first day in Phili ~ an interview

For the first day in phili we have a special interview with me, hosted by Leanna. Enjoy.
(I have a gumby keyboard at the moment so its hard to type a lot. Sorry)


so first impressions how is it????

First impressions? Its like thailand, but nothing like it at all. Differen't feel, similiar looks. Were in a quiet area just outside manila. Its still got a bit of hussle and bussle from locals.

im gonna bombard you with questions so.............
1) HOW WAS THE FLIGHT?? sleep much, watch movies???
The movies sucked and so did the games! Ha ha. But I found the juno soundtrack which made it all worthwhile. Ha ha. I watched like one full movie then half of every other ones.

2) how do you compare it to thialand??
So far? hard to say, Im still going through it in my head. Not as many spirit shrines. Ha ha.

3) are you finally ready to be in the philippines??
As ready as Ill ever be. It doesn't blow me away like thailand did, I see this as an extension on my trip in thailand.

4) where are you in the philippines right now??
Just outa manila, ha ha. I can't remember the exact name of the area though. about 30 minutes from the airport.

thats all the questions i can think of :)

I like questions. =)

Also I had my first hilarious experience. I go to get into the taxi and so I walk onto the roadside of the car. Aimee calls to me to tell me I'm in the front. Im like, ok, open the door. and Im urterly confused with this booster seat like metal thing. Everyones laughing their heads off and one taxi driver is like "We drive on the right side of the road here sir." And I'm still standing there, looking at the booster seat thing, and then at the stairing wheel thinking to myself "Its gonna be hard to sit in there with the steering wheel in th- oooooooh!!" I get it now. They did the old "switch the drivers seat" trick. So I got heckled for the rest of the trip about wanting to be the driver etc.

Brunei!

So we have ben traveling all day. Were sitting in Brunei waiting for our next plane to come get us. The movies suck, but I found some cool soundtracks to listen to. The Juno soundtracks on there! Woohoo. Go alt stuff.
Chris has been getting cabin fever, and every time were given a pillow or one of those "Springrolls" he biffs it at either me or Zara. When I say spring rolls I mean those little flannel things that your given to refresh you or something. To be honest I don't really like those things.
We stopped in australia as well. So we got a good look at the terminal there. Pretty much an extention on NZ, except instead of Kiwis they have abos.
Some random ass dude popped out of nowhere and did a freaky face at me just now. It was rather amusing, if not a little strange.
Well thats all I got o say for now... Hmm, I saw my first butt sprayer here. It freaked me out for a second, but upon second glance it was like seeing an old friend again. Its about 30 degrees here at the moment. I like the heat it feels good. But they pump the AC in here.

See you guys all on another continet or acapela of islands.

The night before The phillipeans

Its also two days after Christmas. Let me get Christmas out of the way first. It was Ok. My nephews and Nieces came back from Myanmar. So christmas was taken out by them this yea. They could hardly stay above the tide line of paper which always inevitably litters the floor during christmas. See During christmas people suddenly loose the whole tidyness thing, and all of a sudden its ok to leave piles of rubbish in the middle of the room like leaves, and half sucked candy canes amongst it, like cat feces.
I have been preparing diligently to leave for Phili. I am geared and ready to go. I did 2 practice packs a week ago and made sure the weight wasn't over limit. I have written action plans and taken phone numbers of the Embassies in Manila and have memorised maps, so now I can draw them by memory, now I wont ever get lost. Ha kidding. I found some clean washing on my bed which I jammed into my bag. I also went for a five minute shuffle around the bathroom and my bedroom looking for things that may be useful to take over there.
It usually takes me ten minutes to pack. So I'm assuming somethings missing.. Hmmm. I guess we'll know all about it when I get over there. Thats the best time to find out you forgot to bring something. Its a perfect excuse to go exploring the local stores by yourself when everyone else is asleep. Heh heh heh >=)
Ok, so while I'm away a lot of things are going on. A comic I'm doing for a website (The website isn't finished yet so I can't link you to it.) will hopefully like my comic and not ask me to change anything on it. Because They won't get a lot of replies in the next three weeks. When I get Matt he'll be a married man. Keir will be married as well coincedentally. What are the chances huh? And I was gonna be best man as well.
Over the past little while I have learned a lot about Gods will and timing. Sometimes its not so much his timing, as it is a lesson in obedience. Its a thought I'm latching onto. I don't like to fail tests. Ha ha.
Hopefully I'll get some good video over in Phili.

In graffiti news lately, Mum met the cut collective by the courthouses as they were doing up the power box there. She got to talk to "trust me" she was as pumped as me about it. Cause she knows How I feel about those guys. Legends!

Henry the maori

Man, If there's one thing allied can supply you with, its a nice handful of the strangest people you will ever meet. All of them hardcases, all of them so lovable. Ha ha. Like the big maori guy, henry, who always has a baleful look on his face, hides his earmuffs up in the ceiling, you have to stand on a toilet to get at them. He was a bit gutted when he couldnt find em. lol. Hold that thought. So to sign in and out (and get paid) you have to wander into this office area, strangly located at the heart of our section (Raw side) and sign in and out on this little time sheet. Thing is at some point someone nicked off with the pen (Which was tied down so no one WOULD steal it(Which just made it more of a challenge I think.))
So now you gotta go hunting through these offices to find a pen. It feelings real dodge running around in the office, I always feel real guilty. In my last day in there Henry Grabbed a pen which was hidden up high above this notice board thing. Apparently he hid a pen there to, because its difficult enough as it is to sign out.
It made me laugh and wonder what his house looks like. Before he leaves he compulsivly puts all valuables just above head hight to put bad guys off from nicking everything. His computers probably nailed to the ceiling. "Screw that, I'm not lifting my arms to get all that stuff.."
Im doing filing for DOC at the moment, just on the corner of K road. Mean beast oi.

Oh yea, ANOTHER CARTOON ALREADY! Yay, this one involves a bit of brain power. Meaning, dont watch it late at night if your tired. YES Leanna, you have to watch it again. Ha ha.

Prepository

The title probably transmorgified itself into a different word cause I'm to smart to just write preperation.
So I got back from headspace, now. TO LIFE!
I got busy and animated, did a few trial animations then released my first biggy since before Thailand. Its the first cartoon in what I hope to be a life time goal. Making animations, comics, and just about any media I can get my hands on and master to glorify the big guy in the sky. Check it out, I'm rather proud of it. Hopefully you can desifer what I mean by broken Champagne bottles (should be relativly easy if you keep in mind this is my cartoon thats launching it all.)
Anyway, I spent a few fevered weeks doing that while also getting my act together, and more importantly my portfolio. Which was bundled off to Massey uni. I had a killer time with the Interviewer there. Whos luck near the end ran out, so she spent a while looking for her pen, then eventually gave up and brought out a handful more pens. Pens are so glorious, yet so annoying, they just dissappear. Either that or everyone assumes they're free. Or they steal them because what goes around comes around. And they have had enough of it going on around them.
Then I had an ever better time meeting one of the head honchos of the Design department. He was pretty cool. We got talking about burma and Thailand cause he lives in that area. Oh man, The news lately.. If you have been watching it, its been pretty intense. I was like, woa, those streets look familiar. Although most of the highways in Bangkok look the same. But I definatly recognized the airport. Ha ha. Hopefully the king will kindly suggest that the prime minister fulla stands down, so people will calm down. Man, Imagine if NZers ever got so passionate about stuff hitting the fan. Our idea of a revolt is driving a tractor up the steps of parlament.
Anyway.. They liked my portfolio of artwork etc. So the design school thinks Im in. Now its a matter of what Masseys beurocrats think of me. Thats the dodge part cause my NCEA stuff is not quite what you would call sterling. Although art is kick ass through the roof.
Hmmm, I gotta go dry dishes, and then go to a meeting about the philipeans. Ill type more junk into this later if your interested.

Jenny Doll Part 1

The kick off, I think I was talking to Hanna, and this was a spin off from our discussion on whether or not people were responsible for what they watched. You can see I am of the opinion your totally responsible for what you say, watch, and do. You can't palm it off onto somebody else and do an "Im the victim" mentality now can you?

Jenny doll ep3

We made a number of vids over the course of this year, im slowly gonna put snippets up for your viewing pleasure, or for your squemish pleasure. I dunno, some of these are a bit graphic. ha ha.

Gone Gone And Coming From

The final weeks flew by. We did the last of our perspectives. Looking back they were a little bit of a drag. But somewhere along the way they did a bit of magic in me somewhere. I want to take on the world, live a missional life, here in a comfortable home, but also in the wide wide world. How can we as christians just sit around and do nothing with what we have been given? Lets use what skills we have to impact the world around us! Lets pray! Lets read our bible. Lets laugh about how we can take the discriptions of the song of solomon literally and think he's courting a woman who is a gazelle with honey dripping out of its mouth and myhr coming out of its hooves! Ha ha. Poetry is fun to rip to shreds mercilessly (also keeps some particularly raunchy imagery at bay.)

