The Big Issue Christmas party went really well. Of course not all my salads got eaten but there was so much more to the party than the food. It was raining and the buses were on strike so Emma said to me “I doubt many people will show up.” But this was not correct. Plenty of people showed up. So there we all were crammed like Noah’s Ark into to the tiny office space. But you know how it is? When people are crammed in to small places they have to talk to each other. And some of the young ones were sitting on each other’s laps and being close. There was that wonderful buzz t to the room. It was good for me because I got to meet some more of the vendors. This is a good thing because knowing vendors is essential to vendor support work. Not to mention they were all really lovely and funny and they get a lot out of their Big Issue work. 

Anyway I was chatting to this one guy and he was like, ”I am sure I know you from somewhere,”

and I said “I don’t think so.”

And we chatted away and then I asked him “where do you sell?”

 and he said “Glebe Point Road is my pitch.” 

Ofcourse I was really excited because I remember how Mil used to tell me about her Big Issue vendor from Glebe Point Road.

 I said ”I think I know where you might know me from. I think my twin sister would buy the Big Issue off you every fortnight.” 

Then we were both excited at such a fun coincidence. This was a highlight for me but another highlight was when Peter gave his speech. Peter is the manager. He said some really great things among them “I know how it feels to get out there everyday.”

The  interesting thing about the Big Issue in Sydney is the manager, a long time ago, used to be a vendor. I think this is truly amazing. So often homeless people get treated by the services they access as once a homeless person always a homeless person. Despite all our good intentions we keep people in their place below us. For Peter to have the job of manager goes a long way in breaking down the us and them barriers in this work place.

I then hung out with Matt on Friday night after Bambino’s. He reckons his work Christmas party was better because they went to a fancy restaurant and had all their drinks paid for and got taken from the restaurant to a club in a stretch hummmer. Alright I admit that was probably pretty fun, but I think my humble Christmas party was fun too.

I volunteered to help cater for The Big Issue Christmas party. Today I have to cook four chickens, make salads, hummus and zucchini slice. Someone else is in charge of the ham, drinks and pudding. Anyway there are 4 uncooked chickens in our fridge which I am really not used to and last night all I could dream about was chickens. 

Talking about a vege cooking meat, last night I was cooking the mince at Bambino’s. Add the salt, add the pepper and add the garlic. I asked Mick if he would try it and his answer was ”do I have to.” So I drained the meat and let it cool for awhile. Now here is my confession, I decided I would try it just to make sure it was Ok. So I tried it and it really didn’t taste salty, in fact kind of sweet. So I decided to add more salt and as I was doing this realised when I was cooking the mince I had added sugar into the mince instead of salt. I was like crap. Dave is going to going to give me so much shit. So I added more pepper and more salt which really should have been done when it was cooking. I tried it again and this time I could taste the salt and then I wrapped it and put it in the fridge before Dave came in and decided to taste it (just to note people cook with sugar and meat all the time, it is not a complete disaster).

I feel in a bit of a dilemma. I have chosen not to eat meat, except for occassionally fish, but when you have to cook it for other people whether catering or working in pizza shop is there a need to taste it so you know what you are serving to people? I mean it was actually really lucky I decided to taste the mince last night given the salt/sugar predicament. At Urban Seed I cooked meat all the time but there was always someone else to taste it and say more salt, more herbs, you have added way too much chilli, add some lemon. It is not that I like eating it and I honestly don’t think it tastes good but most people really like meat and I like people and I seem to always end up cooking for them.

On Sunday we had our first book club. It was really great. 

I told Jane about 3 weeks ago when she was talking about her worry fast that “I don’t worry.” Now this is probably not the most true statement I have ever made. It is not that I am a big worrier and I do let most things wash over me. But there is something that does make me worry a bit. Whenever I organise anything I have this worry that it is going to be really bad and no one is going to show up and that if they do show up they will be really bored and wish they were somewhere else. Now the thing about worrying is it is quite irrational. The thing is when we worry like that we make the thing that we are organising about us, when really events have lives of their own that go well beyond the person who is organising it.  

