Everything changes but you...

So........what interesting things have happened in the last 10 days? Erm..................

Actually one of the most fun things I did was sort out my sister's brithday present, but unfortunately I can't elaborate until after she gets it, in case she reads this first. What has been fun thouhg, was going diving. After months of trying I've finally infiltrated the university dive club, and 20 of us went out to Loch Long on sunday. Man it was cold. Very very very cold. water temperature was 8 degrees, and once you were out, I had to sit in this tiny boat for 45 minutes whilst some others did their dive and then freeze to death on the 20 minute ride back to shore. But it was soooo much fun! I hadn't been in the water since November, so this was offically the start of the season for me. A fantastic day.

In other news, I booked a very cheap last minute snowboarding holiday for a week in April. So, for me and my buddy Tim, Tignes here we come!!

Is that a saxophone?

Tuesday night, I finally realised a dream I've had since I moved up to Edinburgh. I went to a club. Don't get me wrong, I've had nights out and stuff, but I've not had one involving a club. So after months of trying I found a load of people (who coincidentally happend to be all girls) and went down to Motherfunk, a night involving all things funk.

What I particularly like about Scotland is the late lisencing laws. None of this pansy 11pm last orders and 2am club closing times, no! We can go on until 3 and beyond! I had so much fun it was unbelievable. Those of you who know me will know I don't like dancing, yet I managed a whole 2 hours straight! And then, after returning home at 3 I got to relieve that cherished student memory, and had to get up at 8 and go to work.

Apologies for the lack of interesting posts. I'm going to work harder on my imagination....

Let it sleet

Like most of the country there has been lots and lots and lots of snow here over the last few days. Lots of it. So, beacuse the last few weeks have been so hectic, I was granted a day off to go snowboarding. The Scotish slopes haven't looked this good in the last 5 years, and the forcast was for clear skies.....except I couldn't find anyone to go with me. Gutted. I nearly got to go ice climbing instead, but there wasn't enough time to hire the gear.

So instead, I got a comparative lie in this morning, and went to see Sideways this afternoon. Apparently it's won 2 Golden Globes. Not a bad film in any sense, very much like About Schmidt and gets 1 thumbs up from me (not 2).And now I'm just getting bored. You know you've got a great job when you get bored on a day off (or, you know you're just a boring person with no friends and nothing to do).

And for those of you who thought I was as cultural as a neolithic infant, yesterday I went to see the Andy Warhol at the Modern Art gallery. Very intersting and very wierd. Haven't worked out if I liked it yet, but I did enjoy the felling of well being I got in knowing that I can fit in with the people from New Town a little better now.

Art. It's great (maybe)

Despite the severe lack of support for possibly the funniest video in the world (see last post), I'm gonna press on and hope people are still reading.

Last week was just as busy as the previous two, and my body finally decided that it couldn't be bothered to keep my immune system running, so I came down with a really heavy cold, or light flu, depending on which way you look at it. Either way, it wasn't nice, and was at its worst on Wednesday, the busiest day of all when we went to St Andrews. This was an awesome trip - 21 students turned up to do an action group and were all really excited about it. I got to go with a friend, Mikaela, and share the gospel with one of her friends, who was really interested and has since gone out and bought the Passion of the Christ! I can't wait to go back!

Friday I also got to find out what a real job is like. I spent 8 hours in front of a computer trying to publish new Action Group material, and I hated it. 8 hours of work, and 4 completed training session. Not exactly a high production rate. That's what you get for working on a Mac.

Had an awesome weekend though - really relaxing. Watched lots of films, had a huge poker night with 16 folk crammed into our flat and even got some culture by going to the National Gallery. Despite my raging cynicism and derision of the subjectivity of art, I actually quite enjoyed myself. I went with a girl who does a history of art degree, and although its a slackers course, she managed to make it quite an interesting experience. I learnt all about the problems artists and architects had with the dome at the cathedral in Florence and all about how artists used to use brown canvas instead of white (which apparently makes it much easier). Super. In fact I'm feeling so cultural, I'm off to see the Andy Warhol exhibition at the modern art exhibition later this week!

Apologies for the lack of interesting of controversial thoughts. I will think up something inflammatory for the next time. Whilst your waiting take a look at the pretty picture of sunrise I took in Dundee 10 days ago, and the pretty snow which was falling down my street 10 minutes ago!


River Tay at Sunrise


more pretty sunrise

Snow on Spottiswoode Road

You can keep your bimbos, I want a girl who wants to do devos

Not a whole lot to say to be honest. Still got some residual knackeredness, which will probably take a good month to flush out. Unsuprisingly Valentines day passed me by with my only post being an AA membership card. Ho hum.
Off to St Andrews tomorrow to do some evangelism training, which is exciting. Always fun to meet people punped about sharing their faith!

In more exciting news, everybody HAS to check the site below out. It is the FUNNIEST thing I have seen in a very very very long time. It's been doing the rounds a lot recently, so I apologise if you've seen it before. But if not, spread it!