When we werent studying (Which wasn't really all that often to be honest) We were running around like headless chickens with blood shot eyes (yea, without a head, but with eyes never the less) staring into computer screens (Yes, Running around, but also being in a static position.) wrestling with non commital programs to make the year book and end of year celebrations a possibility. Ok, quick side note about the year books for the gappers that read this. I was talking to John (If thats his name), the head honcho who deals with all the cash at GCIM, about the pictures. A few picture files were missing from the year book. It was a giant montage of the begining of the year and the Philipeans. Ok so they were apparently ditched because they were so full of kick ass awesomeness that they weren't able to be sent over email (Since their file size verged on mammoth.) the girls spent FOREVER doing them. So I think he's gonna try and print em off himself and send them all to us. So maybe we should be prepared for a little surprise in the mail. Woops. Its not a surprise anymore, well act surprised, so you don't hurt his feelings or something.

Us guys got devious, and a little bored. So we decided to take the girls shower curtains (The showers are in like a corridor so they need to walk past each other.) and then steal their lights out of the toilet, and then the lights out of their room area places. I can't remember if it was before or after that Amy got a pair of Peakies boxers, and a pair of Jess's grundies and stuck them up the flag pole. Unfortunatly for them the camp inspector came that day to check some stuff out at camp. And to him putting undies up the scout flag pole is like sacralage. He was FUMING, muttering under his breath etc. Oops, oh well. Guess the christian gap year program won't be going back to Albany. ha ha. Oh yea. Then we got a pair of amys delicates and pinned them to the ceiling so it looked sorta like a half naked person stuck to the ceiling of the dining room. Funny idea if nothing else. We did a few more but they were a little to mundane to write down. But lets skip forward, back to the narrows. Us guys went to have dinner with Steven and Trisha (Our host parents from doing kiwi fruit.) While we were gone the girls collectively pranked the crap out of us. Im actually quite proud of them. It started with Frank noticing the glad wrap on the toilet seats. and the red bloodied tampons hanging on every single object, and the pads screwed up and pushed into our beds. Girls in general, don't bother with the glad wrap on the toilet seat trick, it doesn't really work with guys, We don't really use the seat. And its survival instinct to look in the toilet first, some guys don't flush. ha ha. Then we found confetti all through our bags, its spread out all over my room at the moment actually. (Don't worry, I actually vacuumed it up.) Then we found and disarmed their (was it?) disinfectant in the shower thingies, oh no, were gonna wash ourselves even more while washing ourselves! Not well thought out ah well. Then there was the salt (or something, I never tasted it) on our tooth brushes (Teeth brushes?) Now that one was a good one. But we didn't fall victim. Now my Fav one they did to us was the Vegemite on the light bulbs, it started smelling funky in our rooms for a while before we figured out what it was. We just nabbed their bulbs and switched em... move back to when frank found the glad wrap in the toilet. Its time for action! Us men had to take a deciseve counter attack, IMMEDIATELY, no time to loose. So we used the glad wrap they so handely left us and got peaky to (Girls, your aloud to skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read about vulgarity.) take a massive crap in it, and then put it in their sink. The girls came out from watch Mamma mia, seeing we had found their tricks they all were giggling and hiding in their room, I guess they didn't know what to do. Then they started to go into their bathroom. I followed with the camera. Their faces were hilarious! They gagged, they screamed, they ran in shock, They exclaimed, oh my goodness it was worth it. sigh..

That story over lets go back to Albany. Im skating around the building, down a narrow path with a hand rail to my left, my board quickly picks up speed, the gravel, doubled with the incline going to the left makes my board slide out from under me, my legs at about knee hight slam into one of the posts for the hand rail, they then come back onto the path and help to slow me down. A piece of gravel sits neatly at the end of a streak of blue jean scraped onto the concrete. Yay a new hole. I lie on the ground yelling profanities. Frank runs around the corner, " and you wanted me to do that lying down on the skateboard??" "YeeeeesssAAah.. Hang on.. I just gotta walk it off." I try standing, "AAAH, I can't walk it off!" I say as I give up that bad idea. So I then spend the next few days hobbling around like an old man. Stairs were particularly embarrassing to get up and down on. Heh heh. It still sorta hurts when I bend my knees. But don't worry I'm still skating strong. As J was saying about Emo's skating "Yea, of course Emos skate. Its like a new method of self harm."

I dont know what to say now. Things happened so quickly. So many precious memories I should probably write down Im going to leave unspoken, and unwritten. They were good times. We did the end of year celebrations with our parents there. At the end we gathered around and sung. We sung our hearts out for the lord and each other. The girls cried, the guys laughed and played it off. But inside all of us were loosing a huge part of our lives every time someone walked out with all their bags. I lost the community that we had that day, and for 10 months before. People that I had grown with, people that understand EXACTLY where I'm coming from, know almost exactly how I have changed. They shared the life changing God experiences with me. They shared the millions of laughs we had. From Mount Eden to Thailand, they were there beside me. Egging each other on to do Gods work. If at the begining you had asked me if Headspace would change me, I would probably say yes, on an academic level probably. But I didn't think my heart would be ripped out and replaced with an entirely new one. One which would want to serve God hard out. To do his will. To do the huge great big things he wants me to do. To live in a godly relationship, to live a godly life. I didn't just give one year, I gave my entire life. If I had full control over the catch phrase of Headspace it would probably look like this.

Welly and the Narrows

First off, Sarah, my numbers *******. call me. *wink*
Second, Hey thanks for the welcome back Quin. But I told you never to talk about those dvds! No illegal sex workers for you! Bad. BAD!

So I finished up my stay at home and took off to Cambridge. We picked up Zac on the way. It felt kinda cool getting the team back together. We have quite a spirit of comradery. We all met up in cambridge and then loaded into vans and took a 7 hour trip to Wellington. there was quite a bit of silence on the way down, but thats the way the guys van usually goes. It was only breafly punctuated by talk of the latest games and metalgear solid.
We were based in a little scout camp in the lower hutt. So we had a lot of bush to run around in shooting each other with our BB guns. Fortunatly ye old faithful which I got from the Wessels years and years ago still serves me well. (The Wessels were this really cool family me and the Holdings hung out with. Really great people.)
We spent a week in Welly. I love that place. The graff is awesome. And I found alley ways full of sticker art. and there are so many skaters there to. Awesomeness.
We got a few lectures in this time. But it wasn't heavy going. We gave short presentations of pictures from our respective countries.
I got to use my Dads suit again on Emma-lees 21st. Its amusing to see how much you can make her do, she's like a sillier version of me. She put a bra on over her dress. So shocking. lol. We all went to dinner at this Thai restaurant. Really nice place. Although it didn't actually taste to thai at all.
Sorry, Im not giving a huge exposay and a million anicdotes. I guess I just want to get this post over with.
We visited the bee hive and got to check out parliment. Man, the main chamber is tiny as, I thought it was way massive. They have economy class seating I swear. I found it a facinating place to check out. There was one man on our tour who was a real dick to our guide (an elderly lady who had an impecable english accent.) Every time we seemed to mention the maori parts of the building he seemed to get really anti, and started argueing at the guide (As if its her fault that its customary to speak maori in the special maori room thing.) She handled it admiraly I do have to say, she probably deals with them a lot. His comments were pretty.. awkward though. I think most of us wanted him to shut up, while I generally laughed at how innappropriate and red neckish he was acting. Later turned out he was an Auzzy. A sad representation of australia, but I guess it just goes to show there are still full blooded racists around. (yay /sarcasm)
The other thing I noticed about wellington, its a giant freakin slope. I caned myself more than once on my board. I had a gnarly as graze running down my arm.and I fell flat on my side and pushed blood out of my hand after trying to go down a flight of stairs. But that one was more my fault I guess. I didn't have to... But I did.

After welly we went back to Cambridge area. We stayed in the narrows. Which is a spit of land between Cambridge and the tron.
It had nice grass to lax out in and play the guitar. Loved it. thats all I have to say for now. I have the weekend off, so Be seeing you around probably.

To work, to leave.

