Two days in a row! This is just craziness! Supposedly there are 3 other broadband networks currently onsite, so the chances of us keeping our one are good. This means maybe, just maybe, I can be more regular.
Another big day of work. Another night mixing work and fun! Tonight we watched “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. What a trip that movie is. I can’t wait to see the remake!
OK, on to a couple of photos.
Click them to see a big version.

Have I already posted this? One of the few people photos I was fairly happy with. N8 at the “Third Day” concert with his Fiance Amy in the foreground.

Not as happy with this shot. Just me killing time in bed.

My gorgeious niece Charlotte, her lovely Godmum Nicola & Me. (photo shot by Phil;)

There are lions everywhere! This one was on a handrail at Carlton Hill in Edinburgh.

It is an exciting time, because a small consortium of guys in my dorm have come together & managed to get broadband access through a wire free provider & get a wifi set-up between our rooms. Good times
In celebration, here are a couple of pics.
As usual, just click on the picture if you want a bigger version.

A little spider at church.

Expectant boys on the eve of Valentines day.

Jeff plays some hot licks!

Sometimes I am trying so hard to find all of the nicest of my photos to post, that I forget that part of this blogging process is about learning & trying new things.
I’ve been working on trying to shoot people. It is a real weakness, but I have a lot of opportunity now that I am at college. I thought I would take the opportunity I have, with the combination of a flash-memory card & my ministers computer, to share a couple of pictures that I’ve taken over the last week. Mainly people, with one or two other bits & pieces thrown in.
One thing I have already noticed is that some non-mac screens seem to make my B&W pictures a lot darker than they are on my comp. Appologies for that!
(Constructive) criticism is always appreciated!

Convalescing is always nicest when it is done outdoors!

Great theological truth? Yes! Great theological T-shirt? You decide!

Jody keeps laughing & chatting, choosing to ignore the occasional shutter-sounds coming from the camera in my lap. “no-look” shots are always fun!

I admit it! I had to look it up before I could spell Ukulele properly!

It must have been a good joke!

I took this shot for Ken loves the 5:1 verse. Bonus points for anyone who can tell me which book of the Bible it is from!

It’s hard work. Most of it is fascinating, all of it is challenging, and one subject is, frankly, frustrating!
College has kicked into gear. My first full week & I have already missed two lectures. It wasn’t my choice. Instead, I spent 5+ hour sitting in different parts of Cocord Hospital, waiting for the doctor, waiting for the X-ray’s, waiting for the same doctor again, then waiting for a Physio. Finally, after waiting for the fibreglass to dry on my new walking cast, I made it back to the second half of my big thursday.
On the whole leg front, it appears to be healing well. I have a walking cast now, so I can start to put a little weight on the leg. In the mean time, I could get used to having meals brought to me, chaufers driving meand the girls showering pity on me.
For those who are looking for some photos. They will be coming soon. Believe me, I haven’t stopped taking them, though my current lack of mobility has shifted my style from “roving reporter” to “rear window”. I still don’t have internet access at college, so that means I have to visit my bro to post pics.
So what do I do with my spare time at the moment?
Study: Greek is the main source of stress, though there are 8 different subjects for me to work on this semester.
Reading: Ok, this is part of study, but a lot of it is also fun. I think I am also going to try & read at least one book just to make me happy. My current reading list is as follows.
Gospel and Kingdom by Goldsworthy (A great work on Biblical Theolgy)
Concise Theology by J.I. Packer (Man, packer is the bomb!)
Biblical Preaching by Robinson (I kind of wish I boug the Martin Lloyd-Jones book instead, but this will do)
Church History in Plain Language by Shelley. (pretty good so far. I am looking forward to the rest of this one.
Introduction to Biblical Greek by Black (It’s a love/hate relationship)
God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis. (This is my fun reading at the moment. I really love C.S. Lewis & this collection of essays revolving around ethics, morality and theology is AWESOME! It is so much cooler than it sounds too!)
There are other bits & pieces of stuff that I have to read too. A couple of articles on things & sooner or later I will have to start some prep for essays. I hope you understand; those that live in Sydney that is, if I tell you that I don’t have enough spare time to hang out too much.
Games I LOVE risk. I have played it twice since I got to college & have been soundly beaten both times. I’m improving though, and it is only a matter of time. The world will be mine!
Just hanging out: The guys in my dorm are cool. We all went & had a beer last night at the Croydon Park Hotel. The girls who live on campus are cool too! Everyone hangs out a fair bit at the moment, but we all know how busy we are, so invariably we all get drawn back to the books.
So, here I am again, back at my church, ready for another awesome Youth Group! It’s busy, but it is all good!
In the mean time, I do have some basic email access on occasion at college, so I would love to hear from any and everyone who reads the blog on occasion. Words of encouragement, pleas for more pictures, suggestions for pictures! I’d love to hear it all. It makes you feel like people are thinking of you, when you are too busy to actually spend the kind of time you would like to with them! Just send them to tim at timgoldsmith.com
Man, I never know how to finish a blog. How about you just try & think of something that you find meaningful & pretend I finished with it here.
Thanks.