I like big bibles and I cannot lie...

My pride hurts

OK, apologies to Haemin for the lack of update. For onece I have a good excuse, as after the NSC, I went straight to Dundee for a week to help out with their mission week and didn't get back till late last night. Just watched Scotland get thumped by Ireland and the Chapel team got wasted 5-2 this morning (with most of the credit for their vicotry going to the referee) so I'm not in the best of moods and for some reason thought that this owuld be a good time to finally get round to updating.

So interesting things: The Agape National Student Conference happened last weekend. Despite the 6 hour drive I had to undertake to get there, the weekend was flippin great. Tons of students had their lives changed and realigned themselves to God's will, and when we went out into the student area of Birmingham to do some evangelism on the Saturday afternoon, some one even gave their life to Christ! For me, it was great to be challenged on some issues and to be reinvigorated by the Agape vision. Great stuff.

After the 6 hour drive back, I got stuck into watching the Superbowl for the first time, and now have a certain appreciation for American Football, although I still think it's played by overpaid pansies who don't seem to be able to run for more than 2 second bursts and then feel then need for a tea break. Girls.

The next week (i.e. the next day) we'd been invited to help out with Dundee Uni Christian Union's mission week. SO after about 6 hours sleep, 3 of us set off on the road again. Basically, our role was to help out with flyering, giving out gospels, striking up conversations and encouraging CU members to share the faith. We had a great time and got to know some really great people up there, but what struck me the most is the general apathy from loads of CU members.

Lots of Christian students (and this isn't just Dundee, but a generalised sweeping statement), apear to have had a pretty Christianised upbringing, and had the vast majority of friends being folk from their youth groups. Then they come to university and get a bit scared by the big wide world and run for the sanctuary of the CU and end up in some sanitised bubble for the rest of their uni lives, barely knowing a nonchristian beyond their course mates. One possible reason for the lack of folk making the final step of faith (and lots of people came very close last week) appears to be the lack of Christians in the secular environment, actively living out a transformed life every day. Non christians don't see that this 'Spirit filled life' we're offering them is actually anything real and don't want to commit their lives to something that they dont seeing having any effect on them.

Why do Christians seem to always want the comfortable life, getting spiritually fat, so they can 'get to know God better'?? I can't really think of anyone in the new testament living a comfortable life; there are many who were joyful and thankful, but this was a result of living on the front line, continually letting God's power work through them. How can we really grow if we're just listening to sermons every friday and not being a changed person 24/7, in the real world (and i think that it's living in the real world that's the really important bit)? Is this why so many are bored with the Christian life? Are we more bound by legalism than we think - not particularly excited by God, but ritually doing quiet times and going to church so we feel we deserve our ticket to heaven a little bit more?

Anyway, rant over. I realise that that may offend some people (I already think I have in the last few days), so feel free to abuse me and let me know what you think.

My knee hurts

Just watched the second half of the Southampton v Portsmouth cup match. Wow. It was almost as exciting as the Chapel game this morning (3-3, I got man of the match). But what struck me most (apart from the penalties and sending off) was the way different players handled themselves. Some of them, like Prutton and Hughes were desperate to get involved and provoke the other into throwing punches, whilst others like Primus (who's a Christian - any coincidence) stayed well away. I most admired De Zeeuw, who was a great captain and forcibly removed his players from remonstrating with the referee. The character of different players has never really struck me before, but for some reason today it did.

In other news, the Americans are back from Spain today. This will particularly nice as we haven't had a full team meeting since the middle of December, and I discovered that its really boring working on your own the whole time!

A bit fresh

Ok dokey. This is a bit of a test. Xanga frustrated me a little - only people who had signed up could post comments, and I'd started to get wierd comments with links to porn sites. So I decided to give the competition a try. I'll give it a couple of weeks and if I like it, I'll stick around. Let me know what you think.

So, the last 2 weeks have been exciting: a campus project involving all UK campus staff going down to Brimingham and doing evangelism and training at universities in the region, and then a training retreat in a little place in the countryside.

For those that haven't read the xanga post, I was working at Wolverhampton for the campus project. This was my first experience of a small christian union, with only about 15 students. But it was really exciting and encouraging to see the faith and perseverence of the few, even when some of the student organisations (ourselves included) seem to sometimes overlook them a little in favour of the bigger universities.

The second week was a retreat for all the new British staff. Whilst it was frustrating not to be back in Edinburgh for the start of term, it was really refreshing (after a really intense week before) and i learnt a lot throuhg the training (mostly on growth). We even got to do a Myers Briggs personality indicator thing. And for those of you who know what it is, I'm an ESTP!

the not so friendly turkey at the retreat center

And so, I'm finally back in Edinburgh, frantically trying to recruit for our National Student Conference in 10 days time (any of you want to go?) and catch up with everything thats happened over the first 2 weeks of term and get in gear for the uni mission weeks starting in a mere 2 weeks!.....