apparently Prada = hell

I watched a movie tonight. That's right. The Devil Wears Prada. Now from what I can tell (contrary to frequent expectation I am totally out of it as far as knowing what's playing, esp. on tv) stuff hits Oz ages after it comes out in the US, so probably this film is long gone where you are. But I saw it tonight. And I was disturbed. Jennica, this post is for you, babe ;-)

So in this film Anne Hathaway plays a smart, pretty college grad who really wants to be a journalist [and write for liberal publications] but in the meantime she's paying the bills and making contacts working as a personal assistant for the editor-in-chief (Meryl Streep) of what is basically Vogue magazine, a job that lots of girls would kill for but she's not that into it. The movie spends most of its time depicting her increasing entwinement with her job as her boss calls her at all hours and the job slowly becomes her life, pushing out her friends, her boyfriend, blah blah.

Here's why I don't feel like I wasted my money: Anne Hathaway has got the most beautiful shape mouth, and her eyes stayed soft all through the NYC stress.

Here's why I was horrified (you may notice I took everything very personally):

-How can she race around in those heels all day? Her feet must be cramping up allll the time. and she must need a full body massage every day.

-why isn't she sick? I would be sick! I would be dying from stress after three weeks on this job. (actually I'd have quit it after two.) To quote Han Solo: No reward is worth this!

-even before she got all glam looking it said she was always behind on her rent- so now where is she getting the money for her expensive makeup, her taxis, her things she buys as part of the job?

-heels, uncomfortable clothing, no time to exercise, moving at a fast pace but with tense energy all day long, a boss who is only happy when her employees are panicked and/or suicidal, being told that size 6 is fat all day long, no time to eat, no time to invest in relationships, having to be a slave to your cell phone at all times, always on the point of being ready to jump when The Boss whispers and with an ear constantly strained to catch that whisper, never being thanked -- I hate corporate and I hate all that New York implies for me, thanks to this movie [right now].

-the fashion industry, while it may be a 30 billion dollar one, is founded on... nothing. Ok, it's founded on looks. but to paraphrase the boyfriend, "You gave up your friends, your family, for what? for shoes. for shirts. for belts." It's this bubble. It rests on nothing, and it doesn't notice. It exists, but it's in a loop, there's no Jesus or family ties or world-bettering legacy that even the world would acknowledge worthy that it's founded on. It's self-perpetuating, and it's hell.

-Anne Hathaway's character was dangerously close to basing her self-worth on being able to satisfy her boss, whether that was coming from her need for approval or her determination that she would show the dragon lady that she could do the job. Actually if I were in the same position as she was I'd have done a lot worse than her -- part of the reason I'd have quit after two weeks. The dread of it would have done me in, but her character didn't seem to have as much anxious need to please this remote queen of put-downs as I would have, which I found admirable. And when Anne finally got the "compliment" that Ms. Editor saw a lot of herself in Anne, it was only then that she, Anne, saw that that was not the road she wanted to be heading down.

- I was painfully reminded of my job with Dr. G and how I was essentially owned by her while I was at work. Had to do some of the same kinds of errand running and impossible call making too. But the pace was a lot more tolerable as Dr. G was about 25 years older than Meryl Streep's character.

-the boyfriend. how could she be unaware of the lack of relationship that was happening as she worked all these months at this magazine? how could she just not seem to notice that the only contact she and her guy had was sleeping together every now and then, despite the fact they live in the same apartment? that's not a relationship!! didn't this trouble her? didn't she at least miss it?

-is it really that easy to get back together? you go to paris and sleep with a player who's been flirting with you for months and then when you've made the revelation and thrown your cell phone in the fancy fountain and tell your bf you're really sorry, even though he just broke up with you last week you he can say it's okay, I just got a job in Boston, let's move there. That's it? No more discussion necessary? Either that guy is full of grace, or he's banking on a long history together proving itself worthwhile in the end, or inertia is easier and more comfortable. Jeez.

Then I rode home after waiting for my first bus for 40 minutes, and the second bus from Bondi Junction was crammed full of Friday night holidaymakers in states from tipsy to drunk and swearing. Remind me to take the back-route 389 home and not the 380 next time.

