left..left......left..right...left

hmmm

ever have the feeling of being incredibly left out?

if you haven't, then thats awesome..

but if u have, you'd probably know what i'm going through right now..

i'm not bitter or anything, far from it.. i understand its hard to include everyone

but it doesn't change how incredibly miserable i am right now..
when you're the only one from a particular group to be left out (as far as i know), it does cut pretty deep..

i guess i can react to this in quite a few ways.. one of them is not letting it make me close up from ppl... which is entirely possible... as after all the growth i've had in the past 6 months... i still feel like i'm on the whole outer... like everybody is in some nearly soundproof bubble, and i'm just outside, catching a few words here and there so I get a glimpse of the bubble, but not really being part of it all.. guess its the price i pay for doing what i did for the last few years up until 6 months ago... or mebe its jus me... maybe i'm jus not an engaging person... and ppl jus humour me when i try and interact with them....

i dunno, i'm majorly overreacting to this all... i haven't been depressed and majorly insecure for a long time, and i guess its just weird feeling like this.. not sure how to deal with it.... at all... thus why i am failing terribly at trying to deal...

er... hmm..

-d

authorment

hehe, had like a major brainwave while talking with Jen just then..
Start up like, a story blog, where we write an ongoing, character driven story. Not sure what sort of genre, but with like, romance thrown in mebe, some action, some things depicting Christian struggles? Its all sorta up in the air atm, but I'm liking this idea more and more.

Sounds really neat, dunno if there are any sort of things similar out there (there probly is). If you find this interesting, then stay tuned, it may happen in the next couple of months (pending uni exams). If you're not, then pay this no mind :P

-d

in me

I let go of my life
yes I gave it all
I let go of all I used to do
and I gave it all away

You want to know,
the differences between us
You want to know,
why these things have changed
You've got to know,
the One who lives in me
He lives in me, in me

- Kutless "In Me"

hawk

omgomgomgomgomgomg!!!

I am so incredibly happy right now, even though I'm doing EngSoc financials.
I FINALLY found out who sang one of my favourite songs that I've been listening too on Way FM's internet stream (bit hard to get Colorado radio in Sydney)

The song was "Every Little Bit" by Hawk Nelson.

That has just rocketed to the top of my shopping list

With a bullet

aweeeesome

-d

shopping list

got to use my 30% discount at koorong this week..

So far I have the following shopping list:

Books
Definitely:
Joshua Harris - I Kissed Dating Goodbye (read it, just gotta get one for myself)
Phillip Yancey - Reaching for the Invisible God (for JimTims)
Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ (for Credo, mebe)
God's Survival Guide - Criswell Freeman
Five Love Languages - Gary Chapman (both for Jen)

Thinking about:
Max Lucado - He Chose the Nails
Yancey - Disappointment with God
Charlie Peacock's New Way to Be Human looks interesting.. maybe its just cos I'm a Foot fan and I love the song of the same name. But the forward by Jon Foreman was good, and the guy looks like an interesting writer..

CDs
Definitely:
Hawk Nelson - Letters to the President(!!)
Kutless (self titled)
Kutless - Sea of Faces
Audio A - Lift
Audio A - Worldwide
Various Artists - In The Name of Love (U2 stuff by Christian artists)
Switchfoot - Legend of Chin
Jars - The Eleventh Hour
Jars - Furthermore (Live sessions)
Nathan Tasker's latest
Switchfoot - The Beautiful Letdown (both for Ali)
Chris Tomlin - Arriving (for Jen)

Thinking of:
Relient K (any album)
Rookie
Jeff Deyo

Other
SONFEST tix!!!

Okay, now that is gonna be a touch expensive list I think, considering I'll find stuff I want there, like relationship books; which I ALWAYS get attracted to (Hey, I'm a klutz with girls, I need to learn how to conduct myself around them :P)

Does anybody have any other ideas on CDs? Based on the artists I have listed? As you can see, I'm hugely into rock, hard rock, pop rock, punk rock... Just got the FM Static cd off ebay recently, looking forward to receiving that..

