I start off rambling, I sort of have a point by the end... I dare you to read it:

You know that exciting feeling you get when your phone receives a text? The anticipation, the knowledge that someone loves you, the idea that the course of your life could actually change in that moment (Note: if this is because it could be a proposal then you should probably get another boyfriend) or at least the course of your evening. Then of course, there is the amplification factor when you are really anticipating a text or just willing something to come in and break the expected routine for the rest of the day... well, I just got a text that was the King of Anticlimax!

From no-one rubbish, not saying anything bad (making a vague invitation for some point in the future to something I don't particularly want to do). Just a nothing text. Thing is it came right at the wrong moment. When all you want is a last minute invite for a Saturday night or a little bit of a friendly wassup (I don't mean one of those conversations that go nowhere... they do very little for me) or an answer to a question you asked. Ironic since I just came home from a party I could have stayed at but am socially drained from previously/afore mentioned ball and party and need to be on my own. My point? Have I got one? I suppose something along the lines of when things just aren't as classically comforting as you would wish for. But that it's OK. God knows what I really need and I know that He can and will give it to me. Which is nice. Makes a change from the no faith I had in that a year ago.

How was the ball? Well, I suppose I kinda felt like, just as God took me shopping for a dress and made me feel like I could justify pampering myself for the evening, that He was then my date too. Which is a good thing 'cause it wasn't really the pick up a guy sort of place! :-P I hadn't been out dancing for a while (except about half an hour at the Halloween gig but not that many of my friends were shaking their thang and it was, afterall, in Pickwicks) and it was good to move. I went with a new friend Rachel that I have only met properly recently, having chatted with a bit over t'internet these past 6 months or so; that was really cool and I dragged her into the dance-off competition... and we made it to the finals! So exhilarating. Which was, I suppose, what I needed then. (I swear we only lost 'cause the winners were a mixed couple and it was a church!)

Today my friend Ben told me my hair was looking longer. I was waiting for someone to mention it - that's kinda how you assess growth isn't it, 'cause you see it in yourself so slowly it's hard to be sure. Like with personal growth. Which I've done a bit more of recently I think. Scary to notice how fast things are happening actually, given that the longer my hair gets the more progress I will make, the readier I become (readier for what I don't know but it's good to be ready!), the newer the challenges, the bigger the responsibilities (this is taking the basic though controversial assumption that my hair and spiritual development are directly proportional). Sometimes you just want to regress to early years and cling onto what you are comfortable with. But to quote an old cheesy DCTalk lyric:
"Separated, I cut myself clean, from a past that comes back in my darkest of dreams. Been apprehended by a spiritual force and a grace that replaced all the me I divorced".
If I regress now, in fear of what this growth will bring, then the faith I was talking about; the fact that I can now shake it on a dance floor under the judgement of a room full of unknown Christians (which honestly is probably the most intense kind of judgement!); and generally being able to say I'm going home now, I've had enough (Aside: Ben also said to me today that I was a lot calmer than when he knew me before, which was particularly funny given the shock on the faces of the people who had only just met me!) will be but vague shadowy forms of what could have come.

Paul said this. Jesus said this. I've met people that seem to assume the latter means staying naïve in your faith but I really don't think that is the point. We need to stay fresh in our faith and our purity from worldly influences but as far as not growing or learning or thinking differently - that is the whole deal. I've done a fair amount of thinking about what I really see as the point of life - I don't know if I mentioned it before but I kinda suddenly found that I'd got this "I have all the answers" attitude and realised it was only true by default and not by heart. As I write I realise that this is basically the crux of what God has been doing in me: working on my own understanding so that it isn't just a matter of signing up blind to find out one day what's going on. He's showing me, as I start to think more like an adult (sometimes!), more fully what is going on and how His Kingdom works. This is what Paul said straight away next and it doesn't mean we shouldn't know anything; we will know in part and we need to strive towards that in our maturity - not taking the innocence as an excuse for ignorance.

Some nice bloke prophecied over me t'other day (happens a lot here, like it! When done sensibly with a good bit of critical spirit of course) and the thing I'm excited by as I write is that the verse he gave was the next one in this passage (I don't plan ahead in these entries, they kinda just happen. I don't know the bible well enough - thank Heaven for Biblegateway search!). Faith, hope and love - the greatest being Love. Which is basically what I have been learning about don'tcha know. The next blog I write will be called "The Meaning of Life"... I just gave the synopisis but hey, I can stretch it out.

God knows I need to know a bit, not everything but a rough guide, a poor reflection, an essence of what the hell is going on anyway. So I am rather glad that He has shown me some stuff and given me a good bit of general direction etc.

