25 Februrary 2009

So I know it’s been a while since my last post. Sorry. I started my first week of classes on Monday and it’s all going quite well. Although it is a bummer because it seems like I have class in the afternoons, when a lot of people have class in the mornings and then go to Bondi Beach while I’m stuck in class…but other than that classes are so great!
Today, being Ash Wednesday, a large group of us went to St. James Anglican Church in Sydney for the service. St. James is a very high form of Anglican churches, and we were told that although Anglican is the main church in Australia, most are not as formal as this one. It was unlike the church services that I am used to, but I really enjoyed it. They purified the church with incense, the choir sang in Greek and Latin, the priest sang his words, and we knelt a lot, but it was a great experience. When our group talked afterward to “de-brief”, I talked with some people about how grand God seemed to be. The music was so formal and beautiful and the church was so vast, that it made us, as humans, seem so insignificant, and God seem so amazing. Much of the service’s emphasis was also about how lowly and undeserving we humans are, begging Christ to have mercy on our souls, which again exemplifies the greatness of God. Although St. James was an extremely different church from what I know and am used to, it was still a place where God was. I felt his presence in the unfamiliar place, and was reminded that He is everywhere. And, walking around Sydney afterwards with ashes all over my forehead was a plus, too. So yay, lent – bring it on. Oh, and I’m giving up shopping haha.
So yeah, that’s really all that’s been happening, sorry this is a little boring. Classes are fun, Sydney is sweet, and vegemite, I learned, in small doses, isn’t really that bad. Still no kangaroos, but you should all be interested to know that there really are as many fine looking surfers in Australia as you may think there are. Maybe I should have given up stalking hot surfers for lent??