A Christmas Eve Medley

So, I've been meaning to do a blog for a while. Except I keep coming up with the ideas when my laptop is turned off and I've managed to get out of the habit of using my little blog book. I should really get back into that habit I think because it's a pretty cool thing to have. Also, NaNoWriMo has totally got me out of the habit of blogging. Anyway, I'm finally sitting in front of a computer and it's Christmas eve. I mean, how on earth has Christmas crept up on me so quickly?! Last Christmas feels like it was both ages ago and only yesterday at the same time. So much has happened in the past year, I've met so many new awesome people, done so many cool things as well as, unfortunately, gone through some tough times. However, it is also the tough times that shape who we are so I'm not complaining... too much...

So, what does everyone love the most about tomorrow? Yes, that's right, it's the Doctor Who Christmas special. Wait? You don't like Doctor Who? Well tough, I'm going to talk about it. After a long wait for more new Doctor Who related stuff, tomorrow we will finally get a new, awesome episode of Doctor Who. (Well, I'm assuming it'll be awesome for two reasons: 1) It's Doctor Who, 2) It's written by Stephen Moffat. Some people don't like Stephen Moffat as head writer but I think they just don't like change and don't appreciate the plots. If you look at this article on the Daily Mail website and scroll down to the comments, you get a bizarre mix of all the comments being anti Matt Smith and wanting David Tennant back for the 'eye candy' yet all but one have more negative 'votes' than positive! Sure, I liked David Tennant but I think the changes that have come about mean that more people are watching Doctor Who for the plots rather than for David Tennant and I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to tomorrow's special so so much!

Also, Doctor Who related, Charlie McDonnell (aka Charlieissocoollike) has been doing a few videos for Doctor Who Confidential and I thought I'd share with you his last one. I particularly love the bit with Arthur Darvill. I'm sorry but he is underrated!

Also, if you have time, look at the Advent calender on the Doctor Who website, they always have a few nuggets of awesomeness for the Whovian craving their fix of Doctor Who!

Christmas preparations seem to have been going on forever but one of the defining dates of December was the 1st. Why? Because that was the day that Charlie's album came out. Admittedly mine only arrived in the post a few days ago but still. At the DFTBA office they were calling it Hurricane Charlie due to the massive number of people who ordered copies. I like Charlie's songs mainly for their simple nerdy nature and they're really of quite a different genre to other DFTBA artists. (Although I'm trying to make Windows Media Player recognise DFTBA as a legitimate genre but I don't think it's working.) However, one of his songs, "Hayley G. Hoover" intrigued me. Not because of what was in it but because of what was said about the song in the sleeve. What was even more interesting was Hayley's blog about said song (here) and this got me thinking. While we like to think that the YouTube community isn't like the Celebrity scene and, in the sense that it's easier for us to contact and meet the YouTubers this is true, however, we still have a habit of idolising the more well known YouTubers. While it may seem like they share a lot of their lives with us over the small screen, we forget that this is just a fraction of their lives. They can cut out and edit out anything they don't want us to see and we absorb that and quite often idolise them to this state where the YouTube world is practically perfect. Anything that disrupts the status quo, anything that suggests to us that it isn't all perfect and not all the YouTubers are best of friends, can cause us to come out with some rather over opinionated remarks. I'm not saying that Nerdfighteria and the YouTube community can't work together for good, just take a glance at the Project for Awesome! However, when the YouTube community become a place where we escape, we can forget that it isn't perfect and overreact to out idealisms being crushed or revealed for what they really are.

Right, enough about that, lets talk about Christmas properly now. I don't know where you stand with Christmas. Whether you just enjoy spending time with your family and receiving present, whether you even celebrate Christmas at all, or whether, like me, ultimately, Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ. (Yup, that's where the Christ in CHRISTmas comes from!) That's the real joy about this time of year. Doctor Who can let us down by being not as awesome as we hoped, we can discover that the YouTube community isn't how we imagined it was and our family time together could end up in arguments or we could end up not getting the present we really wanted. However, Jesus came into this world, as we remember at Christmas, to overcome everything that is wrong in this world and unlike so many other things, we can trust him. The reason why we can't trust anything else 100%? Sin. Our disobedience means that people argue, other things let us down and we're not happy with everything we have. However, Jesus came to correct that. He lived on earth to live the perfect, sinless life that we could never give. He lived, died, and rose again to overcome the power of sin so that we too may be free from sin one day. All we have to do is trust him, the one person that won't let us down. So you don't believe this? Well, my arguing won't necessarily make much difference but remember this: when the whole world will let you down, Jesus will not. He is ultimately in perfect control of everything, even if it may not seem so at the time and if you trust in him, he will save you from the punishment of sin.