On the topic of Christian maturity, it was Beautiful Brian's sweet 16th yesterday, so Happy Rebirthday Brian! If you still ever read BGB... It's my 6 months on Tues too - getting old. Lord knows who I'll be at Christmas. More like Jesus I hope! Not in a "superspiritual" way of course... In a "super spiritual" way! (Can you pick up that intonation?!).

I just got the King of Anticlimax phone call - a wrong number on my landline! Lol, I'm off to spend a quite night in with God, a DVD and maybe some late tea (the eating kind) and tea (the hot decaff kind)... Night! x

A collection of Arbitrary Thoughts

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw
- doesn't mean beer doesn't exist though, does it?

I'm shamelessly stealing the post one friend made to another on facebook today. What can I say, sometimes an original thought is just not as good as a copied one. Anyway, who says there is such a thing as original thought? And if you don't believe me look at the cyclicity of catwalks. I just wonder what it will be like when we get to heaven - is that why we are going to wear robes of righteousness? They want everyone in the same thing so that the fashion industry doesn't go insane over the course of eternity.

Time is of the essence these days as I challenge myself on waste. Whilst it's true that one has to be careful not to fill up one's time excessively and end up missing out on what is really important, as I look at all the crazycool things I want to do (least of all finish my degree) I find myself aware that there is a lot of time in my life that is not spent wisely and which if so could be put to such uses. So that has been something I am working on. I mean, I can't really say I don't have time to feed homeless people 'cause of my studies when what I really mean is I don't have time to feed homeless people 'cause it takes me an hour to get dressed every day, I can't go into a supermarket without wandering round aimlessly for at least half an hour and possibly not buying anything, I have a midday change 'cause I get bored of what I am wearing, I don't know what to have for dinner, I write down everything that goes through my head (that one is getting better mind), I spend ages on facebook and other internet based blackholes and generally waste such a lot of time on indecisive behaviour that I can barely fit my studies in around it. I reckon I can save 2 hours a day easily, which translates into lots of productivity in potentia.

We so often talk about being stewards of the money that God gives us but I think time is our most precious resource. We can't earn it or borrow it or be gifted it (excepting of course when God wants to make something really cool happen) or store it up. Everyone has a equal amount and it is something we can all offer back to God the same. So I am trying to do that with mine a bit.

I have had an AMAZING second half to my day; full of direction, vision, revelation, healing and generally great stuff. I don't want to spend time expanding on that now when I have bed to be sleeping in, reading to get done and generally time to be stewarding so I'll leave you with a couple more collected thoughts and fill you in when I next schedule some BGB QT.

I'm fed up of wishing people good luck. It is what we say naturally 'cause of one of those foolish human semantical bollocks things. I don't believe in it and hate that sometimes it just seems like the obvious thing to say. E.g. I can't come out I have an exam tomorrow. Oh, good luck with that! "Blessings" sounds really serious and a bit patronising, particularly with non-Christians. So I have decided on God luck. Like when something is a God idea but with luck. Looks like it could be a spelling mistake and makes me feel less like a hyprocrite. OK, so a *little* bit cheesy perhaps but this is me after all... Watch out for it people, I'll be exercising that one!

Been talking a fair amount about teleportation. The little know miracle of the New Testament and very very cool. That is my most sought after spiritual gift (after optional invisibility that is)...

Anyway. I just spent too much time looking up the miraculous movement incident in the Old Testament that involved being carried by an eagle from the hair and I think that, for the sake of my not wasting time policy, I will leave this unfinished and a bit confusing and hope you love me anyway. I don't think, having looked, that it really happened - I only heard about it third party afterall... Shame, I was going to steal another joke about Old Covenant and New Covenant teleportation.

Jumping on other people's comedy bandwagon as it were. That's one of those "is it an inny or an outy?" phrases in't it. From the bible or not that is. "Word or turd?" when talking to post-16's. It's not exactly a concept foreign to us Christians. My whole life is built upon jumping on the bandwagon of a 2000 year old lowly bastard Jewish carpenter that had a penchant for rebellion. How he made his ideas stick around so long and spread so very very far and wide across time and culture I'll never know. It's almost as if something out of the ordinary was going on...

A collection of vaguely comedic things (that will only work if you know the people in question) and a fair amount of tangentialism

We have a friend who is "half Spanish, half American". So, while Beautiful Brian is a nice name it does not reflect his heritage nearly as well a Randy José. Rechristenment done.

The other day one of my competitors was talking about his leather thong. I asked him if it had studs in it. He replied "You could say that" with the classic eyebrow-raise/head nod. 'F you know what I mean... Shocking!