But now that I'm here, I am so relieved and grateful to live in the world I live in. I just went downstairs for some peppermint tea and Brian and Julie, the middle-aged couple who have let me live in their upstairs, were on the sofa watching an older period miniseries. Brian was sitting upright on the sofa and Julie was lying with her head on the sofa arm and her legs across Brian's lap, his arms around her knees. It was so great to see a couple married for that long lounging around like teenagers. Julie may sometimes remind me of Miss Bates from Emma, and her jumpers may have no style (ditto Brian's khakis) but you know what? I would be glad and grateful to be them in 40 years rather than beautiful empty Lucifer wearing Prada.

more love more music

Yesterday, Monday, was my day off of work. Sunday had hit about 34 (90 fahrenheit) so I took it as a personal insult when the temps dropped 20C overnight. My day off which was to be spent mucking about on the beach had to be transmuted into a couple hours at the beach wearing a sweater and jeans. I ate a lot of toast and butter yesterday and read an entire book, No Compromise: the life story of Keith Green. It's a book that will change my life if I let it get in me and don't just end up going oh yeah, great book, moved me to tears. I'm praying that I won't turn my heart off towards how deep it touched me.

Today I had a headache for half a day, and I practically never get headaches, so I took it as a personal answer to prayer that the weather continued to suck and be cloudy and cool because I did a 7 hour shift at Sabbaba and I really don't think I would have gone well if it had become busy. Work... I have this feeling that my bosses, the two owners of the cafe, don't like me. Or rather don't like to work with me. I'm not sure why, though I have a couple ideas. It can make it a bit dreadful to head to work some days (today was one of them) but generally it turns out better than the dread expects. Dread is the worst. Ricky the cook from Fiji has the best dreds I've ever seen.

I've been bringing a few of my own mix cd's to play at work now that the owner/ music dictator is in Europe for 3 weeks, and I am proud to say that I am not only putting Sabbaba through the school of rock, I am also infiltrating it with the occasional non-obvious worship song.
Jars of Clay
Something Like Silas
Badly Drawn Boy
Spock's Beard
Belle and Sebastian
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Jason Mraz
Maroon 5
Pixies
Radiohead
Gorillaz
Coldplay
etc.

Exciting is life, is it not.

thoughts that have crossed lately:
-where can I invest my life in ministry?!!
-oh my gosh I'm moving in less than 2 months
-man I wish I had real friends in San Diego
-I still have two books I borrowed from Ryan
-why can't I kick the angst today?
-one thing I've learned in Sydney is not to keep silent out of fear
-men can get very crabby when they have to ask for help
-in a bikini I'm just one more body on the beach
-I would feel guilty leaving Australia not having seen at least the Great Barrier Reef, but I don't have much inclination to plan to see it, what with plane ticket costs and already being sensitive to the little time I have left with my friends here
-how weird would it be if I went to Hillsong Leadership College and ended up marrying an Australian and living in Australia
-I miss drip coffee
-it is incredible that I live on a sunny second floor with four rooms and a kitchenette, can go for a run and a lie on the beach and a swim and work 8 hours all in the same day
-I think I have to find a new place to live in SD... don't think the old one is still available
-the LORD is my shepherd, there is nothing that I lack
-phone calls are backed up but at least I got through the emailing
-tonight is a chocolate night and I'm considering wine as well
-really need to vaccuum my living room
-sunshine IS redemptive

what you've been waiting for!

Pictures from Japan. Oh yes :-) Comments included on some photos. I think you can see my other album from Ryan's visit to Sydney too if you like. Let me know if it works. There should be about 45 pictures and the link should take you to the detail view, which lets you read photo titles and any descriptions I added.

for all you visual and otherwise curious people, click here.

with a digital camera you can afford to be silly

Australian still life: in this photo you will see
A) 80th Anniversary Commemorative Collectible Vegemite Glass [vegemite is a toxic war ration dark greenish-brown yeast spread that Aussies inexplicably eat like it's peanut butter. See this truly snort-laugh-worthy link for more information. go. now. you know you want to.]
B) mug of "Tasty" peppermint tea in Noah's Ark mug. Marketing is so touchingly simple here sometimes, the dear souls :)
C) money from my wallet. 1000 Japanese yen, 10 and 5 Australian dollars, 1 US dollar.
D) ZonePerfect bar. Notice the price tag, if your eyes are that good. YOWZERS!!! (or would it be "yowsers" in this country's spelling...) $3.50. Exchange rate notwithstanding (1 AUD = .75 USD) that is still really really expensive. And totally normal. This is the most expensive city I have ever been in. And you thought California was bad.

















and kids? oh yeah :) I'm going to Japan tomorrow.

some pictures

Mom wanted to see my dress.