The English camp went well. Every now and again, me, Franks, and Jesses, lesson would bomb, but thats to be expected. So I didn't get to cut up about it. We were in charge of the Drama station (One of the many stations at the english camp, all of which were planned and operated by us gappers.)
I have to say, that most of the time It didn't look like drama at all. But thats fine. We still had a wail of a time. At the end we were all acuosted by every single girl at the camp. And I swear I signed a million books and stuff. by the end of it I was like, Ok screw pictures now, Im over camera phones, Im over cameras, Im over portraits painted in seconds (That last one didn't actually exist.)
That night we celebrated with the teachers, so out came the Karakoe machine and the alcohol, Which they got smashed on, while we sung our hearts out. Bohemian Rhapsody FTW*.
The next night we showed our appreciation to The Ngao Hostel. The leadership decided that a bit of spontanious "Gender Roll" switching would be in order. So guys were in charge of making salads, while girls were gonna do the firewood for the bomb fire. I wasn't pleased at all with this. But it didn't matter in the end. Because we all helped each other out anyway and.. *looks around carefully*.. The guys carried most of the firewood anyway. lol
The next day we headed back to Chang Mai (Where the Juniper tree is) and stayed at this trendy hotel thing with a pool. But I didn't get to see much of it, because who did I find sitting by the pool with 3 kids? John and Bex! Woot. So I got to see my nephew and nieces again. Its the first time in my life I have met Baby Sarah.
We hung out, had dinner at this american place (Kinda expensive) met some Burmese friends of theirs who worked at the night markets. Funnily enough they thought because I was related I could speak Burmese, Fortunatly I could speak a little Thai to them. anyway we got a Dvd, took it home and watched it before leaving for the hotel and crashing.
After a quick session at the Net cafe the next day we packed our junk, went to the airport and got frisked.. Because Peaky had a BB gun. -_-
We zoomed over to Bangkok airport, spent an hour walking to the next terminal (I swear that airport is the size of Hamilton)
We then shot over Australia and landed in the Auckland terminal.

Thailand experience... OVER.

Boy, our airport seems so scary in comparison. Police standing at the entrance of the plane (As if we would suddenly snap and kill everyone on New Zealand soil or something)
Not to mention our airport looks like it was originally meant to be a hospital or something. So depressing.
I had my welcoming party of Steven and Trisha, Zara, Phil, Sarah, and Aimee. Yay, thanks guys.
The rest of the day was still packed, hanging out, then going to a philipeans meeting. Yea thats right. My overseas invasion isn't over for the year yet kids.
I then crashed and didn't wake up till 2 in the afternoon the next day. Jet lag 1, Izak, nill.

Wake me up when September ends

hey ya'll, Were back In Ngao, where we taught at the High school and...

Yes Mat, I know I got daily fourth for the toon . Pretty awesome huh? Thats better than what some front page cartoons get. ah well, It didn't quite have the right taste to make it to front page. But it was such a quick project it didn't really deserve to make it any higher.
(Lol, I spelt your name with one T, for old times sake... To rark you up. I mean, Its not as if your name hasn't been shortened already, why not shorten it a bit more.. Or even shorten it again. Your name is now M, and you are now eligible to join a secret service of some type.)

But yes anyway, back in ngao, but now our teams double the size and we no longer have Mark and Ema. Sniff. We'll miss you guys. Probably the best rollmodels ever. If you guys wanna meet Mark I suggest you go cause some havok and get arrested. He'll be the one visiting you when you call and say your having a domestic. If its not him the first time just call again. Luck of the draw and all that.

The Phili team reunited with us wednesday last week. They took the night train like we did. Except that this time the night train couldn't make it up the hill. So it rolled backwards for a while. Making a delay of a few hours. So im guessing they rolled backwards back to Bangkok or something. XD
The night before we were like, meh, I don't really care if we meet up again. But by the next day we were all fidgity, and every time a car went past the Juniper tree we would all look up quickly, and then drop our heads in dissappointment for the millionth time.
Its been good seeing everyone again.
At the moment we're all preparing for the english camp which starts tomorrow. 6 lessons tomorrow. 300 kids in total at the camp. 2 days. Now the two days part isn't so good. They had budget issues. But also I think the authorities caught wind of who we actually are, and so their limiting our capacity to work now.

So keep praying for our final days here in Thailand. Thankyou...

*Feverishly runs off to do a as of yet non existant news letter that was due this morning.*

Summer time and the living is busy

So we left our cushy teaching positions of paper pushing and brain press ups to the real deal. Manual labour, probably the first decent batch of hard work we have had all year. Finally, something that doesn't involve planning and reading. Although those are fun.


We mished it to Chang Rai, which shouldnt be confused with Chang Mai, which is where the Juniper tree is. Chang Rai is about as close as you can get to Burma without getting shot. In the space of about 5 minutes we made it into Burmese waters (I refuse to say we were in Burma, water just does not count, try starting a civilization on water. Waterworld being the exception, but thats cause they had nowhere else to go. So for the record I haven't been to burma, and neither has the rest of the team, so when the thailand team tells you we went to three countries in one day just slap them and say that water doesnt count.) three countries you say bemusedly? Yes, Laos was also right there, the three countries all meet at the fork in a river, which consequently runs through China as well. We spent about an hour on Laos, they seem to deal mostly in Vodka pickled snakes. I think its meant to improve how verile you are. Or how much a tourist is willing to pay for a poisones pest sitting in a bottle of vodka. No. I didn't buy one.

So on my birthday I got to visit two and a half countries. well, when I say visit for Thaialand I really mean spend three more weeks in. So in actual fact I got to visit 1.5 countries on my birthday. In fact I cant even legally say I even set foot on Laos. So I actually Visited .7 countries on my birthday... Ok thats just rediculious, Ill stop there.

My birthday was alright, although it was mostly spent in travel to Chang Rai. The team still managed to suprise me with an upside down cake.. It wasnt actually meant to be upside down, its just the way it came out after a few hours travel. But that didn't stop it from tasting alright. And over the day I got given a few bottles of death syrup (AKA, fizzy drink)

Also we got to visit the white palace. Its amazing, until you realize that in buddhist culture it all represents hell. Poetic and grotesque. Inside the main hall is a huge painting, which is still being worked on, its done in a traditional style, but interlaced into it is guns, starwars characters, bombs, Neo, Alien, sexual stuff, Predator, oil fields and other blatantly western things. And up the top are two eyes. If you look closely you can see George bush in one eye and Osama in the other. Haunting, but at least now I have a good excuse to not wear white.



Now I started talking about building, yea, I did that to. Lol. We spent most of the week helping to build a rabbit hutch. Its going to be used for a breeding program, The christian organization we were working with wants to make hilltribes self suffisient, and not having to rely upon drugs and prostitution. They are bringing over NZ rabbits, which are apparently very plump for eating, sorry Bex, they eat rabbits, not pet them and give them wack names. But Like most New Zealanders the wee jumpy things have problems with the weather, so they need a cooler shed than most other animals so they can multiply properly.

Man im tired of writing, Ill finish this later.

Sorry for the lack of updating. Lets just say its a gauge of how busy/how much life I have at the moment. Im gonna try and split the updates into weeks. so heres the first.

week 7(?) we spent in Ngao. pronounced "now" which made for quite a few cheap jokes for the here and NOW. woa. that one still sucks. Ah well. Better luck next time huh.
Last I left off I was freaking out about teaching. Well it wasnt so bad. Because I got Jo. So she talked, I drew like a mad man on that board. Our first lesson was pretty hilarious. The board had scrawls all over it, and we were furiously rubbing out what we had just written up and woa.
One thing about schools in Thailand. In NZ we are coming to realize that the education system is more suited to females. Well Apparantly they realized this many years ago here in Thailand. In an average class there is usually about 3 guys in a class of 30 or 40. Two of those guys are most likely lady boys. Meaning they realized they were out numbered so they decided that if you cant beat them you may as well join them.

The Hostel we stayed with were really awesome. They are actually closely linked with the first hostel we stayed with in Bangkok. A lot of the guys from Bangkok actually started off at this one. Each night we would do a worship service. The hostel guys would just rock out. and all the songs would be uber awesome. Albet garage band sounding. But fun none the less. I got to learn a few songs. And we would jam out all the time. Since leaving I have been craving a guitar. Ah well. We'll be going back on our last week for english camp. So it should be swell to hang out with em all again.
On one of our last days we had an NZ birthday style day of games and stuff. I got to make the kiwi for pin the beak on the Kiwi. lol. but the best part was when we started a water fight, which then turned into a mudfight, because not long after the water fight started, the rain decided to have a go (And ultimatly won) and the mud also came along for the show. Although it felt like I was actually pelting Terresa and Grace with gravel rather than mud. Ah well. Its not cheating if they don't catch you.

the Primary goal

Last week we were hanging out in the Juniper tree. Nice resort place for burnt out missionaries, as it likes to be described. Its more like a private club, but thankfully their nice people, so the little gappers were aloud in. Oh yea, the train trip was aight. We had beds that popped out of the walls and stuff. It was awesome. Although the sleep was pretty bad. Bumping around and just in general not being able to sleep.