Randy José called me a fucker on the 24th June. My mission in Geneva is complete. People still don't believe me but it is true. I seem to have this affect on people, SO many of them are swearing more with my influence. Hurrah! I mean this too, I am an advocator of a good cuss when it is necessary and think too many people shy away from it. Language is a tool people.

My mum was just as excited as me when I told her about the hair and said that for her it really was a proper sign (maybe this is where I get the silly symbolism streak from) of things being different. I said that I assumed other things, i.e. Baptism, were more so and she said "well yes, but now it's real!" WTF! (Language is a tool people).

I wrote 6 songs this week. I tend to do that more when I am feeling mellow rather than upbeat so I think if I were to have an album it would be called "Music To Almost Slit Your Wrists To But Then Find That There Is A Small Amount of Hope". We went to see Paul Simon at Montreux a few weeks ago and the 'warm up' (if you can call it that in Switzerland where the crowd never gets more than tepid) was a lady singer/songwriter brandishing a guitar, which is always an inspiration. I know it sounds silly but sometimes when I don't get round to writing music I worry that someone else will write the songs that I'm supposed to! Like when you don't fulfill your call so God gives the job to someone else. I really am that paranoid. The thing is, there are only so many chord combos... and words... OK, I am doing the maths and statistically speaking that is unlikely.

Speaking of which, what about going back to maths... ? Well I am excited, unprepared, a little too not knowledgeable and have lots of things to do when I do return which won't facilitate becoming sufficiently so. But it will be great and though I talk a lot about the sadness of leaving here I have to acknowledge the excitement of going home. I have a kitchen to decorate, friends to reunite with, cars to drive, crazy dogs to play with, a family to drive insane, churches to shop for, futures to plan... There is a lot of cool stuff ahead and I have never been as secure in my life plans and knowing where they will take me. Even if I don't actually know anything much at all - the ideas change on a very daily basis but always, I find, building on each other... but to who knows where?!

On the whole call thing, it actually makes me really worried that every time I mess up I am missing out. I think that I put quite a lot of pressure on myself like that and then retaliate by being even less inline with God. Smart hey? Facilitating/stemming from this I have had a bit of a tough week; life and God have been there but I have on several occasions been disconnected. Yet in all that I now feel like, overall, He was in control. I think. There has been a risk of me getting too legalistic with 'giving my day to God' and making sure that He would be able to do what He wanted as long as I said and did exactly the right things at every moment and being incredibly guilty when I didn't. [Talk about not following my own advice - maybe I am who this post was for.] We can't always be fully immersed in what feels like quality time (I will no doubt realise this more when I get back to a proper life where I cannot pick and choose my level of busyness) and I think this is what I am learning and that I need to be able to be content in God in that. Keeping at it even when I am not in the honeymoon period.

And the anology for this lesson? I went swimming with Zoe on Friday and when I came out (after some pretty hardcore sunbathing as well) I found my hair was not as red. I nearly cried, mostly 'cause of what that said about me as a person and that I had not even show Robyn, but I was over reacting *slightly* as overall the impression is still very SB. It just reminded me that, while the colour was a moment of encouragement, I do need to protect it and I will still have to go through some major upkeep on a regular basis. A question of perseverance to see the long term goals. After all, I got the faith; I'm trying to be good and seeking to gain knowledge; in some, though granted not all at all, areas I am showing self-control and so perseverance is the next logical step (well, logic if you are going by the process as outlined here). Soo, this post would be not so much funny as tangential.

But I have found something that I can beat Darryl on. MY blog is more holy than his: I have more links to the bible... So there.

10 Things I Hate About [insert just about anything here right now]

I am in a bit of a shit mood. Thus I shall fulfill the venting element of my relationship with BGB.

For starters, I just knocked two really pretty expensive (well, one did not cost a lot but it is worth a lot I just know how to shop well; note also that price is relative and I am a student!) delicate beaded dresses on top of a really pretty dried (not dead) 'strawberry blonde' rose, thus endangering the two and destroying the latter which by the way was the last one of a really pretty bunch given to me on my birthday.

Plus I am really tired even though I slept 12 hours last night. I feel like I never really woke up properly today and thus am worrying that I am foreseeing a difficult recovery from the past week and will inevitably be hurtled into busy life again before I am ready to be, which in turn will result in the crazy scary mean Kat(i)e who does not live in the full glory of God but stumbles through in the dark and doesn't even know how to get back to light. I have too much to do this week to not be OK for it!

