I’m almost over the moon (figuratively speaking anyway), my dear Mummy is here at Weimar – and by the way, I don’t think it’s unmanly at 21 to be calling her my Mummy! It’s been about five months since I saw her last, so it’s great to have her here! She’s slowly getting used to being in the US – though I think that driving on the right side of the road is going to take a little time for her to get used to…when I picked her up from the airport she went to get in the drivers side – I found that kinda amusing, as I’d gone to do the same thing when I first arrived in the US… 
One thing I was really looking forward to was my Mother bringing my bike over! It’s been so great to get out and ride after five months of not riding – and boy, I’m not as fit as I used to be!! But will be soon!
The title says it all – I’m 21 years young!
I can’t believe how fast this last year’s gone. It seemed like only a few months ago that I was 20 – I hope that this is not a trend as I get older. But at the same time so much has happened it could’ve been two years!
I’m over in America, and technically, my birthday is on the 27th, even though I was born on the 28th…as Australia is a day ahead – but I kinda spread it over two days…time zones are great aren’t they?!
On Monday (the 27th here, but Tuesday the 28th in Australia) I was having a normal day with just work and the like. I had Keith (he’s a student here at Weimar – a friend of Philip’s, and now me) surprise me with getting people to sing happy birthday to me at lunch and then he took me out to a juice bar after lunch. Then I came back to work and left the office at about 6pm – after talking to my mother before I left. I was reflecting on how different this birthday had been from the last few I’ve had as I was walking down to my room. I noticed that a black car had turned around had pulled up ahead of me, Keith got out and wanted to talk to me about something…and the next thing I knew I was blindfolded and thrown into the car! What followed was one of the craziest things I’ve had done to me – it was almost a realistic kidnapping (hats off to everyone involved lol). After driving around all over the place and becoming totally disorientated I eventually found the car slowing down and I was escorted from the car and into a building; where I was told to could take off the blindfold – and then almost died of shock as people shouted surprise. I had been taken to Jumba Juice and there was about 10-15 friends from Weimar there. It was a cool surprise!
I’m really looking forward to the next year of my life, I know that it’s going to be great! Just where I’ll be in a year I’m not exactly sure…there are lots of exciting possibilities, I’ll just have to see where God opens the door – so in other words, it’s going to be a year of “holding on for the ride” and letting God lead…and that makes for the most exciting life ever – period, full-stop, whatever it is!
I bought myself a new external keyboard for my 17″ MacBook Pro – it’s definitely different compared to the old Apple keyboards, but after using it for a day I’m liking it. I’d say in use it’s between the MacBook Pro keyboard and the MacBook with a slight hint from the old Apple keyboard. One big advantage I see with the new design is that it won’t show the dirt as much as the old keyboard – my old one always needed to be cleaned out if I didn’t want it to look tacky.
Now I’m just waiting for a Griffin Elevator – which I should get this week sometime.
I’ve got some new camera gear – and a SLR camera…is a nice upgrade from my Canon G5 (which I’m keeping at the moment as a backup)
Canon EOS 10D
Canon 70-200 f4.0L USM
Canon 430EX Speedlite
2GB SanDisk EXTREME III CF
Lowepro TL 75 AW
Manfrotto 3021BPRO Tripod
Manfrotto 484RC2 Mini Ballhead
Hoya UV filter 67mm
Me shooting the Weimar College 2007 graduation – to see the photos I took visit: www.weimarcollege.info/graduation07/
My new tripod – it’s nice!
Well ok, it’s the highest point in the contiguous United States – this is excluding Alaska and Hawaii. I’m talking about Mt Whitney at 4,421 meters (14,505 feet). Mt Kosciuszko back home in Australia is only 2228 meters – so about half as tall as Whitney! Anyway, two weeks ago I climbed it! It was a blast – high altitude climbing is challenging and great fun…I’m definitely going to do it again someday.
Our group of 11 people were from all over the West Coast of the US – and we had a great time (thanks for making a Aussie feel welcome guys!). Below are just a few photos from the trip – I’ll upload a gallery of the photos when I get time.
Weighing our packs before the hike begins – mine weighed in at 21kg and three days later on our return it weighed 15kg!
Starting to climb – it was a total of 17km from the trail head to the summit (34km round trip)
Looking up to the summit from base camp – we camped here for one night before climbing to get used to the altitude (and also on the way back down)
I’m on top of the US!
Our group on the top
Here I am signing the guest book on the top – I was the only Australian in the guest book for over six months!
Our group at the end of the hike – we’re all exhausted, but elated to have made it there and back!
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in the US for almost three months, but it’s true! (sadly, as I’m missing everyone back home in Australia SO much!)
Today I got my results from the last quarter and I’m so grateful to God for the result! As most of you know I was delayed in getting over to the US and starting this quarter because of my Visa taking longer than I’d estimated. Add to that the fact that I was working in the marketing department at Weimar College between 15-20 hours a week, and also that I was on academic probation…and I wasn’t expecting all that great a result for this quarter – even though I had done as much as I could. Well I just got my GPA score in and I got 3.1108 out of 4 – praise the Lord! This means no more academic probation for next school year! This next year I’m aiming for as close to a GPA of 4 as I can get, but considering everything this quarter I’m very happy with the result – God is so good! 
I’ve arrived in San Francisco and while I’m waiting for my connecting flight to Sacramento I thought I’d post an update!
The flight over from Sydney was long – 14 hours. After the first hour it was uninteresting – and the joys of flying United economy (it was ok, but the seats are a bit cramped). Needless to say, I didn’t get all that much sleep and am fairly tired…really looking forward to bed tonight!
Well I’ve got to race as my flight is about to board!
As most of you know, I’m a graphic designer – I’ve been working in design for the last three years and really enjoy it. And also as some of you would know I’m a Christian, Jesus has changed my life and the joy that I’ve found in my life I want to communicate to others. I’ve done a lot of media work to help contribute to the sharing of the gospel, but feel that God is calling me to do more. I’ve been praying and thinking about going to college and studying religion – with looking at either pastoral or evangelism, or both!
To make a long story shorter, I’m going to Weimar College in California, USA – and I’m going tomorrow! Ok, the cat’s out of the bag now! It?s going to be great – except for being away from family and friends for four years. This last week has been hard saying goodbye to the people that are dear to me – but it’s not permanent, I’m coming back to Australia whenever I can!
I’ll be posting things to let everyone know how things are going…
I’ve finally got them off. After 14 months of having braces on they’re off – man it feels good not having them on! 
For those of you who don’t know, I had a bad accident when I was about 10 that damaged my teeth and that combined with five wisdom teeth (yes I’m really smart – just kidding) meant that my mouth was a bit of a mess. But one operation and 14 months of wearing braces have done wonders – I’m really happy with how everything has turned out.
I’ve just come back from Australian Youth Conference 2007, and it was such a blessing! It was exciting to see over 340 young people excited about the gospel and sharing it with others – I feel that this is the beginning of something big in Australia.
Joshua, Tony and I went down for it and had a great time, not only were we blessed by the messages, but we had some really good fellowship too! The three of us and also Lyle Southwell and two others from Sydney stayed at Duane and Aloisia’s place in Warragul – which is about 1+ hours drive from Melbourne CBD. It was good fun traveling in every day with all of us plied into the one car.
Here’s a few photos from the weekend:
This is the main area with around 400 people!
Peter Gregory taking a class on how to give Bible studies – was very good!
Pr Mark Finley talking on Sunday – his message was wonderful!
Me giving a testimony. I wasn’t going to, but God impressed me that I needed to share how God’s opened the door for me with something (which I’ll be revealing soon!).