It's Novemeber and the library is busy!

Yup it is November and the library is very busy. Not quite sure why Im here, as aren't libraries mean to be places where work is done? And in the past hour I have done no work, well that's not true, I've replied to a couple of emails and done my homework for my Computing class, which was commenting on one of my classmates photos on Flickr. Want to see a funny photo? Go to Flickr and have a look at the photo that Lins took of me for our class! Tis rather amusing, although not terribly unlike me! :)

I am in the library, and was meant to be doing reading for my dissertation, but I've had one of those 'feeling sorry for myself' days! Too little tea i feel! Anyways I'd best try and do a little bit of work before I head into town for Coffee, before ACTs prayer and a Retro Games Night! Should be good fun!

Extension!

So i havent yet blogged about the building site that is my house! After a long long long time (like 4+ years!) they finally started on the extension to our house for my bro! They got rid of our garage base, the garage had already been taken, at the beginning of the summer, to Kings Cross on Aran! Then they started some digging, and put in our new front door! A proper front door not on the side of our house, so we had 2 front doors for a while, which was fun. Then they had lots of digging done, we had trenches worthy of any battlefield. What was even more fun was that we had a couple of drains that fed right into our trenches, so combined with all the rain water we had lovely swimming lanes, which were frequented by frogs or toads (i cant really tell the difference, and wasnt paying too much attention!) But now we have the foundations in, and then the sub walls, i dont know their technical name, but they're the walls that are on top of the foundations that you won't see. Now there's a wooden floor of some sort on top of that and the builder was out this morning inspecting it. It's gets quite exciting coming home to see what is new at the building site. And having to park the car on the corner instead of in the drive. There's lots of mud everywhere!

For some photos you can look at my dad's blog douglas creates a blog where he has a few pics of our wonderful back garden!

Not sure what else to blog about. Have been ill over the weekend! I think its basically due to lack of sleep last week! I had a lot of uni deadlines and was busy with CU stuff, so would leave the house at some point between 6:50 and 7:20 and then get home any time after 10! Tuesday was worst, I left the house at 6:50 and got home at 3:40 the next morning, was on toastie bar, so had a good excuse! The weeknd was spent in bed, i slept till 11:45 on Saturday! most of the weekend i was in bed, with a glass of cold orange juice or a mug of hot orange juice,except when I was at Newton Mearns and Morningside doing info evenings for Step Out missions with the Baptist Union. and then on Sunday when i was out for lunch and then back to my grans for Mother's day!
So now it is Monday, this week is looking a little quieter, but i need to get going with my studying for the exams that i have next week! And then get to the assignment writing! Woohoo!

But Spring Harvest is a week on Friday! I can't wait! Im really really excited! :D

Tired!

Do you even have a day when you're on the go non stop, things don't quite go as planned, and at the end you think what have a i actually achieved today?, or what has it all been about?

The past kind of month and a half have been like that for me!

Ok so a quick run down of what's going on:

Uni: 2 exams before easter, 3 group presentations before easter (in which we have no time to meet as a group because we all have different classes!), 2 class tasks for before easter, a blog to update and possibly another class task, then 2 assignments for after Easter, a group poster presentation for way after easter (its at the end of May, but needs to be done now, before placement!), oh yeah and a 6 week placement which i would love to start writing lesson plans for now, but dont have time! Oh and the thing that i keep forgetting about - handing in my dissertation plan/topic to get approved!

CU: Being on committee this year has added an hours meeting each week, which so far have been great fun and i think we've managed to get all the things done that we need to! Iwas explaining to someone (poss Kirsty who is president this year) that so far my job of being vp has involved a lot of thinking, its like being a leader of a mission, its a lot of thinking about who has the keys, who will need the keys next, have i got tuesday mornings organised, are the small groups ok, did we remember to book the CC for next week, did i tell so-an-so about this or that! Lots of thinking! :) We're all [the committee] away this weekend for UCCF training with other committee people from all over Scotland! Twill b gr8!

Church: My church have been very supportive of me going on committee at CU and have kind of left me free to do that, so thats cut down on the number of things that im asked to do at church.

BUSY (baptist union of Scotland): Im on a task group for writing Kids Club material for this summer's missions! We've made huge progress and it's really coming together. Have a meeting in 2 weeks for that. Am also maybe helping at interviews and information evenings for StepOut missions in the middle of March, im really looking forward to that!
I think thats it at the moment! Lol, so not much! ;)

I keep coming across people who have read my blog (ok so i came across 3 recently that i didnt know!) so i thought id better update it! If you're reading this and are of the praying sort then prayers for sorting priorities would be much appreciated! Thanks!




