No Teabags?

Greetings,
How are you all today? Enjoying the fine rain? I am. I miss the sun, but hey, we need the rain so I'm not going to complain at all. Well, about that at least.

Wow. What a hectic week. Two assignments due on Friday (and no One80 to relieve me! Wah!), QCS next Tuesday and Wednesday and I still have to pay off $300 for my awesome schoolies week: something I am looking forward to a heck of a lot. Not to mention a sister (Sinead) getting a brain-scan on Friday, because she had concussion last week and has been suffering real bad headaches and the like since. She's been to the doctor, chiropractor and optometrist with the "all-clear" so far, but the GP recommended a brain scan just in case. I found out yesterday that there is no black tea left in the house: my dad is now only drinking green tea. Now, green tea is nice, but you can't have milk and sugar, so I'm going to ask mum if she could buy some black teabags for me. What else is un-fun lately? Oh, Christmas is getting closer, so work is starting to heat up: truck loads of toys at least three times a week, and often there's no place to put stuff. Speaking of which, I'm exploring the possibility of applying for a job at the Word bookstore for next year, God willing. I have a weird earache - it only occurs in my left ear, only sometimes, and it only hurts when I turn my head to the right on a slight upwards angle. Odd. Have I mentioned that despite the innumerable courses available in the 72 different tertiary education campuses listed in the 2007 edition of the QTAC guide, there is only one, that's right, one, course that ever-so-slightly interests me? It's the Bachelor Of Photography at Griffith University, Southbank Campus, and it looks very appealing to me. However, it has an OP cut-off of 7, so I doubt that will be within my grasp in regards to that. I have also been looking at Bachelor Of Ministry at Christian Heritage College, Mansfield. However, that's not in the QTAC, and despite my searching, I cannot find ANYWHERE how I would be able to get the HECS-HELP assistance to study it. I've been to the official QTAC site, Centrelink (I don't know how I got there), CHC homepage, Goingtouni.gov.au, and a couple of other places. No such luck. Sheesh, and the internet is supposed to make information available.

I found plenty of information on the French Foreign Legion, so maybe I should just join that. It ought to be a laugh. But to do that, I have to enlist in France, and One80 isn't based in France as far as I know. Speaking of which, I googled "One80 youth ministry" and it turns out there's another youth group with the same title in NSW (well, I'm gathering it is, because they talk about going to Blackstump in September). Looks pretty mad.

Anyway, this procrastinating isn't helping my legal studies report. Besides, God knows what he's got planned in relation to: rain, school work, my sister (please pray anyway), work and future employment, my weird earache, tertiary education or lack thereof, and One80 (whether it's in NSW or not). I'm assuming that the teabags isn't a huge priority for Him though: I mean, come on. It's teabags. God will open and close doors as He sees fit, and besides, I'm going ok right now, so what's to worry about? It'll all turn out honky-dory (excepting of course my teabag issue if mum won't buy anymore).

Oh, and I hope you like my photo. I took it in New Zealand. It's come courtyard thing near a park with a cool tree. Yes, I took it at 9:37am. I was wide awake, and at a park.

Ponus Boyus

A Little Cheese With Your Whine?

So,
We meet again. This time around it may not be pleasant for all of us gathered here today. I plan to expound to you all the reasoning behind my fanatical love of grammar, spelling and punctuation, and from that, why English is my favourite academic subject, despite its unpopularity among students of all ages. Understand that I do not percieve my grasp of the language perfect; I make mistakes too, often silly ones at that. I just love this art form, and every time it is taken for granted, I suffer a blow to the word processor known as my head (ooh, artistic!). Oh, and yes I did decide to write this after the many English language associated jokes, comments and minor arguments on the One80 site.

First off, I love the English language. It is considered one of the hardest languages to learn and comprehend, mainly because words that are the same can mean different things, letters can make completely different sounds, and so on and so forth. Not only that, but old (olde, perhaps) English is even trickier people say. I think not so, but that's probably because in the churches I've grown up going to, the King James Version has been the Bible of choice. So, naturally I'm used to the thee's, thou's, thy's, thine's, beholdeth's, begat's, and other such words which are seldom used in modern times. So I guess my grasp of the written word has been boosted by those early years...speaking of which, one of my favourite times when I was young was story time. I loved when mum read me stories before bedtime. I took to reading at a young age, and was considered ahead of my grades in primary school, which I attribute to storytime before bedtime. Books have always been highly valued in my family, something which I want to carry on, should I start my own family.