Don't forget what Christmas is truly about as you enjoy your time tomorrow.

Merry Christmas.

Our God is an awesome God.

So, because of last week's snow, I didn't have a new section of Esther to put up. However, I'm giving my testimony at the older youth club tonight so I thought I'd share what I'm going to say with you on here:

I think sharing my testimony with you is probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Not because you’re scary or anything like that but because how I became a Christian is one of the most important things that happened in my life. Sharing this is basically sharing the thing that means the most to me.

However, when I was younger, I didn’t think that I would ever view being a Christian like that. Going to church was something I did on Sundays because my parents took me and learning things in Sunday school would be done out of habit or for the pride of learning however many memory verses. I didn’t really think about what being a Christian really meant and I thought that just going to church would mean I would be OK with God. I believed that God existed but I never thought about it much more than that.

When I was 11, I went on a Christian youth camp where, for the first time, I found I was being challenged to think about what becoming a Christian really meant for me. Each evening, we would have a talk and on the last evening the talk was on a passage from the book of Luke speaking about how God has invited us all to his great feast, he has invited us all to be part of his family, and all we need to do is accept the invitation before it’s too late. Anyone who ignores his invitation or tries to get in by their own way won’t be able to go but anyone who accepts his invitation can be saved. This really got me thinking about all I had been taught before. It made me think about how Jesus had died for our sins and how just knowing isn’t enough. I prayed to God that he might forgive me for my sins as I knew I had to respond but the moment seemed to pass and I hadn’t really changed. I was expecting some sort of big experience or realisation but I just felt the same, only this time I realised that I needed to respond.

Over the next year, I thought a lot about how I needed to respond to God’s offer of forgiveness and I prayed to God about this but I was never sure if he had listened or if he had accepted me. I doubted if trusting in Jesus’ death on the cross is enough and I wondered if I had to do anything else. I started to listen to what I was taught at church a bit more in the hope that I would find an answer.

The next summer, I again went on the same Christian youth camp and on the Sunday, the preacher ended the sermon saying that if anyone was doubting whether they were a Christian, they should remember this verse from John: “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” As I realised that I didn’t have to do anything else, that Jesus’ death on the cross was enough I also realised that if I just asked, God would save me, forgive me and accept me. I prayed to God and an amazing sense of peace and joy came over me as I realised that God had saved me and that I didn’t have to do anything else and I was free from the punishment of sin.

Immediately, I started to change. I wanted to read the Bible and go to church to learn more about God and I wanted to spend time praying to him, thanking God for the amazing things he has promised me in Jesus and asking him to help me live my life for him, not to earn anything, but as a thank you to give God the glory.

Having been brought up going to Church and seeing other people get baptised, I knew that it was the right thing to do to get baptised to tell everyone I was a Christian. The sermons seemed to be about baptism as did what I was reading in the Bible at home and in particular, a verse from Acts stood out. "Repent and be baptised, every one of you.” I had already repented and now I knew I needed to get baptised. Eventually, I plucked up the courage to talk to my parents about this and in the June of 2006 I was baptised.

Of course, things didn’t just stop when I became a Christian. A lot has happened in the past five years and God has used them to teach me more about him. It’s not easy being a Christian and don’t believe anyone who tells you it is, but if you trust God, he will be there for you. There were times when I was forced to choose between my friends and going to church and there have been times when I’ve made some bad decisions but God has been with me throughout. There have been times when it’s felt like everything is against me, that nothing makes sense and that God has abandoned me but God was actually using those times for my good to teach or remind me about something important about his promises. In those times, God has prompted me to look in the Bible, talk to a Christian friend or spoken to me through a sermon and he’s shown me that, although we may not understand how he’s working now or why he’s letting the things happen, he has promised that “In all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” It may not be easy being a Christian but God has promised that he is working in our lives and I am convinced that facing these trials as a Christian now is worth it as God has promised each and every person who follows him that they will be with Him in heaven for eternity.

