adam's [insert adjective(s) here] blog

went to my Praxis cluster groups today, even though i was feeling sick. my cold is progressing through the stages. my throat only hurts occasionally now, but my nose is blocked and i'm coughing. hopefully i'll be all good on Friday for Team X and Battle of WITs...

came home after my cluster groups and went straight to bed. so much for doing my assignment. i'll have to do it later...

stayed in bed all afternoon and blobbed out in front of the TV all night. decided to tape Prison Break, 'cos i need more sleep...

went to Team X again today. spent most of the day talking about the next couple of weeks and the programme for Friday. went over my parts and then we ran through the programme together. then the day was gone. it's amazing how much time it takes to do seemingly nothing. hopefully it'll all be alright come Friday...

went to WIT tonight. i was pretty cool. came home afterwards and went online. e-mailed a bunch of people and sorted out some pics. then the night was gone.

not enough freakin' time to do anything these days!!!

more sporadicalness...in keeping with the theme of the month...

this is just a temp post to let you know i'm still alive. i'll update more tomorrow...if i have time.

good news: my comp is fixed and faster! thanks Jo! so i can now (at least try to) post more often...

i really need to get to bed and sleep! i promise i'll post details of why i lost my voice and now have a sore throat and some pics of my weekend and other random stuff a.s.a.p!

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UPDATE:

here we go, the update i promised...

Friday:

first day back in schools for Team X! it was cool. we're teaching at St. Joseph's this term. we ran our 'Get to Know Team X' programme which was new for all of us. we were in three classes throughout the day, and hung out with the students at interval and lunch. played Danish Rounders. it was fun.

got back to the office and i was shattered. but, no rest for me. me, Lané and Rose drove straight up to Forest Lakes for Connexions '07. we got split into our house colours - go black! - and worked on our banner, chants and challenges. presented them to the others later, then listened to a couple of speakers and had some worship time. it was great fun.

didn't get a lot of sleep...

Saturday:

so, so tired! got up for our leaders' meeting and breakfast. had a couple more speakers and some worship before lunch. after lunch, we got ready for our house competitions. they were great fun! we made rafts, did human bowling, mucked round in the pool and ran through an obstacle course.

then we had free time. went biscuiting. didn't get a bleeding lip this time, even though Troy was on the biscuit with me again...

the theme for the dinner this year was Cowboys and Cowgals, so everyone dressed up in their hats and shirts and jeans and grabbed their $2 plastic guns.


Lané and Katie dressed up as cowgals


Steph also dressed up...


yeh...i'm a cowboy

after dinner, we had a professional line dancing crew come in and show us some moves. it was pretty cool. had more speakers and worship later, then watched Batmans Begins. i left halfway through at about 1:00am, 'cos i was tired. still.

Sunday:

more of the same. Sunday at Connexions equals clean-up. so that's what we did. ate lunch, then all the parents came to get their kids. we watched a video of highlights from Saturday and found out who won the competition. Black house came 3rd by 1 1/2 points! dumb!

drove back to Wgtn and i went to Karori for my Battle of WITs show. i wasn't performing tongith, which was lucky, 'cos my voice was gone. it was my directing debut, which was kinda fun. went to Jo's afterwards to pick up my comp. it's all nice and working now :o) hung out at Jo's for a while and chatted.

Monday:

went to Team X today. spent most of the day talking about what we're getting up to and what we want to see happen this term. went over some programme stuff. had a meeting about the STARS camps that we're helping run next week. should be interesting. i've got to learn a presentation by next Monday. i hope i can find the time...

drove into Wgtn afterwards and picked up Jen and Rah. went to my sisters' flat and hung out. ate finsh'n'chips for dinner and sat around talking. played a game of Settlers of Catan later. i really want to play that with the other Team Xers, but there's no time...

i need more time...

went to the Team X office today. Rose and Lané joined me and Whetu for our first day of work as a team. it was pretty cool. learning and practicing...just like what i did when i first joined. hehehe...practiced for most of the afternoon. hopefully it was enough to provide Rose and Lané with the confidence the y need for tomorrow.

we're going into school tomorrow to run our first programme. should be fun. hopefully the rest of the team doesn't freak out too much...

had a Connextions meeting with the other leaders from Black house tonight. we sorted out our theme and some chants and all that jazz. we don't have any jazz though...we've got some techno and some R&B...

i still haven't packed for camp. i need to do that before i go to bed, which will be very soon...

for the last couple of weeks i've felt like i haven't had enough time to do everything...



