Kirsty's blog

and suddenly, out of nowhere....

2009-10-04T20:56:00.002Z

I re-appear!

I'm at home right now. Jolly Towers, Littlehampton. My geographical location hasn't changed since I last posted. So much else has.

How do you get back into blogging after 2 whole years of silence? Well, I wasn't sure. I was thinking of maybe some snappy summary of what's happened since I last put "pen to paper" in 2007. But that didn't feel right. Instead, I just decided to type and see what happened! See, if I think about something too much then I'll want to make it perfect, and as I don't have time for that at the moment, then the blog would just be postponed again indefinitely.

So this is my slightly ramshackle comeback post. Sorry!

I hope to use this blog to share a little bit of "Kirstyness" with the cyberspace community. Don't expect a daily digest of the past 24 hours. Just the odd thought, a crazy dream, an inspiring quote, a recipe...

Whew. Now that's the hard part over and done with! End of post. Bring on the future :o)

.com divorce

2007-04-27T22:43:00.000Z

Is it only me who finds something a little wrong about the "Cancel Relationship" button in facebook (click on the picture to enlarge)

Should there not be something to make it a little more difficult? Perhaps an "Are you sure?" pop up box after you click it? Online counselling? Any documentation?

Crazy...

Sun and rain...

2007-04-17T13:07:00.000Z

Sometimes I love looking at the contrasts in life...

It's the first day of cloud and gloom today, as Littlehampton has been basking in sunshine for the past 10 days, but actually I am relieved! I've got a major assignment deadline in soon, and with all the associated excitement of the warm weather (sunshine, seaside, garden etc) got next to nothing done until now!

Bad weather can be pretty cool sometimes - I think you just have to face it head on. My 2 year old neice loves jumping in puddles so she clearly likes the rain. Me? I like a big scary thunderstorm in the middle of the night (providing Jon is next to me). When we were in Borneo the thunderstorms were spectacular - on our first night there, one storm lasted all the way through the night.

There's been a lot going on since Spring Harvest and God has answered loads of prayers. If I put them all on this blog, I'd do no uni work and probably bore you all senseless.

Instead, to celebrate life's black-and-white moments, I thought I'd share some of my hated v. rated things! Anyone else wanna join me?

Hated
*No one*
Squishy cooked sultanas
Spiders with long or hairy legs
Flies
Forgetting all my uni work from one week to the next
Butlin's chalets
Meals for 1

Rated
Time with the husband
Cute, hairy orang-utans
My super cute neice and super small nephew
Long baths
Sharing ridiculous conversations with friends and laughing far more than you should
...Often aided by a couple of glasses of wine
Making and eating desserts
The sublime combination of rainforest and beach
Fresh sea air
Meals for many!
Connecting with God's word
Super-posh hotels at a discount!
Jon getting knots out of my back
Growing plants and watching them get their first shoot/leaves/flowers

The power of elecution....

2007-03-28T10:11:00.000Z

With Spring Harvest only a few days away, I'm starting to panic a little about being Speaker/Presenter for the week...

Instead of Jon enrolling me in some helpful elocution lessons, he seems to have decided on another more controversial way of bringing me to my senses: ELECTROCUTION!

So on Monday I was ready to set off for work when I noticed that the central heating timer wasn't right. The timer is currently hanging from the wall so I put my hand behind the clock to steady it and....ZAP!... I've received a nice surge of electricity from the mains...

10 minutes later I'm a little shaken up but ok. I call NHS Direct who try to call an ambulance for me but I politely decline. However, upon their insistence I make my way to A+E (without Jon, who is in a very important prayer meeting!) who 1 hour and an ECG later declare me fine.

Apart from now avoiding the central heating timer like the plague, I can't say the experience has done anything for me at all. Now back to panicking about Spring Harvest...

Blessings...

2007-03-11T14:07:00.000Z

At church this morning, David Thatcher shared a story about his son. In short, a few days ago Jon had gone to Rustington with his daughter and noticed that the staff in Boots were complaining about how cold it was cos the shop heating was broken. To cheer them up, Jon went and bought a box of Maltesers for them all! They were over the moon, and before he knew it one of the members of staff had shared their story with someone they knew in Malaysia. (nb - sorry if any of this is wrong but i was knackered this morning!!)