SnOMGosh!

So, do you remember yesterday when I said that I might not be able to get to school? Well, I was right. We had so much snow that the roads were actually covered and school was closed, the bus wasn't running, my dad didn't even bother trying to get to work after he had walked down the road to see just how snowy it was and, having passed only a few weeks ago, I was hardly going to drive anyway!

However, I did spend around two hours walking round my town, taking photos and getting a few odd looks! Nevertheless, I had fun being a photo nerd and I got a ton of photos. The snow looks so pretty and I thought I'd share some of my favourite photos from today with you!

This is the hill just by our house. My dad actually took this one while he was assessing the roads before deciding that it was just too dangerous to get to work!

 

This is the state of the High Street at midday. Still a slushy mess!

 Ok, so I got a bit over excited by icicles! I think most of the cars that had been used had developed icicles. I also saw a couple of boys climbing up the side of a building just to get a long icicle they'd seen!

 This just made me laugh. I expect this was just someone being lazy but I saw it as the shopping equivalent of abandoning a car!

I'm not even kidding, the local infant's school was still open!! At first I thought this was just a sign left up from yesterday or something but as I walked down the road and around the outside of the school I realised that there were actually kids playing out in the playground. I highly doubt they had to do any work but I think it's good to see that the infant's persevered!

At one place, the snow actually went above my boots. I regretted stepping in that bit later on seen as my trousers got a bit wet but still, that's deep for England!

 I started getting a bit arty here. If you want to use that as a Christmas card, well, that picture is mine! :)

I saw this scarf and it just made me laugh. How on earth do you lose your scarf in this weather?! Surely it's tightly wrapped around your neck.

Again, I was getting a bit arty. :)

 I just couldn't walk past this without taking a picture. It just looks so amazing and white and untouched! However, just next to the gate I was standing, there was a metal pole that was part of the gate or fence and from inside I could hear some kind of scrabbling. I think it must have been some kind of little creature stuck inside but apart from a very little hole quite high up, I have no idea how it would have got in. I tried clearing it a bit to find a way but I couldn't so I just had to walk away and leave it scrambling.

 Again, epic icicles and I also really liked the red against the white. Somehow the snow makes even the dirtiest road signs look lovely and clean!

 This is a massive field near my house and, while there were a few footprints down the side and a few bike tracks now covered over my fresh snow, it wasn't as touched as I expected. I was hoping there would be the remnants of kids making snowmen or something but I wasn't so lucky.

 A little further down my road and later in the day that the first picture but there were still mainly only 4x4s venturing out and, as you can see, still quite slushy.

 I had to take a photo of this. The sign has a little snow hat!

And finally, poor, unused and buried Noah. The other car you can see a bit of is my dad's car. He sort of cleared it in anticipation of going to work but he, obviously, never actually left!

Err, Hi?

So, yeah, hi. Long time no blog. I'm sorry for not blogging properly over the last month and thank you to those of you who have stuck with me through November and managed to handle the big jump from intense BEDESO to the silent realm of NaNoWriMo quiet. I guess, firstly, a catch up. I mean a proper one, not just the little extra bit that I've taken to adding to the end of my blogs.

NaNoWriMo
Well, as you've probably gathered, I won!! Well, when I say I've won, I don't really like that term seen as I wasn't really competing against anyone but myself but basically I completed my full 50000 word quota. Apart from the amazing sense of achievement, I get to show off these:

 

And have a rather impressive graph to show you too!

Right, now I've bragged about all that, time for some more updates.

