thairan.

i have been thinking alot about Thailand lately, which isn’t unusual i guess. Ill be having my meeting with angela henry to discuss my application to get into the uni this coming thursday. My major fear is that my terrible grades from last semester will have some kind of affect on my entry. im not sure really, i have absolutely no idea what the conditions of entry are, i guess i’ll find out on thursday.
If i don’t get in then that’s cool, i won’t be like shattered. I have been preparing myself for the possibility of it for a while now. Having said that, of course ill be dissapointed and annoyed, especially if it is because of my grades.
If i cant go next year and i have to wait till 2009, then i will still most likely make a few trips over there between then and now, just to keep in contact with my friends over there.
its crazy, over the last few months i have just had this incredibly urge to travel. I took a friend to the airport a few weeks ago. After seeing her off, i did abit of a wander around the airport. I stood stagnant right in front of the big board with those flip character words, showing me what flights were flying that day. I so wished that i go somewhere that day. i want to go see the world, take a look at the millions of cultures and sub-cultures around the world, in all their beauty. There are a few places i want to go to especially. They’d be America, Japan, South Korea, Brunei, Dubai… mmm thats it. Europe would be great, but im not fascinated enough with it yet to want to go. Plus its ridiculously expensive.
When i do my deliveries over in the west, i usually always see planes leave to go wherever they go to. We don’t get that over here in the east. That i guess also makes me want to go places. I have a thing for airports, for places outside australia. its weird.

content, contempt

itching all over, i lean over you to turn off the air-conditioner that’s blowing out recycled air. i sit back in my seat and resist the temptation of scratching my face. I feel like a stale piece of meat, like how you feel when you brace a hot day after waking up from a long sleep. We have been driving for a while now and im restless, i don’t know what to do with myself. Its too hot to put my headphones on, and you wouldn’t like it if i put it on loudspeaker. We don’t have any speakers anyway.
I turn to my side, my back facing you, and open up donald miller to read a chapter out of ‘searching for God knows what’, even though i’ve probably read it seventy times before. I didn’t care, i needed to do something. After reading the first paragraph, i start to feel sick from looking down. i temporarily stop and place the book in my lap, turning around again with my back to the seat. I don’t usually get sick from reading, but for some reason this time i feel unusually queasy. You glance over wondering whats wrong with me, although you don’t say anything, because sometimes words just don’t work. We haven’t said anything for a while now. i think we have passed the stage where we always need either one of us talking, and now we are just content with silence. Its certainly different i wonder to myself. Yet i think we are learning as much about each other through this silence than with the nervous chatter and silly jokes that we started off with.
“how much longer?”, i ask.
“two hours, maybe three. It will start to get cooler soon too, the further north the better.”
I smile and nod in reply. I lean my head back against the head rest and close my eyes.
‘this might not have been exactly what i had in mind God, but it honestly doesn’t bother me. I know that whatever happens, you are still up there telling me who i am and what i’m here for, and thats all that matters. thanks.’

elephants P.2

I started off with saying how i recently made some progress with thammasat, sending the email last night to angela who would then process my application. i moved onto talking about how Thailand is usually always on my mind and the thousands of thoughts associated with it.
Thailand and me is crazy. I know that God wants me to do stuff there, but what exactly? and more importantly for how long? Four years ago i knew that i was to do something there. the fine details never really bothered me though, not until now. I loved the idea of being with the thai people, helping them out. I just assumed that that was what my future was going to be all about. Now the more i think about it, the more i wonder how much of my future and how much of my life it will be?
Alot of that can and possibly will hinge on the fact of whether or not I marry a thai. i always thought that there was a good chance of that happening, but, the more i go there and the more i understand about thai culture the more i realise how different it is to what i know, australian culture.
Also, the more i understand about thai culture, the more i realise how australian i am. i always thought i was a cultured guy, and that asian culture was something i could understand and handle quite well. But really, i grew up in a white neighbourhood and have very white parents, who think white, who taught me white and who disciplined me white. Not in a racist way, but in a cultured way. So sure i can appreciate thai culture and try to understand it, but in terms of my human experience and the way i live life and relate, its very different to that of thai’s.
see, the more i think about it the more i realise how i have kinda romanticised the idea of me living in thailand, uno thinking it will be all rosy, that ill be able to slip right in and not have a problem. I guess now im just being more real with myself. Sal said when she was there she would often cry at night because she felt so isolated. when i was younger i never thought that would happen. now im letting myself know that that could easily happen.
so plenty on my mind. I do pray often though that God would reveal what He wants while im over there studying. And i do believe that He will do that. And if he does want me there, for my whole life, then so be it. Heck it might be terribly uncomfortable and difficult, but i would rather live my life for the Love of Christ and His cause than for me and my pety aspirations. His joy in me and what i do becomes my joy. He knows whats best, and thats whats so beautiful.

elephants P.1

sitting with my boys this morning at macdonalds, talking about life and everything that it entails. Forcefully waking up from three hours sleep, i stumbled into my car and drove about 20 kilometres to keysborough where the other fellas were waiting for me. i was late once again. Driving to keysborough that early in the morning reminded me of the hundreds of runs to school, as well as going to my old testament class at bible college last year.
Greeting my fellow brothers who had already finished all their food, i went to order food for myself and sat down with a sigh, thinking how on earth i manage to fall asleep at 4am. Jordan was directly opposite me, as bright as he usually is in the morning, playing with all our wallets, curiously looking through mine as i slammed it down on the table. Christian was beside Jordan and looked abit out of it, staring into space, turning around to the door everytime he heard it open. Then there was ben, who was sitting beside me. His feet were resident on my chair, which he kindly moved for me when i went to sit down.
We all spoke about stuff that was going on, uno just talking through life issues, stuff that was getting us down, relationships, God issues, everything.

firsthand

on thursday i sat down with John Vrteski, my faculty head, looking to take my first steps in appplying at thammasat university in Thailand. He directed me to someone else who directed me to someone else, so on and so on and so on. I finally got done what i was looking to do. i got in touch with a beautiful lady named Angela Henry, who, on receiving my email would apply me to thammasat university and process my request. Unfortuntately they arent a direct partner [i forget the fancy special name RMIT gives those uni’s] yet with RMIT, which means that i might not be able to seamlessly slip right in as i previously thought i could. I might actually have to apply to be a student their and pay their fee’s and all that kind of thing.
That i guess is bad news, but upon doing my research, i found that there are many other ways you can apply to attend universities overseas. i wont go through all of them here, it just means that if one way does fail, i can try another.