Just to clarify:

My beliefs are my own, I know my own mind, and you were NOT exactly the same as me when you were my age. RAAAARGH.

It is SO frustrating when you say the word 'Christian' and people instantly think they know better than you and know everything about you.

I put up with half an hour of being told that I was stupid, that my faith is all bullshit, and that I am brainwashed.

To reiterate: RAAAARGH.

In other news, would an "I will not sleep with you" t-shirt look arrogant? I think it probably would...

(By the way, it was open mic night, Chris sang Brown Eyed Girl again, wargh. Issues aplenty.)

Three times is a charm

When God tells you something three times in one day, you should listen.

As some of you know, I've been working this weekend with a group of Christians from Maidstone. We wrapped things up tonight with a worship session, and (just like at Catalyst on Friday) I began to cry. I just felt crap about myself. I know God treasures me and everything, and I know some would tell me different, but somewhere inside me there's still a twelve-year-old girl who's convinced she's ugly and worthless.

One of the visiting girls came to pray for me. She pulled out her bible and read Romans 8:15, which says

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

After that, she began to tell me how important it was to know what it means to be a daughter of God. Just then, another girl came over and said God had just shown her a picture of a little girl looking up at her daddy with an expression of trust and love on her face. She said how important it is that I trust God as my father, and that all I have to do is take His hand.

I've just got home, tired from a long couple of days (and quite a lot and emotionally wearing week), and trawling through the humanbeatbox.com forum, I came across Romans 8:15 again.

Maybe I'm just hormonal. I fully accept that this may be the case. But I think God might be trying to tell me something as well.

And as for the Maidstone guys: they were the kindest people you could imagine, truly warm and friendly, and we've all been very blessed to have them with us.

Unreasonably early

Well, it's yet another Monday morning and I'm up at the crack of dawn (by which I mean before 10. Be reasonable.) As some of you might know, I spend Mondays on the mainland doing a theology course called Deeper, in which I invariably lose concentration multiple times a minute and in which Matt falls asleep. We're going to resort to Red Bull today, which I've never tried before.

Seriously though, how am I supposed to stay focused?! 6 hours (including lunchbreak)of sitting behind a desk and listening to someone talk. Oh, and taking notes, just to keep it fun. The only upside is that it's all truly sound stuff that I love knowing, and the blame lies entirely with me that I don't make more of an effort. I should start going to bed earlier on Sundays.

Mondays are mad. I'm going to have to leave the house at half past 7 and I won't be back until about 11pm, because after travelling back from Southampton, I help at this thing called Soul Cafe. So it's all fun and games, everything winds to a close soon anyway, and then I'll realise how good I had it and how much I miss it. Such is life, eh ;)

Hope you're all ok, and I've got a favour to ask. Please tell me what sort of thing you'd like to read about here. I'd really love some feedback.

Another one?!

Hey guys! I know I've been blogging like a mad thing lately, not entirely sure why, but I haven't really felt like keeping a diary ever since I left it in the pub (I'm so clever.)

Anyway, this post is in recognition of the fact that I seem to have acquired a new reader!

Oh and this just in: Batman is a big gay.

Be church

I went to cell today for the first time in ages.

For those who don't know, cell group is like a bible study with socialising, theological and philosophical debate, and today cake as well.

I've missed those guys so much, they really made me realise what I was missing.

I haven't been doing too well lately. Ok I'm going to be brutally honest, I'm not super-depressed or anything, things have just been ... bad.

My mum's been diagnosed with diabetes, my dad's liver is failing, I haven't been eating properly, haven't been praying or reading my bible, haven't been to church in weeks...

And I only just realised there was a problem. But today I went to cell (with Lucy, who is back from 8 months in Africa and who is a complete blessing from God for all of us right now) and I just fell back on the network of support that, for some insane reason, I haven't been making the most of.

They're such wonderful people. And we're really secure as a group, and it really does feel like family.

So, sorry to everyone I've been weird at lately, most of it was because I was all lethargic from not eating, with any luck things will improve.

And I'd like to leave you with this thought: don't go to church, BE church. When your friends think of Christianity, they see you. Bear his name well.

Purdyful!

Look what I've found!

There are loads of stunning pictures here, check them out.

B t B t

Ok ok ok I know, terribly slack of me, but I'm here now and ready to bore you senseless with more beatbox-related shenanigans!