Earlier this week I was walking from work to the station and as usual went past quite a few homeless people settling down for the night. It's difficult to know how to react when you see them every day. Especially when I'm running late and I've got 5 minutes to get to the train station! However, on Tuesday I had a couple of minutes spare and went into a corner shop and really felt like I should buy a packet of Maltesers for the guy sitting outside. Hopefully, he was blessed by them - I only had time to have a brief conversation but he seemed grateful.

I usually would call this a co-incidence, but to me it just confirmed that God works through us all in sometimes simple ways, and all we have to do is take a step back from our usual routine and think about how we can change it to bless others.

Anyone else fancy joining the Malteser club?

(PS: Chocolate is always welcome at the Jolly house. My address is in the church directory if you need it :-) )

Can anyone else get the hang of this?

2007-03-07T16:01:00.001Z

Check out the 3 cups game online. I came across it when I was coming up with ideas for Spring Harvest.

It should be soo easy! But it's driving me nuts. So bad, it might even force me to look at my uni work...

Cuter than the PG Tips monkey still...

2007-02-28T17:19:00.000Z

...Is the BBC News report about the pair of Sumatran tiger cubs and two orang-utans who've struck up an unlikely friendship at an Indonesian zoo. Positively 10/10 on the Kirsty cute-ometer!

...that is, until the keepers leave them together too long and the tigers decide to eat the poor hapless monkeys. Eww.

Excitement...

2007-02-26T20:09:00.000Z

This is the only clip that can ever come close to how I feel when I'm excited about something. Nothing more needs to be said after seeing this, it is self explanatory really...

2 things have made me excited this week: (1) Completing a door-door market research questionnaire and being handed 6 gigantic bags of Haribo (2) Finding out that Monkey is being relaunched as the face of PG Tips! As soon as I found out I legged it to Sainsbury's and bagged one of the promotional ones you get when you buy a big box of the tea bags. He is sooo cute.

I lurve de books!

2007-02-07T14:32:00.000Z

A good novel to me is just about as tempting as cake is to Majorie Dawes from Little Britain. Unfortunately, because of my apalling memory I find it difficult to name my favourites and why!

I've just read My sisters keeper by Jodi Picoult and I would recommend it to other book worms out there. It covers the topic of "designer babies" and focuses on a couple who chose to conceive another child to save their sick daughter. Stories can be such a fantastic way to question the ethics of such a topic and the book is beautifully written and very thought provoking (like I wasn't grappling with enough already).

The major point that seems to be tackled in the book is how each child in the family reacts to the knowledge that one of them was produced merely to save their sister. How would you feel if your parents, directly or indirectly, indicated you were born to heal your sister/brother? And what if you never succeeded and they died anyway?

The only downside to the book is all the characters (including the kids) speak in such a scripted fashion. Everything they say has double meanings, twists or immense humour. No one speaks like that all day every day with everyone!

Well, that's my review, just as much for my own benefit as anyone elses so I'll remember what I've read in a month or so. I also wrote it cos I've just uncovered a new army of flies in the kitchen, so I've retreated the study and closed the door. Aargh!

Yes Joanna, Fliiiiiiiies!!!

2007-01-10T13:15:00.001Z

Just thinking about the 2 Biblically-proportioned plagues of flies that have taken over our kitchen in the past few months reminded me of this clip. Hilarious...

Cute?

2007-01-10T12:23:00.001Z

Oh, how gorgeous, it's a cute little snuffle-nosed rat! Aww..I want to take it home and put it in a cage and love it as only Kirsty can...

...I DON'T THINK SO!....

This is just an example of one of the lovely animals that happens to have DIED under our floorboards, causing swarms of flies around our kitchen, forcing us to eat out for days on end, and abandon our living room for 2 WEEKS cos it smells like there's a whole load of rotten cabbage dumped in there!!

Please don't anyone ever ask me to look after their rat cos I don't have good feelings for them anymore! I read in a newspaper article this week that they can grow up to 21 inches in length. Ewww....

Anyone for dinner round our place then? x

A look back at 2006...

2007-01-03T11:37:00.001Z

Happy New Year! I hope y'all enjoyed Christmas and you don't have to trade too many of your presents on eBay... :-)

We've been a little biscuited-out (4 boxes and counting) but I'm sure that all the people helping us with our kitchen project will be able to relieve us pretty quickly (or the rats under our floorboards, but that's another - much grosser - story).

