hum-drum...YIPEE!

ahh, what a fantastic night.

Today was fairly so-so.
Got up, sat staring into space for about 15 minutes, got ready and headed to 10am church.
I found myself a nice pozy about second row back, and sat. Switched off my mobile, took a sip of water and no sign on any of the usual gang. Said some howdies to Colin and Nicole, the always lovely Bron, threw a smile at the heavily pregnant Kez who was well and truely engulfed in a conversation about Babies, which I felt in no way compelled to participate.
I'm not an incredibly outgoing person in everyday life. But every so often I feel the urge to break out of what is considered 'normal Jess behaviour' and act more 'me' amongst strangers. I spotted a couple of girls who I'd never seen at church before and decided to head over and say Howdy. They were lovely, Ashley and Laura were there names, one was a Primary education student [yes we are taking over the world] and the other was studying business. I babbled ridiculously about burning my ear on my curling iron that morning, then spilling my water bottle all over my lap while drink-driving. HAHA! they at least thought I was funny ;) I do my best to make newbies to the church feel welcome, after all, I realise I probably wouldn't have stayed here if the delightful Bron hadn't offered me the same welcome.
I invited Ashley and Laura over to my pew during the service and we chatted for a short time afterwards.

I wandered out to the kitchen to grab a cuppa, though at the last minute decided to go a tea, all week Ive been heading out to coffee with a different buddy each day, so I've decided thats enough coffee for a while. However the second I turned around from dipping my tea-bag
there was Bron's big grin, accompanied with a big hug and we made a date to grab [*sigh*] more coffee :P.

I wandered about the place, introduced myself to a few more people I didn't recognise [ alot of newbies come in when your gone for 3 months] At 12:30 we had another 'Electrolight' meeting. A Youth Conference run by my church, this is only the 2nd year that we've held it and the first year that I've actually been a part of it. Curently I am the sole member of the Creative Design team. Korrine and Donna were my co-pilots, however both have since moved interstate and thus I'm left somewhat alone in the endevour. Kez is awesome and incredibly supportive and keen to be my assistant in anything I see fit. It's all fairly exciting, and it's nice to be able to apply my arty tendencies to something with such incredible potential for good.

I headed back to the flats and straight across to Rissas place. She basically said that there was no way I would be leaving her place untill I'd watched "Much Ado about nothing" [or something similar] based on a shakespearian play. It was highly enjoyable, and the characters made me laugh. I love the language of shakespear!
Left Rissas place at around 5:30. Headed back to my room, got changed into something more casual and warmer. Sat of my bed for about fifteen minutes and read more of "Memoirs of a Geisha" I'm really starting to get into it now, over the halfway mark. The culture is incredibly fascinating, and I envy her glamorous attire - of course there are many things about her lifestyle I don't envy, but the book is fantastic! I'm so glad I decided to read it before I see the film.

Headed to the night service at church. Once again I didn't see the usual mob. Apparantly alot of people were out of town for the weekend, or didn't want to come out due to the horrid weather. I decided that I would embrace the opportunity to sit by myself, completely undistracted by the people around me. It's probably one of my favourite things to do at church, sometimes I'll deliberately sit away from all my girls for the sole purpose of spending some quite time undistracted. It's always sad when some of them can't seem to grasp my reasons. But most of the time they relate fairly well.
On my way out to Cafe` I spotted another newbie, I must have been feeling fairly comfortable in my own skin today, because I headed over to say hello to her. Crystal was this lovely ladies name, though she couldn't hang about, she had to head off for duties at the PLC campus. But it was a pleasure all the same, and we looked forward to seeing each other next sunday night.
Grabbed some Chicken nuggets out the back of the church Cafe` and sat with Clancy and Tess, chatting about all sorts of things we encountered during the week. What I was really hanging out for was Wae-Jae. I'd been over to his place a couple of days before with Laura and Charrissa, which meant that I really hadn't had the the opportunity to chat one-on-one with the boy. Life is very different without him living right next door, I miss my brother.
He had headed out the front for prayer after the service, and so till around 9pm he was chatting with John about whatever it was.
Tess had asked Clancy and I to head outside for a quick chat. Apparantly a conversation with a male in church had left her feeling rather uncomfortable. Knowing this particular male, and going by the body language she had described it wasn't anything out of the norm for him. However we spent a bit of time chatting to Tess about her discomfort being valid, however sometimes we have to consider things in light of who we know people to be. One of the issues Tess had was that as he said goodbye, he gave her a friendly whack on the shoulder and said "See Ya Buddy!" He does the same thing to me, and I love it. However Tess is more conservative and generally quite aware of personal space and contact issues - which isn't a bad thing, it just makes her different, as we all are. I encouraged her to watch for consistencies in the behaviour of people in order to determine whether they are 'coming on to you' or not,[did someone say "Josh Harris Sermon"? :P] had she done this with Roger, as I'm sure she will now, she'll discover that he is just a friendly bloke, not sleazy at all. Clancy and I prayed about the whole shibang with Tess and I hope she was feeling better.

Tess and Clancy headed off, but I decided to hang around, in a final desperate attempt to knab a bit of Waje time. I wandered up to the main Church hall to find Waje in there alone, packing up the microphones. He was on the sound Desk tonight, and so I wandered up the aisle and chatted away with the boy as we attempted to find all the light switches. He rode his bike over, and so I managed to convince him to let me give him a ride home - due to the rain, but also so we could at least chat for a little while in the car. After cramming the bike in the back, Waje decided he was hungry, so we headed across to Hungry Jacks, grabbed some food and a booth, and sat and chatted for what felt like the best hour in a long time. Realising it was 10:30pm we decided it was time to go, I have no classes tomorrow, but Waje had to work. So I dropped him back at his place and we did our won't-die joke. We both put on this deliberate awkward silence, which we replicate even with other people in the car. It originally came out of our muckings that when 2 people of opposite genders end the night is there always that awkward, 'do I give them a kiss goodnight?' And so we still do it to this day, which other people in the car find weird, coz they don't have a clue why the awkwards silence starts, or what it means.
I adore the fact that WaeJae and I have the sort of friendship where romantic's aren't an issue,[even though we still get those 'looks' from people, who just don't get it] I love that we can be completely candid about relational issues and get the low-down on the opposite gender, while supporting each other in our quests for love :P. He's a fantastic brother. Once we tired of our awkward silence joke, he climbed out, grabbed his bike and we both vowed to get together for more fun times, just-like-old-times-in-the-flat, soon. I miss my boy.

And so, I headed back to the flat. Had a quick chat with Scott across the hall, he's one of the RA's this year [Resident Assistant] after about 5 minutes of chatting his phone started buzzing with some first year complaining that they had locked their keys in their room. HAHA! poor Scott, it was the 5th one tonight. And so here I am, at the end of a day which started out fairly ok yet turned out great!
I am blessed here in Armidale! Thankyou Lord.

Though ever since I've been back 5 people have said "You look Different, Jess" I think it's a compliment. At least I hope so.