Its funny that.. In my experience, whenever I go to rock concerts or festivals, I can usually count on my hand how many asians I see in the crowd, or walk past. I severely buck the trend I think, since I'm not heavily into R&B, Hip Hop and dance.. Yes. I go against stereotype. I am such a rebel. yaargggg. Ohhhh, and I can't dance to that stuff properly either. Even more of a rebel. woot

-d

er...interesting...

well, today certainly was an... experience...

to fill in, this week there is a wedding for two ppl from my church, and tonight there was a pre-wedding dinner. It was actually like, the chinese restaurant ceremony part of the wedding (I had been to one of these before), and I am SOOOO determined NOT to ever have anything like that for my future wedding.

Oh dear.

But my mum indicated it might be possible (*sob*) by saying

"These are the most cheapest type of wedding dinners! So much food for the price!!"

Oh dear.

Anyways, getting away from the nightmare which will happen in the not-too-distant to distant future (I'm covering all bases here, so I don't tempt God's wrath)... Tonight was probably by far one of the oddest nights I had experienced in a while.

Firstly, it was majorly embarrassing, as I was severly underdressed. I wore like a smart casual sort of button shirt, as I was told it was that dress code. Of course I didn't think to overdress just in case, and everybody else was in a shirt and tie. Ah well, my fault really.

It was very asian. Haha, yeah, I should get used to it too, as I can't really escape that fact in my case (it's funny to note that my church is mainly asian, yet most of us don't know how to speak a word of chinese, me included). But the food was good, and a good time was had by all.

One thing I noticed was these sorts of events must be pretty sombre and conservative affairs.. The only tables making any noise really, participating in games or dancing, were our tables. Maybe it depends on the familes. Either way, we just make too much noise, haha.

But yeah, it was fun attending the event, and I was glad I went.. but it looks so embarrassing for the main characters, and if my parents subject me to that...

I have no idea what I'd do... But I'll figure something out..

One thing I am cut about today.. Is that there is no more New Orleans KFC chicken anymore. That was like the best thing they brought out.. ever... since Popcorn Chicken.. hehehe... but yeah, waay cut, so cut that I'm going

-d

sick

Today, I carpooled into uni again, with Ali driving (thankfully, as I was pretty sick) and Nicki not present due to an assignment she had to do. Yay. Quality time with Ali. Yay-O-yay. However, I was thankful for her prescence in the fact it woke me up rather well. I was dead tired for most of the trip, and her rather...ahem...audible singing was enough to shake me out of my socks, eek.


We had another amusing run in with our arch nemesis...


....

The E-Change Toll lane for the Harbour Bridge.

shock. horror.

Wait, u got no idea what I'm on about.

Well, let me explain. Here in Sydney, we have what is called the electronic toll tag system. Like there is in countless other cities around the world. This is designed so u don't have to stop, or stop for very long as u go through the toll gates to pay your toll for crossing the bridge or motorway. Now, this E tag thingo sensor, is usually placed on its own or with an auto (exact change) lane, where its quite quick to get through anyway. BUT, as shown below, they stuck an E tag lane together with a CHANGE lane.

Now, we just don't get the logic in this. If the E lane was available on all lanes, then that would be fine. But why on this lane? Why waste the person sitting in the booth who just watches people drive by with their windows wound up? Why waste the time getting us to wait for the silly boomgate to lift when we should just be able to drive through without stopping?!

Hm, we probably will never have the answer. But I do know this. Alison made me gripe about this. I really dunno how to carry the winge any further than this :P

However, I can state this: She is a complete drama queen. While singing along to "Beautiful" by Bethany Dillon (the song she boldly proclaims is her life story), she had the full range of emotional hand gestures going and was very passionate too. It was just plain amusing from my end. This is the person whom the high school girls at youth group look to as a role model... Well.. Or she looks to them.... I find it hard to distinguish these days. Either way, the future looks uncertain *cue x-files music*.

