Good and reasonably productive day today — I haven’t done any work but it’s been one of those days where I got lots of little important things done. So now hopefully I can concentrate harder on doing some work. I sorted out the tax exemption form (because students don’t have to pay it, woohoo!), set things in motion for getting an interview for placement next year sorted, and ordered my new phone (very excited about that one!).

Once a year the CU goes away together for a weekend and that my friends is where I have been this weekend. We all met outside the union at 4:45 and at 6:00 we left — traffic was to blame but we all knew we wouldn’t be leaving on time and anyway we got to spend an hour in the bar instead. The next 3 hours were spent in one of the 3 mini-buses that took us — it would have been a great journey except Westwood was on the radio for the last half an hour or so… If you don’t know who Tim Westwood is, count yourself lucky.

Had a pretty good day today. This week it was big group instead of small group — I’ll explain. Basically instead of having small group every week at church we have small group one week and big group the next. It’s a pretty cool idea because it gives all the small groups a chance to get to know each other more. Tonight we were talking about spiritual giftings, something I’ve never really been sure of — what my giftings are. So when they asked if people wanted prayer I was up and had a really cool picture from Matt Maude (such an awesome guy) saying that I would be leading the spiritually poor and seeing them turn to God. I’ve had words about leadership in my life before. I suppose one of my issues is thinking that I don’t have what it takes. That’s not cool though because it goes against what God is saying. I have no problem with having faith and trusting in God to see other people’s lives changed but when it comes to my own life I don’t have so much confidence. Change that, GOD!

I’ve decided that it’s time I started giving my blogs titles. The reason they didn’t have them before is laziness but now that MySpace won’t let me post a blog without a title it looks like I’m gonna have to start using them!

These past few weeks I’ve been playing Fable. I played it last year on the Xbox and when I found the PC version I thought I would give it a go. It’s just as much fun as it was on the Xbox and even more so because they’ve added loads of new quests for the PC version which I didn’t get to do first time round. It’s also helped me get over not playing World of Warcraft anymore. I miss WoW… It was a great game but the trouble is it never ends! That’s the trouble with all MMORPGs — they just never end! I think for the sake of my sanity and social life that games should always have an end! Which is why I picked up Fable — it’s a great RPG (similar to WoW in many ways) but it has an end. When I finish the game I have to stop playing because there’s nothing more for me to do!

Ahhh Blogspot, how much the people at MySpace have to learn. Today I spent a few hours sorting out what my profile and blog looks like over on MySpace — I’m semi happy with it now, happier than I was anyway. Since a lot of my friends use MySpace I’ve decided to start posting my blog there too just so that I get a little more of a reaction. I’m not happy about it but it’s got to be done I guess.

I just finished watching episode 8 of Lost (series 2). I have to say that up until now series 2 hasn’t really been that great. I suppose the first 7 episodes were a big build up to this one episode and now the story can get back into its normal What the hell is going on, Twists every episode and Lots of weird stuff has happened but we won’t explain any of it — but I Love it! I’ve definitely never been this into a TV show before, it’s just not normally the sort of thing I get excited about. Apparently the writers have enough material for another 12 years so if you haven’t started watching it yet then you’ve got plenty of time.

Tonight I spoke at small group. I’m really not very comfortable speaking in a group setting so it was a bit stretching which was good. I think it went ok — I tried to turn it into more of a discussion which worked well because people were pretty responsive. All in all a good night. We had small group here as well which was really good because I didn’t have to go out into the cold! And I got to be the host which never happens. I spoke on distraction which is a pretty big topic — just talking about the things that distract us from God and how we can deal with them and give more of our time to God. Distraction is something that everyone struggles with and everyone had different ways that they deal with it, so I think everyone learnt a bit from each other. It also gave us a chance to open up to each other which doesn’t normally happen with the whole group — we normally split up into guys and gals.

Well tonight I went on my first trip with the Mountaineering Club. We went to an indoor climbing wall somewhere an hour out of Middlesbrough (I forget where) and it was really good. I wasn’t expecting to find it quite such hard work but man it was. My fingers and knees ache now from it all — every time I did a climb it took at least 10 minutes to recover! That’s just down to my lack of fitness though. I used to climb a lot with my dad when I was younger, I don’t know why or when I stopped but I wish I hadn’t, because tonight was great and I’ll definitely be going back next week.

Vladstudio Wallpapers — I love this website. The wallpapers on there are brilliant! One to suit almost every mood and feeling. I’ve been using it for years so I thought I would share it with you. If you’re looking for somewhere to get good original backgrounds then give it a look. I just changed mine — I seem to be changing them with the weather. A few weeks back it was raining loads so I went with a rainy pic, now it’s getting cold I’ve gone for a cold look.

“Look at the lengths men will go to find the golden-haired woman. They have fought duels over her beauty; they have fought wars. You see, every man remembers Eve. We are haunted by her. And somehow we believe that if we could find her, get her back, then we’d also recover with her our own lost masculinity.”

— Wild at Heart, John Eldredge

I read this the other night and thought: yeah. Women. Man, how many times have I fallen for someone thinking that I had found “The One” or “The answer to all my problems”. It can’t keep happening. But it does. Why can’t I just be content with having friends that are girls? When I’m not interested in anyone then I feel like I’m missing something. I feel the need to have a woman in my life to think about and worry about. I guess that’s healthy for a guy but I’m tired of getting hurt. Give it to God and let him take care of it I guess.