Here's a random funny picture to finish off! It's Ailie and me in our hotel room at Deep Impact being 'Neds'.

Which reminds me, this year I've given up fizzy drinks for lent! I am seriously missing my Irn Bru! :( I can taste it in my mouth, and know that i cant have it! Hopefully giving up fizzy drinks will make me like them less, and therefore drink less of them after lent! Well, we'll see! Spk 2u soon!


I thought i'd leave you with a verse from the Bible!
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom." Isaiah 40:28
Even if we're tired, God isn't and never will be! :D

It's bean a coffee kinda weekend!

I am tired! It most probably has something to do with driving over 500 miles in 4 days!

It all started on Thursday! After being ratified as VP at CU, I left with Louise, Alison and Dave (who had just been ratified as treasurer). Ratified is such a funny word, sounds like an operation or something! Anyways the four of us left about half an hour into the CU AGM so that we could get to Perth for the Switchfoot concert! Which was brilliant, Perth Concert hall has a sprung floor, which was very nice when everybody was jumping around! After some excellent manouvers Louise and I were 3 from the front in the middle! Louise even got to shake Jon, the lead singers, hand! It was then a nice drive back down the A9 in a lot of fog! I eventually got hom at 2am!

Then came Friday, a 2 hour tutorial at 9, then PE was cancelled in the afternoon. At 3 i headed off again, this time to Dundee to stay the night with angela. We had dinner n caught up on each other's news and then went to DUCU (Dundee University Christian Union, incase you couldn't be bothered working it out!) and then to Tesco, don't you just love late night trips to Tesco, ah the hilarity! Saturday morning i had some breakfast and then dropped Angela off at a conference she was going to and headed up the road to Aberdeen! However on the way there a lorry had gone off the side of the road into a ditch and there was a crane there to pick it up, so our side of the road was closed and we all turned off at the junction to Fettercairn. And i was driving along thinking, I've only been to Aberdeen once, and i don't know how to get there now! :( But i just followed the car infront and we all went on a nice little detour at 50 on a (just about) single track road! Twas gr8 fun! I then got to Aberdeen and met Lorna, we had lunch and got a few bits and pieces and headed up to Peterhead!

You haven't experienced true driving until you've driven from Aberdeen to Peterhead, with no shelter from the North Sea and the wind pounding the side of your car! After arriving in P'head, I was taken out for coffee with all the Small females! aka Mrs Small, Lorna, Claire and Alison. Then we watched a film before Lorna, Claire and I went for a chinese with 4 others from their church. Then back to the house to watch the results of Dancing on ice, and Gareth (who was on my Step Out Plus team all summer, and who i hadnt seen since August) came round for a cup of tea! Then it was bed before getting up to go to church. After lunch and watching American Idol i went with the entire Small family (minus Stewart (their brother) who wasnt there) to see their new house, which isnt even finished yet, the interior walls went in last week. From there i headed back to Dundee to have dinner with Angela before driving the last 2 hours home to Glasgow! And that was my 500 miles!

Sorry that was such a boring post! I'll think of some funny stories to tell you next time!

My weekend was a great time of fellowship with friends from all over the place! :)
"And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. " Acts 2:42

Wow, long time no blog!

Yeah, so I totally got out of the routine of blogging!

Ive been learning a lot about blogs recently! Did you know that there are a large number of primary schools using blogs to let the children give book reviews, share poetry, tell stories of teddies and all sorts of things!

Hmm, but this is my blog, not my 'reflective blog!'
So what's been happening, not an awful lot! Back into the swing of things at uni! The workload seems neverending at the moment! There's always reading of some sort to be done! But you will be amazed to hear that i have already read the 3 chapters for 2moro!

I was talking to Alastair and Louise the other day about me having not update my blog (theirs have been updated more recently than mine!) and i was saying that I wanted to have a little rant about people taking dogs on buses! I saw two different people, with two different dogs, on two differnt bus routes in one week! What is with that? Why would you take your dog on the bus? I just don't understand that! Lol!

