Sunny side of the sidewalk

Hello all.
Today is definitely a more positive day although I have a headache and I forgot to wear my ankle support so I kind of hurt it again. Oops. I blame cognitive stress again. I went "totally bimbo" in the office cause I couldn't remember the code for the copier (which I made up myself and it's really easy to remember) and then I couldn't remember how many copies Charlie wanted. I feel kind of like I'm on another planet but obviously I'm not. No matter how weird the Americans get technically I'm the alien and not them.

I'm really glad I started writing this blog. A few people have said to me that writing is a good way for me to communicate and that I appear more confident through my writing. I think that's because I feel that I can easily correct mistakes and my brain has more time to compute. I also don't feel like I'm interrupting anyone as you all choose to read this. I'm not even going to ask why.

I do feel, however, that many of you do not know that much about me. I feel bad about that as I've been friends with a lot of you for ages and yet we never really made it to the stage where we actually know each other. I was thinking that if you do have any specific questions I can answer them on the blog. Random questions are also welcome. That way you can get to know me better and give me good ideas of questions to ask other people! I'm still trying really hard to spend time chatting to all the youth. Sometimes it's ok as I have the novelty factor, but sometimes I just feel like hiding in the corner again. I'm not going to though. I would really have a boring time here if I just hid in the corner. Plus I've found that there are even more spiders here than at home and I don't really want to go find them. (I found a dead one under my pillow. It was gross.)

Oooh, you've just learnt something (I hope it's not the only thing you've learnt, or that it hasn't replaced other more important stuff that you learned previously) I HATE SPIDERS. So much so that when Margaret asked me to vacuum the room I'm staying in, I blew all the spiders on the floor and sucked them up. It was rather difficult not to scream.

Anyway, today I went to a staff meeting. As soon as I walked through the door (cause Charlie and I were late) Renee handed me a pot of Play-Doh and told me to make my life at the moment. That has to be the weirdest thing so far from this trip. I really couldn't think of anything to make and then everything I did think of I kind of felt like it was insignificant. (I think that's a problem for me- my life etc are somewhat insignificant in my mind. I know that sounds odd and somewhat pessimistic but I'm working on it.) Anyway, I decided that my life was being busy at the church and being homesick when I wasn't so... I made a telephone and a tissue for homesickness and the church for the church. It worked quite well except I wasn't really thinking about proportions so I had a telephone and the church the same size. I don't think anyone else noticed. So now I have a pot of Play-doh on my desk. It's fun to play with.

This afternoon I had to plan the game for youth. I spent the entire day thinking of things for them to bring me during "Bring me". Some of them were weird as Charlie thought them up. One example of this was pond water as a lot of the church grounds flooded. We have our own lake/swimming pool and probably a million bugs. Eugh.

Anyway, the game worked quite well and tonight Charlie spoke about Spiritual Warfare so it was a good message and it was useful for me to rethink that. Being on a Christian gap-year is a dangerous path. But I like the challenge. One of the things Charlie was talking about though was that we need to be united in our faith. I'm not really feeling completely united yet cause I don't know enough people well enough. It's nice to think that they still want to look out for me even though they don't know me though.

One other exciting thing is that Charlie has asked Susan to be my shepherd. Basically I can go and talk to her instead of him or Dawn and that way I have a bigger circle of people. Plus she'll be able to help me with some stuff as we meet up regularly. She seems excited by it. I think it's cool cause she's one of the first people I met here and she's lovely.

I got an email from Nicky Algie. She said that I should use more American words in my blog. Unfortunately I'm not very Americanised yet so I just named my entry a random name just for her.

Wow this entry is long. It's also a lot later than I expected. I need to go sleep so I can get up in the morning.

I hope you are all fantastic. And if you aren't I still think you are.
xo.