slave to control

we as humans are hardwired to want to control the environment around us. in Genesis, God gave man control over all the animals and plants on earth (Gen 1.28). because God gave us control, over centuries, man invented equipment of comfort like chairs, electricity and light, cars, computer, internet, etc.

BUT there's a downside to all the control. the results are not perfect. there's pollution in the air. the ozone layer is thinning. the environment is out of control and getting worse (not that it was in our control in the first place). and because we are humans, the desire to control to spills over from relationships to careers, from finances to everyone we encounter. but we all know that we can't control life and where it takes us.

the surge (young adults) group is doing a six week study on exodus and the introductory lecture was fascinating. in life, people exercise control by:

1. storing up things (i.e. egyptians with tombs filled with treasures hoping that they will follow them into the next life and the more the better the next life is going to be)
   
2. consolling ourselves with pleasure (by distracting ourselves from the fact that we have no control whatsoever of our lives)
3. becoming pharoh/man-god (where self is the centre of the universe)

moses in Exodus tries to get God to define himself when he encountered the burning bush but God can't be defined by us. "i am what i am" he said (exodus 3.14, NKJV). the funny thing is, moses tried to do the right thing by his people when he killed the egyptian to save his own countryman from a certain death (exodus 2.11-12). but he was doing it in his own strength. God appeared to him in the desert where it's dangerous and where trying to make a living in a place without a steady supply of fresh water (such as the nile) can literarily kill you.

during the time israel was slave to egypt, the thing holding them back was the relative comfort of living close to fresh water was. eventhough they had squatters for houses and working conditions were absolutely terrible, the had a steady supply of food. in the desert, it's tough and hard to live.

the challenge? am i willing to travel from the safety of where i am to where God is in the desert where it is tough to live?

i don't know. i know that if i tried with my own strength, i will most definitely fail.

grace

sometimes listening to another share about their relationship with God during on of the devotion sessions before gravitate, i get struck down with with bouts of jelousy. everyone else's walk is so much better than mine. but the grass is always greener on the other side, isn't it?

there are lots of stuff that i know in my head but have never really lived it or felt it. one of which is God's grace. 'my grace is sufficient for you' (NIV)/'my gracious favour is all you need' (NLT) [2 cor 12.9] has always been just a phrase from the Bible. never really meant anything to me until two weeks ago.

it was the last week of my clinical placement and my supervisors previously told us that they mark our continuous clinical assessment (CCA) marks in the last two to three weeks of the six week placement. when i got my feedback at the end of week five, i was more than a little worried but i figured that i could get my marks up to the passing level by the end of the last week.

THEN i was sick for half of monday and all of tuesday so there was no showing my stuff then. on top of that, i had a clinical exam on the wednesday and the final feedback was on thursday! absolutely no way i could do enough to bump my marks up. based on my descriptions, my friends thought i aced the exam. i wasn't so sure.

i was neglecting my relationship with God for about two weeks prior and knowing i had no right to ask Him and expect Him to come to my rescue, i did. i failed really badly last year due to a mixture of an overly strict supervisor who marked me at a graduate level and not as a third year and a lack of time spent studying on my part. i really didn't want to fail again and have physiotherapy closed off as a career path.

it was then that i truly knew what Godgiven grace was. i more than passed the clinical component of neurological physiotherapy. it's so easy to just attribute this to the supervisors being 'nice' because i was sick or me, being the genious that i am, scraped through the end all by myself.

it was definitely not me, i can tell you that. definitely an intervention by a higher power, the big guy upstairs.

that's it! i got a date i'll be moving out. 22nd july. lessthanamonth! i'm excited!

okay. i can be bothered to post this picture up. but not bothered enough to take a picture of my other hand. so this is what you'll get. try and guess which hand it is. the first correct answer wins a massage from me! claim it on friday/sunday if you see me around. not applicable to those who do not know me...or rather, if i don't know you personally, your comments won't be wasted because i'll read them, but you won't be able to claim a massage from me. um, if you don't understand what i just said, excuse is in the post below. i don't think i quite understand what i said either.

i hate being sick

sick today...well, actually, sick for the whole weekend but being sick today is the one that really counts. like being able to miss the second half of the clinic day so i didn't have to stay and take part in the 'selfstudy' time before the absolutely meaningless stroke discharge meeting and the physio inservice which is unbelieveably boring at times. oh, wait. that was cancelled and everyone could go home at 2.30 instead of 3.45pm. oh, goodie. i left at lunchtime, anyway.

last night i saw jesse mitchell (anita/ange, let me know if this is not his last name) perform. jack johnson/pete murray type music. pretty good. but i was tired and being sick didn't help either. but i'm glad i went. got to learn what guys' issues with girls are.

i just realised my thought processes are a little wonky this morning. i called my patient 'she' in front of him.