It is 4:15pm, Tim strides onto the oval for a game of Tip footy. I (changing for no apparent reason from third person to first person) walk gingerly for a few paces as I get used to the new brace I bought for my bad ankle.
The game starts, the pace is frenetic, but the enjoyment level is high. Half-time is spent helping some guy push a car up onto a trailer. Just the kind of thing that a dozen or so Bible college students do in their spare time.
Early in the second half, I cruise over the line for my second try. It is nice to score, knowing that I am no longer the fastest guy on the field. A minute later, I find a gap in the defence and I am streaming down the sideline, looking for try NO.3, but knowing I will get caught by a particularly fast defender. My brace is doing a good job of protecting my ankle.
If only it did as good a job for the bones in my foot.
So, there I am, running hell-for-leather, when I hear a popping noise. I slow up, pass off the ball & then sit down to check out my foot. It hurts. 5 minutes later, Sam, a lecturer at college, and a doctor to boot, confirms that it hurts (doctors have a way of doing this with their enthusiastic examinations) and tells me that if it is still giving me grief in 24 hours, that I should get it X-rayed.
27 hours later. I’m sitting in my ministers office. I have just been to the medical center & they confirmed a nice looking little fracture in my 5th Metatarsel. I should have a cast on, but I’ll wait till tomorrow, so I can get my car back to College.
Some people go through their lives having never broken anything. They often ask me how I manage to be so successful at it. I till them “once you get the hang of it, it’s a snap!”

Well I survived Greek week, I enjoyed an awesome weekend where I celebrated my Godson Thomas’ birthday, and now I am a week into college itself.
At the moment I am keeping my minister from his computer, so I better post a couple of pictures and run…

Congrats to Matt, Lisa and Thomas!

Annie, Caitlin and Emma. Three little angels.

A butterfly that I chased for 4 minutes. Even now, he/she is a little out of focus.

Apparently college is all about love & beating each other up!

All quiet at timgoldsmith.com?
I do apologise. I moved into college on Sunday afternoon & I have no real internet access there, so things are probably going to have to slow down to about 2 entries a week. Bummer! I am looking into wire-free internet at the moment though, so hopefully I will get myself online properly soon.
Exciting times at the moment! I just survived Greek week. It is amazing how much you can learn when you really have to. I started the week thinking that if I could get the alphabet in both cases, then I would be happy. By the end of the week, we had covered Nouns of the first & second declention, done a bunch of verb conjugations & all kinds of other crazy stuff.. Man it is messed with my mind though! If any of you see me, you can ask me to explain my phonetic song of “loo-oh, loo-ehs, loo-eh, loo-omen, loo-ete, loo-osen, loo-soo, loo-sehs, loo-say, loo-somen, loo-set, loo-sosen”
The guys in my dorm are pretty awesome. We bonded pretty much straight away, over a game of “Risk” and have been up to all kinds of hijinx since. Lots of games, lots of encouragement to study & (thankfully, for my future fitness levels) lots of tip footy to be had!
On Tuesday night I got to go and see “Third Day” play live at Hillsong. It was a pretty good concert (though very loud! Even the young people said that) and I also got to see “Rookie”and “Audio Adrenelin”. It was also a nice time to hang out with N8 and Amy and Kirsty, who then came & took pictures of Sydney Harbour with me afterwards.
Today (Saturday) is another busy day. I have had an early morning, heading out to “Office works” to pick up some bits & pieces, then to Chatswood to get some memory cards for Greek Vocab & a proper keyboard for my laptop. Now I am hanging out at my brother’s place before I head to y Godson’s first birthday party! good times!
Here are a couple of pictures that capture a little of what the week has been about.

