That's That

First year of Moore College is all done! We finished with the Doctrine paper yesterday, and today was the final chapel and college lunch for the year: complete with prawns (!) and yummy icecreams.

Exams were all ok. The papers ranged from very straight-down-the-line (predictable), to really quite quirky and tricky. On the whole, I'm happy with how it all turned out, and very satisfied to be all-finished.

We have some holiday work to do. There are a couple of hundred pages of Calvin's Institutes to read, a Greek assignment, and a Hebrew assignment. I'm hoping to take the slow-and-steady approach. That seems to have worked pretty well for me through the year, and I'm hoping it'll make it more fun.

Before we come home we have a few cool things planned: arvo tea with Brendon and Hunnah, dinner at a Uighur restaurant, Christmas celebrations with the Hansard rellies. And we have some less-cool things planned: cleaning, packing, living out of suitcases ;)

I keep seeing ads for Tasmania on the tv... Not long now!

Happy Birthday, 2005

Two and half years ago my dear brother-in-law, Lukey, gave me this book for my birthday. Today, I am a very thankful that he did.

I'm now half-way through the exam period. Or, as I prefer to put it, 7 subjects down, 3 to go. Church History is now in the 'completed' pile. Hurrah!

I'd tell you why church history isn't dull (for those who might suspect it), or why Augustine was a real highlight of study, or why this book (above) is such a good read... but right now I think I'm going to blob on the couch and watch some West Wing.

Ask me about it sometime ;)

(Next week: Philosophy, Mission Foundations, Doctrine).

Timing and Answered Prayer

Timing. Yesterday afternoon I was struck down by some nasty gastro thing. I won't go into details, but it was pretty intense between about 3pm and 11pm. (Kate had the same thing 12 hours earlier). Gastro is a total pain whenever it happens. But today was my Old Testament exam - timing, huh!?

Answered Prayer. As you can imagine I was praying for a timely reprieve. I can hardly believe it, but I had a pretty good sleep and was well enough to sit the exam at 9am this morning! I could think clearly the whole time. Five essays in three hours. Questions were (mostly) on things I'd studied. Praise the Lord.

I still feel pretty mashed, but I think I'm on the mend. My next exam is on Wednesday, so I've got a window of time for recovery and more study.

PS. Noah has (thus far) avoided the bug.

Coming to a Chaser near You!

Kate and I took a wrong turn trying to find a little shop in the city this morning, so we wandered into Martin Place - just near the Lindt cafe - to find a throng of people doing not-very-much.

Then Kate recognised the Chaser boys among the throng. And shortly thereafter, 'not-very-much' became collaring some guy into a theatrical little dance number involving 30-odd people.

So, next time you're watching Chaser, keep your eye out for us in the background. (Me in blue, Kate in pink, Noah in blue/red).

The elusive 'Mind Like Water'

Ok, I expect about two of my readers will care about this, so this goes out to you guys :)

A couple of years ago I read 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen. It's about being productive and organised. The guy reckons everyone should have a way of managing their responsibilities so that as you work on any particular thing you can rest safe in the knowledge that it is exactly the thing that you should be doing at that time; nothing else is more important. A system that helps you achieve a 'mind like water'...

So, I've been unhappy with my staying-organised-software for a while, and yesterday I stumbled across a piece of software called Midnight Inbox. It's a really impressive piece of software to implement the David Allen stuff. Ingeneous, looks fantastic, costs ~AUS$40. Frugal-little-me then got looking, and I settled on dowloading iGTD instead. It has most of the features of Midnight Inbox, but looks (sadly) like a PC application :( even though it's OS X thru-and-thru.

I'm sorely tempted to get Midnight Inbox, still. I'll make that decision when I don't have exams to pass...

Exams

On that note, my Old Testament exam is on Monday. New Testament on Wednesday. Church History on Friday. I think all of them are on-track at the moment. It's just a lot of work. Thank God for exceptionally good lecturers, great blokes in my study group, and the real pleasure of learning the stuff.

One highlight? Hmmm... looking at Mark today was great. I was struck again by the way Jesus' kingship (messiah) is totally inseparable from his suffering: he's king in his crucifixion. That continues to stagger me. "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" Mark 10:45.

Gardening...

That's what I'll be doing more of next year: Gardening.

Kate and I ducked out to our home-to-be this afternoon (our college-house for next year, that is). It got me really looking forward to next year for a bunch of reasons:

• Herbs. Isn't it about time we stopped buying our herbs? A teensy, sunny backyard should be all we need to see Jamie's dream realised.
• Vege Garden. Now, I didn't actually see it; but there's supposed to be a vege garden that we can get horticulturally-busy in.
• Light. They have it inside their house. Miraculous.
• Quiet. Ahhhhhh.
  

There are plenty of other things to keep us on our toes at the moment. Such as...

• More exams are on the way. (Both Hebrew and Greek went well, by the way). I'm in a fantastic study group - we call ourselves 'The Brains Trust' - which is making exams much less intimidating.
  
• At home, we're in the middle of a white-goods war. This time it's the washing machine that's kaput. (Last week it was the fridge).
• I bought Calvin's Institutes today. The first 400-ish pages are prescribed Summer reading for college.
  

But some things have come to an end:

• Jason and Amy stayed with us on the Sydney (and coffee) leg of their travels.
• The Pleasures of God (by John Piper) is back on the book shelf. That is a fantastic book. It was some of the most spiritually-nurturing stuff I've read this year.
• My prayer-triplet finished in the last week of term. Throughout the year I met with Clive and Dave once a week to pray. It's been one of the highlights of each week. (College organises a bunch of cool stuff like that: prayer triplets, chaplaincy groups, etc.)