Work is sending me to Melbourne for the day on Friday. Why? Just because. They're based in Melbourne and anyone who starts with them gets to go and meet the crew and check out what things are like down there. Cool hey! And they let me go on a Friday, so I get to go to 'beer-o-clock' and Friday lunch and I can stay in Melbourne for the weekend and catch up with family and friends. Even better!
I just wish I could make a decent coffee for them!
lightning blog
I'm loving my new job. Really great people, great place to work. Very cool.
We just found out we got college housing next year!!!! This is really really awesome. We're very thankful to God.
Mel came up for the weekend and it was lovely to see her. She took us to Redoak. Mmmmm. Awesome.
Will try to blog more soon.
We just found out we got college housing next year!!!! This is really really awesome. We're very thankful to God.
Mel came up for the weekend and it was lovely to see her. She took us to Redoak. Mmmmm. Awesome.
Will try to blog more soon.
Starting from Scratch
A new job means new people, new systems, new places, new tasks and (hopefully!) new skills. I'm now working as an office administrator for a great web development company. When I say 'great' I mean it! Their mission statement, their goals, their whole philosophy is something I feel I can really get behind. When it comes down to it, they care. It shows in their work, it shows in the way the business has grown (they started in Melbourne but now have offices in Sydney and London) and it shows in the way they treat their people. I really respect that.
I'm taking over from their previous office admin who is being promoted to project manager soon. She's only here 3 days a week though. So she showed me lots of stuff on Monday, but the last couple of days I've been on my own. It's been good, but a bit boring when I've run out of stuff to do! I've spent a lot of time on the internet 'researching'!
The other cool thing about starting a new job is new systems. I've been trying to set things up so that I'm well organised right from the beginning. It's a challenge setting things up well when you're only just learning about what you'll be doing.
Gosh, this is becoming a long post. Well, to sum up; the people are great, the place is awesome and the job is going well so far. As for new skills, believe it or not, I'm learning how to make coffee! Still don't drink it, but if I'm offering clients tea and coffee I need to be able to deliver!
I'm taking over from their previous office admin who is being promoted to project manager soon. She's only here 3 days a week though. So she showed me lots of stuff on Monday, but the last couple of days I've been on my own. It's been good, but a bit boring when I've run out of stuff to do! I've spent a lot of time on the internet 'researching'!
The other cool thing about starting a new job is new systems. I've been trying to set things up so that I'm well organised right from the beginning. It's a challenge setting things up well when you're only just learning about what you'll be doing.
Gosh, this is becoming a long post. Well, to sum up; the people are great, the place is awesome and the job is going well so far. As for new skills, believe it or not, I'm learning how to make coffee! Still don't drink it, but if I'm offering clients tea and coffee I need to be able to deliver!
Where to next
Bron and I have been thinking about what we'll do next after finishing college. We want to plant a church and we know we also need more experience but we're not sure about how to get from college to the plant. Steve Addison has just written a post that has captured what we need to be doing.
Done
I just handed in my Old Testament essay which marks the end of term 3 for me. I started it on Sunday, finished it yesterday and printed it this morning which makes it the quickest of my essays so far. In some ways my experience of this essay matches my experience of college this term: high highs and low lows.
I loved the exegetical work. It has been gratifying to be able to use my Hebrew skills to get to understand a passage really well and see how I could preach it. The whole focus of the passage (Amos 7:10-17) is Amaziah's (and Israel's) rejection of Amos and by implication, God. I think what really struck me it that Amaziah wants to please the king and nation, but Amos has to obey God. Amos preached with such authority because he wasn't speaking from himself but what God told him to say. This has so much to tell us about ministry and the world.
So I had a great time actually getting into the passage, it was exciting, challenging and frightening. But then I read the commentaries and journal articles on Amos and all of that was swept away. Ironically most of the scholars seem to have the same attitude to God's word as Amaziah. They have no fear of God's judgment and generally no interest in what the passage actually says, they spend their time on speculation which isn't doing them or their readers any good.
In the same way lots of the stuff this term has been great. Simon and Mel got married, Gus and Dooda visited, I've been able to see the fruits of 1 1/2 years of hard work at Hebrew and Greek, been stretched in having to learn how to read and understand pretty high level theological writings, had the Tassie weekend away which has really helped us think about and prepare more for going back to Tas, and Bron has been great, a huge support and encouragement. She has brought me real joy this term without which I don't know how I would have made it through.