In response to my husband, here's my best memories, moments and movies of 2006:

Best Album: Difficult! I was really disappointed by Nelly Furtado's new album - I'm a great fan of her music but this one moved away from the unique sounds of Folklore and Whoa Nelly. I'd agree with Jon and say Snowpatrol came up with a great album. All David Crowder music has also been a staple diet this year, along with Faithless (when I'm trying to write essays!).
Best Movie: Not sure...much to Jon's annoyance, I think I've pretty much forgotten all the movies I've seen this year!
Best Book(s): Among the favourites include:
The Island By Victoria Heslop - A novel focusing on the island/leper colony of Spinalonga (just off Crete), and the life of a family living nearby.
No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith - easy reading!
The Bible
Best website(s): Ship of Fools...? A humourous look at Christianity. Check out "Gadgets for God: it's great :-)
Best moment: Watching the orangutans eat their lunch at Sepilok Orang Utan sanctuary in Borneo...closely followed by picking up the keys for our new house!
Best game-to-waste-your-time on: Perplexcity - a highly addictive online/collector card game that robbed me of days of my life and my weekly spending money for at least 3 months!

There you go! I hope this gives you an insight into my year. I look forward to reading everyone else's soon.

New SLAM game?

2006-12-27T10:07:00.000Z

With only 5 people at the SLAM leaders Christmas party, there was a lot of food going spare, and Anna and I were bored so...

**Ta da! It's a tractor!**

Constructed entirely of Sainsbury's caramel shortcakes, M+M's, biscuits, cocktail sticks and strawberry laces!!

Anyone want to challenge us and make something better?

Salt!

2006-12-21T01:20:00.000Z

I started this at 01.30 in the morning - I was desperately trying to get to sleep - but there was this verse that kept buzzing about in my head:

Matthew 5:13"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

I don't know why, but I had a sudden urge to spend some time thinking about this passage. Jon and I had just been round Steve and Janna's and I'd been reflecting on how culture shapes who we are, and then God puts this in my head! And then I started thinking: has anyone else ever considered how much this passage has lost - and continues to lose its meaning over the years?

When you think of salt - what uses come into your head? This is my train of thought: (1) Something I flavour chips with (2) Used to preserve meat before we had fridges (3) erm.... (4) mmm.....(5) ok, I'm stuck!

Then I typed the word salt into a Bible search engine and was amazed: did you know that salt is mentioned in the NIV Bible over 50 times? It appears that in Biblical times salt did not just reside in a pot on the dinner table, but it had great economic and symbolic value.

I couldn't possibly write about all the things I've found out, because there's a wealth of information on the significance of salt. But here's a few things to give you a taster: In the Old Testament, all grain offerings to God had to be salted. Similarly, God instructed Moses to salt the incense that burned in his Temple:

Exodus 30:34-35 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Take fragrant spices—gum resin, onycha and galbanum—and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts, and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred. "

So, salt was known to be an important preservative of food, and symbolically it represented purity and eternal life to the Jews. It was also used to draw the blood out of meat - again, important as God instructed the Jews not to eat meat with "lifeblood" still in it.

Even today, salt is integral to Jewish culture (read - http://www.jwmag.org/articles/20Fall06/p35.asp). It is given as a gift and used heavily in cooking. This article also suggests that Jewish, or "Kosher salt" dissolves better in water than regular table salt, and becomes invisible.

What does all this imply for the original verse? Well, I haven't reflected on that so much yet but I'm excited about how much more is revealed when you start looking behind the text! Maybe in my next blog I'll let you know what I discover xxx

9 months later...

2006-12-21T00:56:00.000Z

...the blog is back! What a busy year - Spring Harvest, another year of Open University been and gone, a trip to Borneo to visit the orangutans, our first house... All this news could fill the entire page, but yet I haven't really had time to put it all into writing.

And yet, none of this is the inspiration behind starting the blog again! What actually prompted me was some of the teaching at the youthwork conference in November. Both Rob Bell and one other guy mentioned the value of writing down thoughts, feelings, Bible verses, experiences etc - these can often provide interesting depth to any teaching or preaching we may ever do one day. I've always done this informally - saving news reports, writing stuff down on scraps - but, if it's not relevant to the here and now it usually finds itself in the bin pretty quickly! So, now, I've been doing it more seriously and its cool how something I may have read a week or month ago online suddenly slots in with a verse that's been mentioned at church. Maybe this is even more interesting to me given that I have the memory of a goldfish and usually forget the content of a film or book about a week after watching/reading it!!!