[jesse]

i had my first double espresso at four today. my first cup of caffeine this year. in a long while. i think it was too much caffeine in one cup. i felt all weird, like the world was surreal but real at the same time. wow. i'm still feeling it. i had a heart rate of 98bpm when i was taking the train home. that's normal, you say. actually, my normal heart rate is 70pbm. 98 is pretty high. i tried to sleep then remembered that caffeine is a stimulant so trying to sleep wasn't such a good idea. instead, i amused myself counting the seconds the snoozing lady opposite me could keep her elbow up on the ledge on the train before sliding off and waking her. record? nineteen seconds. so every five to nineteen seconds, she wakes up. funny? yes, i thought so. did that ALL the way home. shows you how high i was.

actually, i think i still am. high, i mean. don't know if i'd be able to sleep tonight. oh, well. at least i'll have time to actually look for a two bedroom place. speaking of renting, i met my prospective housemate today. that was where i had the double espresso and the reason i feel so high at the moment. she seems nice. and yeah, she needs a bigger place. her studio apartment is literarily a shoebox. and her mum seems to think i understand her flurry on mandarine. i just nodded and smiled a lot.

things are looking up.

oh, by the way, the word 'high' makes up 1.7857142857142857142857142857143% of this post. that's how high i am. hmm...make it 2.1428571428571428571428571428571%.

my first lino burn

i fell on the stairs...again. thankfully, not down the stairs. my hip still twinges now and again from that tumble. no, this is while i was running up the stairs, late for a case conference put on by some registrars. trying to be only fifteen and not sixteen minutes late, i tripped and fell forward in front of the lobby full of people waiting for the lifts. it's the lifts' fault. it took so long for it to come down to the basement that i took the stairs. i think a blister is going to form on my right hand. sigh.

update (05.06.06): it's a whole lot darker now that the scab's formed. will probably post a picture in the future if i can be bothered taking one.

guys/girls night at focus

of all the days i didn't have my camera...

today i witnessed a 1 year old get dropped on his head by his mum...well, not literarily dropped. more like fall out of his pram onto his head while his mother tried manouvering his pram out of the lift and then swore so loud that people at the end of the melbourne central platform 4 could hear her clearly.

then a 60ish year old grandma with greying hair wearing a miniskirt. with skinnylegged black tracksuit pants. trying to make sure her granddaughter's new blackandplum sneakers were in good condition and value for money. she did look good from afar.

these few weeks have been a rollercoaster ride. the extension of the house is done with exception of the light switches and power points. i have a new bathroom but it's not finished yet. the tiles look better than i thought it would be. except that mum wants to put up a whole lot of stuff like a mirror cabinet that juts out of the wall like a mounted cupboard...it's too far out. what can i put in there? too many shelves, too deep.

last week, i finished two assignments within a few days of each other. the second one i finished in four days. i'm so proud of myself. the best work yet. on the day i handed it in, i realised i forgot to put an outline of my health promotion. oh well.

physio ball. a night of alcoholfree fun! well, for me anyway. only rosey and i didn't drink...and max. but we had fun nonetheless. lots of dancing between mains and desert and a whole lot more after. the 'anything australian' theme was really tacky and weird costumes came out of that. a girl made an appearance dressed as the baxter detention centre, a first year as a giant aussie thong, girls with the aussie flag as a skirt, pat as a can of VB beer, another as in a floppy milo hooped suit...sigh. some guy came in a full length bodysuit; i assume he was dressed as ian thorpe...a black ian thorpe. some came in footy gear and yet others came in the 70s version of tennis players with tight white shorts and wooden racquets. ahah!! i wish i took a photo of them.

ugroup wars. WE WON!!! we won by 1900 points!! started out with a friendly dinner before the actual battle began. we were off to a slow start with the SUPERHEROES taking the first kill with their creative chant (mikey, your dancing inspired me...that bumshaking you did, delicious!) but we owned them in dodgeball not once, but TWICE!! it was a close call with captain's ball but we did it! bragging rights are ours!! and they have the nerve to call us SUPERPEANUTS!

where did the assignments fit in, you ask. between these two coloured events, i answer. i actually managed to finish it on the sunday morning, rushed to officeworks to get it bound, then had a great lunch at anita's and then to gravitate. quite the busy weekend, i had.

now, it's onward to the next one!

i have to get to bed to have enough sleep so i'm not yawning in front of my patients tomorrow.

BUT

i am high on adrenaline, trying to finish up a problem list that's due tomorrow, coax my one thousand word essay into a two thousand word assignment before thursday and start my health promotion assignment on exercising fat kids by reading the onehundredandone articles i've found (okay, it's only a dozen. i have been known to exaggerate. you should know that by now) and writting a proposal for a community program by monday. in between all these, i have to fit in the physio ball, a friend sleeping over as well as dealing with the stress of having no bathroom as of tomorrow, a mother who's up to her ears in deciding on floor and wall tiles for her bathroom, a father who has heavy footsteps that wake me up when i'm on my way to dreamland and moving out of my room so the builders can polish my floor.

i just spent more than two hours at a shop selling tiles and flooring and the like.

TWO HOURS!!

took me less than half an hour to go through the entire shop and decide on the wall and floor tiles i wanted for my bathroom/toilet. the rest of the time was following mum around and giving my opinions on different combinations of different tiles.

sigh. she still hasn't made up her mind on what she wanted. i think she's going to go back there tomorrow and have another look around. what's more, she chose the more expensive wall tiles, all more than $30. one of the wall tiles cost $39 each. so expensive.

but i can confidently say that my future bathroom will reflect me. grey shades with bits of black.