The weather just turned cold and none of my jeans fit me anymore :-(

I am losing my voice which is making speaking and singing and well, all kinds of communication, impossible/very hard, painful and tiring.

I made lots of bad choices today resulting in feeling like nothing was productive, everything took longer than it should, I ate too much crap, spent too much money and interacted poorly with people I didn't know. Leaving me feeling like a spazzock and that I wasted a day that was supposed to be really cool (just 'cause days are these days) but wasn't.

The biggest bummer is that at the time I wasn't even able to see what was wrong and only realised everything too late which means that it couldn't have been any different anyways. I don't quite know where I went wrong as I was trying to rest and thought I had done so but my brain is not functioning properly implying that I haven't. Maybe I didn't stop soon enough and so it will take a while to get back to top form but I am a little bit worried that I never will and being fuzzy in the head is not a very nice feeling when you are supposed to be processing things.

All in all I am pissed off 'cause yesterday life rocked and now things have changed so quickly, without anything specific actually being wrong even. I suppose that being tired and sick and confused will do that to oneself but it just sucks that I can lose track of joy when it was so very profound.

In good things I found another suitcase in the street, which will come in handy when my friends come over and take back stuff for me. But it is not leopard print so it doesn't really count for much more than neutral.

I feel like a bit of a bitch to everyone I hung out with today! I'm not saying you were a waste of time, just me that's all. Hopefully there will be progress before the YAGs BBQ/pool party tomorrow else I will be a sulky cow and probably have a hissy fit. Could be interesting but not ideal.

On that note bed calls...

P.S. For those who thought "raised to the ground" was a strange phrase actually it is not. The word is "razed" and it originates in latin - think erase. You might still think it's strange but at least you can spell it now!

I left my hearts in Budapest...

...and other random observations.

My trip had been going well, fabulously in fact, until I got to the Budapest train station. Whereupon, though do this day I do not know why or how, something went terribly wrong: I lost my heart-shaped sunglasses. All I know is that I had them before I got on the train but during the course of my journey realised they were no longer there. Gutted. Foolish, much?

I loved those glasses. They stood me in good stead all winter long in the ski season...

(With Caro the day I went skiing without being able to ski and God had to help me down the mountain!)

...and then became my firm friends in the summer too. I have a real thing for heart-shaped stuff and these were far from the exception - they were the fulfillment of my deepest desires! Lol.

I tried to buy them again but they were not in the shop. Then I mentioned to someone today that I had lost them and I was reassured with a "They have them in Topshop, they're everywhere in England, you are sure to be able to find them again". Not cool. TOPSHOP! Do they know what they are telling me? Every 'Rah' from Bristol to Edinburgh (though they're called 'Yahs' there) will be sporting a pair.

The thing is, I am obviously a fashion snob. I bought them in C&A for about 20CHF and I loved them for the kitsch value but even more so for the fact that they don't have that shop back in the UK. The look had not made it to the high street. What can I say? My spiritual gift is accessorising and I take is seriously. C&A is a pretty random shop you know. Some good value, some tat, some regular gear... and then there is the religious body jewelry. Many people ask me how I find my outfits. Shopping, it's a skill; you either have it or you don't I think. However, sometimes it just seems anointed. Yesterday I found a belly bar with a dove of peace dangling from it. Complete with olive branch. Divine inspiration, much? Especially as I have really been feeling God talk to me about peace a lot recently and I think it is a key theme of this summer.

So, in respect of this I donned the dove and went out in the sun today to enjoy it. First time swimming in the lake! I went with dear Zoe and Sara joined us later. It was ace. Some of my highlights include the fact that Z is afraid of 'dark water' and, well, swimming away from the rocks even 3 feet! This became more of a problem when I learned she was also afraid on my behalf. No swimming for Kat(i)e! Still, splashing about was a LOT of fun so I didn't mind. Also, that girl is incredibly funny; if not a little gross. An example is in the following conversation:
"I think I need to pee" - Z
"Well will you go over there to do it then" - K
"Oh Kate... It's too late!" - Z
Darling. Maybe you had to be there... or perhaps not!
Oh, and the thing to fear, apparently, is the currents. The late is full of giant raisins just waiting for you to stumbling into their shadowy lair. Priceless.

My favourite moment, however, was when Z said I looked like someone famous when wet. Random to say the least (especially when said person is Natasha Beddingfield's younger sister?!) but hilarious was Sara thinking that the answer was Jason Donovan! She quickly covered with it being because I was wearing a rainbow coloured bikini with golden trim (I wore my bikini, with golden edging [aha-ah], bright colours wedging [ah-a!]...). I am still a bit insecure though.