And there you were thinking from the title that I was pregnant, lol :-)

Take me back to the Whitsundays!

2006-03-11T13:16:00.000Z

My heaven is a sun kissed beach,
The sea is crystal clear and cool.
I jump into this peaceful dream,
I float, I drift, I glide, I fall.

The sand is soft beneath my feet,
How can I leave this place behind?
The beauty of this paradise,
Soothes my tired and troubled mind.

An artist sits above the scene
And mixes shades of blue and white;
He takes a brush and poised as such;
Begins to paint all in his sight.

This beach, devoid of thoughts and noise,
Is my valued tapestry.
The only sound is lulling waves,
Aided by a gentle breeze.

On this timid wind doth blow
The painting that the artist drew;
It lands beside me while I walk,
I take it and inspect the view.

Sparkling sea and sultry shore -
The sun: all painted there to see.
And here I am! But what is this?
No shadow there to follow me!

And thus I realise something's wrong,
I cannot stay within this scene.
I rise; I drift; I float; I leave,
I waken from my happy dream.

(c) Kirsty 2006 (on a very inspired Saturday afternoon!)

Perplexed?

2006-03-09T11:23:00.000Z

Ok, so updating blogs just isn't my strength! Really, I have had nothing to share since January. My uni course started at beginning of February and I've been super busy at work, blah, blah, blah... Sometimes busyness just isn't worth commenting on...

Yet, studying away this week has bought me inspiration and I thought I may share a little snippet with you all.

The psychologist William James once said "The mind is at every stage a theatre of simoultaneous possibilities... ...The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stood there from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest."

Are we allowing God to be the sculptor of our mind? I know for myself I've been relentlessly tapping at my own block of stone for years now. We all need to let God do the hard work before he has no stone left to work with!!!

On a different note, Jon and I have been sucked into the alternate world of Perplex City (www.perplexcity.com). Worrying indeed. But can anyone solve the following puzzle for me?

The number of times the digit 0 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 1 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 2 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 3 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 4 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 5 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 6 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 7 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 8 appears in this puzzle is _
The number of times the digit 9 appears in this puzzle is _

There are two solutions, and I have 1! This is 1,7,3,2,1,1,1,2,1,1 respectively. Anyone got a clue about the other? First one to get it wins a prize from the Monkey!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-14T17:50:00.000Z

Hello, and Happy New Year to everyone who reads my blog! It's now 2006, the year when I WILL acheive the below:

(1)Turn 26
(2)Finally manage to convince the female population of my church that I must be (a) infertile or (b) insane to have had no children yet
(3)Start my 2nd year of psychology (and therefore learn more skills on how to convince the church that I am actually one of the above!

2005 was a stressful but good year. Some of my personal recollections:

(1) Baking my first Christmas cake
(2) Passing my first year of Psychology with flying colours
(3) Discovering that some women (mums in particular) DO have beards and should not be mocked (listen up Jose)
(4) Taking a total of 10 flights and visiting 5 countries - Spain, Italy, Ireland, Hong Kong and Australia
(5) Conquering my fear of scuba diving by taking my first plunge in Australia

All the above is a bit random, but just wanted to let you all know I haven't given up on my blog, I've just been chilling out over Christmas and New Year. Lots of love, Kirsty xxx

Leaving Australia

2005-11-20T01:08:00.000Z

Well, it's that time where holiday finishes and life returns back to normal... Jon and I leave for Sydney airport in 1 hour and are sad to leave this amazing country. We've done soooo much since we've been here, yet seen so little of the country as a whole. Will not bore you with the details so here are 5 of my personal highlights:
1) I chickened out of Scuba diving on the Whitsundays, but did it on our last day in Cairns off Fitzroy Island. I really enjoyed it being so close to the coral and even picked up a Sea slug! Here's me looking sexy in my diving gear...
2) Catching up with Jamie, Merve, Stu, Caz, Barnaby, Daisy, Giles and Suzi in Sydney, and visiting Summer Bay!
3) Cruising round the Whitsundays and meeting some great people
4) Feeding the rock wallabies at Granite Gorge in the Tablelands
5) Being with my gorgeous husband!
See you all very soon xxx