We have been hanging out with a primary school in chang Mai. Twas a fun place. Me and Jess got the little little ones. One the last day we took them to the Zoo. So much fun. I got designated leader of our small group, so they push me and Jo out into the Zoo with a hastely nabbed map to get a bunch of little kids. My basic leadership model was to look at the map thoughtfully for a while then point in the direction and say "PANDAAAAAAAA." where the kids would follow suit and go chasing off in the right direction. I was a bit gutted we didnt get to see the panda in the end. Ah well, we got to see a show with the seals. and another wildlife show. Where parrots climbed ladders and went down flying foxes and did in general, un birdy type things. Oh yea, there was an eagle who did two reggle swoops over the crowd then stollidly decided it didnt want to move any more, and just sat on its roost and eyed small childrens, uh, eyes?

J had his 20th on the 30th. We blind folded him and took him into town to have big icecream.. Then we went home and ate icecream.. Then we had icecream for breakfast.

Today we went to the school we were teaching at today, not knowing ANYTHING. We had little to no teaching plans laid out or anything. Thankfully God heard my prayer this morning and they let us skip out on our classes, Were going hard tomorrow though. Good thing, Jo and me are teaching together this time around and this morning she was just so wasted. No one slept good last night. I Swear we wandered into a bugtopia or something. Zac keeps finding massive spiders and I got a firefly in our room last night. I was so amazed, I had to wake the guys up "look look look look, check it out isnt it awesome!" And then Zac got a toad in his bag this morning, it jumped out while he was getting junk out.

ooooooooooooooh k, gotta go.

Summing up bangkok

You may notice that this post looks startelingly similiar to ones I have done over the course of our stay in Bangkok. You may even have an even more starteling revelation if you have been going to THIS website.



But if you havent thats ok. But for those of you who want a little more I have added a bit more personal stuff that I couldn't add to the more public version. And I promised a story of a guy giving me language advice and that is what Im going to do.



Im getting some printing done at this place near the Uni. and the elderly Thai gentleman serving me picks up a conversation with me when he finds out im from NZ etc. He speaks pretty good english. I apologise that I can't speak as good thai. He then goes "Find Thai girlfriend, best way to learn language... Of course it depends on mans ability to find girlfriend. Some aren't very good." I laugh and tell him Ill seriously take it under consideration. Me and Jay leave the place laughing to ourselves. How forward of him.



The other Day it was raining hard out, and flooding in the streets just appeared out of nowhere. I was inside for this extraviganza but the others were wadding along the street to get to McDonalds at the time. In NZ we have such pussy rain compared to here in Thailand. In NZ it cant make up its mind, and its sorta sprinkles us with water. In Thailand the clouds are like "Alright, Im busting to take a leak." BOOM! Lightning,thunder, torential rain. You get soaked in Seconds.



The Crocodile poking is after the paragraph about the ancient city.



Hi everyone *puts hands together and bows slightly* Sawadi Khap from Izak Flash Man and Jay.

A lot has happened here in the past 2 weeks (?) wow time flies. We’ve been teaching English at the hostels we have been staying at in Bangkok. It’s been a learning curve for all of us. Trying to teach something that’s challenging, understandable and at the same time answering all the tricky questions they have been firing at us. “WE DON’T KNOW WHY ENGLISH BREAKS ITS OWN RULES. Sorry.”

There have been a few unfortunate misunderstandings within the groups. Which is a staple diet when the two parties come from separate cultures that can’t speak each others language very well. It seems as though if you pronounce someone’s name in a slightly different pitch or tone it becomes a completely different word, words that generally don’t bear repeating. Much to their amusement, and much to our embarrassment, and they never tell us what we said until one of them quietly takes us aside.

Church over here puts all us westerners to shame. 6 Hours of church. It starts about 9 in the morning with a bible study. Then jumping into a regular type service which we all know and love. Glory church (One of the few churches in Bangkok) has a very multicultural group with Thai, Korean, Americans, and the Occasional Oceanian. So during the sermon you will hear the whispering of translators all over the room. After the main service they have lunch together and then go hard for a few more hours with a sharing time. Their passion is revitalizing to see. Continue to pray that this energy will continue to flow out of the little hall and out into the community.

Josh and John turned up at the Beginning of the week. Josh is a gapper from last year who’s now a missionary in China. The group he works with can’t meet in groups in China, so they had to jump the border and do the conference in Thailand. Johns his mate who’s on a holiday. They were a good temporary addition to the team.

When we find the time in-between preparing classes Emma treats us with giant ice cream. Hah. I wish. But her, Mark, and Emma-lee do take us to some pretty rad places. For example the ancient city.It’s a park in the shape of Thailand. With real and replica buildings from around Thailand, placed in relation with where they would be in the real deal. So its as if Thailand was shrunk and the buildings stayed the same size. It still takes a bike to get around the whole place, and a couple of days to fully appreciate everything. Bikes are half the fun of the place. They have racks and racks of the run down little things. Hazards include, rust, wobbly wheels, seats designed for aliens and brakes (If your lucky enough to even have breaks) which slip. Jess and Beth, being the special children they are, decided to take a tandem. I was rather impressed with their actual skill in riding it. I’m not so sure about Josh’s skills though. He talked his way into riding shotgun with Jess on the back. They churned off ahead in what appeared to be an attempt at breaking the land speed record on a tandem bicycle. It was going good until they went over a bridge.. Half way over the bridge. From our point of view it looked as though they just disappeared. When I got close enough the bike and Jess were sprawled out over the ground. Josh was already on his feet, asking why no one was asking him whether HE was ok.


After that we traveled in our nice air conditioned Van to the Crocodile farm. They have a lot of crocs. Its more like a petting zoo than a farm. They have camels and leopards and tigers that you can sit on and take pictures with. The girls were inraptured with the baby monkey though. It had a nappy on and you could hold it. I have to say it was uber cute. While it was getting its picture taken with Jess it took a bit of a widdle though. The show with the crocodiles was rather stressful to watch. Girls screaming on either side of you every time the guy whipping his head out of a quickly decending pair of jaws can really get to you. People would throw money down for them. I don't know how the notes survived floating around in the water though. Some people thought they were funny by throwing the money amongst a huge pile of crocs so the man had to attempt to get it out of all of em.

Another treat was taking us to the red light district. Well, when I say treat, I don’t mean.. Digging myself a hole. We went and visited the Rahab missions house. They’re a group which work right at the gates of hell it seems. This is made immediately apparent by the directions we are given. ‘Just the place under the sign “Super Pussy” ’ Paul and Margaret MacGregor, Two awesome New Zealanders from Tauranga run the show. They help the woman that work in the area get out of the situation they are forced into. It’s an unfortunate epidemic in Thailand and it’s good to see that there are people with a heart to change things. They teach the girls alternate ways of earning money, making jewelry and such. Rahab also provides free education to the girls. Afterwards the girls (and us guys) chipped in by getting a bunch of the jewelry to take back home as gifts. Woops, maybe I shouldn’t have typed that.

We also helped Paul and Margaret with the New Zealand night they had planned for their English class. Now this is an amazing coincidence. They didn’t know we would be coming to Thailand, and they had no control over the date of when the night would be held. Now what were the chances of us coming at a time which was so convenient for all of us? And on top of that, how could we have ever planned that was the same night Josh and John came. That’s an answer to prayer. Pauls prayer that Kiwis would come and help the program along and then our prayer that God would have full control over our program. Who needs to PLAN stuff when you got God on your side. I mean apart from the fact we wouldn’t know what’s going to happen next but oh well.

The girls have been connecting really well with the Thai girls in their dorms. Many a time have we heard stories of them staying up to the wee hours of the morning having a blasty blast. Or going to the night markets and “eye” shopping. Since there aren’t windows to look through. They have also done a lot of singing together, swapping lyrics with each other, so now our girls can sing the songs in both Thai and English.

Us guys on the other hand valued sleep a bit more. It was fun going to the stadium and playing soccer though. The guys are really into their soccer. I actually think it’s a national thing. When you head down to the stadium it’s full of make shift Soccer fields. There is little to no grass, but what they do have is a wide concrete expanse. It didn't feel weird at all, playing soccer on the landing of the huge steps up to the stadium, with a few chunks of concrete (Taken from the side of the road and used as goal posts) with no shirt on. You can just stand there and excrete water like a sieve… a sieve full of water. It’s amazing to see how hard out they get into their soccer.

One thing you learn about the Thai’s, “No half measures*”
Everythings an extreme. Luxurious condominiums stand looming over squatty brown shacks. People with pristine hair and unwrinkled brand labeled clothing push past small children begging on the side of the road. Temples are gilt with gold and intricate designs while the average wage is about 70baht a day. (about a $1.80)

In a few hours we will be getting onto the overnight train and chuff our way to Chaing Mai. So we now have a choice on whether or not we should do spelling corrections or we should go out and have fun.... WOOHOO! *Jumps away from the keyboard and runs down the road pretending to be in the music video.*

*No half measures is a sentence copyrighted by the CocaCola company. Don’t worry they wont sue us because I copyrighted the letter ‘A’ in both upper and lower case.