This term has also been frustrating and difficult in a number of ways. The workload has been so heavy that those of us in the study room have retreated into ourselves a bit just to get work done and we've stopped having the breaks and great conversations we have had which have been the highlight of college. It's been a real loss. Also I feel a bit frustrated that we're not being trained for the purpose of ministry but to be academics, that's something I don't want to become. And then there are the other emotional issues which came out of the blue and coloured everything, I often miss Tassie, I definitely want to go back but during the second half of this term I had a painful longing to be home.
So it's been a real mix, wonderful things at the same time as sad and frustrating things. I can see God working through it and he deserves praise for it all. Still, a short holiday with mum coming up and then a lighter 4th term will be nice.
Maybe like this?
I loved the exegetical work. It has been gratifying to be able to use my Hebrew skills to get to understand a passage really well and see how I could preach it. The whole focus of the passage (Amos 7:10-17) is Amaziah's (and Israel's) rejection of Amos and by implication, God. I think what really struck me it that Amaziah wants to please the king and nation, but Amos has to obey God. Amos preached with such authority because he wasn't speaking from himself but what God told him to say. This has so much to tell us about ministry and the world.
So I had a great time actually getting into the passage, it was exciting, challenging and frightening. But then I read the commentaries and journal articles on Amos and all of that was swept away. Ironically most of the scholars seem to have the same attitude to God's word as Amaziah. They have no fear of God's judgment and generally no interest in what the passage actually says, they spend their time on speculation which isn't doing them or their readers any good.
In the same way lots of the stuff this term has been great. Simon and Mel got married, Gus and Dooda visited, I've been able to see the fruits of 1 1/2 years of hard work at Hebrew and Greek, been stretched in having to learn how to read and understand pretty high level theological writings, had the Tassie weekend away which has really helped us think about and prepare more for going back to Tas, and Bron has been great, a huge support and encouragement. She has brought me real joy this term without which I don't know how I would have made it through.
This term has also been frustrating and difficult in a number of ways. The workload has been so heavy that those of us in the study room have retreated into ourselves a bit just to get work done and we've stopped having the breaks and great conversations we have had which have been the highlight of college. It's been a real loss. Also I feel a bit frustrated that we're not being trained for the purpose of ministry but to be academics, that's something I don't want to become. And then there are the other emotional issues which came out of the blue and coloured everything, I often miss Tassie, I definitely want to go back but during the second half of this term I had a painful longing to be home.
So it's been a real mix, wonderful things at the same time as sad and frustrating things. I can see God working through it and he deserves praise for it all. Still, a short holiday with mum coming up and then a lighter 4th term will be nice.
Maybe like this?
Oligopoly
Yes, it is a word. Oligopoly is what you'll come up against if you want to buy a cheap mobile phone in Australia.
Nick's mobile charger doesn't seem to work. Well, at least we think it's the charger. Could be anything really! So I figured, instead of buying a $30 charger why don't I just buy him a $60 phone? It'll probably be a better investment.
Except... that he's with Telstra. And you can't buy a cheap Nokia with Telstra. In fact, all of Telstra's cheap phones suck. You could buy a Vodaphone one, but then you'd have to pay $79 to have it unlocked!
Thank to Ebay there's a new charger on it's way. Let's hope the $13 turns out to be a better bet. (Nick, if you're reading this, I hope that's ok. Seeing as you don't have a phone I couldn't ask you!)
Nick's mobile charger doesn't seem to work. Well, at least we think it's the charger. Could be anything really! So I figured, instead of buying a $30 charger why don't I just buy him a $60 phone? It'll probably be a better investment.
Except... that he's with Telstra. And you can't buy a cheap Nokia with Telstra. In fact, all of Telstra's cheap phones suck. You could buy a Vodaphone one, but then you'd have to pay $79 to have it unlocked!
Thank to Ebay there's a new charger on it's way. Let's hope the $13 turns out to be a better bet. (Nick, if you're reading this, I hope that's ok. Seeing as you don't have a phone I couldn't ask you!)
Quit a job, found another one!
I put down the phone about 10 minutes ago but I'm still grinning! I just got a call to say that I got a job at a very awesome web design company. The people are really lovely, they're organised, they're good at what they do and I just got a really good feeling about the whole place. I'm going to be their office/admin/reception person.
Yesterday I started the other job (the ones who were not going to pay me properly) but I really didn't get a good vibe. They weren't nasty or anything, but I just felt like they were really disorganised and like I wouldn't be happy there long term. They even got my name wrong when they introduced me (Monique - like, hello?) So this morning I called them to say I wasn't coming back (and explained about the salary not meeting the minimum wage). I felt a bit worried doing that before I had found out for sure about the other job, but thank God it has worked out ok.
