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.

After the disaster that was Wednesday night the last thing I expected was for Nic to call me at 10:30 the next morning and ask me to come in at 12, thereby giving me another 7 hours, and then again another 1.5 today, but that's exactly what happened. I figure the Lord works in mysterious ways, and he answered all that prayer :)

Last night a woman I met at St. Andrew's invited me over to her boyfriend's house for dinner for the three of us, then a fourth friend dropped in, then we all drove back into Bondi for a community concert fundraiser for a homeless shelter. I had fun hanging out with people in a casual setting and just chatting about stuff, and then the concert was good. I don't mean it was a good concert - there were about 8 groups I heard and talent varied from okay to truly good, but after a bit I sank into appreciation mode and became willing to receive what I could from the musicians. Even the a cappella choir singing songs from the 60's about pollution. My friend Craig was one of the acts and he sang three of his own songs, accompanying himself on piano. Vocally he sounds a lot like Rufus Wainwright only not so depressed, and the piano part reminded me of Ray Charles, intimate jazz.

So it was cool. I had thoughts provoked and talked about things with God and finished off the night sitting on the cliffs near my house singing songs at the moon.

full on

I've been whingeing about my job for the last couple days trying to figure out how to snaggle more hours. I still love my job. I just don't love working 20 hours a week. Finally today I decided to just start handing out resumes to other places to work, hopefully (best scenario) getting a second part-time job in the mornings and working at Sabbaba afternoons and evenings. But I also decided to try to ask for more hours every time I have a shift this week, just put it out there as Nic's signing us out so that he gets it in his head. So I planned to be extra brilliant and cheerful and perceptive and handle everything with alacrity to prepare the way for making him glad to give me extra hours.

And of course, everything that could go wrong went wrong. I've never, ever had a shift like this at Sabbaba. I've never had stress affect me. Even when it's nuts I'm quite merry. But not tonight. I messed up a couple orders, sure, and one badly, but here was the main thing: as far as Nic's concerned, I broke the cash register (I didn't really but hey, what do my excuses matter) so we had an hour of understaffed crazy-mad-rush time with no register, just him and me. There was this palpable black cloud hanging over him and I was like, Beware of lightning bolts. Nic's really a sweet tempered guy, too, so when he said to me, "You'll just have to handle your own orders for now. Don't ask me any more questions because I can't talk to you," I was like, oh crap. I'm going to get fired. Thanks to my last job I've acquired the skill to breathe normally and speak normally (i.e. act professionally) when the stress is squeezing my insides dry, but my brains do slow down a bit and of course that's not great during a mad-rush time with your manager furious at you - it just compounds everything.

By the time my break came around Natalie had come in and Nic was recovering his temper though I still felt completely in disgrace, and I just made my falafel to take home instead of eating on my break. I ran for my whole breaktime. Speaking Gospel truth to myself. Breathing the name Yahweh as I breathed out. Naming myself clothed in righteousness and a daughter and claiming promises, and when I was done my armor was thick again and I could bounce and smile once more. Nic was pretty much all better too, and by the end of the shift he could share excitedly with me about this holiday he's taking in a few weeks and tease me, "Look what you did," when a bag I handed to a customer across the counter knocked the straws onto the floor.

But still. It was not the night to ask for more hours.

These are the guys who live across the street from me. One of them came to sit on the deck railing about four feet from me as I talked to Anneli on the phone this morning.



Rainbow lorikeets, in case you wondered :)

rocks harder than diamonds

This weekend was so terrific. Friday night I hung out with four girls at Shannon's apartment and we watched one of those weird foreign art films that just got too strange so we quit in the middle. I slept over and it was beautiful to wake up Saturday and sip tea in the morning sun in Shannon's living room with a couple of great girls. Then I worked and when I got off I went to the beach because the moon was rising as the sun was setting - WOW!!! Walked in the twilight for an hour, came home, went for a run (my first since moving here) and watched a bit of a movie with my housemates before sleeping for almost 11 hours.

Sunday, gosh, too much amazing stuff to detail. Church in the morning at the groovy little Anglican place down the road, met people, it's a happy friendly Bible teaching Jesus following place with really good espresso drinks made back of the pew seating section, pastor has a long ponytail and plays acoustic guitar, really solid meaty teaching, really solid present people. Oh, and the yard next door where the wild parrots live? I met the people who live there!

Church in the afternoon from The Rock via podcast while soaking up the sun and the corner of an ocean view we have from my house's back balcony. Mmmm.