I think one of the guys at church has remarked this before.. Why is it all of the girls at my church are like.. different... :P luck of the draw perhaps, heehee!

-d

(This is a backdated post. I was sick all week and thus had quite a dull week..)

weekends

holahola

I say

or rather, myself says

annnyyyway, what did I get up to this weekend...

Had baseball

In this said baseball match, we were downright cruising... 7-3 up, with half an hour to go and just dominating. I mean, I had two identical at bats where I hit it to short stop (and he subsequently errored, meaning they were both outs on the stat sheet), and beat out the error to make it to first. The only difference was that I scored off a hit from 1st base in the 1st inn, and scored from 2nd in the 2nd. Thats just weirddd. And I struck out on 3 pitches, on the 3rd AB! That really is downright weird.

Ah well.

Where was I.

Yes, winning. We thought we had the game in the bag I think. So natrually we let them back in, and they even scored a bases loaded grand slam home run. Maaaaan, it was a huuuge hit! No way anybody could get it. So we ended up losing 9-7. grr, very annoying.

Ah well, still a good match I guess, apart from therefore having an 0-3 afternoon. These dodgy stat arvos are.. well.. dodgy..

I need new adjectives.

I have new clothes!
And two of them, to be exact!
If you've been speaking to me recently, you would know how much of a big deal it is for me. But many of you don't, so don't worry. ehehe

As most of what I say isn't that interesting, I'm gonna start reviewing my CDs. My Switchfoot ones first I think.

I should start reading the thesaurus, then I will have a new set of adjectives with which to review with.

neato

-d

llama

ahahaha

this is brilliant, the llama song

man, I'm soo gonna have that stuck in my head for a while

llama llama duck!!!!

-d

hola!

After working 8 hours today (my first big slab of income in STACKS long) which = moneymoney to pay debts, I get the following news at my UTS email..

Considering the difficulties that you have had in our last night’s mid-semester exam, we have decided to choose the best THREE answers and the exam will be now marked for 75 Marks. Hope this helps!

How awesome is that! I may actually pass, hehehe
But yeah, great stuff, makes me feel much better :)

Went to the batting cages tonight for practice.. Either my reflexes just haven't clicked in yet this season, or I suck now... hmmm.. bit of both probly..

crud, I gotta go and pick up some comp hardware for a job tomorrow now... so laaaate :(

-d

saucy

I'm currently on my lunch break while working, sitting at an office window in North Sydney looking out at the harbour bridge. Man, thats an awesome sight!

Buuuut, back to more pressing matters. I wanted to post to once again wax lyrically about the complete awesomeness of cream and tomato mixed italian pasta sauce. I went down to the food court and took a chicken, mushroom and sun dried tomato penne, and mixed it with a normal boring napolitana penne. This = awesomeness²!! That is, awesomeness x awesomeness = awesomeness². Don't you remember your algebra? Well, I don't expect that you do, unless you're in upper high school or doing a geek course or career :) Wait, the two original ingredients weren't awesome in the first place.. I guess that makes the end result even more remarkable, obviously food energy was not conserved in the reaction.

uhh, but yeah, this mixture took what was two quite ordinary food court pastas, and made them not bad...awesomeness² in fact...but then again, this sort of sauce is always awesome to me, you'd probably hate it.

hmm, mebe its the red bull that is making me in this mood... ah well, not like its bad, hehehe

-d

pickpickpick

Weeeelll, thanks for asking about the exam Roofy.. I'll answer in this post...
examexamexam... I seriously am having a dodgy semester in terms of study.. I barely answered 50% of the exam, and am probly headed for fail.. lucky its only worth 15%.. but still, with only 2 subjects, I'm so incredibly unmotivated... I seriously think its related to just being sick of this whole field of study and employment that I'm doing! egads!