Last Friday (the 8th), I went up to London to witness the 2007 UK Beatboxing Championships. I got collected in Portsmouth by the incredibly sweet Fat Tony, who came and looked after me even though trains are evil, and whom I've been wanting to meet for ... oooh, weeks. Months. Once in London, we picked up Philippic (who is an absolute sweetie) and wandered around Angel Islington trying to find Grace (Bellatrix's friend). Bear with me, the names might get confusing, especially since everyone has two. We found Grace in the end, and went back to loitering outside the venue.

Y'see, everyone was going to arrive at 5, so we got there early. Quite early. Well, very. And we waited outside as people pointed and whispered (Tony was dressed as Russell Brand, it's a look that certainly gets a lot of attention!) After a while, BeatMuppet, YasSon, etc. all turned up from booking a room at the Generator (the hostel we were to spend the night in). Then everyone turned up.
Everyone.
All the people I had been so nervous of meeting, and a few it hadn't even occurred to me I might meet! Shlomo, the Petebox, TyTe, Bellatrix, Hobbit, some incredibly talented people. I don't think I was too star-struck, maybe I went a bit quiet at first but it soon passed, simply because they're all such awesome people.

The London finals started two hours later than expected, which was cool as I got bonus time to talk to people and get hugs ;) and they rocked. I could honestly not believe the skill in that room. I was hanging around with Phil and Tony feeling way less awkward than I expected to, and loving every minute of it!

Then came the UK finals, held in a packed club. Shlomo's set was every bit as good as Tony had promised it would be. Scratch's was awful, there was some pretty heavy distortion, but after that came the finals...

Fozzie shouldn't have gone out that early if he's as good as BM swears he is. He paced himself wrong, held a lot back for the next rounds which sadly never came. BM was not a happy bunny. Or indeed a happy mammal of any description.

The semifinals between Bella and Beardyman were absolutely genius, very entertaining dynamics going on there! (Bella's 18, win the for?! Truly amazing skill.)

Now, don't get me wrong, the championships were legendary (Beardyman won, naturally), but that wasn't the best part. The best part started afterwards. BM was trying to round up everyone so that we could get back to the Generator, but leaving is never that easy, especially when a few members of the party have been drinking. He had to physically carry Brown out of the club twice while YasSon looked for his bag and fished some Tea Tree oil out of his pint.

The journey back was entertaining to say the least, I alternated between shepherding along the slightly unsteadier people and talking to BM and TyTe.

Ok, all of you know how much I've been going on about TyTe. Well don't expect to hear the end of it any time soon because he's LOVELY, a truly stellar man and a legend in the flesh. Good hugger too. And friendly. He TALKED to me. (And I talked back, don't get the impression I was just stood there going "Heehee... you're TyTe, you are", no, I was just fine thankyou.) Then he left, because he had to be alive for the next day...
And as for BeatMuppet... well. He's a Christian, the most physical beatboxer I've seen, he likes Discworld, and recommended Velvet Elvis to me, and threatened to improve my vocabulary (can you believe it!) AS WELL as being a computer geek. So, you know, it was good to talk to him.
UPDATE! Enough time has now passed that I can clarify: "it was good to talk to him" means "he is My Type in every way that matters, and I developed a fun crush on him more or less instantly."

We got to the Generator at about 4am, it was getting light already and we were all knackered... especially poor Hobbit. He'd been performing on stage, and had to be up at 7, so he was quite keen to get to sleep. Nobody else was. It just wasn't happening. The constant stream of innuendo regarding bottles, cucumbers, and even Zippy (who never sounded that perverted before) were enough to keep me laughing till I cried. A truly awesome night.

I'm missing out so much here but I'll try to keep it short. The next day we got kicked out at 10 and all went our separate ways by tube and train; Yas, Yas's friend whose name I feel bad for not remembering, Tony and I caught the same train back and talked all the way. Yas is a sweetheart. In the end, I hugged Tony goodbye, and went home... knackered, but happy.

And, just because I haven't mentioned them yet, I'd like to say how great it was to meet Bevis, Typerite, Vig, Skitz, Magda, and argh I've forgotten her name, the one with the gorgeous hair.

They were all lovely, I will most definitely be meeting them again, and I've been staying in touch with BM because he's way awesome.

So that is it! That is what I did with my weekend! That is what I've been hyped about ever since! And five gold reader stars if you actually got this far, well done you.

Roffle. I'm a geek.

