Last night I went out to dinner with school friends. I hadn't seen people for ages, so I was not completely sure if we would still have things to talk about. Fortunately, the friendships are still there, and it was a fun night. I hadn't seen Natalie since school, I've only emailed her to keep in touch. But it was very good to see her again - she finally has her own horse! Daisy, Kim and Aghia are lovely too. We mostly reminisced and giggled about old school teachers and informed eachother about what other people from our school are doing now. It verged on gossip, it was hard to pull back sometimes.

It's good to know my friends haven't changed. These ones at least. There were some stories about a friend who I was close to in year 10 and 11, who grew in a *very* different direction to me. It kind of started in year 12, so I wasn't surprised to hear what she's like now. Still, it's sad. I do pray for her sometimes. I just thank God that did grow in the opposite direction - towards Him - instead of towards all night clubbing and drinking.

The friends I met up with yesterday, are just about the only ones still left in Australia. Abi's in New Zealand, Milly's in the US, Fi's in the US most of the time and Diana's in France. Sounds exciting to be travelling or living away from home - but really, right at this moment, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but here.

I have a shiny new Tongan bible (tohi tapu) and hymn book (tohi himi). I can't understand much of it, but I can sort of understand when looking along with my English bible

Filipai 4:4
Mou fiefia 'i he 'Eiki ma'u ai pe: 'io, kau toe 'ai atu, mou fiefia.

Sione 3:16
He na'e ofa pehe 'a e Otua ki mamani, ko ia na'a ne foaki hono 'Alo tofu pe taha ne fakatupu, koe 'uhi ko ia kotoa pe 'oku tui pikitai kiate ia ke 'oua na'a 'auha, kae ma'u 'a e mo'ui ta'engata.

Aqua golf is fun....no skill required. I love games like that.

Well, I've been having fun doing absolutely nothing. Stine bought series 3 of Scrubs and series 2 of Futurama on DVD, so we've been spending most of our time watching that. Lots of fun.

Stiney is saying snnnnn without my prompting. This is good.

I just realised that I have a ridiculously low amount of face-to-face class hours this term. Cause I'm not doing my prac subject anymore, and one of my other subjects is external. So that gives me a grand total of 2 hours of class per week! Now there's no excuse for not doing readings and assignments :P

Prac is finished! And I didn't pass. That kind of sucks but it's actually okay, because I really don't want to do childcare anyway. Em, I don't want to discourage you, cause I really admire people working in childcare, but it doesn't seem to work for me. Not as a full time job, anyway. I can't imagine myself being a childcare room leader, which is probably what I would have to be.

There actually were some good parts of the prac. The children were lovely - most of the time - and I learned a lot about two year olds. Which will be good if I ever have my own kids. And I developed good relationships with some of the staff. It was kind of sad saying goodbye to the staff who had been really supportive to me, and they seemed very shocked that I failed. Also, over this last week, I've been able to share my faith a little bit with Ainsley, a non-Christian girl who works there. She doesn't really seem interested in Christianity for herself at the moment, but she was respectful of my faith and was open to hearing about it. So pray that something good will come out of that, and pray for Anita, the Christian woman working there. Even though I didn't technically pass the course requirements, I learned a lot about being a Christain in the workplace, and about perserverance (see, I didn't even need to go to women's day).

This has actually made me think more seriously about transferring to primary education, which I've been thinking about for ages but never really had a valid enough reason. If I continue with early childhood, I'd be finishing the course halfway through 2008 - not halfway through next year- , so I might aswell work towards a primary degree during that time. And, I found out that there's actually a bachelor of arts in early childhood, which I've already met the credit point requirements for - so if I can somehow work out that, my years of ech study won't go to waste. But that won't qualify me to teach, so I will have to do primary ed. aswell. So...I'm going to be at uni for a lot longer yet. I don't completely know all the details yet, but I'm looking into it.

I don't think it's a coincidence that my kindergarten prac was the only one with no complications or concerns. I think God is speaking to me through this. I actually can imagine myself as a primary school teacher.

One thing, if you can tell me...how exactly does the primary degree work? I know a little bit but I'd really like to find out more detail

God is good, and works all things for good for those who love him.

I talked to Theresa today and now we're going to Tonga after Christmas, not before. Which means.....................I can go to NTE aswell!!

Very exciting! SNNNNNN!

Some random snnnnn fun from the holy scriptures


'We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under snnnnn'. Romans 3:10

'God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still snnnnners, Christ died for us' Romans 5:8

'What shall we say then? Shall we go on snnnnning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to snnnnn, how can we live in it any longer...For we know that our old self was crucified with him so the body of snnnnn might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to snnnnn - because anyone who has died has been freed from snnnnn.' Romans 6:1-7

'What shall we say then? Is the law snnnnn? Certainly not. Indeed, I would not have known what snnnnn was except throug the law...but snnnnn, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment produces in my every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, snnnnn is dead' Romans 7:7-

Time for the weekly prac report...ONLY 1 WEEK TO GO!

It has been better this week...although I'd still rather be at uni, and I really miss you guys in all your craziness. Only two year olds could possibly make CU-ers seem mature! Well, after two weeks I'm getting to know the kids, especially those that come full time. So I'm getting better at managing their behaviour - which is still *really* challenging, as anyone who as ever looked after toddlers will know. But other times they can be completely charming, so I love them.

I had my evaluation on Thursday...it didn't go that well cause I really need to work on my observations and stuff. But my prac advisor was really nice about it, so I'm not particularly worried. It's all in God's hands, anyway. I found out today that one of the staff members is a Christian, which makes sense because she's been so supportive and caring for me. She told me today that she's been praying for me, and she asked me to pray for her too. So, it's good to have that Christian support.

Have a good first week of holidays, everyone.

I know it's very dorky...but I really like watching Australian idol. It's such mindless entertainment. Plus, this year one of the contestants is a cousin of some kids at church. So I indirectly know him. That makes it fun.

Mum just told me that whenever I cook using our oven, I need to subtract about 20 degrees from what it says on the recipe. And she only tells me now! So, it wasn't my fault that every single biscuit I made ended up burnt

I haven't posted on this for so long...but I've been extremely busy. I survived my first week of prac, only two weeks to go. It's really not the best prac I've been to. I think a lot of it is I just don't want to work in childcare - there's so much cleaning involved, it's ridiculous. At first I thought I was being made to do more cleaning than was reasonable, and some days I think I was, but I realised that cleaning is a huge part of being a childcare worker - along with observing kids, planning for kids, making sure the kids dont' kill eachother and ( only if there's time left over) playing with the kids. It's really sad, but thats the way it works. Anyway, I think this centre may be worse than others I've been to. My supervising teacher hardly notices I exist, and she's only there part time. Still, I've made friends with some of the staff workers, and I am trying to be peaceful and joyful through all this. It's really hard though.

Another really sad thing is, some of the kids in this centre spend more time there than I do. And I'm there 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Well, it's the weekend now, and I'm staying at home. I know there's a social on today, and I would like to go. If I didn't have to travel I'd go, but I'm honestly too exhausted to travel. I had a really busy, fun weekend last week. The college ball was great, cause it's always fun to see friends dressed up. I actually got to wear my yr 12 formal dress again! And, I love the contrast of that weekend. On Friday was the ball, and then on Saturday a whole lot of college people drove over to Orange for Jono's 21st, which was a barbeque and bonfire on a cherry farm. That was heaps of fun. We acted out a monty python scene and then made effigies of Jono to burn (for some reason), and there were lots of marshmallows to toast. Some of the country-bred kids were actually throwing fire balls around. It was great to watch, but I sensibly decided to watch from a distance!