never enough time!

went to the Praxis offices for my cluster groups this morning. cluster groups are the follow-up from the workshops i did up at Waikanae last week. everyone who did the workshops (and who lives in the Wgtn region) meets and talks about the readings we were s'posed to have done. i ended up reading mine this morning, and hadn't remembered a lot, but it was still good. i had a group meeting for both of the workshops i did.

came home afterwards and caught up on a lot of TV watching. also watched a couple of Family Guys episodes from the season 4 DVD i bought the other day. i bought it and season 5 'cos they were $30 off each. bargain!

went into Porirua and bought some new shoes. they're nice and they don't hurt my feet :o)

mainly watched TV tonight. i even taped more TV to watch later. i wish that competing channels didn't show decent programmes at the same time...

went into the Team X office today. me and Whetu talked about our programme and sorted out what we're actually doing when we go into school on Friday. there's nothing that gets your stress levels up like last-minute planning.

luckily, i don't stress easily...

we still don't have internet in the office, and nobody else in the office has the slightest idea about how to get it going. the person who set it up and would know how to get it going has left. i hope that he eventually gets back to us and tells us how to set the darn thing up, or at least what the password is that nobody else knows, or where the CD with the right drivers is, or something!

me and Whetu drove up to Otaki to pick up Rose and Lané. it's their last day of training. everyone ended up going to the beach and i ended up going for a swim with them. drove back to Wgtn with wet shorts.

went to WIT tonight. it was pretty cool. didn't go out afterwards. came home and sat at the computer instead. i now have to go and start my Emerging Trends in Youthwork reading that i need to have read before my cluster group tomorrow. it's long. some people would stress out about having to read it.

luckily, i don't stress easily...


meh...

had another day at the Praxis office today. we learnt about the Code of Ethics. it was alright. kinda boring but kinda not. the cool thing was that we went through our assignment as we went through the day, so i've got most of the answers for it...

went with my family to Dan's (Ann's b/f) familys' house for a BBQ. it was cool. Mum went for a ride on Dan's bike. i've got a photo of her dressing up like a gridiron player, so when i get my comp back, i'll post it.

also got some news about my comp. it should be up and running very soon. with better and faster everythings.

in keeping with my sporadicalness, it's been a few days since i last posted. you should be able to get the general idea of why from the above heading...

had another day of helping out with the Palmie team on Friday. after a pretty exhausting day, i then drove straight back to Wgtn for another Battle of WITs show. it was great fun and i ended up winning! sweetness! went out for dinner with peeps afterwards, then went to the Chit Chat Lounge afterwards. got home and went to bed.

too tired.

slept in as much as i could on Saturday. caught up on some TV watching, but not all of it. i've still got at least 4hrs of catching up to do, and not enough time! i'm going to be busy for a lot of next week and have to tape even more shows, which means that i need to find even more time somewhere to watch TV...

also mowed the lawns. went into Wgtn for another BoW show. Jen, Alana and Hannah from Praxis were in Wgtn, so came to watch the show. their loud clapping and cheering propelled me into the quarter-finals, but no further...i hung out with them at a café afterwards for ages and we sat around chatting.

Alana went home, and Jen and Hannah came back to my place. we chatted and watched Team America on DVD. dropped them back into Wgtn and got home. by the time i got to bed, it was about 5:00am on Sunday morning.

too late.

and then there was today. i would've loved to sleep in until sometime in the afternoon, but i had to get up and go into Wgtn for a Praxis session about Risk Management. i didn't fall asleep, so it musn't have been completely boring. hung out with people afterwards and said my final goodbyes to Jen and Hannah.

drove into the Hutt for a Connexions meeting. it was alright. i hadn't really had any lunch, so the pizza dinner was fantastic!

came home and caught up on a bit more TV, but then had to flick over to actual TV. i think my tiredness started kicking in, 'cos i kept trying to fast forward the ads of the programmes that weren't on tape...

well, i've finished learning about stuff at my Praxis courses, and i'm back at a computer, so i thought i'd let you all know that i'm safe and sound in Palmie...

so, what have i been doing for the last week? well...if you'd just settle down, i'll tell you.