Dude... site recommendation. This has had me laughing for ages! A few of my favourites:

Cthon98> hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
Cthon98> ********* see!
AzureDiamond> hunter2
AzureDiamond> doesnt look like stars to me
Cthon98> *******
Cthon98> thats what I see
AzureDiamond> oh, really?
Cthon98> Absolutely
AzureDiamond> you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
AzureDiamond> haha, does that look funny to you?
Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
AzureDiamond> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
AzureDiamond> awesome!
AzureDiamond> wait, how do you know my pw?
Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
AzureDiamond> oh, ok.

_________

*** Now talking in #christian
-Word_of_God- Welcome Abstruse to #christian I am a Bible Bot. For more info type: /msg Word_of_God !info
Abstruse> !kjv numbers 22:21
Word_of_God> Numbers 22:21 -- And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. - (KJV)
*** SageRider sets mode: +b *!*@c211-30-208-111.rivrw3.nsw.optusnet.com.au
*** Word_of_God was kicked from #christian by SageRider (Please dont Swear)
Abstruse> I know I'm never going to be able to come back in this channel again after this, but damn was it worth it to see that...

__________


tag> Ouroboros: lets play Pong
Ouroboros> Ok.
tag> | .
Ouroboros> . |
tag> | .
Ouroboros> . |
tag> | .
Ouroboros> | .
Ouroboros> Whoops

__________

kow`> "There are 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't."
SpaceRain> That's only 2 types of people, kow.
SpaceRain> STUPID

__________

P.S. Let's hear it for men who dance, yowza. o.O

Oxford, Sleepover, Pub, and Dirty Dancing.

See the title for this post? See what happens when I'm gone for three days? DO YOU SEE?!

Some of you have been expecting me to talk about Tuesday for some time now, and I'm very sorry for not updating you all sooner, but as you see things have been fairly hectic.

So! Oxford. I went (all by myself) on the ferry and then the train (like a big girl) to Oxford, and I was freaking TERRIFIED. The train would take only two minutes between stations until we got near my stop, then suddenly it was draaaagging ooouut... and then the train inexplicably started going BACKWARDS.
As I got closer to my destination I got jumpier, edgier, fidgetier - fortunately not enough to become too conspicuous, I hope. At one point I started worrying because I'd gone so pale that my skin was actually blue, before realising that the train's windows were actually tinted slightly; that was a relief.

SO ANYWAY after that I actually went out of the station and saw him. Right there. Dave. Without a screen between us, or indeed anywhere in sight, there he was and there I was and... what now?
Well what happened next was we talked, and hugged (which he'd told me not to do straight away but changed his mind about), we got food, we went for a walk, sat in the park, talked, hugged (slightly awkwardly at first, then I relaxed a bit). We caught the bus back to his house, blur, blur, hugging, cat, blur, watched memento, blur, hugging (uhgahbuh), blur, dinner, home...

Yes, yes, I know. I can't remember a lot of it, not in detail anyway, because of the combination of nerves and excitement and hugging and not having a fantastic memory anyway. But I hope it's enough to say that it was truly awesome, that everybody I met was lovely and fun and generally great. In fact while I'm here, thank you, guys, you made me feel really welcome. Everybody go ahhhhh.

It wasn't until I was headed home that I started to worry about the fact that I'm an emotionally stunted wreck who may not even be capable of entering a real relationship, let alone sustaining one, but we'll brush over that.

I didn't get home until gone midnight, and by then I was too tired to blog, sorry guys. I should have done it the next morning, but I hadn't anticipated just how mad the next few days were going to be...

Wednesday: I went over to Dom's and played Kingdom Hearts 2. Awesome game. Haven't played it in months because her rabbit ate the wire. Steve (my honorary big brother) came over. Dave was sad. That made me sad, and worried, and guilty, but things got better. I think.

Thursday: Played Kingdom Hearts. Steve came over. I went to the pub for open mic night, which was awesome, and came back to Dom's smelling of smoke (so I refused to inflict that smell on her and slept in the living room that night).

Friday: Dom ran me a bubbly bubble bath! Hooray! Played KH. (Okay, maybe it was less manic than it felt, but I still had a truly awesome time. Dom is lovely.) Thennnn we went to a girly night with some of the cell group girls, we watched Dirty Dancing and had snacks, painted nails, etc. while the guys did guy things.
What guy things? Well, we found them running around outside Naomi's house with clingfilm, sellotape and beer.

In conclusion: much awesomeness has occurred. Much of which I'm sure I've forgotten just at the moment, but never mind.

Ooh, also I've dyed my eyelashes black for some reason, which I didn't know you could do. Apparently you can. *Flutters eyelashes*