Anyway the book club was really cool. Now I know most people would think there is nothing cool about a book club but they would have to be wrong. I mean really what is cooller than sitting around with some of your favourite people and talking about moments in books that are inspiring and challenging and relevant or just simply beautiful?

Late night people are my kind of people because I can hang out with them on Saturday night even when I finish work at 9:30 and then have to drive to Avalon. John, Tom and I played games like poker and bowling to 3:00 in the morning. We had to be up again at 8:30. Tom and I had a few vague moments this morning. I got a response to something I said about 2mins after I said it. Funny. 

Anyway from our discussions last night I have been thinking about grace and the church. I think people go to church because they need grace not because they know how to give it. I mean look at the way the church treats homosexuals (just one example, there are others more personal).  I mean really when it comes to grace the church is hopeless. But we can’t blame the church because we ourselves also fall so short of being gracious. I mean what I am saying about the church is entirely ungracious. So I have ended up in this vicious cycle. The church is ungracious to me, I am ungracious to the church, the church retaliates with ungraciousness and then I say fuck you church how ungracious, which in its very essence is ungracious. And so we go around and around and around and we miss eachother and reconcilliation becomes a concept rather than a reality. Sad. Therefore I am stopping my ungraciousness. If the church can’t deal appropriately or graciously with abortion and homosexuals and sexual slip ups and people who yell at them and make scenes in church, that is Ok. There are days when I can’t deal with certain aspects of humanity too. Now I am not trying to make light of things. It really hurts when you are gay and the church tells you you need to love girls or you will have to go to someplace else, possibly hell. It really really hurts. It hurts when all you want is the church to love you and forgive you and they act to protect themselves because you are too dangerous to have around. But anger hurts too. It can eat at us. So I forgive the church. I love the conservative Anglican diocese of Sydney, XX church the website that told me masturbation is wrong, I love you. Those people who stand outside abortion clinics making young woman feel even worse than they already do, I understand because I have hurt people too. We all need grace and we probably won’t find it in the church but, as Tom would say, we will find it in Jesus.

So I got into the Masters of Letters, Hebrew Biblical and Jewish studies. Yay. Lucky my friend Matt is able to come and drink some champagne with me.  (I look back at my first post about stumbling across the Masters of Letters. I wrote that it probably wouldn’t come to anything but wow, I got in). I am so so excited. It was that kind of excitement where I had to re read the letter of offer about 5 times just to make sure that what I was reading was true. I know this is a slight veer off from the path I was going down toward being a teacher but I will rejoin that path at some stage. 

For now I am going to be studying what I am so very passionate about. There are not many people in the world who get to be that blessed. So I am taking it with loads of gratitude in my heart. We are so very lucky here in Australia. $1879 to study for a 1.5 years. That is so cheap. It is 3/4 of my savings but I don’t mind. Thanks Mum for being so supportive and encouraging of me even though I might be 30 by the time I leave university. You have never told me I should just focus on getting a proper job and now I can study what I love. Thanks to you others who told me to follow my heart. Even Dad who did tell me to focus on the job thing was excited for me today. I know this is a rather specialised kind of field but you know I just might have the talents and the drive to make something of it. God I really feel my prayers have been answered so thank you.

I just realised I sound like those famous people who get up and accept their awards at ceremonies that famous people go to. ”I’d like to thank my mum and my dad and my manager and God, I’d like to thank God.” Oopps I did not mean to sound like that but I guess I really feel like I have won something here. It is a good feeling.

