Eurovision a la Helsinki!!

DO NOT WORRY your little heads anymore. Whatever is getting you down need not, for the Eurovision is only a month away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) and just in case you missed that....ONE month :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Cross Culture

Ah it's my good old favourite picture again :-) So why the international theme when I'm back in Durham?? We've got a Canadian group in college at the moment for a conference. So tonight I decided to head to the bar- not to see them but just for a break from thinking. To begin with, everyone who came in was far too over-excited at the fact we were serving Carling, a Canadian beer. Becky didn't have the heart to tell them we're changing them all next week. Good job I wasn't working- I appear to have mislaid my heart! We also had the football on cos Liverpool were playing and Becky was working, so we were half-watching that, when someone at the bar asked someone else 'So are you into football' (10 points to him for using the correct terminology), and she gave a far too over-excited response. I love the way everything always seems so over the top. It's probably not, it's probably just that we're all so low-key in the UK but sat watching these people all night was highly amusing. The best part of the night was when someone asked where the toilets were, and one guy in a ....you guessed it!....far too over-excited voice declared 'TOILETS....NOW THAT'S JUST VERGING ON OBSCENITY'. :-) I love the way everyone elses culture delights and repulses us all. We then got talking of our own experiences of cross-culture, from the little things like the fact everyone tonight was tipping the bar staff for their service to things like my experiences at the ballet in Moscow. What fun, I could talk all night, and observe all week!

And then, as if to make my week the only person there under about 40, good looking, tall, dark, came over to talk to us. Opened his mouth, and alas, was Irish!!! That's the third Irish person I've heard in two days. I don't know where they're all coming from, I've never noticed Durham to be particularly Irish-dominated before (and apparently I've got an amazing ability to pick them out in a crowd-or so I've been told!), but they can keep coming as far as I'm concerned:-)

well that was a good night wasted when I could have been working.......

A break to think

This week we went away to Center Parcs (Yes it is spelt the American way and I always got corrected in school for what wasn't my fault- and I still hold a grudge against it!!!) It was the week I needed. I'm used to my five week break at Easter and instead I've spent two weeks working at school and will go back to Durham on Monday two weeks early to catch up after last terms disaster. I promised my supervisor and senior tutor that I would take a break over Easter, but I knew it just wasn't going to happen. So off I went a little skeptical. It turned out to be the best thing I could have done. there were six of us there- my parents, Martyn and Simon, myself and one of Martyn's mates from Durham- Matt. Between us we went swimming nearly every day, played tennis every day, played snooker, went out for meals, read fiction, and I even managed to write 3,500 words of my dissertation!!!(who said I can't work when I'm resting). Granted I still got no sleep for the week, but I was more relaxed than I've been in a long, long time. One day (I've been so relaxed I can't even remember the situation!) Mum asked me if she thought I'd changed having waited till this year to graduate. It was an odd question. I'm used to being asked if I've changed from Helsinki and the answer is an obvious yes, and am I a different person graduating after the Helsinki experience to if I'd just graduated from the UK one, yes, definitely. But if I'd graduated last year upon return from Helsinki have I changed at all to graduating now. I'd like to say yes, I'd like to say the last year hasn't been a waste of time. And then I thought, is that what constitutes a waste of time? Not growing from the person I was but staying static- is that such a bad thing? In a way I'd say I'm more calm, not as restless as when I got back from Helsinki. I know where I'm going next year, I know it's only a stepping stone in my life and doesn't restrict me to anything but only opens more doors. Being back in my home country has made me look at my faith with a clearer head and not feel quite so out of my depth- and has it helped? Well not really, if anything I've grown further away from it. Have I changed? I don't know...I've kept a lot of what I learnt in Finland and I don't think my friends from before Finland would understand me properly. But I also feel like I've picked up some of my old traits and it makes me think my Finnish friends wouldn't know the me they once did either and I find myself more and more closing up with them. Maybe I have changed then. But would I have made this change if I'd come back and got a job instead of turning back to study. Who knows. But It's Easter now. And reading over my diary from Helsinki last night of Easter last year, I talked about new beginnings, new chances, and with the last hurdle of my degree left and next year so close in sight here's to a new year of growth and change in me, and new experiences to help me become more of myself. :-)

Change in Stations

So what was that about Benedict being too conservative and a bad choice for Pope- changing the Stations of the Cross can't be considered anything but radical. So many artists and musicians have depicted the Stations and it was the one thing we learnt at school that made you know instantly that you were in a Catholic Church. I've spent two weeks at school looking at Lent and the Stations. My gut reaction to Benedict's move was, well this is gonna mess up the curriculum and every Catholic church around the world, and it's also going to date every piece of art making it that more distant and irrelevant to people's lives. I have to say though, that I do have some sympathy with Benedict's choices as well. I've always considered the Passion to start at the Garden of Gethsemane- not with being condemned. And Judas and Peter are a big part of the story as well. I'm not convinced by cutting out the 3 falls, or the fact that it goes from meeting the women to being crucified, missing the humiliation of the stripping of the garments- which again I think should be there. However, I do like Jesus meeting his mother being moved to after the crucifixion though- much more scripturally accurate. Doesn't really matter what I think though- it's been done!! Talking to Steve about it before the Good Friday service yesterday, he suggested we get moving ploughing all the mosaics surrounding the Church off the wall. It's going to mean a huge change in every church but whether it's one that goes down well remains to be seen. Something tells me it's going to be noticed more than JPII's addition of an extra mystery in the rosary in 2000. Old rosary beads are now outdated- but at least they can still be used. Old stations of the cross are soon to be that- old, with removing a place for anything apocryphal in the Church's liturgy.