Anyways, on a brighter note, had lots of fun hanging out with Nicki and Ali today, its already been heaps of fun this semester already, but today was probably the funniest, thanks guys!

hmms, I need to get some guitar picks. I currently use green .88mm Dunlop Tortex Standard picks. But they seem to get ripped up really easily, cause of the unco way that I strum :P But I've been playing a lot at home with an old yellow .73mm Tortex pick, and it doesn't seem to rip up much. So I think I'll try and get some tomorrow, and hopefully they'll last longer than like, 5 or so sessions. (But then again, I don't think picks are supposed to last that long). Ohh, I wanna get a strap too.. but like, nothing has really jumped out at me all that much.. Dunlop ones are cool, but I think I'm waiting for something to scream "HEY! I'm gonna be awesome on your Fender Tele, mate! Now BUY ME NOW, as well as a big box of Dunlop Tortex Standard picks (72 of each colour), two Fender Strats, one Gibson Les Paul and a Maton Acoustic. Who cares if you can't afford it! Thats what asking people for money is for! Busk! muuahahaha..."

ahem.

That would be a very effective guitar strap. It would have a part time job as a salesman. Sorta like my bro. Which would make my bro sorta like a guitar strap... With hair... and who can throw a baseball really hard.. Which most guitar straps can't do.. Well, some can, but they've made the major leagues already..

I'm wondering if I should get food.. but its 12:50am, and i gotta work tomorrow... So I should sleep soon, hmmms

ah well, I've run out of things to think of right now, woohoo!

-d

music; lyrics

I have a mid semester exam tomorrow. So naturally I'm not studying, and I'm blogging instead.
Good day today, tho it was pretty damn hot. It's still hot now speaking of which, arggg summer's hEEERReeEE!!!

My stomach still hurts from sit ups two days ago.. I hope that means that they had a successful work out. Or it could just be because I have weak muscles. Moohar. Probly the latter.

I have $30 in Grace Bros vouchers that I got for my 21st last year.. from June... Do you reckon they're still valid? They have no expiry date... hehe, hope they are.. I just found them a week ago when I was looking at boxes that sit on top of my PC tower... My room is so messy that I'm now losing practially money. hah

Spoke to Dave, the aforementioned trombone player from Crying Out Loud today (after getting kicked in Project Gotham on XBox by him, I will never ever drive a lexus darnit) and asked him his approach on song writing. Music first, lyrics second.. I think I should really commit to that approach, I was always doing it the other way, and came up empty. When I get around to actually writing a song, or starting to do it, I'll post up my thoughts..

-d

odd

I just don't get it...
I came to uni expecting I would get heaps of study done today, and its not working. At all.. I keep getting tired and want a nap, or I get distracted about who I'm going to see around the place.

eeeek

on the bright side, this NPM exam is worth 20%.. so not a total loss if I bomb out. comm theory on the other hand...

I am typing this from a..er... Powermac of some G-something or other.. with a thin screen. Pretty flash they are, with nice colours. Just a random observation for ya :P

-d

egads

omg... I am so incredibly bored...
I've been here at one of our clients for 1.5 hours after my job finished waiting for my boss to tell me if I'm supposed to pick up something from a supplier. I've visited the sites of wilwheaton.net, afl, mlb.com, koorong and have been refreshing my email constantly.. All sites which normally would entertain me for hours... Maybe its cause I'm hungry and wanna go home.. heheh

blah, I'm gonna leave
unless the pick up is ready now I'm going home

-d

1

Dan's things to do before age 25.. part 1:
(in no particular order)

- Learn to play guitar REALLY good
- Write a really decent song (I'm not that ambitious :P decent is enough)
- Go on a snow trip
- Finish the New Testament
- Go on a cool road trip with mates
- Strengthen to the point where I can throw from 3rd base to 1st properly (after that, I can work on Centre Field to Home)
- GRADUATE (can't believe I forgot this the first time I wrote this)

Looks like this will be a collection of many parts :) hehehe

-d

plugplugplug!

