them). So hopefully I'll hear about a job soon. It's pretty annoying just waiting for the department to call me and tell me. I tried to call them the other day but the lines were busy so I had to leave a message. No doubt they are busy busy busy organising stuff before school resumes.

Holidays have been good so far. I better make the most of them. Swimming tomorrow :)

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New member to my family

Introducing Jettison (Jet) Finn Barker. My early Christmas present from Cler. It's a Siamese Fighter fish and from my research I think it is a crown-tail breed (or possibly delta). It has beautiful colours and it is very difficult to take a picture of him. But here are my poor attempts anyways:

He's blue and red... and has a sometimes shiny silver colour.

Keep still I'm trying to take a photo!!!

Oooo nice silhouette.

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lets go fly a kite

Yesterday on the 20/12 I went to Newport Beach with the young adults from church. We had a fun day of making sand castles, flying kites and swimming. The kite flying was an awesome idea (thanks to me). It's a wonder how something so simple and cheap can give so much enjoyment and fun. And all you do is hold a string and look up into the sky. Anyways... I'm on a photo-taking roll so here are some pictures for your enjoyment:

The sand castle that we made together. I made the awesome footbridge first... then we decided to turn it into a moat... so then it was only natural for us to build the castle in the middle.

Look at the kite!!! I was fortunate enough to get this image with the kite flyer and the kite in the same photo... afterwards the kite was so high that they couldn't fit both flyer and kite in the same picture.

It was a lovely day for kite flying. Lots of wind and a lovely blue sky.

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