:D Yay! I start on Monday. The only downside is that the hours are 9am-6pm (I generally like to finish earlier so I can get home and have dinner and still feel like there's something left of the evening) But it's ok and I'm really thankful about the whole thing.
Yesterday I started the other job (the ones who were not going to pay me properly) but I really didn't get a good vibe. They weren't nasty or anything, but I just felt like they were really disorganised and like I wouldn't be happy there long term. They even got my name wrong when they introduced me (Monique - like, hello?) So this morning I called them to say I wasn't coming back (and explained about the salary not meeting the minimum wage). I felt a bit worried doing that before I had found out for sure about the other job, but thank God it has worked out ok.
:D Yay! I start on Monday. The only downside is that the hours are 9am-6pm (I generally like to finish earlier so I can get home and have dinner and still feel like there's something left of the evening) But it's ok and I'm really thankful about the whole thing.
Song of Songs
At church we've just finished a series on Song of Songs. The thing I loved about this series is that Craig has painted the ideal of manhood in such a way that after each sermon I've left church with my mind buzzing, thinking about all the ways I want to honour God and love and serve Bron better.
I want to have that effect in my preaching.
I want to have that effect in my preaching.
I've just been doing a bit of reading for my OT essay and I came accross this in Dillard and Longman's Intro to the Old Testament:
Efforts to investigate the redactional history of Amos approach the book almost as if it were a piece of baklava pastry from which the various thin layers could be peeled and evaluated.Mmmmmm...baklava.
The Angry Young Architect
We've been watching Buildings That Shaped Britain lately. It's doubly geeky watching a program about the history of architecture on computer tv (the ABC's iView is part of the un-metered content with our internet provider)
Anyway, we really dig it in a totally geeky way. Tonight was about modernism and "The New Brutalism". It was crazy, laughable (and sad) when they talked about post-war re-building and how there was a desire to give a sense of hope and optimism.... and then you look at what they built! The gulf between the rhetoric and the reality was incredible. Though, I guess they didn't see it that way.
Anyway, we really dig it in a totally geeky way. Tonight was about modernism and "The New Brutalism". It was crazy, laughable (and sad) when they talked about post-war re-building and how there was a desire to give a sense of hope and optimism.... and then you look at what they built! The gulf between the rhetoric and the reality was incredible. Though, I guess they didn't see it that way.
Nick the Greek
Yesterday we had our final Greek exam. There were some tricky bits but overall I thought it wasn't too hard. A real positive from the exam is that it's made me become familiar with how to use Wallace's textbook and I can see that it's going to be useful in the longer term.
The last section was an unseen translation (we were given some vocab for it):
Now we've got an Old Testament essay to write, so another shift of gears, back into Hebrew.
The last section was an unseen translation (we were given some vocab for it):
Gen. 2:8 καὶ ἐφύτευσεν κύριος ὁ θεὸς παράδεισον ἐν Εδεμ κατὰ ἀνατολὰς καὶ ἔθετο ἐκεῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ὃν ἔπλασεν 9 καὶ ἐξανέτειλεν ὁ θεὸς ἔτι ἐκ τῆς γῆς πᾶν ξύλον ὡραῖον εἰς ὅρασιν καὶ καλὸν εἰς βρῶσιν καὶ τὸ ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς ἐν μέσῳ τῷ παραδείσῳ καὶ τὸ ξύλον τοῦ εἰδέναι γνωστὸν καλοῦ καὶ πονηροῦ 10 ποταμὸς δὲ ἐκπορεύεται ἐξ Εδεμ ποτίζειν τὸν παράδεισον ἐκεῖθεν ἀφορίζεται εἰς τέσσαρας ἀρχάςSo that's it. I'm really excited about having the chance to put it to use in preparing sermons and I'm looking forward to getting lots more familiar with the New Testament in Greek.
Now we've got an Old Testament essay to write, so another shift of gears, back into Hebrew.
Interview Went Well
I had the interview and it went well. They seem to like me. I would really like to work there. They are interviewing one other person on Monday and then they will get back to me. If they offer it to me I will definitely back out of the other one (I wouldn't normally, but their dodgy behaviour re the wages kind of means I think I have grounds to in this case).
The place I was interviewed at today is more of an office job, but they are a really cool studio and just seem really nice, really stable and interested in doing a good quality job. It will probably be more officey and less immediate potential to do awesome career advancing stuff as quickly as the other one, but I really feel like I'd be happy there.