In the tropics

2005-11-12T04:03:00.001Z

Well, 2 weeks into the holiday - please don't make me come home!!! Have had a fantastic time since Sydney, something like this -
7/11 Left Sydney, flew to Proserpine. Short coach drive with amusing local to Airlie Beach. Got to local travel agent and booked accommodation in the town for 1 night. Also looked for a 2 night cruise round the Whitsundays and were offered a nice sounding boat holding about 25 people called "Spank me". Decided to give it a miss...
8/11 Boarded the Southern Cross sailboat for a cruise round the Whitsundays with 14 other travellers. Nice bunch of people. 2 crazy crew members - Luke and Chris. They had some amazing catchphrases including "cool cool" and "awright groovers?". snorkelled round some excellent reefs and Luke cooked up some grub on the onboard barbie. Nice! Stopped for the evening in a deserted cove and slept under the stars
9/11 Another day on the sailboat. Did loadsa snorkelling and got to know the other people on the boat. Started feeling rather sticky from lack of showers. Went to Whitehaven Beach (see picture!) which is one of the best beaches in the world and swam with stingrays. Anchored there for the night and drank some beer and wine. Skipper Luke revealed his real name - "Captain Romance" - and our boat was raided by cross dressers. Fun fun fun!

10/11 Got back to dry land and had a serious case of Sea Legs! Spent the night on Airlie Beach and had some drinks with the southern cross groovers.
11/11 Made our way up the coast to Townsville. Hired a car and found the "Billabong Sanctuary" - a very Aussie Zoo where we cuddled a koala, and met crocodiles and various other Aussie creepies. Drove up to Cardwell, where we are now. Not much going on here......
Will keep y'all posted on our mini adventure!
Kirsty xxx

2005-11-05T11:56:00.000Z

What a trip so far! Jon and I left the UK on Monday, and jetted off to Hong Kong for 2 days. Hong Kong is a crazy mixture of Eastern and Western influences, and has the most impressive skyline I've seen. Most of all, there are shops - in fact more per square metre than I have ever experienced before! There appear to be all the top designers, all the usual UK high street clothing stores, boutiques, skate shops and a huge amount of market stalls - which, in typical Oriental style, sell all the same products and try to tempt you in with the call of "Hello Missy, you wan' copy bag?". Upon showing any interest in an item on their stall, a calculator is produced and bargaining begins! First discounts are usually about 5%, but after buying a few items Jon and I realised you can whittle it down to at least 50% of their original offer. One lady refused to smile after our purchase, handing us our bag with a look of total disgust!!

Apart from shopping, shopping, shopping, we met Chrissy, Tim and Beth for the afternoon - Chrissy being a friend from work. We did the touristy thing - went up the peak by tram to catch the best view of Hong Kong, took a cruise round the harbour on the Star Ferry, and went to the Temple Road night market. Beth charmed Jon with her saucer sized eyes, and Jon launched into a daydream of being a daddy again. One day....!

We also ate some traditional Dim Sum in a Chinese restaurant. The menus looked like bingo cards and you just ticked off what dishes you wanted! It took us about 15 minutes of our order NOT being taken to realise that you have to wave it round your head like a maniac before anyone takes any notice. It was a great experience though, and we had Spring rolls, noodles with prawns, sauteed vegetables with chilli sauce, meat dumplings and fried rice. I also went to a traditional Chinese tea shop and was treated with jasmine tea, brewed on a strange tea table adorned with a happy Buddha, and a good luck frog! Got some lovely tea, but failed to notice the calculator next to the till, so probably got ripped off.

From taking photos of Jet Li's handprints on Hong Kong's Avenue of the Stars, I now find myself with the less appealing Jet Lag. Keep waking up at 4 in the morning (often with the confused cry of "where am I!?!") and drifting back off at about 7. Trying not to ruin our stay in Sydney but really want to sleep! We arrived yesterday and spent the day fending off tiredness. Walking bleary eyed around a city is not fun, especially when you have about 40-50 flies buzzing round your head! We admitted defeat about 3 in the afternoon and came back to Jamie and Merves and fell asleep. It has been great to see them and will post more later. Off now to have a much more enjoyable time in the city. Until then, lots of love, Kirsty x

Being all by myself............etc etc!

2005-10-28T20:17:00.000Z

Well, here endeth a week without Jon... He has been in Mexico and is back on Monday (upon which, when he arrives, he has just 12 hours in the country before we jet off to Hong Kong!!!). But, actually, I've been ok! I've been in the coffee shop, hogging the bed, eating whatever I want at CIVILISED TIMES of day, and ok....yes... I went shopping (*Shhhhh - don't let the husband know*).