The forbiddens

Sorry, I got no time to post a proper update. But this is just to say, We have reached our last day in Bangkok. This afternoon we jump onto a night train and go steaming of to Chang Mai!

What to expect when I get more time:

The ancient city.

Crocodiles being poked with sticks.

Jess falling off a bike.

A store owner giving me advice on how to learn the language. "Find a Thai girlfriend."

Huge flooding on the way to McDonalds.

Teaching our students to become Infomurcial hosts.

And J dropping a heavy pot of Punch on his head.... No Im not going to do a bad joke about how it was a heavy hitter... Jeeze. I have my honour to think about.

Getting around.

Zac, Me, and Jo. woop woop.

Well Its been about a week since I last posted. I guess its time to lay some cards on the table. (Double or nothing)


I got a DS! Woohoo! For all of you who don't know what that is, well don't worry because you wont care if you do figure out what it is. I got it from this huge mall. Which I swear is dedicated souly to electronics. Us guys were prime targets. Everyone was screaming at us to buy games. Which I must admit were uber cheap. 4 bucks at most places. Ds games were about 2$. So I got ten. lol


We also went up the tallest tower In Bangkok, even way up 77 stories you couldn't see were bangkok ends. It just continues to spread out like a beautiful ulcer on the face of the planet.


Today me and Zac found a McDonalds. Their burgers actually look like the picture. Unlike in NZ, where it looks like they punched the burger before putting it into the box.


Over the week some of us have been assigned rolls. Jo was the leader, I was the prayer warrior, and Beth was head photographer. The prayer warrior basically does all the main praying for the team, before we go places, for people, for the start of the day. It was really good. I enjoyed it eminsly. Quite an experience initself. And whenever prayers are answered its like "WOOT! You totally actually wanna listen God, cheers so much."





Today is Kings birthday or something, so all the stores are closed, meaning we can't photocopy our teaching resources for tonight. Were so screwed, lol, Oh well. We have been making our class write stories, to help them work on their grammer and terminology. Its pretty fun to read their stories.

new pixs

yay, Thankyou zac, for hosting the pictures which now adorn all the thailand posts so far. Their all a little out of context with whats being posted, but thats ok, their only meant to be eye candy while you read the funnies. Oh yea, the computers at the dorm have flash, so I was able to create a new background image. enjoy. And have a nice day. or night, depending on what sorta person you are. If your a morning person I hope you dont get killed by the cranky night people. Because while their waking up and being noresponsive, your trying to talk to them and have a deep and meaningful, and they don't appreciate that. So leave them alone. hint... hint.

Apparently this morning Beu, one of the guys in our room was having a dream, he spazzed out and woke everyone up. He was like kicking and stuff. lol?

Today Me, Jo, and Zac went and bought a pizza. It was totally made from scratch in front of us. It took forever to get, but it was worth it, there were these nice sofas to sit on while we waited. Really relaxed ai... Now I gotta find a pic to put on THIS post.. dang it..

Boom, done.

English Lessons

Woo. Just finished doing the english lessons tonight. It totally wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm so glad I have Beth. She. Is. AMAZING. like a natural born teacher. unlike me, whos more like a test tube grown teacher... which went wrong. lol
Some of the Others screwed up in some funny ways. At one point I was like "So what do you, as thai, do as a family?" This was meant to be preping into a new lesson. They were like "...nothing." "oh... Are you sure?" "...Yes." ".. Crud."
Jess was trying to pronounce one of her girls names. She said Tui, which means dog. Then she said Tui in a slightly different pitch and that meant water buffalo. Lol. OF course, in thai, T comes out more like D. so it was really Dui. Anyway. Ill catch ya'll up. we used up our internet time. Sorry for the short post.

Church Thai Styles

This isnt a thai church. Its the Kings palace. So if anything its a buhdist temple. Very buhdist.

So I spent my first night at the hostel. It was... Uncomfortable. Not because of the hard beds that sound like they are full of hay and plastic bags. their fine. them being hospitable and turning on the AC above my bed, that was great to! They know how much it fries in a cramped room with four dudes in it. Waking up to said AC freezing me like a bag of black bananas on the other hand not so much. And then the toilet filling back up in the background. It took me all night to figure out it wasn't an electronic wine. It was just water going through a very small hole or something. lol
ah well. Woke up at 7.. Lay in bed for ages. We walked to church and helped set up at about 9. Geu, our main host (He's been to Teowmutu!) translated the bible study for us. I haven't seen revelation being taught in a church before. Very cool. Their worship songs are just as cool as ours. Sorry Chris, its mostly hillsong, sung in thai. So at least you wont hear the theologically wrong lyrics. lolololol.
They have a cool style of prayer over here. I know they do it in a few other countries to. Its so awesome. Everyone just prays at the same time. And then fantasmically everyone just quietens down at the same time and someone finishes up the prayer. so cool. We should do it more often to. Its a lil awkward at first but you'l get used to praying over each other. Don't worry, God can hear you at any volume.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Their church services go till about 4 in the afternoon. So we spent all day at church. It wasn't that bad actually. We had all sorts of people there. Koreans preached in english, while A thai translated. It was crack up. the speaker kept going into korean by accident. Or it may have been Thai. Who knows.
Later on all the guys (Me, Jason, Zac, and the crew from the dorms) all went out and played soccer outside the huge stadium in bangkok. There are tons of people all just setting up goals all over the place. It was great. It didn't feel weird at all, playing soccer on the landing of the huge steps up, with a few chunks of concrete (Taken from the side of the road) with no shirt on. Oh yea, It was so good being on the no shirts team. Just standing there made water want to evacuate from every pore in your skin.
Tomorrow we do lessons. heh heh.
Mood: apprehensive.
Currently Listening to: For the moments I feel Faint - Relient K.

I NEED TO GO!

Dont worry. The title isn't as urgent as it seems. Let me explain.. using copy and paste, from an email I sent but moments ago!
We were coming back on the train earlier today, from Lop Buri to Bangkok. Getting into the taxi we had no idea what was about to happen and the events that were about to unfold..... (Fortunatly I had my trusty hat.)

.... Oh man, me and zac got lost again. Our taxi didn't know where we were going and took us to the train station instead of the university. He was desperatly running up and down the road looking for an english speaker. And just to make it more frantic I was desperate to go toilet even before we got in the taxi. Ema rang up and said we were going in the wrong direction. That was the moment I dispeared and was like "ILL NEVER MAKE IT!" zac: "Youl make it dont worry!" "Oh no I won't, im busting. Driver, excuse me, toilet! Toilet? bathroom? Do you know what I mean?... No... oh man oh man oh man." I even took off my belt and was ready to ditch out onto the road and run into a park. the driver was getting very worried. He was like "five minute. only five minute." and Im still panicing going "I don't HAVE five minutes!" XDBut I made it! I begged my way into a seven elevens toilet. Thank goodness they knew what I meant. They were all cracking up at the distraught big falang going "Toilet toilet TOILET TOIlet toiLET. toiiiiiileeeeet."phew.. thats my High tention story for you today. =).

The girls are just down the road in the girls hostels, us guys are hanging out in the guys hostel now on the computers. Im a little freaked out. Monday we start our english lessons. It'll be the first one. Heres hoping I don't mess up!

p.s. I found this bottle of colouring lotion just now. Its so thai can look more western by having lighter coloured skin. But this is what it says under the logo in a small font. "Being born again into attractive woman in the sea." .... You be the judge.

shop keepers

Man, this internet cafe is located in a sauna or something I swear. Theres one fan, and its pointed at the desk in which the owner parks himself. Its rather amusing to see the way shop keepers act around here. Youl peer into their dinky little store and they'l be lounging around somewhere totally random. Unlike New Zealand where we hang out behind the counter they just go wandering.
It seems as though everyone has a shop here. They were like, whats the lounge for? We'll just rip out the front of our house, sell a lot of one object, and call ourselves a shop. They then go on about life and just hope they notice people when they go wandering into their house.
Its friday here at the moment. Everyones get on the booze it seems. Doesn't look to be a safe night.

Catch ya'll around. Leew pop gun maih! (Phenetically correct but dont quote me ok.)