Stuff I've done
Well, contrary to what you might expect, I didn't spend the whole of November cooped up in my room typing my novel and I actually had a lot of other things to do as well. Besides having to keep up with school work, I also did my BMAT and got the results (which were OK, I think. Nothing amazing or worth bragging about but not terrible either.) and I'm still waiting patiently for any sort of response from my universities. Hopefully they'll get back to me soon because I'm getting fed up with waiting! Although, I did have a mock interview that didn't go too bad apart from me somehow ending up sounding a bit anti-animal rights in my attempt to shy away from the stereotypical 'I love animals, they're so fluffy wuffy and so cute!' viewpoint so I'll be keeping tabs on that, and make sure I express the right balance when/if I get an actual interview!
I've also had a couple of concerts with the jazz band, passed my driving test, (yay!) spent a Saturday meeting up with the Roothill gang in London and having an amazing day, making sure I still organise CU and turn up to youth club to help including sorting the craft where we made awesome little keyrings that are keys of hope from Pilgrim's Progress. I feel like I've had an epically busy month and I have no idea how I managed to complete NaNoWriMo on top of all of this but I did... somehow!

Driving
I know I've already mentioned this briefly but being able to drive is so awesome I can't just pass over it like that. The excitement and novelty of having that freedom is yet to wear off and, although I have to share a car with my mum, it's great to be able to get myself to places rather than having to rely on lifts all the time.
I don't know whether I've mentioned our little car before. She's an old Vauxhall Corsa called Noah. No, not after the guy with the massive boat, all the animals and the epic flood of judgemental proportions in the Bible. Noah after one of the daughters in Numbers (and again mentioned in Joshua) who ask to be given an inheritance in the Israelites' land as their lack of brothers would mean that their family would lose their land. They were given this land of course so that's one against the people who like to say that the Bible is sexist.

DFTBA awesomeness
Over the month of November, I have (just about) been keeping up with the many YouTube videos but the main awesome thing was the announcements of some new CDs out! Finally Charlie's album was given an actual release date (today actually!) and Alex Day also released an acoustic album. Me being the DFTBA records obsessive that I am had to order both of them and also took the opportunity to order Mike Lombardo's CD (which arrived with Alex's soup session and has been on repeat almost constantly to help me through NaNoWriMo) and I also ordered Expert which should be shipping with Charlie's 'This Is Me'. Well, that's enough fangirling.

Doctor Who
Well, November is a pretty quiet month in terms of Doctor Who news but, as with every Children in Need, a trailer for the Christmas special was released and to say I'm excited would be an understatement! I can't wait to see what Stephen Moffat has decided to do and to see just how awesomely he has combined Doctor Who and Scrooge.

Merlin
I was a bit sceptical when series three of Merlin started thinking the big opening was more like something for a finale but the rest of the series gradually got better and I'm now on tenterhooks as I wait eagerly for the very last episode. I still don't get how no one has noticed that Merlin is magical so I'm hoping Arthur will finally find out!

The weather
Now, the view outside my window just cannot be ignored. (Admittedly it's dark so it can't be seen amazingly well but it is still epic.) Compared to Canada, the snow levels may be pathetic but I looked out the front window earlier and the main road running past our house is totally covered with snow so, in my terms, that is a lot of snow! Of course, my school being the stubborn school that it is, refuses to close particularly easily and the roads have actually been pretty clear until this evening so I haven't really had any proper time off school (yet) but I have to admit there is something amazingly beautiful about a layer of untouched snow over everything. Then again, I have also now experienced driving in the snow and have decided that I really don't like it. However much I enjoy driving, feeling the wheels slip and the car slide slowly into the kerb when actually you just want to be stopping still is just a little disconcerting. However, I am obviously fine, as is Noah, and we shall just see what the roads are like tomorrow morning before I decide whether I'm driving to school or not.

Other
In other news: I bought a couple of new jumpers and failed to find new shoes; I have two new epic Doctor Who posters thanks to Matt and Josh; my phone has decided that it quite likes having odd moments where the screen turns upside-down and back to front or just plain doesn't work; I have a ton of nerdy DVDs to keep me occupied throughout the next few weeks thanks to Josh and my 'nerd-training'; oh, and THE GAME.

Esther 5 v 1 - 8

So, NaNoWriMo has come to an end, I've 'won' and now have some awesome winners badges to show off and a good sense of achievement coupled with a lot more free time. Hopefully, normal blogging will be returned to this crazy world of my blog soon enough and I won't end up finding another crazy, almost impossible challenge for myself. I should be giving you a proper update blog soonish but for now, here is the next instalment of the series in Esther. It's actually snowing a ton at the moment so I may not actually be able to go into school and take Christian Union tomorrow so, if that's the case, don't be surprise if there is not a new instalment next week. Anyway, happy reading.