Australia is pretty. This is Snowy River country, as in The Man From Snowy River. I went skiing for two days about an hour's drive from here.















Answered phones for two weeks at an accounting business. Supplementary income while the cafe was dead mid-winter.

Sometimes I miss San Diego. But then I realize that the occasional feelings of emptiness that make me want to go back to "my" supermarket, "my" beach, "my" traffic, existed in equal if not greater measure when I was in San Diego. How true it is that we take ourselves everywhere we go. A downer friend warned me against going to Australia, deriding what he saw as my irresponsible vagrancy, declaring how foolish it was to travel to find yourself. I actually didn't go abroad to find myself, but if I have moved in any direction spiritually since my arrival mid-April, I would have to say I have been (continuing to) find myself.

I've been very grateful for my friends this week. They've been good to me. Coming alongside in love, with grace, enjoying me for all that I am. Thank you.

Today I went into the water for the first time since June. I don't know how cold it was (remember, the seasons are switched here) but I spent a delightful 20 minutes in the water getting dragged around by the 4 foot waves and currents before starting to get chilly and lying in the cooling afternoon sun. I can say it was warmer than when I went in the ocean in Mexico last October though!

I have to figure out some effective way to turn the subject from myself when I meet new people. I've been here long enough that the instant they start asking, Oh, where are you from? Are you studying? What are you doing? How long have you been here? I get totally glazed and uninterested. It's like the questions during the first week of college, but it's been going on for almost 4 months. Actually, I don't know what I'm doing here :) but I'm interested to see what I'm doing next.

I'm ready for summer. And I swear that I can do anything when it's sunny.
SUNSHINE!!!!

shaken not stirred

Wish I had some bonds. Ok, I do have bonds. I have Jesus. I have amazing friends both locally and across the world. I have parents who love me. But - and there's always a but - it's been such an exhausting week, unsettled last three months, transient year and a half, I am aching for stability and monotony for its own sake.

This past week:
- second and final week of new temp job
- inaugural chick's prayer night at Pen's house
- dentist visit
- new adventures with public transport to strange places
- connect group restarting
- a bad night spent on my knees in prayer
- weird weird dreams
- acknowledging an ending
- move to a new place
- discover I'm highly allergic to something in the carpet there
- spur of the moment ski trip
- 7 hours on a night bus to the snow
- 2 days learning to ski with three (experienced) middle aged people from church
- jet [bus?] lag on the road trip back with them
- singing for 2 hours in the car
- sleep at Brian and Julie's instead of allergy house
- altitude headache and complete muscular exhaustion demands a day of being out of comission
- move things to Brian and Julie's

Places I have lived since coming to Sydney:
- Sydney Central Youth Hostel
- Sydney Railway Youth Hostel
- Bondi Beach Youth Hostel
- Ryan's aunt's house
- house on Wairoa Ave stuffed with transient backpackers
- housesitting for the assistant pastor of St. Andrew's
- housesitting for the head pastor of St. Andrew's
- allergy house
- Brian and Julie's
if you want to count the ski lodge, that makes ten places in three and a half months.

all too true

What Guys Think of Your Medium Curly Hair...

Artistic, friendly, and witty The type of girl he'll stay up until 3am talking to ... on the first date.

What Do Guys Think Of Your Hair?

subbaculchta

Australia's pretty Western. Pretty American. For the most part you can walk through a neighborhood or talk to people without particularly having cultural differences crammed down your throat. That's why when I do come across something noticeably different, and it's usually in the small things, it makes it that much more disorienting. Take nylons, for example. I've picked up a temping assignment for the next couple weeks because it's the dead of winter and things are slow at Sabbaba so I'm only working there weekends at the moment. This temp job has me doing receptionist work at a small accounting business and I needed some nylons to help expand my available wardrobe. So I go to the local department store and box after box of pantyhose contains... shaped stockings. I mean that when you hold them up they look like legs and feet. And have this odd texture that's almost coarse. And although they claim to have elastane you can hardly tell, so if your legs don't fill out the shape of the nylons you are cursed with bagging at the ankles. The state of Australia's nylons is about equivalent with that of America's in the 1950's. And yes. You could get them with garters if you wanted.

p.s. After a day of wearing weird saggy-ankled nonstretchy nylons I did finally find a pair of "super control" hose that are pretty much like normal nylons... though they have feet built in too.