SMBC. My home for the next three years.

There will be many late nights under this light globe, studying away!

The object of my attention. for the last week. Greek vocab.

“Third Day” rocking it out on Tuesday night!

All work & all play would make this a dull blog! Tip footy is a nice break from study. It is also nice to see smiles on the faces of the players!

One of the few occasions where a Photoshop filter looked much cooler than the original. The top of lamp in my room.
Keep on reading people, more blogs to come!

I have written about how cool my brother Phil is before, but I have to do it at least this one more time!
When I used to live with my parents, the room I slept in had a Norman Rockwell painting in it, and every morning when I opened my eyes, I could look above me & be gazing at “Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas”.
Of course you can’t live at home forever & parents who are willing to let you keep your bed usually draw the line at you taking the art of the walls.
Cut to 5 or so years later. I am still in Scotland, and my brother is together with the rest of the fam trying to think of a birthday/Christmas present, when Phil remembers my love of the print. A couple of months later, Tim arrives home, just in time to get the newly framed print that Phil (with the generous support of the rest of the family) tracked down all the way in the states & then had sent over to Australia for me.
The long and the short of it being, when I move into college at SMBC, I get to take a bit of home with me.

Phil & my print!
I also have a new love, in the form of a Silver Chrysler PT Cruiser. It is a pretty awesome car, very “Tim” in its very different style. I could write more about it, but my excitement of it is curbed by the enthusiasm I have for a gift like Phil’s which is both awesome and mind-numbingly thoughtful. Love your work Boffo!

The PT (whose beauty pales in comparison with the little beauty you can see Phil holding on the left)

I have always maintained that the real love that I am looking for is less about intense passion & more about an enduring ease & comfort which is felt when you are around your beloved. Less of a craving for a person & more of a feeling that they are part of you, that it is just natural that your hands should gravitate toward each other. This is why I love to see my close friends, as they find people they love, express themselves in their casual comfort.
I really like these pics of N8 & his girlfriend Amy, because N8 is not always a ‘contact’ person, so when he looks so comfortable as Amy whispers something to him in a loud pub, that makes me feel happy for him.

Chatting between songs.

Casual comfort

I am pretty sure that if I went through my archives, I could find a similar post about having beers with Stu “Capt’n Stubbing” Beattie. A true champ among men. Again, we found ourselves at the “Vicar of Wakefield” tonight, catching up on 6 months of movements & just enjoying good Christian fellowship. Any night with the Capt’n is guarenteed to be a highlight of the week.
In other news, I have a new interest in taking black and white photos. It is something that I haven’t really done much of previously. You will all have to live with my initial fumbling attempts to capture something interesting.
Oh, and thanks to a majority vote, I will continue giving explanations with my pics. They are long ones today!.

I decided to take a picture of the leaves on a tree that I was walking under. It never seems to work well in colout. This old Japanese guy appears from nowhere (I was next to his block of flats) and asks me what I was doing. I thought he was going to tell me off for something, but we ended up chatting for 10 minutes as he told me all about the camera he likes to use & how I should join the APS (Australian Photographic Society). I wish I had have taken a picture of him now.

Killing time in Hornsby, I was taking pictures of this fountain (none of which turned out) when I spied this kid trying to till a bottle by holding it over one of the spray-jets. He actually drank what he caught. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it is supposed to be recycled water…

I was taking pictures of Stu, then he took some of me. I think I like his pictures better, though it is definately not because of the subject matter…