My night

'Twas the night before developmental psychology exam, and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, except Sarah's mouse.
The Benza was tucked up in bed with care
And Sarah, whose head would not follow, wanted to be there.
Piaget and Voygtsky were nestled all snug in Sarah's head
Though she wished they would leave and go home to their own bed.

My week

This has been a good week overall. I went on church camp on the weekend and it was excellent. It was a sharing rather than teaching time. A whole weekend with my buddies - bliss. My irritating psychology critique was handed up on friday so I was extra relaxed.
Work is going well. I still really like working as a kitchen-hand.
Greek lessons are going well :) I can recognise the letters of the alphabet, say the alphabet, say a few words, and know the present indicative active of the regular verb in both singular and plural. hehe I needed to check my sheet to work out that last sentence.
Ben graduated a couple of weeks ago so he has been a happy boy. Very proud of him. My brother also graduated a couple of weeks ago. Very proud of them both :)
I am currently avoiding my next assignment - a literature review on 'the affect (or is it effect?) of deafness on theory of mind development'. My house is getting very clean. Must stop pissing about now.
Until next time.... "may the force be with you" (yayayayayayay 3rd Star Wars movie came out last night)

Friends

Here are the links to the blogs of four great people:

Ben

Saemon

Rose

Jason

James Fowler's 'Stages of faith'

I read an article given to me by Greg addressing Fowler's stages of faith. Fowler is a developmental psychologist and a methodist, which is of particular interest to me as developmental psychology is one of the topics I am studying this semester at uni. Fowler proposes six stages of faith that may be experienced during the 'faith journey'. The thing I like about Fowler's perspective is that they are deeply rooted in a number of well researched developmental perspectives in psychology. According to Fowler I am currently in the Individuative-Reflective stage of faith development. It is bloody hard in this stage, and I've been here for about 5 years! But it is also awe strikingly eye opening, as previous beliefs and the beliefs of those around you are challenged and restructured (not that there is much structure in mine yet). No wait...I won't make it all colourful. It is emotionally difficult, confusing and frustrating and that is where I am at today. Tomorrow...well, we will see.

Greek

I'm all excited (yes Filo sae fickle, excited!) because dr greg (one of the most wonderful people on earth) is going to be giving a group of us lessons in Koiken...Cookien..Kooiten.....ahhh Koine Greek (thankyou internet). We are going to meet for 1 1/2 hours per week for the next term and see where it takes us.

Getting High

There is something about experiences such as getting big hugs from friends, viewing incredible scenery, acts of altruism and having a good laugh, which give off feelings similar to those experienced when high. I'm not a big drinker, but on the occassional tipsy moment I feel a similar state of exhilleration. Perhaps this has something to do with the ability of such experiences to increase our serotonin levels, like alcohol does, or perhaps it is somehow linked to God. Well, whatever the cause, I love these natural 'getting high' experiences. My high moment today was when I had to stop for a koala crossing the road. I stopped my car, it stopped at the base of a tree, and we just looked at eachother. We connected for a while and it felt great (sure, the koala was probably thinking 'you mad woman, you almost ran me over!', but I certainly enjoyed it).

Babies

My family is going through a massive baby stage. Everyone seems to be pregnant or a new parent - except for me and my 11 year old sister Emily. This is the first baby boom I've known in my family and it is exciting. Andrew and Ange have got two little girls - Zali and Poppy; Alice and Rich have just had Tahlia; Dan and Yor had a little girl a couple of weeks ago; Lizzy and Barney had their second child about four weeks ago; Jo and Tim have got a little one called Jacob; and I have just found out (about 5 minutes ago) that Matt and Kath are going to have a baby in May. It really is very full on and exciting - especially considering that most of these children haven't been in the world for two months. I think Paul (my next cousin up in age) and I may start feeling left out if we don't start having babies soon :) Na... I'm happy being an aunty for the moment. My time will come. Paul and I (and maybe even David (my brother) or Jo (my next cousin down in age) by then) can start the next baby boom in a few years :)

It's a girl

Alice and Rich have had a little girl. She was born on Monday 21 Feb. Both Alice and Tahlia (the newest edition to the Williams/Craig clan) are going really well :) I will try to post a picture when Rich sends me some photos - if I can get Hello to work again.

Aunty Sera

I am very excited because my sister-in-law Alice is about to have her first baby. She only has seven days until the baby is due. This will be my third niece or nephew - Zali is 5 and Poppy is 2. I went to see Alice today and she is going really well. I think she wouldn't mind if the baby stayed in her tum for a little while longer as it is nice and quiet at her house now. I will send a post when the baby is born :)

Fuck

Fuck shit cock wang blast dammit fucking fucking fucking fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck hurumph pooh bum. Nope - I'm still feeling frustrated. Hang on........................Yay! I'm feeling better now. That did work ;). Good then, on with my day.