I'm not a tourist, I live here!

my favorite, most startling perspective of the opera house


view from one of the parks in the middle of downtown Sydney


cool cityscape near Darling Harbour


Sydney Opera House and part of Circular Quay and some city skyline. Snapped from a water taxi that stopped under the Harbour Bridge for this photo op. Darling Harbour would be out of sight past the right-hand side of the picture.


Opera House and the beloved Rusty Coathanger, I mean bridge


chilled out roos


You could put this in a museum of modern art.


view from Bondi Beach north toward the golf course cliffs


view from golf course down toward the beach which is just around that cliff


ditto view with the beach in sight


looking north from the golf course cliffs


yeah :) it's beautiful here.

soul flights

It was like a movie. I stood frustrated in my living room, thirsting to throw color onto a canvas and having none of the tools available to do that, not even the knowledge of how to get some paint. I called Craig and he gave me the name of an art supply store just a few blocks away so I donned my coat and strode down the hill to Bondi Art Supply. With a slightly wild intense look in my eye I asked the clerk to help me find the paper I needed and soon walked out with $25 worth of cheap but decent poster paints, brushes (including one "splurge" soft acrylic-bristled 1" flat) and paper. Happier but still intent, I headed for home when the scent of fresh cookies detoured me briefly into a kosher bakery where I bought two warm chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies which I munched as I walked. Home again, I filled a glass with paint water, rolled up my metaphorical sleeves, and spent a theraputic hour speaking in color along with a burning worship soundtrack.

After I'd painted I played with my digital camera and somehow got this shot.

sorry it's been so long!

Y'all have probably quit checking this blog since it's been weeks...
I have A LOT to catch up on. I may or may not actually get around to posting it all, but I can at least get some of it in over the next couple days. Today I will post... PICTURES!!! my mummy and daddy sent me a digital camera that arrived the day before Ryan and so I was able to visually capture some stuff in Sydney and Ry's visit. I will disclaim that the majority of the pictures I'll be posting here are actually taken by Ry. Cause he's a better photographer than I am! He actually has almost the same camera as me so he was able to explain the buttons and functions for me, how cool is that? When we were down at Circular Quay by the Opera House I was taking pictures of a seagull on a cafe table umbrella and I turn to him and ask, "Why on earth am I taking pictures of a seagull??" and he replies, "I was asking myself the same thing. But I thought, [in a Yoda voice] the camera, new it is to her."

ok, I'll start with the "my favorites" set and then maybe do animals, bondi, and tourism posts later. and catch up on the other stuff too.


My cliffs at the golf course. I love going here.



Ryan and his aunt and cousin and I went to the koala petting zoo one morning.







and a couple of Ryan





that's all for now, more to come shortly!

first thing this morning

I served a guy in his 30's with a short mowhawk and multipiercings and when I asked if he wanted the value meal he said with an Aussie accent in the friendliest casual way, "No, fuck, baby, I don't believe in value."

In other, unrelated news, my head's all stuffy, I move across the street tomorrow morning,

and

6 days.

fullness found

It's been 1 year since my arrival in San Diego last June 14.

Here's what my Abba provided for me very materially this week:
a free winter coat
a free place to move into for a little while (literally next door, no less)
extra work hours

Today I was:
-excited to make Craig, a new Christian and a musician, mp3 CD's of good Christian music before he gets ahold of all the bad Christian music out there
-joyful because I scheduled a hair appointment in a salon for the first time in about a year and a half
-happy looking forward to Ryan's impending visit
-expansive because it was such a beautiful sunny blue warmish day and I had the day off
-relaxed as I ambled along in the sunshine
-lively with my girls at connect group

lovin' it

dance pop reigns supreme

Ok, folks. Consider this your first photo from Australia. So my manager is going to London and Stockholm on Friday to record songs because he won this Australia-wide contest, right? As we were listening to Nic's latest demo, a track called The Long Way Home, during cleanup at Sabbaba last night and I complimented Nic on his song, he gave me his MySpace address. So now you can have a look at my Ricky Martin lookalike model singer manager and even hear him sing. LOL

nic at night

get ready for galactic expansion

hott. hottt. hotttt.

