Some thoughts :)

I've been road tripping the last few days with Lana. We drove up to Blenheim, across to Nelson, to Golden Bay and Farewell Spit and back, and then over the Lewis Pass back to Christchurch. All in three and a half days. Lots of fun and craziness.

Heres some of the stupid/crazy/funny things that happened over the three and a half days:

1) My $2.50 sunglasses cracked because the sun was too hot for them!!!
2) Having no fork/spoon, etc. when eating chinese food I used half of my broken sunglasses as a spoon things (the lens was the spoon bit, and the bit that goes behind your ear the handle). It worked quite well.
3) I hit myself in the head with the carseat.
4) I sung songs in silly voices.
5) I can't remember anything else but there's sure to be more. Ask Lana.

Here's some things I discovered/rediscovered/thought about on/after the trip:

1) I like my friends a lot and I missed them although I was only gone a little while. It was good spending time with Lana but I've spent lots of time with her these holidays and much less time with other people and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing other people in the next few days. It was kind of different for me to have four days where I only really saw two other people (Lana and Jazz) and while I like them both lots it showed me how much I really like having lots of people around.

2) My parents (who we stayed a night with in Blenheim) have very different views on some important things, and their lfestyle is different from anything I ever want. Basically I have made my own choices in life and am my own person. This is all good, but the bit that is not good is that my parents want me to be something different and when I see them I tend to do and say some things they won't like just to annoy them. Bad Ray :(

3) We stayed with Jazz's family in Nelson for two nights. I really liked Jazz's family. They appeared to be close, and to really care about each other. And they weren't afraid to show it. It's the first time I've stayed with a Christian family, and the difference between them and my family the night before was quite obvious. If/when I have a family I would like it to be something like this.

4) Now that I'm back in Christchurch and my flatmates are both away I'm bored 'cos I want other people around. I went into uni today for a meeting for a group project and it was really good to see some other people. It really doesn't take me long to feel lonely when no one else is home. Ruth gets back tonight and I'm looking forward to it a lot, even though it's less than 24 hours since I got back myself.

5) I was reading from Luke last night, and this morning. I like how Luke makes it so clear how much Jesus cares about the people that no-one else wants anything to do with. These are the people I want to work with (eg. at-risk youth, abuse victims and perpetrators, disabled people). Obviously this isn't an easy area to work in and I've been thinking about how I'd relate to these people. It's all good to ask how Jesus would relate to them, but obviously I'm going to make mistakes and not relate to them in the best ways some times.

I think I'll stop there for now. There's more stuff I could say but I feel like I'm rambling on already. I'm going to go and enjoy the last of the sunny day :)