Tim Goldsmith

Ok, there is so much to catch up on. I don’t know why I haven’t been blogging. I just haven’t… Exams have been finished. The subject I was most worried about I have passed, so everything else should be just fine! In the week following exams, we have had end-of-year dinner (which I missed because I feel strongly about being at Youth Group on friday nights) and the Grad Service (after which people all go to the pub & hang, but I missed out because I had church on & then I was too trashed after a long day). I started a new job last Wednesday working for Anglicare, driving a van for the “Toys & Tucker” appeal. It is good fun, I get to see a lot of Sydney, I got to listen to the first Ashes Test on the radio while driving (Non-Australian/English would not understand the true importance of this iconing sporting event… Summer has truly arrived when the cricket is on ABC radio!), and I get some free exercise moving literally tonnes of canned food & toys each day! Today, however, was not ideal! It started by getting a fine for having my car parked facing wrong direction. I am usually a stickler for this, but I was scared of having to reverse park the 1 tonne van I’m driving, so I parked it outside Shona’s parents place for the night. Of course, we aren’t even talking about some piddly little fine. $128 for a dodgy direction! Crikey! OK, round two is just that my back is starting to hurt a little because of all the lifting that I have been doing. I try to follow good lifting practice, but when the van you are around it not tall enough to stand straight in, you really can’t lift properly all the time. Part three, the big kahuna is that my computer crashes every time I boot it up. I had a minor panic, but then my little bro (whose house I am staying at) showed me how to get it to boot up on “safe mode”. It booted up then, so that gives me hope, since it doesn’t seem to be a fatal error. Hopefully I can save the beastie. Thankfully, I have lots of stuff backed up. So there you go… I have been slack in writing recently, but fear not, I have a couple of ideas stocked up for posts, so look forward to such articles as “the toilet & a good book: a modern love affair”. (P.S. This post is dedicated to Bec. I hope it provides a couple of minutes of procrastination for you!)

I’d like one of these little fellas guarding my door! (He’s from ‘Sculpture by the sea’. I went a couple of weeks ago with Joel Mc.)

Girls, if you are anything like the girls I have met over the last 5 days, you may as well just skip the following story & proceed directly to the pictures of the ring at the bottom of this post.

Why would you propose a couple of days before your exams start?

Some might ask.

(Why would you write a blog about it at 11pm the night before your worst exam?)

Others might also query…. to that question there is no answer! As to the first question, people want to know, so here’s the story.

Read on →

I have to say that writing on this blog really is cathartic. Even if no one was to read, I think I might still keep it up for a while because it is good to be able to think things through as you write them out. You know, the old adage that you don’t truly know something till you can explain it to someone else? It’s nice for me to write stuff, plus I also love being able to look back at my history & see not only what I have done and thought, where I was geographically and where I was psychologically. All those things that a photo itself might not capture. That said, I have to admit that it’s not all just about the internal stuff.I do love the comments too. I have one of those lovely little statistics things that tells me that there are between 150-200 “unique” hits are received a day (that is, not just the same person coming again and again, or visiting multiple pages). Occasionally I find myself wondering “If there are so many people who read, how come I don’t get like a billion comments? Some people have said that they like to read, but they never really feel like commenting. It is more of a voyeuristic thing than it is an interactive thing. Others have said that they never know what to say, so they figure that it is easier to say nothing than to say the wrong thing. Others…. well who knows. Of course, it’s nice to know that lots of people like to visit my site, and it is flattering to know that there are more people out there than those who leave their own finger print on the site, but sometimes I have been curious & I have tried ways to get a little interaction. I might pose a difficult question, make a serious statement, or delve deep into my confessional box. Sometimes it has worked OK, sometimes it hasn’t. Well tonight I have the perfect excuse for you, dear reader to leave a comment. You don’t have to say something profound. In fact, if you want, I could even draft your comment for you (though original works will certainly be appreciated too). All you need to say is… “Congratulations”. “Why?” you ask. Because she said “Yes”

Goldydawg circa November ’04 with the awesome Benita & Dermott (Sp?) So, it’s always the way that when you are somewhere like Scotland, you meet one of the most Australian people of all time! Such was the case when I met Dermott. He & Benita were at the same pub as me when I was watching a game of Rugby in Edinburgh. I liked them instantly & we hung out quite a bit over the proceeding couple of months. Of course, my Caledonian adventure finished, but they stayed on for a couple of years, but now they are back! This afternoon I took Benita out to lunch. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but it felt like we just took off from where we left, not like it had been almost 2 years since we saw each other. You have to love friends like that! Some yummy Vietnamese food, a chinese mango pancake & egg tart for desert, then a nice chat with Dermot on the phone (the crazy bloke was back at work in Queensland 3 days after getting home from a 4 year trip). I read this today in a blog that I wrote in Scotland, and I will say it again. I am positive that I have far more good quality friends than any one man deserves! God is good!