Don't you get totally jazzed looking at that list of pictures on the sidebar? Oh my gosh, you guys. I don't know. Once you go global there's no going back. I LOVE it. Yeah, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland for 2 weeks and driving all over Turkey for a month. (actually that means I've been going abroad once every two years for the last six years, and that's not counting the annual pilgrimages to Stratford, Ontario's Shakespeare Festival or the three trips to Mexico while I was in San Dog.) but it's different actually living in another country. Like earning money and going to the grocery store and hanging out with friends regularly. One of those things I'd heard about but couldn't know about till I did it myself. It's so exciting. Sky's the limit from now on, you know? if I can go halfway around the world I can go the other halfway around the world.

I'm not really thinking about what I'm going to do after my 5 or 6 months I planned for Australia, but I am definitely allowing thoughts to come to me. right now everything's like Hey, yeah! that's a possibility! here are some of them:
-Nieu Communities in Vancouver or Glasglow
-Bible college at Hillsong
-move back to San Diego
-move back to the US to some other city than San Diego
-go to Paris, perhaps in connection with the church Hillsong planted there
-apply for Australian citizenship
-get a job sponsorship that would give me a 4 year work visa here

There's so many options. While waiting for the shuttle bus to Hillsong Women yesterday I got to talking with Lucrece, also from the US, and she told me information I hadn't heard of about how to get tourist visas from 6-12 months long and how to be allowed to work on a tourist visa. I'd only been aware of a 3 month tourist visa during which you cannot work. And Craig told me about how when he was 20 he was going to uni in London and doing the grind to climb the corporate ladder in advertising and then took a three week holiday in Spain and stayed 5 1/2 years. so I have no idea where God will choose to direct me, but isn't it all FUN??? Wow!! Is she ever coming back, folks? I don't know, but thankfully He does and I don't have to worry about it :-)

time travels

"Anticipation is a messy feeling. With anticipation you just don't feel a one-dimensional emotion, you feel like 80 things being stirred, mixed and blended inside of you."

It's official. Ryan is flying into Sydney International Airport the morning of June 24.

the numbers
it will be:
11 months since we met
6 1/2 months since we last saw each other
1 day before my birthday
7 days of leave
11 months left in the Navy

how do i feel? pick any of the following. I've hit them all already. excited - happy - freaked out - nervous - joyful - stressed - chill - victorious - weak - panicked - confused - content - resentful - strong - attractive - comfortable - glad - adventurous - trusting.

man. i feel like a woman.

counting them

I found myself some beautiful leather boots for my birthday (June 25 I'll be 23).

Ryan lost his ATM card in Thailand and wrote me about how it brought the eternal perspective to him with such immediacy and beauty that it brought tears to my eyes.

Anneli is on her way to do disaster relief in New Orleans.

Craig encouraged me that I'm an extremely grounded person with right foundations and so even though I'm young and currently living a life blown around by the wind, this is the only time I'll have to do that and I'm doing it really well.

Amy and I skyped yesterday.

I talked to my parents for the first time in about three weeks and spent nearly two hours on the phone with them.

Lunch after church at St. Andrews was true fellowship around a delicious meal shared together.

Coffee after church at Hillsong Women was companionable and intimate time shared between loving girlfriends.

My community is in three or four locations and about five timezones, and though I am aware of the strain of this fragmentation it is ok right now. It is where I am right now.

Sometimes I can't stand the emptiness of the space between my own breaths. Sometimes I have these moments where I feel like the waiting, the not knowing, the excruciating slowness is too much for me to endure. But I look at my life and I find it blessed, and full, and missional. I take up the next thing in front of me and try to live in faithfulness and action. And the joy I have found is like nothing on earth. May it spill over and show them God.

untitled

Things are different before a storm. The light goes faintly green and all of a sudden the frames of your doors of perception are slanted enough to make everything changed. You look through this watery light at the faces of people you knew and they seem both clearer and more indistinct. What you knew is brought into question and what you did not know is become obvious. The buildings are different, too. One garden gate bangs restlessly, no longer content to be a welcoming entrance. It wants to seek the world itself, not merely receive those who have seen places it cannot go. My curls have changed as well, becoming both more tender and more fierce. It is the rain in the air that softens them, bends them gently to the hand that strokes, but it is the wind, the textured wind, that lifts them from limp compliance into a substantial living independence.

There is no one to share this with. In telling it cannot be conveyed, it is for me and me alone. When the sun in all its straightforwardness shines tomorrow I will once more be blue skied blue eyed, and yet these slanted layers of subtlety will remain tucked in some corner of my mind to bloom out again, richer than before, in the next graygreen storm light. I will remember how it was true.