The place I was interviewed at today is more of an office job, but they are a really cool studio and just seem really nice, really stable and interested in doing a good quality job. It will probably be more officey and less immediate potential to do awesome career advancing stuff as quickly as the other one, but I really feel like I'd be happy there.
Job Update
I got offered a job. It's a full time job working as a "junior office assistant" at a digital creative agency. Let's call them Studio A.
Tomorrow I have an interview with another digital agency for an "office administrator" position.
Here's the dilemma:
Studio A want me to start on Monday. And I kind of said yes. Problem is, what they are offering me is less than the minimum wage. Like, $7,000 a year less! Now, the money isn't the issue. I'd be taking home a tiny bit more than I do now in my part time job - just for like, literally double the hours. The money is not the issue (and they said they'd review it in 3 months anyway). The issue is what paying someone that much shows about how much you respect them. And potentially what kind of management they will be and how they look after their staff.
Aside from my general sense of uneasiness about the salary issue, it does seem like a great opportunity. I'll be doing all sorts of things, from answering the phone to sourcing stock images, to helping with workflow management. There is definite room for progress into either workflow management or account management. And they have demonstrated that they are willing to promote people and want to encourage them to use their skills: their last office boy is now their copywriter.
Studio B on the other hand, seem like they would be totally awesome to work for. They know what they're doing, they really seem to look after their staff and they are a well established agency (London, Sydney, Melbourne). However, the job is more likely to be a straightforward office job. Potential to go forward, but because it's more established that would probably take longer.
So anyway... I have an interview for Studio B tomorrow. If they offer me the job then I have a difficult decision to make! If not, then I'll still have a job at a cool place, and hopefully I can encourage them to pay me a legal wage without seeming like a whinger!
This is basically my first venture into the world of 'career'. It's the job I probably should have looked for about 5 years ago! It's exciting to be thinking about working in an industry that I like. It's cool that there are jobs up here where I can use the skills I already have as a foot in the door to the kind of job I would like in the future. It's very strange though. Feels weird and 'grown-up'!
Tomorrow I have an interview with another digital agency for an "office administrator" position.
Here's the dilemma:
Studio A want me to start on Monday. And I kind of said yes. Problem is, what they are offering me is less than the minimum wage. Like, $7,000 a year less! Now, the money isn't the issue. I'd be taking home a tiny bit more than I do now in my part time job - just for like, literally double the hours. The money is not the issue (and they said they'd review it in 3 months anyway). The issue is what paying someone that much shows about how much you respect them. And potentially what kind of management they will be and how they look after their staff.
Aside from my general sense of uneasiness about the salary issue, it does seem like a great opportunity. I'll be doing all sorts of things, from answering the phone to sourcing stock images, to helping with workflow management. There is definite room for progress into either workflow management or account management. And they have demonstrated that they are willing to promote people and want to encourage them to use their skills: their last office boy is now their copywriter.
Studio B on the other hand, seem like they would be totally awesome to work for. They know what they're doing, they really seem to look after their staff and they are a well established agency (London, Sydney, Melbourne). However, the job is more likely to be a straightforward office job. Potential to go forward, but because it's more established that would probably take longer.
So anyway... I have an interview for Studio B tomorrow. If they offer me the job then I have a difficult decision to make! If not, then I'll still have a job at a cool place, and hopefully I can encourage them to pay me a legal wage without seeming like a whinger!
This is basically my first venture into the world of 'career'. It's the job I probably should have looked for about 5 years ago! It's exciting to be thinking about working in an industry that I like. It's cool that there are jobs up here where I can use the skills I already have as a foot in the door to the kind of job I would like in the future. It's very strange though. Feels weird and 'grown-up'!
Books and books and books
Today was like Christmas for me. Three separate orders from the book depository arrived in my pigeon hole at College. One of them was Amos : A Handbook on the Hebrew Text by Duane Garrett. I had high hopes for it and the reality hasn't dissappointed. It's going to be great for my essay on Amos 7:10-17 which is due in two weeks.
I can't really get much of that done though until our Greek exam is past. This means that Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics is going to be my best friend until Friday afternoon.
It's been a pretty exhausting term. I'm looking forward to handing my OT essay in and having a rest.
I can't really get much of that done though until our Greek exam is past. This means that Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics is going to be my best friend until Friday afternoon.
It's been a pretty exhausting term. I'm looking forward to handing my OT essay in and having a rest.
