Wow... what a year. In retrospect, which is the only way to write about anything at the cusp of a new year, this year has been amazing. Sure it's had it's ups and downs and most certainly didn't turn out the way I expected it but, wow, I can't be happier with where I find myself standing at the end of it.
Starting the year in the middle of a compulsory time of being off team to allow for recovery from a number of issues wasn't really where I wanted to start from. At least it allowed me to focus on work and actually being in church for a while. I guess that this was the start of the year of consolidation in many areas of life. My relationships with people, relationship with God, my commitment to work, my commitment to my church as well as a rebuilding of my self esteem and value.
If anything while 2007 was a year of consolidation it was also a year of discovery through distillation. Bringing things to the boil so that the crap was boiled off and the good oil remained. It saw me through the journey of having stepped down as technical director for Kings and finding my place in the team again. Most of the year was spent serving as a camera operator and photographer under the most esteemed Richard Griffiths and filling holes as needed on the sound team. While I enjoyed the time and the leadership and my talents weren't wasted the pull back to doing my "first love", mixing sound proved to be inexorable and by November I found myself back in the middle of production and December finds me more pumped than ever before to make sound, lighting and staging more excellent than ever before.
2007 also saw me through a time where the church I'm planted in was called into question. Not so much that the church itself was questionable but that within me I reached a point where I was unsure if my roots were as planted as they should be. After much talking through with friends (thanks Dave, Daniel, Roz & Sarah) and family (again, thanks Tim, Naath, Mum and Dad!) I decided that Kings is my home. Sure sometimes I may not have the most amount of fun there and I might go through some rough stuff, but that'll happen anywhere. So my roots are down regardless of how I feel and I now have a foundation and a place that I can go out from.
January started the journey toward medicine and a career as a naval (or air force) officer with my application to sit the GAMSAT exam in March. After not enough study and a wing and a prayer I sat the exam and left the process in God's hands as I waited for the results. In May I was rewarded with a score of 63 putting me in the top 20% of all candidates who sat the exam and then proceeded to put together my application for medical school. Along side this my application with the military was churning along with various interviews, information sessions and medical scrutinies to be undertaken. After applying in June the painful three month wait for med school interview offers began. I received an invitation for interview and submitted myself to the process and submitted the process to God again, praying that he would have his will every step of the way and started to wait again.
The military application progressed to the point of the medical and interviews in Brisbane at the beginning of November while I had no offer for uni yet. I took the day off work, went down to brisbane and started the day with the psych evaluation questionnaire and then a fifteen minute essay. The process finished earlier than expected. I was then advised that because I did not have a place I was not eligible for the position and therefore could not continue with the interview process. Various people apologised profusely before advising me to be in touch and sending me on my way. The good point there being that I didn't have to go through the medical before being sent packing.
I still haven't received an offer or letter of non-offer (I don't think they're allowed to reject you these days) but it's reached the point of being comfortable with where I'm at, that God's will was for me to stay where I am, to keep doing what I'm doing and let him take care of the rest. It's by God's grace and peace that I can keep running and not have a problem with not getting into uni and the military after all the effort, time and money that went into the process. God is Great, to Him be the Glory!
Career Highlights at APN would have to include moving to the Sunshine Coast Daily in a site support role after a year and a half on the Service Desk. I may regret making that public but there's still people there who have absolutely no idea who I am (I'd like it to stay that way but that just aint gonna happen). The installation of ITSM in New Zealand and the project setting up ITSM so that Australia and NZ can share the same system was an amazing project to be a part of. Sure we're still working through issues and tuning the system to do what we need it to but it's been amazing to be a part of. Three trips to NZ in the month of September was pretty intense, going from never going out of the country to trench hopper in one giant leap.
The consolidation has been key at work too. The process of going through the application to the military and uni as well as having job offers come my way recently has really forced me to look at what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and realise that I'm not finished where I'm at and that I'll be around for a while yet.
2007 has been an important year and while most of it has been making up ground again and building my foundations under me again it's been a successful year. It's been a fruitful year and most importantly it's been a year where God's will has been done on earth as it is in heaven. Can't ask for much more than that.
Now I've just got to remember what I prayed at the start of 2007 so I can pray it again now at this the beginning of 2008. Can't wait to see what this one is going to bring!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
The world belongs to...
Credit goes to Nathan, my brother, for reminding me of this quote from a book called "The Truth" by a very talented man, dare I say genius, by the name of Terry Pratchett. The book is all about the first newspaper in Ankh-Morpork. I'm not going to go more into the background of the book except for that it's one of the later books in a series of over 30 and that I'm only starting to scratch the surface of the world that Mr Pratchett has created.
Anyways, the quote.
Methinks it's time that we changed the way that we look at things, stop being content with what we're presented at face value and getting stuck into life!
Anyways, the quote.