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Esther 5 v 1 – 8

 ¹ On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king's hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance.

    ² When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the sceptre.

    ³ Then the king asked, What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you.

    ⁴ If it pleases the king, replied Esther, let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him.

    ⁵ Bring Haman at once, the king said, so that we may do what Esther asks. So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared.

    ⁶ As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.

    ⁷ Esther replied, My petition and my request is this:

    ⁸ If the king regards me with favour and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfil my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king's question.

Esther 5 v 1 – 8

So last time, Esther found out about Haman’s plan to have all the Jews killed on a certain day and she immediately started praying and asked her cousin and the rest of the Jews to do the same. She was putting her trust in God and God alone and we now start to see the outcome of her faith and trust.

(Verses 1 – 6)

So, Esther did not go in demanding for something to be done about the law or proclaiming loudly who she was but instead she wisely stood in the corner, not wanting to seem too intrusive and waited for the king to see her.

Of course, eventually the king saw here and here we see how God answered her prays in that she found favour in the king and he was pleased to see her. She wisely went along with the custom of touching the end of the sceptre and wisely waited for the king to speak to her first rather than rudely butting in and when she did speak she was submissive and humble.

Now, the king gave her the option to ask for absolutely anything but instead of rushing in with her request, Esther used the wisdom given to her by God and invited him and Haman to a feast.

But why did she invite Haman as well? After all, he was the one who had condemned her people to death and issued the decree. There is a phrase that goes ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer’. Esther would not have wanted Haman thinking that she was planning something behind his back and, in fact, inviting him caused him to do the opposite, totally letting his guard down. He would have thought that he was in favour with the queen and would have felt very special and important to have been invited to Esther’s special and private banquet and we will see later how this was exactly what he thought as just how proud he had become.

So, where do you think Esther got all this wisdom from?

Although not directly stated, it is fairly obvious that God was working in an amazing way. Not only was he giving Esther wisdom to respond to the king in the best way but he also made the king unusually happy to see her and unusually generous in how he spoke to her.

Of course, Haman did not detect a hint of a problem with Esther’s request and was not at all suspicious of her and instead was just growing in pride as he thought how important he must be for being invited to such a banquet.

Now, if we quickly look back at verses 3 and 6, we see how, even before he knew her request, the king was saying that her request would be granted. This was a throw away comment and he most likely did not really mean it and he would have been shocked if Esther really had asked for half his kingdom. It was also a very stupid thing to say however he said this to a trustworthy girl who would never take advantage.

Sometimes, we use throw away comments that say that we would do anything to have such and such a thing or would not do such and such over your dead body. Although this isn’t as extreme as Xerxes throw away comment, we still need to be careful of what we say when we’re not thinking. If we don’t think about what we say, we could end up deeply regretting what we said.

(Verses 7 – 8)

So, after the banquet, the men would have been well fed and feeling very accommodating and generous. Again, the king asked Esther what she wanted and she had his full attention. She could have easily asked the king for her request. To us, this might seem the idea point in the story to ask the king to save her people and punish Haman but that was not what she did. Instead, all she did was to invite them both back to another banquet the next day.

So why did she delay? It doesn’t make sense to us and it may not have made sense to Esther but God would have known that the timing was not quite right and that God had more to do with Xerxes before he would have been ready to Esther. Esther was guided to wait and for some reason felt she had to wait until the following day.

Similarly, we shouldn’t always rush into things but, when faced with decisions, we should pray to God and listen to him as to what we should do. God’s timing is much better than ours and he knows when we should wait longer and when we should go ahead and why we should wait or go ahead. It is always important to pray about the hard decisions we face as God is much better than us at guiding our decisions.

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Current book I'm reading:  'Friends like these' by Danny Wallace

Listening to music? If so, what?: 'Goodnight Bright Eyes' by Mike Lombardo has just finished and his other song 'Right Now' has just begun.

Last thing I watched: I was starting to try re-watch the TV Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Pink but iPlayer kept freezing.

Current NaNoWriMo count: 50 031!!!!! Oh yes!! :) If you want to read my 'novel', I won't be posting it on here but if you email me and ask me nicely I will send you a copy. :)