some documentaries

Am trying to stay off bbc iplayer right now. Cracked a couple of times though this week and watched 3 very interesting documentaries.

1. Syrian School - a series that the BBC have been doing following students and meeting their families, teachers etc. in a few different schools in different parts of the world. There was a similar series shown based in India and then China - both brilliant. This one is just as good. Very interesting insight on life in the Middle East, especially when it's from the point of view from teenage girls!

2. "The day the immigrants left" - a documentary experiment, swapping immigrant jobs which apparently they've been "stealing from us" with unemployed Brits with interesting results! Wasn't sure what I thought of the conclusion...

3. "Storyline - Letter to Zachary: Your Father's murderer" - an interesting watch, though very sad. Inspiring strength of character, saddening lack of forgiveness.

Hopefully that's the last bit of iplayer I'll be watching in quite a while!!

On being a sheep

A couple of weeks ago I got into a long chat with a Chinese girl I'd just met who had recently become a Christian. She started asking me about how I'd become a Christian and I briefly mentioned the fact that I'd gone to Sunday School and she jumped on that instantly as to her it was a wildly foreign concept.
"Wow! What's that like? Did you really think you were a sheep?!"
Turned out that she was referring to that bit of the Bible with Jesus the good Shepherd and us the sheep. "After 26 years" she said to me "I find it hard to get used to the idea that I am just a sheep". The image really struck her in a way that it never had me before. I explained to her that I'd grown up with it, made sheep out of cotton wool and pritt stick so often that it was just normal, it was just stories that I'd been told as a child, absorbed and never questioned. I suddenly realised that it's hardly flattering being compared to a sheep. They just seem to mindlessly follow. I do not know much about it but I did google "sheep behaviour" and this is what it came up with.



And yes this photo is of adorable Jersey cows not sheep, I couldn't resist putting this photos up. But you get the general idea. Herd instinct yada yada...

But it was the more the concept behind it that she found difficult. And I realised that in practice I found the being a sheep thing and being shepherded by Jesus probably as hard as she did - il s'agit de letting someone else lead you and take control of your life.

The other night I started thinking about that bit in the Bible again and I wasn't struck so much by the image of being a sheep as the idea of Jesus as our Shepherd.
Becoming one of his flock doesn't mean becoming a stupid, mindless, blind follower (poor sheep!) It doesn't reduce us to something less than human. We are what we are, human beings with intelligence and free-will and creativity and personality. I think that bit about the sheep says more about who Jesus is than about who we are. If we're sheep, that makes the Shepherd - Jesus - so much more intelligent, so much more knowledgable, so much better able to fend for us than we are. And then there's that aspect of tender care.
When I think of it like that. This strikes me all the more. If you were a farmer, or a shepherd, orif you have or have had pets, would you die for an animal under your care?! And then there's the fact that he did that by becoming one of us too! Mental!

Oh dear, I hope I'm not offending too many sheep by this post!

To do Lists

I loooove to do lists, especially when I have lots of things to do or lots of things to look forward to. My post-exam to-do list was a rather long one including such items as "get hair cut" which I accomplished fairly quickly and easily and others such as "tidy room" which I still haven't quite got round to. The other week, inspired by a throwaway comment about how making a baby giggle was up there in my top 10 favourite things to do in life, I wrote a top 10 things to do in the summer list... which is as follows (in no particular order)

1. blow bubbles outside (and watch them sparkle as they burst)

2. amuse a baby or two to the point that it induces contagious giggling (Random I know - but it was what inspired the list in the first place. Also something that is easily achieved on a long sunny day in the park)
3. enjoy some live music (either some live jazz in somewhere like the 78 or Brel or something that inspires silly dancing like Samba Ya Bamba)

4. eat strawberries, sugar and cream very slowly (mmm mmm)

5. walk on grass in bare feet

6. paddle in the sea

7. eat copious amounts of icecream (in cones and outside)
8. go to something at the West End Festival (so I can accomplish 3. on the list)
9. jam (preferably outside in the park)

10. read at least 3 books (have already read one and a half and it's not even been 2 weeks yet!)

I realise many of these depend on sunshine however I seemed to have done most of them over the last couple of weeks so I guess that would be a good sign!

Another to do list which I had been forming in my head for a while now is one for the ensuing 12 months which sort of answers that terrifying question - "so what are you going to do now you've finished uni?"

The list is as follows...

1. Get married to Mr Mark Spybey - who is pictured below (this is liable to happen sometime in spring next year :D!!)

2. Learn a language (I can't quite make my mind up between Arabic, Mandarin, Polish, Russian and Farsi, though the first is looking to be the most likely option at the moment)
3. Keep hanging out with foreigners in some capacity (doesn't get more specific than that just now I'm afraid!)

I think I like to do lists as much as I like bullet points! :)

la cuisine communale

Ah I do love the community aspect of student life! I wouldn't be able to count the number of times I'd fed or been fed by other folk in the last couple of weeks let alone the last few years! This week I have particularly enjoyed delicious braided bread (courtesy of the Breakeys), white sausages and "gourmet haggis" with cheese and mushrooms and broccoli, both bizarre but delicious, to name but a few.
It's something I don't want to lose when student life ends... just having folk around, here, there, whenever I can, people who I know and don't know, sharing life and love and food with them.

on being a samaritan and sniffling

Today was my first shift as part of the international welcome programme. I feel like a double agent with a double agenda! On the one hand I'm trying to be a good paid university employee, on the other, I'm trying to be a Jesus loving "good Samaritan" i.e. going out of my way to help my neighbour (the international student in need of friends). I'm loving the fact that I can basically do both at the same time! I sooo want a job that allows me to do that after I graduate!

In other news, I spent last week camping on what rapidly became a swamp (as seen in this photo--->) on the Welsh border at the national CU Leaders conference Forum... much much banter was had, mud, frugal but funny meals, more mud, severe weather warnings, getting our cars stuck in the ditch on an escapade to the pub, laughter and some excellente chances to get fed and taught and trained! I especially recommend these talks here which you can listen to online. "Eye-opening" is probably how best to describe them. After a week of wet socks, I think we're all sniffling now...