Sawati Khrap

Wow. Friggin wow. Its amazing here. I dont know where to start. The plane was ok. taking off was the best part. No delays. thats a blessing because of that storm that raged its way through. I'm hearing right now that it struck pretty hard.
2nd Impression. The billboards. They are Huge. Its hot. getting out of the air conditioned taxi for the first time (Onto the middle of the road. Its pretty insane if you see what driving is like over here. EVERYONE is trying to get past each other at the same time.) my glasses totally fog up. I was like "WOA! IM BLIND." Not to bad though. I have no real problems with it. Oh yea, Coke lost the war in Thailand. Pepsi rules. Even the run down little street venders have pepsi imblaizoned all over it.
Its hard to say all the different things that have happened to many. So many stories. Ill have to just select my favourites to tell.
Me and Zac getting ripped off by a tazi driver. Second day in Bangkok. Me and zac have to take a taxi by ourselves back to china town because ema-lees sick. We jump in and tell him where were going. we tell him to turn the meter on because we have been warned about the dodgy things they can do sometimes. (We also noticed that his licence on the dash board was NOT him.) He was driving for a little bit and he says to zac "100 baht?" Zac agrees, just to shut him up. We pull up to the hotel and were idling by the door and the taxi guy says "100 baht!" Zacs says "No I dont think so, meter says only 65 baht." "100 baht!" "65." he says, smiling and tapping the meter. The driver turns off the meter and locks the doors. me and zac both instantly go "WOOOOOOOAAH What EVER!" and im laughing my head off at how dodgy he is. "100 baht!" "Nope. 65 baht. Mai chi!" we hand over a hundred baht note. And the driver gives us a twenty. We decide thats an ok compromise and get out. laughing about it.
Oh yea. there are bottles of cola that are 3.1 litres. They are MASSIVE. i wont ever bother with them since a glass bottle of Pepsi is about 50 cents. I got a nice pair of Sandals For 5 dollars today. Honestly, you girls would love it here. There was a alley dedicated to shoes and bags. They also have these crazy gold necklace stores. they're everywhere. I call them fast food gold stores. Cause I can almost imagine people ordering at a drive through for Gold chains.
I was really dearing today and pet a monkey. those things don't like being touched. It freaked out. I think if I hung around much longer it would wanted to give me a rabby infested bite. A couple were climbing all over Jo. It was rather amusing how the girls would react. I have my camera, crouched down filming it. It completely ignores me walking past and around, while all the girls are screaming and jumping up. I think it liked their reactions. XD. cars stopped at the lights would be investigated by the cheeky little things.
today at the markets I found a rack of frogs cut open upside down. One of their hearts was still beating. lololololol.

This week we are doing Thai lessons so we can comunicate a bit more than we have. Its aight, Im finding it a bit tough. I got numbers down pretty good. 1 to 5 is simple. nung, sung, see, cip, Haa.

Well I cant think of much more to write other than sorry for no pics. Im in a net cafe.

Love ya'll lots (Except for you, you and you.)

tomorrows the big day

By the time most of you read this (Unless your an eager beaver and check this blog like every night or something) Ill probably be in the sky for Thailand. Ill probably buy a simcard over there so I could still text. But Ill probably check the net every chance I get to make sure your all right, right?

Man, im freakin out inside. I bet im gonna forget something. I bet Im gonna screw up the first english lesson I haven't even bothered with preparing.

I was just watching the news and apparently theres a storm headed our way to. So we might not even get off the ground! aaaaaah, I dont know anymore!

Yours freaking out truly,
IFM.

P.s. If I die dig up under the old willow tree. You'l find my childhood piggy bank with my highly prized collection of lint.

final study block and beyond

Ok I lie, Its not the FINAL study block, but the ones after will be totally overshadowed by the awesome experience in Thailand. Yay! I havent forgotten you all. (Sorry I haven't texted in a while either guys. Out of reception and out of battery juice stuff.)

Ok, Im gonna try and type about the last.... 6 weeks?

Finlay Park.

This was a great place. For one reason and one reason only.Own. Personal. SKATE PARK! I got myself a sweet deck to use here. The mornings were freezing, so it was always a bit of a run to breakfast. At night we watched the Band Of Brothers series. Everyone got into it. Even the girls funnily enough. Goes to show that Blood, guts and violence isn't just a guy thing. Its a human thing.

Heh heh. I also made a mini series with an unfortunate jenny doll, which (In chronilogical order) got its hair set on fire, drowned, frozen, dropped down a water slide, smashed, ripped in half, put back together, decapitated, and then recapitated with her head upside down. It started off as a rediculious look at how people dont take responsibility for their actions and blame it on the media. Then it went off on a tangent cause everyone liked it so much. Oh yea, on the finaly day I got my hair slashed by Aimee, Beth, Jess and Emalee. Sorry for the emotional trauma Jess. You did good. =D Its like an emo cut now, but lopsided at the back. ha ha. I did it for the opshop ball. Lt. Funk played. They were so groovy, and I knew how to dance to every song because it was all ska/funk/reggae styles. ha ha.
We got our visa applications ready as well, in little old cambridge again.

Huia Lodge

West Auckland! yea ya! Huia lodge is this little place way up in the waitakeres. The community spirit of headspace got rekindeled here in my opinion. Probably because we had two places to go. our little rooms, or our little hall with a nice fire roaring in the corner. So a lot of munchkin playing went on here. Heh heh. I made a bunch of the guys even more nerdier when I made them partake in my own homemade RPG. It was hilarious to see how animated they get freaked out when I make a Resident Weevil burst out of a box at them. ha ha. Good times... Your all looking very lost. I'm sorry. I should keep the nerdishness out of this. Oh yea, The designs for headspace are trundeling along. I designed our Tshirts. Everyone went into the mall and got their own Tshirts from hallenstines.
The actual design for headspace itself though is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Ema is very particular. Which is great, it stretches my talent muscles somewhat. And I would rather not do a bogus design for the figurehead of headspace.
During this time we were going to my church for thai lessons and more perspectives.

Finlay Park II

KIDS CAMP! It was totally rad. I got a cabin of kids to look after. I have to say its right up there with Coopers Beach camp. Its so relaxed its great. I was mostly on Skate Park Duty. But I pretty much sucked cause I never did a good job of keeping kids in helmets. And one of the little maori Boys kept nicking the Decks -_-. Funny story though, On the last night We caught him and his mate sneaking out to go pranking. We chased them down, one of them slipped on the concrete then got owned by Ian our camp director, and the maori boy got jumped by the other leaders. He stayed in the leaders cabin so we could keep an eye on him. But obviously not a very good eye because he stole two Ipods. We almost didn't get them back. Ian was planning to do a bag search, but everything pointed to this kid, so he was grilled or something (Don't know exact details so I won't exaggerate it) and finally gave them back. Franks Ipods backlight doesnt work anymore though, saddly. But at least he got it back. Cloie, one of the chick leaders got baptised there this morning in fact. It was great. I was beaming =) I was so happy for her. Also last night All the Big Names came and played. and hey hey, I could dance to all their music because it was Ska. Yay, such luck. =D
Ian was a great camp director. One night us leaders werent getting into bed fast enough so he came in with a mini baseball bat and gave a bunch of us a bit of a wack to speed us onward. I was laughing my head off. Hmmm, Other stories.. Their all quit painful. I owned myself heaps trying to do grinds on the skate park. oh yea, and theres this kid Adam, I'm sure he's gonna win the darwin awards one day.
a bunch of my campers were sitting behind another leader in chapel. and as he was sitting down they tried pulling his pew out from behind him, it didn't really work, so as the leader was pulling back the pew, Adam put his head between the gap where the two pews in front met. He got his head caught and his ears squashed. It looked rather comical. He had been asking for it all morning though. He's the sorta kid that doesnt understand that "If you touch my hat,My oh so gorgeous hat,) one more time, or if you punch me a few more times, I WILL poke you harder than you ever could little man." So what does he do -_-. So I poke him and he crumples and cries for a few seconds, then decides that the best way to deal with the situation is to hit me again. So I sit there for a bit waiting for him to stop, then tell him again "Don't touch me or it will hurt on your part.".....AdampunchsImegaPoke and he's down for the count! The crowd roars! I feel Strong because I can beat up kids half my size. -_-

and now I'm home, Waiting to go over seas and do what I have always dreamt of doing....

....Buying pepsi in a bag.

Didn't get a haircut & got a real job

More ball photos! This time with Brialee.

So I have been putting off writing this since I have had a lot of fun messing around on newgrounds and a billion other websites which I find a lot more interesting than this blog. I think thats a good thing because it means I don't find accomplishment in reading about myself.

So lets start with wednesday(or some day) last week. Things went extreme at our host families. Pranks were flying everywhere. Alarm clocks woke people. Gloves failed to explode on exhaust pipes, condoms were strategically placed in peoples wallets and YES. I did find that one in my CD wallet thankyou Steven. It went to good use protecting Peakies Wallet, Phone and Ipod.

Cerelia took us around town on a random adventure. If you want to see what she did to our room (Which we were MEANT to have tidied up that night have a look here) and if you wanna know a little bit about the random adventure have a looksy here.

Saves me the trouble of having to write it myself =D.

Thanks a lot family, you rocked our cotton socks.

