Opa.

Here we are 3 years on, you're still gone and we're still remembering.
I never really been good at these formal family remembering sessions.
Something in me breaks - snaps.
So much has changed since you left.
Just so much change.
I don't deal with it well, obviously.
You were steady.

As each year passes I get this uncomfortable feeling that my memories of you are getting less and less sound. They're slowly turning to dust.
So maybe I just fill in the blanks with how I wanted you to be.
An exaggeration?  Maybe.

I do know you were kind. Slow to anger. Patient. Hopeful. Grateful. Took delight in the little things. Felt for the oppressed.

I don't know Opa. At times I wish you were still here just too talk to, take walks with. But your presence wouldn't fix everything, as I make it start to sound in my head...

I miss you.

I love you.

From my broken, messy heart to your transient, eternal spirit.

Second year = COMPLETE

it's done.
i hung in there.
it wasn't easy at times.
when everything seemed to be falling apart.
and i wanted to give up.

support. love. perseverance. patience. hope. prayer. breath. search. self-discovery. lessons learned. journey not destination...

neuroscience, 2nd year uni, flatting @ 39 chambers street = COMPLETE

reflection

What becomes of curious minds.

We found WONDERLAND.

Love t. swift

STUDY PRISION

we both went mad

Nearing the end... of 2nd year.

So near the end.
1 exam done, 3 to go.
I have 8 days to study for back-to-back exams.
Then free... (kind of)
I still have to figure out how the summer is going to work...
For right now I'll keep anticipating Taylor Swift's new album and the listen to it non stop and watch Miranda Sings and her fiancé on youtube. (and eat donut muffins)

12:00am 

A Block

Maybe just writing things down on a page will help me actually write something for this research proposal.... I'm blocked and I'm anxious and can so easily get in a bad frame of mind...
Yo-yoing back and forth between I have to do this, I need to pass terms, I just need to get something on the page to I don't want to do this, It will magically go away, I'm weak and I want out.
CRAZINESS!
The annoying thing is I feel like I can sit the final exams but its just these stupid open ended assignments that send my brain into a mess of ruminative, negative, depreciating thoughts. It's like I'm just letting myself fall into a self-fulling prophecy. Great. Taylor JUST WRITE SOMETHING. FAILURE IS OK. It's NOT the end of the world, the sky isn't going to come crashing down and sallow me up into nothingness.
I just kept going to different sources in the hopes that they would have something different and profound and all encompassing to say, a miracle cure, a way out and breakthrough. No such luck, as I knew all along. I'm my own worst enemy caught up in the tangles of my own mind, tripping me up, trapping me a prison of my own dysfunction. Powerful but in a wicked witch of the west kind of way.

yup.

Look to You.

God I look to you and I won't be overwhelmed. Give me vision. - Bethel


A bit of a turbulent time
Calling out
Confusion

Finding middle ground
Straightening out my thoughts
Overstimulation
Cortisol excess

Walking the fine line
Between simplicity and routine and intellectual stimulation, wonder and awe

Hanging on
Looking after ones self
Laughter
Tears
Pushing on
Gentleness

Support of community is the ideal
Individualism and isolation part of the reality

I will look to HIM
He knows my path even when I feel completely lost and tired
Trust
Faith
Hope
Patience
Learning to wait
Learning to love

He is the Light.

" I feel the nations of the earth are shaking
There is no power that can match his grace
Lift up your head, lift up your eyes to see

All of creation is waiting and longing
For sons and daughters to declare this truth
Lift up your head, lift up your voice and sing

He is light shinning in the darkness 
He is the hope, hope of all the nations 
He is the light, he is the light for all the world to see 

I feel the faith across the earth is rising
We prophecy about his kingdom coming
Just like heaven all across the earth

He is light shinning in the darkness 
He is the hope, hope of all the nations 
He is the light, he is the light for all the world to see 

Great, great is the Lord
Praise his name, praise his name"

by Bryan and Katie Torwalt 

I just think it is so awesome that Jesus shines light into the depths of our darkest moments
So awesome that he is the hope of all the nations
All across the earth we can look to him, cast our eyes on him 
Though we are all different, we can worship the same God
This unites us 

random photo.

study time again.

Study.
AHHRRRGGGGGG!
I've just been sitting here all afternoon achieving nothing. Procrastinating professional.

I even took a photo of my NOT studying state.

Study and I don't go together very well, add a cold flat, Grandad being sick, not knowing my direction etc. to the mix and the product is sitting here all afternoon and NO study.

I wrote a poem.

Wandering these parallel paths we are 
Conformation in overheard conversation 
In isolation we carry these unnecessary burdens 
If only to meet and see that we all feel the same 

The ancients of this institution look on 
Viewing an all to familiar cycle 
That they once completed and now set 

The pursuit of knowledge 
We have to start somewhere

Breathe and write
Understanding will come

Wandering these parallel paths we are 


Ya. Exam time again. 

deep calls out to deep

I was listening to a song the other day on Life FM (the NZ Christian radio station) and I don't even know what the song was called but I contained the lyric "Deep calls out to deep." It wasn't even the main refrain but something about the phrase cried out to me. It stood out. I consciously remember thinking, "I need to remember this..."

I looked up the phrase and it comes from Psalm 42:7 "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." 

You could take it to mean one bad thing after the other, not being able to breath or being completely overwhelmed, though those were not the thoughts that came directly to my head when I heard it. 

What I immediately thought and fell in love with was, as one commentator put it "only a call from the depths can provoke a response from the depths." As God cries out to us we are compelled to respond from the depths of our beings, it feels only natural. When the creator of all things calls to YOU something from deep within stirs... deep calls to deep. 

Meaningful relationship. I always find myself craving meaning, intimacy, depth, and reciprocity.... don't we all? Maybe one way of finding that or creating it in our lives is to interact, communicate from a place of depth. Superficiality will invite superficial responses. When the deep part of us calls out to others, nature, the universe, God.... who knows what kind of response will be reciprocated? What will be opened up? What walls will be broken down? What will be discovered? 

Thoughts for a Sunday night.

STUCK

here I am. In a state of stuck-ness.
2nd year-ness. Hardness.
Not wanting to write my first PYSC report. Not at all.

:( Frozen :(

yup-ness

Course Approval Round #2

I.D. Evolution

At least a good 3 hours plus of line standing, being hot, hungry, thirsty and just plain being bored equals being course approved for the second time. It was great to have Jemma with me throughout it all and Renee waiting patiently on the sidelines... flatmates. :) Very tired now. 

Flat meeting. We are just trying to figure out how its all going work. Trial and error. Give and take. 

Dad coming in at 9 and having to move all the stuff in... not exactly as planned. 

Here comes uni year two. 

Bachelor of Biomedical Science majoring in functional human biology .... (for now) 

39 Chambers St FLAT 

5 flatmates 

FAITH 

2014

New year and new adventures once more.
The summer has been hard, but summers and me have a bad history so it was kind of expected…
Subway mess
Coming to terms with my parents "relationships"
Boredom
Heat
Missing Kirsten
Living at "home"
the one week that shone like a ray of sunshine on a rather tough parade was AUCKLAND :)
Jemma and her family
stable
happy
light
new experiences
the sky tower
city buses
magic tricks
rainbow's end
So I'm aprox. 2 weeks out from moving into the FLAT- 39 Chambers St.
Freedom; along with some nerves as we take on new "adult"…ish responsibilities!
IT"LL ALL BE OK.

anticipation don't get the best of me