So. Think that is it on the random. I just wanted to honour the glasses really as they were sorely missed today.

One last thing, related only because it too was a picture I took on my mobile phone. Rastadog:


I wonder how Wendy would feel about dreds?

Ciao Ciao!

Tee Hee

Was talking to aforementioned friend about why I have given up caffeine and alcohol (two weeks ago today...!).

[Suppose I had better digress and 'briefly' mention my reasoning. I am very sensitive to stimulants and definitely don't need the extra energy and I also found myself too often indulging in a kick that was, frankly, akin to getting a high. It can be a bit much and 'Kat(i)e on caffeine' is an official state that people are aware of and comment on! I already stopped drinking it before church. This happened 'cause at my B I abstained from my en-route Starbucks (ooooh, I made a comment about coffee in church on another blog, talk about easy post formation... that shall follow at some point) as I didn't want to be jumped up and not able to pay attention to God. Then I realised that I probably ought not be chemically charged at any church service since He doesn't just want our attention at special occasions. Then (finally) it occurred to me that God doesn't just talk to us at church! That coupled with my unhealthy attitude to caffeine highs made it wise for me as an individual to cut it for a while/indefinitely. Alcohol was when I realised that while I did not drink worrying amounts I did see it as a good stress/upset related device and, well, that is not at all cool. Also, I can't be as in-tune with God after a glass of wine either (or rather if I am it is far less validatable!).]

Anyway. We were talking about how there is nothing wrong with these things but that they are only OK in the right amounts and contexts. I said that otherwise it was Inappropriate Consumption... except it came out as Inappropriate Consummation - which is also something to avoid but far less relevant!

Tee Hee ;-D

Little bit of an understatement

Today when I went to French we spent the whole evening making CDs! I shouldn't admit to this 'cause it is a little bit cheeky but my teacher has the most amazing collection of worship music and I am a little bit on the sparse front so she got all excited about me burning my own. It was only 2 and I'll buy them as time goes by I promise... Anyway, I've invested my emotions and staked my reputation on this, surely I don't need to put down cold hard cash just yet?

Being facetious aside, I did it. Judge me. The fun part is that I got to put stickers all over the sleeves and we literally spent 2 hours making up a Noah's ark scene on one and putting typical 'lady' favourites on the other (kittens, flowers and the silhouette of a women holding a parasol). Not very relevant but very cute and there were some tract stickers too.

So then, when I showed it to Robyn, the best bit happens. Reading aloud from one of the stickers I say:
"A cheerful heart is like a good medicine."
...and she says:
"Ooooh, it's got little sayings on it."

Yes Robyn, little sayings. Did you know they've put them together in a book called Proverbs? Then that got put in an even bigger book that you have chosen to build your life upon.
Bless her!

One other thing I liked about the CD making was seeing a group called Watermark. I got all soppy, what with me being "watermarked" now. Getting baptised was so the right thing to do and I have even had my first resisting of a major temptation! Whoop!! (As opposed to whoops...)

Final observation on this topic. The song with Graham Kendrick feat. Matt Redman. Talk about a collaboration, big names from across the decades, like some kinda bangin' Timberland track mixing up the styles but always keeping it slick.

Christian music. I am looking forward to discovering you...

SMACK that

Service Makes All Communities Kinder. The motivation behind the community service aspect of the IB middle-years program.

I love that the system emphasises this aspect of education. I love that they chose the acronym SMACK.

Sommat else about Frenchness

My discovery of French Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was exciting enough to make it as a facebook status. However, when one of the questions was "conjugate this verb for first person conditional tense" it was promoted to blogworthy. I love the fact that this language is so mental, being able to spell as a native is valued at 10,000 €.

Butterflies of Love

The French are such a romantic nation are they not. Did you know that, since the verb to love is 'aimer' and to like is 'aimer bien' (love well?!) you cannot construct a imperative form of like. That is, you can only command someone to love you, not to like you (Aime-moi.). They are all about the passion...

And fitting into the whole love vibe are 'Papillons d'Amour'. Directly translated as 'Butterflies of Love' (note the truth that love the noun is different to love the verb) you would not wish to encounter these amorous insects on your Parisian minibreak. Mistaken you may well be for our classic 'butterflies in the tummy' feeling for this is what I would consider a misleading expression. Trust the French to romanticise pubic lice!

For all you creationists out there...

...I was interested to learn that one of the official (in IB Biology anyway) theories of the origin of life is that clay molecules were a precursor to DNA/enzyme shenanigans, formed inside prokaryotic lipid membranes... Kinda dust from the ground stuff!