I told Tom I wasn’t going to blog about New Moon and I wasn’t (and this is not a blog about new moon exactly) till I walked into work after spending the whole train trip home talking about what an incredibly bad movie we had just seen, to see a girl wearing a tee shirt with Edward Cullen’s face on it. For Matt, Tom and I it was too obvious how embarrasing this film was. We did get a few laughs but it was that “I can’t believe she/he just said that” kind of laugh. So to see this girl wearing the Edward Cullen shirt I was somewhat taken aback. How could she not see? I wanted to gently explain to her that Edward Cullen is actually an undifferentiated mess and if she met and married someone like him she would end up in marraige counselling trying to sought out how her and her husband were going to find ways of sharing their life together in meaningful, happy and healthy ways. And if she didn’t go to counselling to discover the importance of being her own person then she was going to be continually frustrated at her husband because it just isn’t possible for one person to meet all her needs. ”Have your own book,” I wanted to scream at her. A lot of you probably know that is a reference from a book called Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch. I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it (it will be a counter cultural act in our Twilight obsessed world). You don’t have to be married to read it. It is about differentiation or in other words holding on to you while in the context of relationships. It mainly focusses on romantic ones but I think there are also other relationships in this life, especially helping ones, where we let someone else dictate too much of who we are or how we behave in the world. We have all fallen into the trap. Even when we know this stuff we still find ourselves looking back on moments and going “damn it I just totally let that guy with the six pack of the century or that girl with as much self awareness as a cupboard get the better of me,” but I believe if we are going to attempt to enjoy healthy relationships we should embrace not co-dependency but differentiation. Sometimes I can be a bit harsh but if someone tells me that they really need me to do this for them or be that for them, I try and help them to see they don’t need it, they want it and they should probably find a different way of asking for my love and support. “I would really like you to be my girlfriend” goes down so much better than ”I know we are totally bad for each other but I really need you to be my girlfriend and if you break up with me I will have no other choice but to have some kind of nervous breakdown.”

Yesterday after going to bed at 3:00 I was up at 8:30 to go shopping with Jane. I hadn’t had deoderant for like a month so I was happy to get some of that. With the weather getting warmer it has been a bit wrong. There was also bunch of other stuff I needed. It was lucky I did get up because when we went to pay Jane’s card was declined (the credit card company are sending her a new one). It was good because I had $160 cash on me so was able to pay. With bags and bags of shoppping it could have been a rather awkward situation.

Then I went to the pizza shop to learn how to make the pasta sauces. It could have been a pleasent experience except Dave and I spent most of the time debating the meaning of life, our purpose here on earth and what God’s heart looks like. When I got home Jane said to me “words don’t work.” It is true but I have been wondering what does work? I got to thinking have I allowed the ideas of others to influence me even if initially I haven’t agreed with them? Am I open to different perspectives? It was good to see I am not a complete concrete block. I have changed a lot in my thinking. I do have the ability to approach ideas as clay and let them mould me, even if my first thought is “I find that pretty hard to believe.” There is a paradoxical truth here because I think it is important to hold on to what we believe when our ideas are being challenged or belittled but I also think there are times when we need to let go a little and let other perpectives in. It is sometimes hard to know when is the time to hold on and when is the time to let go.

Day finished with a run and a bbq at Bobbin Head (and a really intense movie I made everyone watch. There was so many layers of people hurting eachother and it was very real). Anyway Bobbin Head was really nice. Jane, Jem, Helen, Tracey, Sam, Ryan, and I sat around talking while Hannah did laps of the park. I had not seen Helen for a very long time so it was special she came. It fact it was special all those people came. The interesting thing is that all of us are in a transitional phase of our lives and are wondering/exploring what we are going to do next. I have felt a bit overwhelmed at times with all the changes in my life so it was helpful to hear aboout the changes other people are going through. There is a line from a Bob Dylan song I have been holding onto a bit lately.

“May your hands always be busy and your feet always be swift

and may you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.”

Because I love books so much I am very excited by the idea of exploring 5 books that changed my life. Feel a bit like a copy cat but it is wonderful question.  I can’t do the fancy thing of putting up the pictures.

1) “The Road Less Traveled” -It is a fairly obvious concept for some but the rewards of delaying gratification took me a bit longer to get. This book clearly highlights the whole concept. I still have moments when I am like “gratification now” but by delaying gratification I have achieved a few things.

2) “Les Miserbles” – That moment the bishop hands over the candlesticks is priceless and Hugo writes it in such a way that it is not preachy. Just grace.