On saturday I was at a training course for people thinking about running a course called 'Lost For Words' which gets Christians to look at evangelism and how they can do it more naturally. It was really interesting. One of the questions we were asked was 'what do people believe today?' There was answers like 'Its ok for you to believe that, but i'll believe this' or 'you can just pick and chose the bits that you like from the different religions'. I didn't say this answer, but I think it's pretty true of some of the students (and friends) i've spoken to at Toastie bar, I think people today believe that Hell is going to be a great place. I think they probably have the view that being a Christian is boring, therefore since Christians go to Heaven, Heaven must be boring, and if you don't go to Heaven, then you go to Hell, so Hell must be brilliant! But Im sorry, that's not the case, Hell is not fun, is not a party, rave or whatever else. It's a terrible place, the Bible describes it as everlasting punishment (matt 25:46), everlasting fire (matt 25:41), everlasting burnings (Isa 33:14), a furnace of fire (Matt 12:42, 50), a lake of fire (Rev 20:15), fire and brimstone (Rev 14:10), unquenchable fire (Matt 3:12) and a devouring fire (Isa 33:14). Sounds like a great place to me... Or not!!!

At small group our conversations quite often go on little tangents and we end up talking about Heaven. Here are some of the descriptions or ideas that we've had for Heaven:
An escalator to take you there
A disco ball
Rivers abundant with chocolate of no calorific value
Awesome!
and a personal favourite 'amazing to the power amazing!'

Jesus refers to Heaven as paradise (Luke 23:42) So in short Heaven is going to be amazing, Hell isn't!

Am off out to dinner now! Switchfoot are playing at Perth tomorrow night! Woohoo! Shall maybe blog about it later this week! ;)

You are God alone by Philips Craig and Dean

You are not a god
Created by human hands
You are not a god
Dependant on any mortal man
You are not a god
In need of anything we can give
By Your plan, that’s just the way it is

You are God alone
From before time began
You were on Your throne
Your are God alone
And right now
In the good times and bad
You are on Your throne
You are God alone

You’re the only God
Whose power none can contend
You’re the only God
Whose name and praise will never end
You’re the only God
Who’s worthy of everything we can give
You are God
And that’s just the way it is

Unchangeable
Unshakable
Unstoppable
That’s what You are

You are God alone
From before time began
You were on Your throne
Your are God alone
And right now
In the good times and bad
You are on Your throne
You are God alone

Romania!

Hey! So i know its been a few weeks since i went to Romania, but i thought that i'd write a little blurb here with some Photos! (nothing at all to do with the fact that i need to write my report/diary thingy tonight!)

For those that don't know what im on about, i was on a committee connected to our local Boy's Brigade company, fundraising money for a hospital in Craiova. This is the third time the company has raised money for this hospital. Each time the committee has been given the opportunity of personally delivering the equipment to the hospital. I decided that i would go to Romania as i thought that it would be an amazing experience.

Here are some photos and captions of my time there!

The hospital in Craiova where the equipment was for.

This sign is above the entrance to the department that received the Ultrasound scanner and ECG machine. It basically means ‘The emergency mobile service for resuscitation and …’ the last word has something to do with the fire brigade! The ‘SMURD’ ambulances are based in a fire station. SMURD is the equivalent of our A & E department.

This is one of the rooms in SMURD. The hospital has improved a lot over the past five years, however it still does not compare to the hospitals that we have here.

Whilst visiting the hospital we also got to see the neo-natal department, which we had given some equipment to last time, the emergency dental department and this ambulance.

The doctors that we visited were very hospitable and directed us to some of the best restaurants in Craiova. This picture was taken on our last night, when our group and some of the doctors and their families went out for dinner.

At the different restaurants that we went to we got the chance to try a whole load of Romanian delicacies. These included pollenta (which tasted like the smell of wet dog), chillies with sour cream (the cream didn’t make them any less spicy or hot), meatball soup (I’m still not quite sure what the meat was), cascavall pane (sort of like deep fried cheese) and my least favourite of all pork brains. I only tasted a very small bit and I will never ever eat brain again, I do not recommend it!

For one night of our trip we were taken to a chalet in the mountains. This gave us a chance to see some gorgeous countryside, but also to see some of the conditions that the poorer people in Romania lived in. Behind the tractor is a make shift shelter, that I assume was the house of those people.

In contrast to the poor lifestyles of some of the people, this is The Palace in Bucharest. It has the same number of floors below ground as it does above, and all the architects who worked on the palace were killed, as there are many secret rooms which the government did not want to be found.