Hey there
Just like to plug a couple of music acts that I've heard recently.. One is Crying Out Loud, a sort of ska, punk, reggae act (there are too many genre categories that these guys combine), that are very cool. I know the trombone player from uni, and he's a real stand up sort of bloke. Visit their site! Get their album! Tell others about them! Funkaayyyy.

Umm, and the other is one that I stumbled across while looking at Crying Out Loud's stuff, Nikki Kummerow. She has an awesome voice, a great acoustic guitar sound, and..well.. her songs are just tops. Her site is here.

I wish I was better at guitar
heehee.

-d

omg

omgomgomgomgomg

this is the best radio station EVER

er, background.. at Jono's place yesterday, he put on a net feed of Way FM from Colorado.. and it is absolutely awesome!
Soo, not only did they play Switchfoot just then.. but they followed it up with Switchfoot again! maan thats awesome. And its Learning to Breathe as well, omgomgomgomg

hmms, i'm so like, teenagerish right now

-d

dull

this post is dull, heheh
altho, I did have a very good day, since I did lots of Credo stuff today.

hehe, i slept through my bus stop and had a nice hike back to my house. not bad actually, apart from the unexplained back pain that i've had since the start of the bus trip from the city. ah well

told you it was a dull post :P

-d

*edited on retrospect on the grounds it might incriminate me*

call

well, the damage bill was $376, not including the costs for re-tinting. ARGH

ah well, what can ya do really.

On to brighter events.. Went to The Call Australia at Homebush today, 7am-7pm of fasting and prayer and stuff. Heaps good, even though I was late and only did about 7 hours or so. But it was a heaps awesome experience, and I've never fasted before, so it was yay(!) all round. Very cool.

Afterwards, most of us were pretty darn hungry, surprisingly I wasn't feeling too bad, and I do see the value in fasting to really focus yourself on prayer and stuff. We went to Ken's place after that and I was playing Top Spin on the XBox. Top Spin is one of THE greatest games EVER created. I absolutely love it. SO MUCH SO, it gets a mention here. Very dear to my heart. Clearly. Of course, losing at Top Spin isn't dear to my heart. So I heartbreakingly lost to Mousey Nick, which was a heaps fun match cause he was great for a beginner. I will have my revenge next time, mooharhar.

I've decided I won't go ahead and do work experience next semester, instead having a break by doing only business subjects. I figure that it'll be better meeting people in my subjects that are within 5 years in age of me. It'll just feel so incredibly weird being ultra-crusty to these young'un business students. Not that I should really be worrying about these sort of things. But its something to condier. Really. Well, it makes sense in my head. Probably more importantly, it means that I can get to know business people I'm meeting now, before they leave uni, which everyone will in fact do before I get out. Hmm, that also makes sense in my head, honest. Ahhhh, graduation week is so depressing. Oh well, their fault for being smart and choosing shorter degrees, heehee! :)


Song currently going around and around and aroooound in my head:

"Big" by Planet Shakers

This line in particular: 'Theres nothing my God cannot do!'

Amen to that!

-d

!!@$#$%!*!!!!!!!

hmmm

I am extremely annoyed...

as if I didn't have enough right now that is making me think too much.. the following happens:

I mean, whoever did this didn't even take ANYTHING! ARGGGGHHH, why do people do this?! hmm.. I don't know if I can say much at all at this point, I'm just plain gutted... Good thing my mate Jono was with me, otherwise I woulda went off the deep end I think... We covered up the window so that it was easier to drive home with:

hmm.. hope it doesn't cost too much to repair... even better if Windscreens O'Brien can do it by coming to my place.. I guess $300ish or less would be what it looks like being.. Either way its a cost that is gonna hit me pretty bloody hard... And to think that $9 to park in a secure parking lot is cheap compared to what happens with this...

I don't know what else to say..so I'm gonna go play Monkey Island...

-d