I guess there is a reason I'm writing this. My mini-revelation of the week is - girls/guys - don't go living in other people's shadows (and for those of you who kept telling me that - sorry! but things take a while - a long while - to kick into my head - there's years of damaged tissue in there!) Everyone has a reason to be where they are at a certain point in time and it's just taking hold of that and realising your potential and worth. I believe that how we label ourselves can often lead us towards who we will be. Let me give you my own personal example:

When I was a young, devout, but rather insecure teenager, someone suggested to me that some people will not have their own 'ministry' within the church, but are called to help other people with theirs. Although maybe a flippant comment to the speaker, without any malicious undertone, to me it clearly had a profound impact. The emotional sponge of a person I was - coupled with the fact that I had no idea WHERE or WHAT God was calling me to - made me consider - do I have a ministry? Or is mine to support Jon, to feed him, to emotionally support him, to drive him, to do his washing? Is that IT?

In one respect as a wife my duty is to love him and to do the things sometimes that I don't feel like doing (name any of the household chores!!!). But the point I'm getting to is that I think I convinced myself that that was my only place - that the role of 'supportive wife' was the only one I could and was supposed to take...I'm not blaming the author of that comment, but it couldn't have fell on riper ground to be misinterpreted. To me, it confirmed my suspicion that some of us are not worthy of a goal or vision, but we merely follow others.

So, marrying someone whose roles (as interpreted by me) included 'responsible Christian youth worker'/'passionate Worship leader'/'reliable person' only confirmed this suspicion a second time over. It was not difficult to interpret my own role as 'supportive wife' and blind myself to any other use I may have. After all, if you are only going to be a helper you may as well do it well. And don't let me knock myself down any further - I am a good helper - the years of this role have taught me how to clean and cook.

So, 5 years of being seen in the church with a mono-role, that actually demeans my own potential... Sorry Satan - 5 years too long! There's 3 things I'd like everyone who reads this to help me acheive -

1) To re start my task of learning a Bible verse a week
2) To be more approachable and honest about the Kirsty within
3) To do less of the house work that (a) tires me (b) ties me to the house and (c) makes me lose my rag occasionally!

Anyone gonna join me try and do this? xxx

2005-08-17T10:17:00.000Z

Well, I think I've recovered now! The student life really sapped a lot of energy out of me...

I spent my week at the University of Sussex studying gender roles in the movie Shrek! I'm still under the impression it had quite a tenous link to psychology, but it was fun none the less.

I've had my head in books since then, and have read that some researchers into gender issues have proposed there is a 'crisis of masculinity'. That is, because the female role in Western society has diversified so much, men don't know what is 'non feminine' any more, and are not sure how to define themselves! Certainly in Shrek, Shrek is not the traditional 'hero' of yesterday, and Fiona is certainly not the 'damsel in distress.'

I find the whole subject is fascinating. Although I wholeheartedly embrace equality, it worries me that men struggle to find their roles. If females have branched out and taken traditional 'male' roles, what stops men from adopting traditional 'female' roles?

I'm also intrigued by the notion that boys are portrayed as having more adventures in the media. This seems to be true, even in modern day stuff. For example, I've just read Harry Potter and Hermione always seems to be the hesitant one. Mr Incredible was the first to venture out of the household on a dangerous adventure. Etc etc, there are so many more examples!

I'm a bit worried I won't be able to watch an animation movie again without looking out for 'gender stereotypes'!!!!!

On a lighter note, I'm very excited as Jon and I are off to Australia in November! We've never been down under before and I'm really excited. We plan to go to Sydney for 4 days, then fly up to Queensland and the Whitsundays for about 12 days, and have 2 days in Hong Kong on the way out. The monkeys are itching to join us but I fear they won't fit in my backpack.. Better go now, gotta keep writing up my summer school report :-( Why is it always sunny when I have work to do?!

2005-08-05T23:40:00.000Z

Wow, there's been quite a gap between blogs! I've been really busy at work and with uni stuff, and I'm desperately trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel!

I've spent the past week at summer school with the Open University, and if anyone who was on it reads this, thank you all so much for your friendliness, support, encouragement and supplies of Archers and lemonade at the bar! You made the week for me, and I felt so blessed to spend time with y'all.