Church in the evening at Hillsong where I am now officially involved in ministry, part of Shannon's team that invites people to Hillsong Women so I get to just connect up with girls I see who look a bit lost or by themselves and stuff, and just chat, and bring up Hillsong Women if it seems natural and tell them how awesome it is. Blessing other women as I was blessed. Love it love it love it. I got to talk with a girl who accepted Christ during the service, and it was awesome!!!!!! Also I finally found two people who are going to help me find what I can do volunteer-wise with Hillsong in Bondi. YAY!!!

I'm bananas for Jesus.

I'm not real big on signs, but...

So two days ago I posted about wanting to be more active in stuff here, and listed some thoughts I had for how to do that. I published my post and walked out the door to see what was in the neighborhood where I could be a cheerful helping hand doing whatever was needed. And three minutes down the road from my house I notice an Anglican church, St. Andrew's. The door was locked, Wednesday 1:30pm, but I paused for two seconds to read the notice board next to the entryway. This is when the too-many-coincidences-to-be-coincidences began to happen.
1. A man (Craig) immediately arrives and unlocks the door and invites me in.
2. I introduce myself and my mission and Craig offers two things they need help with: making espresso drinks for the single-moms creche on Tuesdays, and the music ministry, of which he is head. (I came to Sydney with the intention of working at a coffee shop, and I've just recently decided that I want to help women, and obviously I sing.)
3. Craig invites me to sing with him and Nicole right then and there. The first song he pulls out is Summertime. The song I almost always sing when someone randomly asks me to sing something.
4. Darren is introduced to me. Darren is just getting a ministry for backpackers off the ground. I, being a backpacker, am drafted to help.
5. The next person who comes in is told, "This is Julie. She was sent to us by God."

So today was St. Andrew's Thursday morning "Cafe Harmony" featuring free coffee and free music. I got to sing jazz for three hours. Wow. Wow. And it's literally three minutes away. My community church!!! Expect the unexpected where God is concerned.

life to the full

I am excited to say that I think I want to plunge full-on into life here in Sydney. As many of you know, my jobs and activities the last many months have left me with lots of free time. I'm now ready to be more occupied than I have been since I left college. First off I'm going to ask for more hours at work, or possibly find a second job. Secondly I'm going to try to get deep into ministries or volunteering at Hillsong Church. I'm a bit limited in that I don't have a car and church is in the city, a bus and a train ride away. So I'm also going to see if local churches have anything I could help out with as well. Thirdly I'm going to pursue friendships with some of the awesome girls I've met at Hillsong and also try to meet people from Hillsong who live in my suburb. I want your ideas too! I want to put my heart and my mind and my hands to use to bless others as I have been blessed. I'm eager but undirected.

Today as I was putting on makeup there came a pounding at the door. I leaned out the window and shouted, Just a second! When I'd pulled on a sweater and gone to unlock the door I found two men in blue shirts on the stoop. "We're detectives from the New South Wales police force," one of them said, flashing a badge. "Is Robert X at home?"
Turns out Rob's family hadn't heard from him in a month, he wasn't answering his cell phone, and they were very worried that something had happened to him. "Oh," I said. "Well, I saw him night before last, he cleaned the kitchen. He seems fine. He works at Darling Harbour at some restaurant. He's gone most of the time. I think I'm the only one in the house right now. No, I don't have his number or the name of where he works. I've only lived here a week. Yes, I'll leave him your card and a note to call you the minute he gets back no matter what time it is." The detectives took my mobile number and shortly thereafter I got a message from a constable asking me to call him back so he could ask me some more questions about the details of when I last saw Rob. However, before I returned his call I discovered at noon while trying to slip a note under his door that Rob had been asleep in his room the whole time. So I handed him the note and business card and told him I was passing on the responsibility to phone the police and/or his parents and tell everyone he was still alive. He groaned. "My mum's just ridiculous. And my sister knows my mobile's broken. OK. Cheers." "You're welcome," I said.

It's funny because up until this morning I had not seen a single police car or policeman since I arrived in Australia. And now I meet hired detectives flashing their badges at me, looking for my flatmate.

comfort me with raisin cakes

Nic. the night shift manager. who looks like Ricky Martin. is awesome. because he buys organic dried figs and sultanas and offers to share. and yesterday (my second day in a row of double shifts that resulted in a twenty-hour weekend) after four hours of nonstop mad rush at work he waves this carryout 4-cup holder thing with a single drink in it under my nose and asks diffidently, Julie, do you want a latte? Nic! I said. I would love a latte. That would be brilliant.
(No, he doesn't like me; I'm pretty sure he's gay.)