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
Methinks it's time that we changed the way that we look at things, stop being content with what we're presented at face value and getting stuck into life!
Friday, December 28, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
Discoveries
Most times I blog on the discoveries I make as I trip down the road of life, thoughts and concepts that have clicked into place revealing an ever increasing wonder at what is going on around me and for the plan that my Master has. It's amazing.
This time around it's discoveries of a musical nature. I've found three bands recently that I really wanted to let people know about and couldn't think of a better place to get the word out except through my blog. I want to let my friends know about discoveries that I've made simply because I believe that there's a whole lot of good solid christian music going un-listened to in Australia because no-one knows who the bands are, or how to find the music. And we're not talking obscure backblock garage bands here, I'm talking good quality, well produced, grammy nominated, award winning music.
My "discoveries" as such are the following bands
Before I sign off on this one some of the ways that I go about finding new music to listen to is simply listening to the radio. 96.5 is an awesome radio station who do keep up with the new music thats coming out , although sometimes you do need to listen at odd hours, like after 10:30pm on wednesday nights for late night praise and worship. They also have a tool on their website which lets you put in an approximate time you thought you heard the song and pull up a list of songs that played around that time. Very neat for finding out exactly who that band is.
Get out to music festivals to hear stuff that's outside of your cd collection too. You never know when you're going to stumble across a band that you get into during their concert. Most of the time if they're good live then they'll be pretty good in the studio. Unfortunately it doesn't always translate back the other way. Coming up in less than four months time is Easterfest (formerly AGMF) where there will be an absolute shedload of awesome bands and musos getting out there for your musical enjoyment, not to mention the gospel brought to you in a fresh way. Their standards are high so the music will be good,
To hear more of the artist that you've just found google them. Find their myspace page, because every self respecting band has one, and have a listen to the other tracks on there. You'll get four or five of the best which will give you a pretty good idea of whether or not a band is actually going to be playing stuff that you'll like.
Getting hold of the music to listen to is pretty simple too. the iTunes store is pretty up to date with christian music as the christian artists are almost at the mainstream level in the states. In some cases they are mainstream, for example Switchfoot. Koorong is another great place to get hold of cds and if you're thinking of doing some of the songs in church the sheet music. If there isn't a storefront near you then you can order online or via fax and have it mailed to you. Very prompt service too.
If I come across more music that I think people should go check out, I'll post links here to the bands website and myspace page.
Enjoy
Mick
This time around it's discoveries of a musical nature. I've found three bands recently that I really wanted to let people know about and couldn't think of a better place to get the word out except through my blog. I want to let my friends know about discoveries that I've made simply because I believe that there's a whole lot of good solid christian music going un-listened to in Australia because no-one knows who the bands are, or how to find the music. And we're not talking obscure backblock garage bands here, I'm talking good quality, well produced, grammy nominated, award winning music.
My "discoveries" as such are the following bands
Decemberadio
website - www.decemberadio.com
myspace - www.myspace.com/decemberadio
This Beautiful Republic
website - www.thisbeautifulrepublic.com
myspace - www.myspace.com/thisbeautifulrepublic
The Robbie Seay Band
website - www.robbieseayband.com
myspace - www.myspace.com/robbieseayband
Before I sign off on this one some of the ways that I go about finding new music to listen to is simply listening to the radio. 96.5 is an awesome radio station who do keep up with the new music thats coming out , although sometimes you do need to listen at odd hours, like after 10:30pm on wednesday nights for late night praise and worship. They also have a tool on their website which lets you put in an approximate time you thought you heard the song and pull up a list of songs that played around that time. Very neat for finding out exactly who that band is.
Get out to music festivals to hear stuff that's outside of your cd collection too. You never know when you're going to stumble across a band that you get into during their concert. Most of the time if they're good live then they'll be pretty good in the studio. Unfortunately it doesn't always translate back the other way. Coming up in less than four months time is Easterfest (formerly AGMF) where there will be an absolute shedload of awesome bands and musos getting out there for your musical enjoyment, not to mention the gospel brought to you in a fresh way. Their standards are high so the music will be good,
To hear more of the artist that you've just found google them. Find their myspace page, because every self respecting band has one, and have a listen to the other tracks on there. You'll get four or five of the best which will give you a pretty good idea of whether or not a band is actually going to be playing stuff that you'll like.
Getting hold of the music to listen to is pretty simple too. the iTunes store is pretty up to date with christian music as the christian artists are almost at the mainstream level in the states. In some cases they are mainstream, for example Switchfoot. Koorong is another great place to get hold of cds and if you're thinking of doing some of the songs in church the sheet music. If there isn't a storefront near you then you can order online or via fax and have it mailed to you. Very prompt service too.
If I come across more music that I think people should go check out, I'll post links here to the bands website and myspace page.
Enjoy
Mick
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