I think my love of the language is what helps me write what people call "really good" poems. To me they're just expressive words on paper, trying to capture the undefinable essence of the heart, but hey, I'm not going to complain. Words are just words, used to try and manifest beauty, but often are so clumsy and inarticulate that they barely tell of half the wonder of a person, feeling, scene or whatever.

But enough, I said I was going to talk about why I enjoy the curricular subject entitled "English" so much. Well, I enjoy it a lot more than maths. I see maths as by-the-book, straight-forward and boring. Everything is rules, formulae and equations. It is all done by one way or another. English, however, is creative. You follow the task, but achieve your own goal, view or idea how you feel you best do it. It's creative, and I stink at any and all other forms of creative expression: drama, music, photography, etc (probably because I haven't given photography a go yet, but what the heck). This year I've gotten an "A" on every single piece of assessment for the subject so far, and it's continuing to look bright. My teacher is great (an essential ingredient to enjoying a subject), and best of all, the assignments are stimulating.

Whenever I poke fun at people for making mistakes (Kirsty, that's you), or whinge and whine about the pain I suffer when viewing The Frullet's jeke, do know that I don't mean it personally or anything, I am just poking fun! But nonetheless, grammar, spelling and punctuation are high on my "count your blessings" list. Maybe with work, dedication, and some well enjoyed storytime, it may be for you too!

Ponyboy Taylor

Yoink! Brownie Points, Here I Come!!!

Hiyas!
Mucho grande props to Luke Harris for this little bit of insight...(I paraphrased a lil' bit)

An artist once said that the hardest part of a painting was refining it from beauty to perfection. When she's taking her time to get ready (and she will!), that's all a girl is doing: refining from beauty to perfection. And it will take ages. Guys just don't really care if they're perfect or not because they're already beautiful, and girls, being the forgiving creatures they are, accept us.

Ooh yeh. It's so true. I believe it. Do you?

The Ponyboy

Honey! I'm Home!

G'day everybody!

I'm back from kiwi land, and most of you are all at school! Hahaha! I decided to update my jeke, because I've been update songed enough and I'm sure you're all ON EDGE!!! So, I can't keep a crowd waiting...here's an update for you all!

Ha! I bet I had you all fooled! I bet most of you were expecting for an update regarding my time away. But that will come later. For now, my topic is stress relief. I don't normally get very stressed. I guess I'm blessed to have the ability to stay pretty calm despite all the stuff piling up around me, I tend not to have the "demon of stress" come knocking at my door (just ask my Preceptor, she reckons that "even if the world was collapsing, I'd be alright", or something like that. Correction, please, The Supertiph?). Still, I do get a bit wound up sometimes, so here are the top 10 things that help me to calm down and loosen up (in no particular order). When I'm doing these things, it's like this world and all its problems vanish, and I'm in a world all my own...

1. Going to One80
2. Reading a good book, particularly the Bible (now that is a refreshing thing, I tell you what)
3. Having a deep conversation with close friends
4. Going to Planet Pizza with the boys and raiding the toy maching and elephant-noise-making gumball machine whilst waiting for what is the best pizza on Brisbane's southside
5. Going for a walk by myself to the park or to Cold Rock Ice Creamery
6. Making dumb videos with Ryan
7. Listening to music and singin' along (badly) with mates
8. Hanging with the Centenary Connection Girls (Kirsty, Sara, Lisa, Kat, etc)
9. Hanging with the boys (Ryan, Carl, George, Lerchy, etc)
10. Small group on Tuesday arvos at the Deane house; good food, good kids, good company, need I say more?

I guess my secret (???) behind my ability to "not sweat the small stuff", because that's what it all is really, it's not that big a deal, is knowing everything is going to be fine in the end. Whether that end is now, or in death, I do not know, but God knows. He has it all sorted, so I try to just lay it all down for Him, and I become somewhat peaceful about it.

That and just not worrying too much in general.

What do you think about stress? Do you think about stress? How do you cope? Do you cope?

Signed,
The now in his home nation again Ponyboy.