A Man's Gotta Do

What a man's gotta do.

But what does a man have to do?


Is it to

love the Lord your God:

• with all your heart
• with all your soul
• with all your intellect

and to love your neighbour as yourself?



Wednesday night's worship session was great. I think for me, nothing beats sharing a meal with good friends.

And as for "praise and worship", well, these days it's hard to escape from the whole corporate deal of getting as massive a herd of people as you can to get into it; it's been popularised, reduced to some CCM chart.

I'm not trying to say there's no authenticity. But I probably don't believe it's really authentic either. But Wednesday night really gave me something to think about.

It begins with an invitation, into the presence, the peace, the power of a Creator who is actively working in the people you're surrounded by. In a posture of adoration of the Creator, with trust in the friends surrounding you, well, a song is just a song. But in that moment, I rediscovered joy, and joy is not a word I use very often.

So thanks to all my friends who intentionally took a night out of a busy week to gather together and worship. And for everyone who couldn't make it, so sorry about the timing, but we'll definitely do one again soon.





Love,
Chris.

Seize the Day!

Ann, I dissected a rat with gloves.

It was pretty funny actually. We had to figure out if we were dissecting a male or a female and let everyone know; that way, those who got males can look at female specimens later on. So... mine didn't have the typical male genitalia. In fact, it looked a lot like the female one (we had diagrams in the notes). On this basis, I concluded it was a female. Fair? (OH, I'VE GOT ANOTHER STORY TO TELL ABOUT DECIDING THE GENDER OF A SUBJECT, but it's rather embarrassing and involves arts students, so ask me about it some other time.)

So to cut a long tale short (get the pun? HEHE), I cut it open, made a diagram of its insides, and... discovered fat pads. Now, the demonstrator mentioned that his specimen was a male and had fat pads, and suggested removing the fat pads. So, I pull out the fat pads, and lo and behold; the thing has balls.

Hmm. So it was a male reproductive organ after all. Oh.

Also... I can't think of a worse time to have been hungry. :(

Anyway, I went shopping today. And by shopping I mean I exchanged money for material goods. And by material goods i mean some shiny new batteries for my Nikon and a few prints of film taken with my lomo. Here are the firstfruits of my coloured flash!

Blue and Pink flash, featuring a Winston. I think its a male.

Ditto.

Yellow flash. Yep, my room was intentionally messy. It's a lot neater now. Really.

After "shopping", I took a walk this afternoon, around Carlton, exploring backlanes and whatnot. I figured since it was such a grey day, it'd be good to take some photos with my Nikon, since I had a whole stack of ISO 3200 film.

(high ISO = high film sensitivity = good in low light)

On my walk, I found something rather interesting, though I think its been there a while. Just thought I'd share with you guys.





Somehow, (I couldn't possibly fathom how, its a mystery) I wound up in Music Swop Shop on Elgin street. There are some really cool secondhand guitars there. I tried out an unassuming no-name (possibly homemade) acoustic, and it blew my mind when I first strummed it. But then I couldn't get it to make that sound again so I decided to put it back. I probably just wanted it to sound good and started imagining it. Then I tried a banjo.

I now want a banjo.

See you round folks!

At the Beginning

of a remarkable project known as Earth, it was a bit of a mess. A bit of matter here, some particles there.

And a word.

Collisions, a spark; the word took on form, took on flesh. It brought form and function to stray photons; it brought light. It brought purpose into a heap of rubble, so that it was no longer debris, but a space filled with life. Life that took form in the tallest of trees, drinking from the earth and rinsing the heavens; the smallest of prokaryotes, thousands of miles beneath the ocean, shifting through molten lava and frozen rock.

And there was life that reflected the word. Life that bore the image of the word that gave it purpose.

The word saw everything it had done.

The word was God.

"Good."

All of it.

"Very good."

Love,
Chris.

Calm down

Deep breaths.

I was late for my prac this morn-

Ok, I think I'll start where it all started.

I went over to Greg's place last night... to play dota. You know... that thing used to be worth driving down to damai and skipping classes for? That thing that I haven't touched since... that time during A levels? Yeh. Bunch of scary looking characters, running around beating up trees and ghouls and each other...

Well, we played til 3.30 AM because we kept losing. I woke up at 8 today, ready for my 10 AM prac. Almost. Except that I woke up again at 10.15... like omgomgomgomgomg, I reached the redmond barry building at 10.30. And I was told to come back and try my luck again at 2. If some unlucky soul misses his/her prac, I get pretty much get 10 free marks, just for making the prac. I got my 10 free marks. Well, maybe 10, depending on how the test went.

Anyway. The point is, there's a lesson to be learnt here. Don't play dota.

Ok. So I'm at Winston's place now, no, not playing dota (yet). He cooked dinner.

It.
Was.
Awesome.

You know that sea cucumber soup that you get in expensive chinese restaurants? Yeh. And lamb chops man. Good stuff.

(Yes... I wrote that because I know you'll read it Winston... cheeky manipulative ass I am)

Yeh, so, Aun's getting married tomorrow. Woohoo! Congrats to Aun and Leanne. Also there's an Anzac memorial service tomorrow at 6 AM I think. And I think I will be there (yeh, and I couldn't make it for a 10 o'clock class...)

Hmm. I think that's all for tonight folks. This is Chris signing off...


to play a round of dota before bed. XD

Later guys!

Much love,
Chris.

Nice and easy

Ok, I'm gonna make a start.

There's a huge gap from where I last left off, and I have no intention of filling that in. In detail.

So uhm, holiday, fun, sun, back to uni, omg, omg, uni, and then easter break, easter camp (rocked) and then uni started again, and then Jason Mraz.

I'll start there. Jason Mraz was amazing. He's come a long way, and you can see the experience in his staging. And yes that opera bit was totally wtf, I was just blown away. Good stuff.

Moving on. Had heaps of tests. Now I don't. WOOO.

None for the rest of the week that is.


I drew on Coraline, my acoustic guitar. Check it out:





Tried to get a rough idea of what to draw. I intended to do a couple of sketches and pick the best one, but it was massively time-consuming, so I just stuck with the first thing I drew.



Coraline before.



Coraline after.

- edit: I was inspired to draw on my guitar because... Jon Loo drew on his classical. Haha.

What do you reckon? It's drawn on cellophane tape by the way. As in I stuck tape on first, then drew over the tape. That way, when I get bored of it, or I find the inspiration, and the bloody time, to draw a new one, I can just take it off.

Yeh, see what happens when Chris is done with his tests?


I'm not usually this smug mind you, its just been poo-loads, and i really mean loads, of tests and studying, and my brain looks for painstakingly painstaking ways to unwind.


Ok. That's all for now. Later guys.

A New Day

Today is a new day.

Yesterday is gone.

Tomorrow is yet to come.

But today begins the rest of my life.



Fueledbymaggi is live folks. Here's to a good year, strong relationships, and pure awesomeness.


Love,
Chris.

Time to move on

Ok, watch this space (or don't, I'd rather you didn't) cause it's about to undergo some renovations. Can't do much right now cause my macbook is flat, and I managed to destroy the charger. So how am I posting this then? Hehe. Heh. It's a secret.

Changes have to be made. Lifestyle and everything. Once i've got that covered, then I'll work on getting this ship running again. Til then, this is chris, signing off for a few weeks, after being absent for a few months.

Sayonara.