3) “People of the Book” – This is one of those amazing novels that makes one celebrate all that language is and all that it helps us express. Brooks can write like I could only ever dream of writing, but in that encourages me to try a bit harder. She says writing is not about being popular but about making another person’s heart dance. This novel highlights the sheer awfulness of human beings but also how beautiful and deep they can be. Not only that but the protagonist is in love with ancient manuscripts and I share that love with her.

4) “The Screwtape Letters” – It is not that I am fully convinced there is a devil but in this book CS Lewis very cleverly out lines some of the very real dangers that will lead us far from God. For example – being too distracted by the tangible things of the world we forget to consider what may lie beyond it. The enticement of living a double life – one where we are interested in things of God, the other we don’t really care. Letting friends influence us in superficial ways. Lastly becoming so judgmental of others that their perculiar/endearing habits come to annoy and irritate us. And if I am really honest CS Lewis makes me feel not so irrational to think there may be forces of darkness I need to by no means obsess over but atleast be wary of.

5) “Waiting to Exhale” – The book is much less hollywood than the movie. There are not many books I have read more than once but I did read this one for the second time after a pretty painful breakup (not my most recent one).  There are a 4 strong women in that book, each exploring the questions of romantic love, and for 3 out of the 4 of them, leaving was a much better decision than staying. And they are beautiful, amazing women, even without a man.

Yesterday I had to tell my boss at the Big Issue I am leaving Melbourne, so won’t be able to work with there anymore. It was really sad, I love that job. My last shift is on Saturday. Again to clarify I do vendor support - I am not a vendor. I was hanging out with a friend of mine from uni on Saturday night and we only just cleared that one up. I have been friends with him for over a year. Anyway Gemma (my boss) was lovely. She is writing me a reference and I asked her to contact the manager of Big Issue in Sydney and put in a good word for me. She said she would send him an email. My first task when I back to Sydney is to try and get some work with them. Gemma also invited me to be in the work Christmas photo for the magazine, so I did that today. If one of my old school friends buys the mag and sees me in the photo they might think I am a vendor. I nearly didn’t go in the photo for that reason but then I thought that’s kind of funny and maybe people will realise the magazine has other kinds of staff.  The editors/writers/vendor support/vendors where all mixed in the photo.

Spent the rest of the day doing research in the library for the book I am writing.  So I can accurately set my historical scenes. My head is so full of ideas and information but I am now struggling to motivate myself to put pen to paper.  Waves of motivation are hard to come by. I am most motivated to write when I am depressed.  Maybe the good news is I am not as depressed as I was. I still want to write my book but. When I come back to Sydney you all have to be horrible to me so one day I will become a famous author.

So today I found out I have been accepted into the Masters of Education at U.T.S. This should be exciting and it is but now I am confused. Today I also posted my application for the Masters of Letters in Hebrew and Biblical studies. I know in my heart that I would rather do a Masters of Letters but I was on the phone to Matt and he was like it would be wiser to pick something you can easily get a job with. My father says the same thing.  Are they right? Am I stupid for wanting to explore a passion that doesn’t guarantee work? I feel like I should have faith but faith doesn’t make things less scary. I don’t even know if I will get into the Masters of Letters and I have to accept the offer for the Masters of Education. I need to find out what the cutoff date is for accepting the offer. I haven’t heard from the Melbourne Universities yet either. If they accept me, my decision will be even more layered. Anyway as an encouraging thing towards the Masters of Letters this is what a teacher/associate professor wrote in a reference I asked him for.

“I understand that Ms G Hayes is applying to undertake a Masters of Letters in Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney. It is my pleasure to recommend that Gemma be accepted into the course. I taught Gemma in the unit Jewish Society 200Bce – 200Ce during her undergraduate course at ACU. She is very enthusiastic about the subject area. Gemma actively participated in class, successfully undertook the option of pursuing a research essay on Hebrew language and the Dead Sea Scrolls and displayed a level of skill that certainly warrants undertaking further studies in the subject area.

I strongly endorse Gemma’s decision to go on to further study and have no hesitation in recommending that she be accepted into the Masters of Letters.”