We then moved to camp Sladin. Its freezing, but thankfully we have our own Spa, which is massive, and more specifically I have my own private skate park to ride around on. I got a new deck specialy for it. it looks niiice. No more Warehouse junk for me. Man, Im far to lax with this blog entry, its bordering on commercialised mediocreness. I better tell a story quickly. So I'm at the skate ramps right. And the boys come down to check me out. Really they came just to see me fall over. Which they got. J's videos of me flipping over made even me lol. Eddies like "Flash, Drop in off the big ones!" knowing this would be the surest way of making me cane myself. Especially since I cant even ride up and down one yet without falling over (While people are looking.)
So I Give him a swift "Neoow! screw you. I can't even drop in off the little ones. see... Ok. So I could drop in off that. But I can't drop off this slightly bigger one..... Alright so I just prooved myself wrong again. But this one for sure I wont be able to do.... Well I did it but that doesn't mean I'll do the huge one I'll kill myself." I clambered up and put my board on the edge. Freaking out at the height I am above the concrete. And if you know me I don't usually freak out at stuff like that, because Im generally hurling myself down it.
There are two videos of the even which follows. One shows me saying "NO I CAN"T DO THIS." Then immediatly leaning forwards and skating down.... then go plowing straight into the concrete which was so patiently awaiting my palm, face, and predominantly my knee. Which was giving me hell for three days. The second is a high shot of me rolling after impact, then continueing to rive in pain saying "I told you! I told you I would kill myself.

Oh yea, I came home on thrusday. Surprise. While at home I got a new Video camera to. Yay, Now I can get down to making my own version of Lord of the Rings, since they missed a bit last time it was made. Peter, you fool. Kidding. XD

So to sum up. I have finished work. Got enough money for overseas, and in general everythings turning out nicely. Now were going onto our next learning block! Time to get back into that bible.

MUCKOLE!!!

The Ball

I have been putting off all week posting about this since Its been difficult getting photos off girls.

Itsa me and Lianna!

But I went with Brialee right, some of you may remember her from HM Rage from last year. Oh yea, sorry I couldn't come, far to expensive, even though Headspace is apparently a sponser of rage. Ah well. Have fun guys.

So I was talking to Brialee via MSN a while back and she was like, dude, you should come to the ball. Later on I found out Lianna was going to it as well with a bunch of her friends. YES! A free ride there and back. lol.

So we left work early so I could sit around waiting for Mum(Lianna) to get ready. During the week I scored Dads old suit. My host brothers shirt, and Jasons shoes and Tie. It was a complete throw together. It look rather decent though, apart from the shoes not fitting with the time period at ALL.

It was groovy seeing Brialee again after all this time.

So we went to the ball. I'm going to assume that balls are pretty much the boring bit before the afterball. So I'm just gonna say we danced around to a lot of Oldschool stuff from the rock 'n roll 50s and then a whole lot of mainstream yuck stuff.

We went back, got changed into regular clothes then headed to the afterparty, everyone had to meet outside the Popo station, where we would get picked up by a bus. We only just missed the first (Out of three) buses by like 6 people. So we were content to wait for the second, by the time it came the bulk of the munters had arrived. So theres a mad paniced rush for the doors, beers in hand. Everyone got smooshed together, I was pinned in the middle somewhere. None of our crew made it on so we decided to wait for the LAST bus. Jeeze.

We made it on thank goodness. The Afterparty was aight, it doesnt matter how you dance when there strobes going, ANYTHING looks cool. just wave your hand in front of your face and youl be amused for ages till you either have a sezure or just get tired. Once again not much to say other than drunk people are fun to spin. "its like a rollercoaster... But not.."

We got home at 4:30 and crashed. I was out like a bad batsman.

On another note, I lost my wallet, Im assuming it got stolen along with Both Hannas phones and other misc items of value at the packhouse. We have a thief in our midst. =(

Fortunatly other than my Eftpos card the only thing of value in my wallet was the little picture of me on my ID. lol. Hopefully they wont go to henderson, check out all the books in the library with my card and then dump them in the Creek. I would NOT want to be responsible for that.

Nice little sticker done by Noodle.

Like The Background? The Queen was designed by Component of the Cut Collective. and I have smashed my NZ Music month circles into the mix.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESS. and rock on our monarch!

Skate Or Die

Were Leaving End Of July. Really Scary, they gave us a sheet with all the dates and times for everywhere were going as a team, it only filled an a5 sheet of paper, thats the rest of our year! It Doesnt feel like long to go at all! =(
Bex, if you take up drinking, buying alcohol, and buying fireworks Ill have to come and give you a sound beating.. Apart from the fireworks thing, thats cool. I like celebrating an attempt at blowing up the Government.
On sunday we went and had a picnic on top of a hill overlooking cambridge, It was a real nice day, and a vintage aircraft was doing stunts out there in the clear blue sky.
Zac wasn't there with us though because his folks came down from auckland to give him a birthday hug etc. He's no longer a minor! As of 2am this morning.
We got the video camera back and ended up making a new episode of peake. We stayed up real late editing it, in the end I told him to "GO HOME." lol
After the picnic Me and Jman went to the skate park to check out the local skills. Steven from work showed up and lent me his board. I found out how embarassingly bad I am at skating. lol. got to fall down some stairs though trying to do a grind.
When I got home I realized I had left my glasses behind somewhere on the way home. I was like, oh crud. So Steven (My host dad) Drove me and zac down to have a look. We hunted for ages, and then WOOT. Found em. Thank goodness. I was so sure someone would have nicked them. The same thing happened with Zacs eftpos card. I dropped it somewhere between home and countdown. I spent the entire walk home looking in the pitch black for the friggin card. I found a yugioh card to replace it (Thank goodness), when I got home I found the eftpos card on the floor. -_-
At work a bunch of the guys cornered Zac and gave him a birthday Wedgy. He managed to fend them off by getting Steven in a headlock and Peaky by the throat.

So yea, in a little bit everyones coming over to enjoy pizzaaaaaaaaaaa to celebrate Zacs Birthday.

To...Hungry....Must... Publish. *click*

The other team

Yea Sarah, their splitting us up. Much to the "AAAH" of the girls. I did want to go to Thailand so phew. The other teams heading over to phillipeans. Theyl be staying about a week with us in Thailand, and then another week at the end. We'll be teaching english in Thailand, and they will be doing more practical blatant outreach in phili. We got together as our teams tonight and prayed about all of this. I have to say I have the good looking team. =P

We started learning a tad of Thai. I remember that Cowputt is thai for rice. So just remember cowpat. And something like "Wutda clrap" is hello or something. So yea, 'What the crap."

We finished work early today due to the box machine breaking down, ah, glorious box machine. We may not have work tomorrow, which isnt really a good thing since we need all the money we can get :-|.

Oh yea, Special SHOUT OOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUT To Bexy. Its her birthday! Congrats on completing another circut around the sun huh? I wanted to do you a pic. But it looks like it'l have to wait.

Oh yea, heres Zacs cuts from the fall. They looked way cooler in RL.

P.s. Ema has said I am now her "official" Graphic design person. At some point she's gonna get me hooked up or something to use my skillz.

The teams are chosen

The teams were officially announced the other day for which country we would be heading towards.
on saturday they announced they would be telling us the teams, when we got there Len started with "Whats the worst thing thats happened in your life? Or what is the most dissappointing thing of your life?" Not really a good start I must say. He told us they had to delay, leaving all the girls to their moaning and conspiracy theories about how they would all be put on teams away from each other. All I could really say was "Well at least he didn't say, whats the worst things thats ever happened to you? Well this is about to be even WORSE, mwahahaha."
So on monday Len comes to pick us up from work, he gathers us all up and goes... "Whats the most exciting thing thats happened in your life?" Followed quickly by my statement of "HES A LIAR! Dont trust him!!"

Turns out he wasnt lieing.

So Im going to Thailand. Along with the following (Whether you care or not,) Zac, Jman, Cooli, Beth, Jess, Terresa, Jo, Hanna B. Our leaders will be Ema and her husband, and Emallie, last years gapper.

Im getting excited about learning the language.
We also only have another 4 or so weeks left of Kiwi fruit picking. woohoo.

Oh yea, Iron Mans a Decent Movie, quirky main character, one of marvels better movies I have to say. Street Kings is bad ass to. Bit of an average ending, but its all excitement till that point. Gritty and violent, not one for taking mum to.

Youth Service

I hope yall are enjoying NZ Music Month. As I write this I'm listening to some oldschool Supergroove. Those guys are funky. Along with the black seeds. Oooooh yea.