On reflection, it was a very stressful week but at the same time fascinating. I would love to study psychology further and am kinda gutted this isn't a residential every year (although my bank account probably disagrees).

I'm sure I'll find something more interesting to say tomorrow but the student lifestyle of bed at 1 and up at 8 has exhausted me. I'm off to the comfort of my own bed with a mug of Lemsip, but I'll leave you with a lovely verse I stumbled across earlier xxx

"Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart" - Proverbs 3 verse 3

2005-07-08T09:07:00.000Z

As promised....

When I can't think of anything inspiring to write, I always revert to writing about Monkeys. This is my favourite Monkey - called Monkey. He's a tea drinking-loud mouthed-guest distressing-sofa jumping crazy animal, and he's a great addition to the Jolly family.

Monkey's antics often put into question my sanity. Being a student of psychology, I'm sure I could psychoanalyse myself and conclude "it's all down to the unconscious child within." But hey, I still just like to think of Monkey as a little bit of fun....

2005-07-02T14:00:00.000Z

I’ve had many ‘mini’ revelations this week! Praise God for keeping me on this journey through life…

I’ve still been experiencing a bit of U2 mania (looking at getting tickets for other tour dates/reading about the guys on the internet/reading interpretations of their lyrics). I stumbled across this sound clip of Bono talking about worship in music http://www.relevantmagazine.com/issue14/God%20is%20interested%20in%20truth.mp3. Must look at the specific words he said, but the general message of it was that ‘church gospel worship’ is not real to how we really feel and is not what God wants to hear! Controversial words… (I love controversy, something to get my teeth stuck into!)

I agree and I disagree Mr Bono! Something of what you said struck home to me – how many of the songs we sing at church are really reflective of what we are going through in life, or are they just reflections of how we feel we should be feeling? Let me admit in this paragraph that I am a sinner, I am not always close to God and God does not always feel as close to me as he should. Should I really sing in church words contrary to how I feel? God deserves to be sung to with truth, rather than with words that we feel ‘are pleasing to his heart’.

So is ‘rock and roll’ the way to God? I do feel it has its place. It expresses the truth of our actual lives lived on earth, it reveals our conflicts and struggles and lays us in a place of vulnerability where God’s spirit can really work. David’s psalms are certainly not all ‘airy fairy’ songs of hope, love and how to lead the perfect life. Some of them are real, messy and not what the masses want to hear. And how many of us as Christians have related to the struggles and places he found himself in?

Conversely, I also believe there is a time for praising God in worship through scripture – for lifting high his name, his works and his Spirit.
I think what I’m trying to say is what I would love to see is a church that openly admits to its struggles, its hurts, and starts to reject all the lies of ‘what we should be feeling’ that deepen the gap between Christ and his beloved bride. I’m not saying that this should necessarily be expressed through the medium of music, but if that helps than great! Maybe that is when this broken community we live in will then really listen to what we have to say…They will see we are ‘not perfect’, not ‘middle class ideals’ but more a group of people trying to move closer to God in all that we do.

2005-06-26T16:00:00.000Z

My husband and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on Friday. 5 years, wow! Had a fantastic day and evening watching U2 at Croke Park in Dublin. That’s what inspired me to start this all off.

We got to the stadium at 10, and the gates opened at 4. We met some lovely people in the queue to the concert. Some of them had been waiting much longer than us – 1 couple had been there since 4 in the morning! It had been pouring with rain a lot of the morning as well. One guy particularly sticks in my head – we had some good conversations and he had been to see the band more than I could count. He described the excitement he felt before every concert he went to, and explained to me that this excitement never wore off. I just could not relate to that – I thought, this could never happen to me as a (mostly) rational adult. Surely he’s describing to me a “teenage crush”, an “immature vice?”

So we saw the evening through with our friend. U2 were brilliant, we were at the front, and I was mesmerised by the show. 2 ½ hours felt like 20 minutes. The crowd sung their praises to U2; I sang to God (did anyone else?).

And then I saw how easy it was to experience what I did not understand. Standing there, watching Bono and the band in action, I forgot all my troubles. My legs were exhausted from hours of standing up but I didn’t notice, I forgot all about my university coursework at home, it was fantastic. If this is the feeling our friend experiences every concert, I can understand where he’s coming from. But it must be a pretty expensive addiction to have!