You know it is that time of year when I post the picture of those books that I am staring at for the next couple of weeks. This semester, the sense of joy at my desk has been brought by Shona’s pen set (the bright fellas on the right) which is bringing a rainbow of cheer to all of my notes! I have to say that I’m feeling a sense of calm about things. I am getting a fair bit of study done, so I feel like I am feeling OK about that, though, as is the case with most theological study, the more you know, the more you realise you are just scratching the surface… While, again, the exams happen over my birthday (17th of November…. don’t say I don’t give you fair warning!), I don’t have any on my birthday itself, so I should be able to chill out a little on that day. Everyone is looking out for everyone at this time of year too. I have a bit of a flu, so people have lent me all kinds of remedies. The core of “Upper Wallace” guys (my dorm) have been going for the occasional “late night white” to finish the days off. Last night included my first foray into Apple Brandy! And the vibe, which at the worst of times is encouraging, is really good at this time of year. Bless that college vibe! Today it is Yum Cha for lunch (a farewell to our Student Reps), so again, who can complain? Of course, the blog is always the first thing to really suffer in exam time. It is a welcome relief, but also, it’s easy to ignore. Right now, it’s keeping me from Goldingay’s Isaiah commentary…. I best not keep him waiting.

I wouldn’t call it a bandwagon per se, but I am jumping back on the “post poems you like” trend. I have too many uninteresting thoughts at the moment as I crunch through my studies. Not that my studies are uninteresting, of course, but…. oh, you get the picture. Instead, words to lift the soul.

But was I the first martyr, who Gave up no more than life, while you, Already free among the dead, Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed, Surrendered what all other men Irrevocably keep, and when Your battered ship at anchor lay Seemingly safe in the dark bay No ripple stirs, obediently Put out a second time to sea Well knowing that your death (in vain Died once) must all be died again?

So this evening I had to drive out to Carlingford for a camp meeting. Jimbo, who is speaking on the senior section of this camp (“The Real Thing” camp down at Port Hacking. Should be a cracker! Tim has the official title of “Resource”) came along in my car too. Conversations with Jimbo are always interesting. We set “challenge words” that we had to work into conversation during the meeting (He had to say “dragons”, I had to say “Saucepan”) we talked about our girlfriends, we talked about theology, and then on the way back to college we talked about what it’s like to live with so many different types of people here at college. It was at this time that mobbsy dropped the profound statement… “Everybody is somebody’s wierdo!” It’s true isn’t it. For all the of the strange characters that we encounter in our worlds, we are playing the role of “weirdo” for someone else in the play that is their life! It’s a glorious thing! As one could expect, there is a certain level of uniformity when it comes to people’s characters in Bible College. That said, it is stunning to see the kind of diversity that is on display in this crazy town. There isn’t a guy I live with who doesn’t have some kind of strange habit. I certainly can’t claim to be devoid of quirks in my personality that would make me the weird one. So, since I am stalling doing some study, maybe I will play “confessional” and see if I can come up with some of the things that make me someone else’s weirdo… 1: I bring my own pepper grinder to meals. Not just a cheap plastic model, but a proper, classy grinder with three different settings. Other’s like their own plunger coffee, I like to know that my meal is going to be seasoned as it should. 2: I also have in my possession, but have not been required to use, a store of salt that I brought back from Poland. A time and a reason, for every season! 3: I have a fear of conversation with people I know vaguely, but not well. I can deal with talking to strangers, but idle chit chat with people I sort of know, but don’t feel like I know well, well that is a no go for Goldy. Morning tea us usually avoided for this reason. 4: I count stairs. I don’t do it all the time, but I do do it most of the time. I know the number of stairs between any two places in college. I can still remember the number of stairs around my old work at Vision Valley camp site. 5: I have orders that I eat almost all of my foods in. An order for roasts (Green vegetables, other coloured vegetables, potato, then meat), I have orders for M&M’s (Brown, Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Orange), and I even have orders for fast food! (Eat all the fries first before you are allowed to have a drink, then you eat your burger and drink, usually in tandem, so that you have the middle part of the burger left till last & enough drink to have a couple of decent gulps!). 6: I have to keep my inbox as empty as possible. The idea of having more than 5-10 emails in my inbox is disturbing, and if I can keep it down to 1 or 2, then I will. I am the same with anything. I have to subcategorise & refolder things on my computer, so that you can end up going through about 10 folders to finally get to stuff. (But I can ALWAYS find my stuff!). OK, so there are some of my peccadillos. Anyone else willing to share one of theirs?