Anyway, other than my music tastes, Todays been rather good for a day off. Woke up to the entire house hold stampeding in every which direction for the pure joy of it. So deciding I would never get back to sleep I got up. We got to church and there was a big thing about mothers day I dont remember anymore.

me and the boys went to a family lunch with the diprose where we had the LONGEST game of munchkin ever. Everyone was like "finalaaaaaaay" When I drew the divine intervention card and won the game. One of the Rules written on the card is "If this card helps you to win the game you may taunt the other players mercilessly." So I did. XD. but they were just happy it was over. My claim to fame there was that our parents had bought a car from hamish. lol. Those diprose. EVERYWHERE.

Then later I went and hung out with Jo, where we had fun getting motion sickness from the swings.

We then ran off to the youth church. The main theme was silence and communication, we watched a nooma dvd. Gotta love that nooma. All fancy with its little o.

Afterwards I:
Ate a twig (Very chewy I dont really recommend it.)
Put out matches by putting them in my mouth.
Put out a whole handful of matches by smooshing them accidentally against my lip and tongue. its like drinking a scolding hot milo all over again. Except with a really bad matchstick afterbreath. yucky.

K Goodnight all. See you round.

Dnt trst me 2 mak logcl decsion

The other day we went to Dojo, which is raliegh streets youth thingy. It was pretty cool (Looking back on it.) The leaders were the guys who run HM rage and the the Lead from "All the Big Names".
Unfortunatly the girls got to go first when it came to eating, so by the time I got through to the Dining room there was barely anything left, and we had to eat that barely anything out of pizza box lids and empty bowls.
They got us playing mafia. And let me tell you, it was a BIG game of mafia. and thats not a good thing when your busting to go toilet the entire time. Fortunatly I wasnt picked as anything important, AND I never died, which is probably a bad thing since quoting Zac "...the most illogical gapper left! You kept Killing all the innocents!! YOU DIDNT KILL A SINGLE MAFIA!"
My reply was "YES! I just wanted everyone dead so I could go toilet."
Oh yea, mafia won -_-. My bad.
but here is the part that really made my night. So me and Zac are criticing the picket fence which is about knee hight, and the fact it could only stop people if they forgot to jump, when one of the girls from dojo randomly goes, "Omgosh, did you go to Hm rage last year??" "Yea." "Were you by the vending machines?" "YES." "ARE YOU FLASH MAN??" "OH YEA I FRIGGIN ROCK!!"
Then another joined in and then anothers like, woa, so your flash man? and then I go to the first chick "Your vending machine girl!" "Great, you get this awesome nickname and I get vending machine girl -_-." and then they tell me I was the funniest random guy at Hm rage, and that when they think of hm rage they lol about me. To say the least my ego was huge after that.

Last night I went on night shift, so I started work in the morning at 8, finished at 5, started again at 6 and then finished at 10:30. Insane huh? I would do it again I think. but as I type this Im so wasted from it. I usualy get to bed at 10:30. It was fun talking to some new faces though.

Ok, see you all later, xoxoxo


Did I mention I had fan girls?

Pool

Me at pool, and proof that the girls did JACK all during the mountain walk thingy.

The other day we went with Raliegh Street church Youth, or whatever they are, to pool, and a trendy little cafe. You know the sort, everythings wooden and dark metal. Where red bull costs 5 bucks a can.
Man, Work got on my nerves a bit today. Stupid boxes getting stuck half way before getting to me -_-. So yea, this is probably the most boring post E-V-E-R.
Sorry, I guess Ill just have to salvage it with an anicdote of some sort. *Looks around* Ah yea! I finished THIS!
Enjoy.

Anzakery day

Ok, so no photos, because Im lazy and stuff along those lines. But at least it was a good excuse at the time huh? Uh, Looks like I forgot what happened on anzac day now. Except two great stories. Both involving my good friend Zac Atak.
So we all decided to go on a walk up some randomly huge hill right? Ok, This is where you should be saying to yourself "Uh oh, I remember what happened LAST TIME you guys went up a hill."
We don't actually get to the top, because we find out it might take a few hours, and to be honest, were not really dedicated to that sorta thing. Most of the girls didn't even get onto the track to start with anyway. The only girls who came with us was Mum and Aimee, much to their credit. Mum wanted to do it cause shes supposed to be the tough farmer chick or something. Aimee came just because she was cool.
Some parts of the track were treaturiously steep, you start galloping down them without even trying. Have you noticed that we cant control our arms while going down hills, they bounce and flail in an extremely humouros fashion.
Me and Frank went on ahead down this massive steep path and around the bend, so we missed what was about to take place. It had to be the steepest slope in middle earth or something, I tell ya.
So anyway, there was zac, minding his own business, happy to be left alone, content in his place in this world, when Eddy the intern, shoves Zac with his battlecry of "Go for a run! =D"
Zac Falls forward, running to catch his balance, but before he can slow down he stands on the slippery clay which runs down the middle of the path. OH NO. His balance is lost again and so he ends up sprinting sixty meters, gaining speed while trying to keep his feet underneath him. Momentum is now the master, as he reachs the bottom he completely looses his balance and goes FLYING onto his chest and side, rolls for about 3 meters and well, he cant actually remember the roll, but everyone else said it was rather fantastic.
So me and frank turn up after the show was over, to find Zac beat up and bleeding. I wish I had the photos to gross you guys out with. It gave us a good excuse to give Eddy the guilts for the next week or so. Sigh. Good times.

We had a make shift party for Theresa, Frank, and Mum. Twas aight. We found human shaped balloons. Me and J found interesting ways to torture them before they consequently burst with pain.
I found a comic book store! Wooo. I ended up buying a card game called munchkin. OMGosh, it is rad. We liked it so much I bought an expansion pack, and Frank bought another version, Super Munchkins. The rules for the game are hilarious, and it makes fun of D&D constantly. I am a total nerd (Rolls 20 sided die, which I also bought while I was there.)
Yesterday was free comic book day, so we scored a bunch of free comics. I went for the webcomic and alternate european ones. We have been getting into our Lan games more and more at the net cafe to.

Ok, second story involving Zac. We were talking late one night (as we normally do) and he brought up the subject about things happening to him in the worst way (as he nursed his wounds from the mountain.)
So hes going to science class, "Lalalala" The first one through the door, looks around and "HOLYCRAPIJUSTFELLTHROUGHTHEFLOOR."
Apparently a trap door which was hiding in the floor had been weakened from the class before. and the trap door so happened to be along his plotted course to his table. Thanks for the tears of laughter Zac.

Sorry about this

OK, at the moment you may notice that a lot of my more interesting pictures (I.E. The ones which are of people and not silly graffiti) are all showing up as a message from flickr going oops, ha ha, You cant see me (Like John Cena). This is because I have Privatised a lot of my photos on flickr so randoms I don't like cant see me. Sorry about that.

As soon as I get some more photos Ill do a post about anzac day. Oh it was glorious.

Pit Stops

Ok, As you know, they have just had the V8s here in hamiltron. I got all these cool Pics of the track cause we got to drive around it before it was shut off.
The begining of the week me and peaky decided to donate blood. Just because we could. So there you go. We can be nuts and unpredictable, but that sometimes has very positive ramifications. Im O+ even. ha ha. Get it. Alright never mind.
The day after we went and helped maintain this community house by cleaning up the outside of it a bit. Unfortunatly we couldnt paint it because it was raining hard out. But we did the best we could to unclog the guttering and pull weeds out from the window frames. XD
Dont ask me how weeds get there. They have adapted to suburbia or something.
The day after Len Told me I "Should just GO HOME, Izak." I love it when people get annoyed cause I dont take their less than subtle hints.
So mum came down with grandma and picked me up. Grandma seems a bit more doddery than last time I saw her. Now you can get away with saying ANYTHING. lol
Man, Home is getting ripped apart! Henderson looks like a war zone.
I went to the legal graffiti wall and got heaps of pics that no ones interested in. Oh yea, The camera card mucked up. So I lost all my photos, including the V8 ones. Noooo. I was gonna make a special mention of all the love tagging done around henderson, Something you guys would be like aww thats so sweet about. BUT NO.
So I had fun bumbing around at home. Got to see Matt and Keir (Who was mostly at work -_-)
and Zara and Phil. Twas great. You guys rock. Im glad with the way it went. Some people who have gone home feel a little distant from all their friends back home.
On sunday I had to cut out of church half way through So I could get back for Mums baptism.
Heh heh, I hope you dont mind this part Rach. Her grandfather is hilarious. Hes got the coolest English accent. He was messing with this little key chain thing. He lost it when we got to zacs house. We had to go looking for it, as he kept saying "I lost me Fing." Anyway, back to the baptism. Eddy got lost, so we got around the bend in the road, to see her just getting out of the water. GUTTEEEEEEDEDED...ed. We totally missed it, but at least we were all reunited again. All the girls have gotten back from the South Island so now where a big happy family again.


So there it is, my week. Back to the drag of work.. Heres a pic I did at home to make up for the lack there of.