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i've spent most of my time in Waikanae at the Ngatiawa Camp doing a couple of Praxis modules. i got up there on Friday, and for Friday - Sunday, a group of us learnt about Mission Theology. it was a lot of info and talking and discussion, and i'm still not registering it all. i got to know the other people doing the Diploma pretty well. it was cool hanging out and chatting with them when we had spare time.

on Fri and Sat nights, i drove back into Wgtn for my WIT shows. they were great. i performed in Friday's show and hosted the one on Saturday. had a great time at the shows and hanging out with people afterwards.

back at Ngatiawa, we started cranking out the games in the evenings. had a round of Cranium. me, Jen and Dallas won. we'd spent some time together over the last couple of days and called ourselves the Justice Maker (Jen), the Mystic (Dallas) and the Comedian (me).


the Mystic, the Justice Maker and the Comedian

we also played many many games of Mafia. it seems to be the game that everyone at every camp/conference i go on seems to know how to play. i don't know if it's a camp/conference thing or a Christian thing. maybe both...

on Monday, we had a lot of free time before the Year One's (Certificate) came to camp. the groundskeeper wanted us to catch some ducks, so about seven of us boys set out and caught three ducks. in the end it worked out that me and PK caught all three and were helped a bit by the others...

[WARNING: following is a before and after photo of ducks being caught and killed. the first one is nice, the second one you may find not so nice...]


Alana, PK, Vanessa and Aimee with one of the ducks me and PK caught


John killing one of the ducks

so yeh. the Year One's arrived and suddenly our quaint little community seemed overrun. nevermind. these things happen. it meant there were more people to hang out with at meal times. i got to catch up with the Team X trainees, so that was cool.

on Tues and Weds, the Year Two's learnt about Emerging Models of Youth Work. it was pretty cool.

i came back to Wgtn again on Tues night for my Project K graduation. not only did Kaiona graduate, he also won the excellence award! sweetness! that means he goes into the regional finals, and if he wins that, me and him score a free trip to Auckland! go Kaiona!

drove back to Waikanae and spent my last night there.

hung out with peeps on Weds after we finished learning stuff. a few of us took a trip into P'ram.


Aimee, Alana, Jen and Rach at the beach

that night we had a bonfire at Ngatiawa and everyone had a great time singing songs. i said my goodbyes and cruised up to Palmie, where i'm helping out with Team X up here for a couple of days.

went to Tararua College today and ran the Team Building and Friendships programmes with one of the classes. it's pretty much the same thing i we helped out with when i did my Team X training in Palmie two years ago.

hung out tonight chatting with Katie. it's going to be weird not working with her this year, 'cos we've spent the last two years on the same teams...we'll each have to find excuses to travel between Wgtn and Palmie...

now i am going to go to bed and try and catch up on some sleep that i've missed over the last week!

that's what i'm going to call February. the sporadicalness (yes, it's a word) occurs as a result of many things...me staying out too late, my computer not working, my computer not even being at my house, me having to share the family computer with other users, me going away...you get the idea.

which brings me to my next point: i'm going away tomorrow. won't be home for a week or so. i'm going up to Waikanae (of all places...) for the first installment of my Diploma in Youth and Community Service. i don't really know what's happening. the only thing i do know is that i'm not actually enrolled for the course. i'm sort of half-enrolled. i got the letter telling me i'm enrolled, but they don't have my application or proof of identity that they need to enroll me...

it gets a little weird. apparently, i'm allowed to enroll while i'm up there...i guess i'll find out. the sucky thing is that i have to travel back to Wgtn for at least three of the nights i'm up there. that's a lot of using of petrol...

if that has satiated your need to read my blog, then read no further. if you need more, then i'm about to tell you what i've been doing for the last few days...i'm sure it's thrilling...



Tuesday was Waitangi Day. i'm sorry to say that due to my lack of Maori roots, land claim desires and enthusiasm for history, Waitangi Day is simply another public holiday to me. i went round to my sisters' flat and we put the table outside in the sun and played a few games of Settlers of Catan. it was fun. i finally won some games :o)

went to WIT later. it was pretty cool. went to BK with peeps afterwards and ate and chatted. i cruised up to Jo's place after and we sat around and chatted until the early hours of the morning again (4:00am). Jo's really cool and her place has an amazing view over the harbour...and i'm really glad i don't have to go to work at the mo...

...so i slept in yesterday. it was another hot day. too hot to be bothered doing anything productive. i watched more Voyager episodes.

had a meeting last night about Connexions (CFUH youth camp). it's happening in a couple of weeks. i'm a house captain. i don't really know what that means i have to do. organise stuff, i think. luckily, my co-captain has captained before and knows what she's on about...

i did go into the Team X office today and i did some work.

it's still oppressively hot so i'm going to collapse into a chair in my lounge and watch TV.