Hmm, I think I’m well sick of this layout now, I need something new…but I have no clue what to make!? HELP! I think I want to do another little iframe one (my mood with regard to the style of this site changes monthly, lol!), but I’m not sure what I want it to be? I was bidding on a custom one in an auction on Candy Town MB, and was looking like I’d win, but then the person offering it had to pull the auction since she didn’t have time for it. Poo.

Anyway, digging slightly deeper now than stuff about layouts, lol. I heard this song today on someone’s radio blog and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

WHAT IF?
What if you’re right?
And he was just another nice guy
What if you’re right?
What if it’s true?
They say the cross will only make a fool of you
And what if it’s true?

What if he takes his place in history
With all the prophets and the kings
Who taught us love and came in peace
But then the story ends
What then?

But what if you’re wrong?
What if there’s more?
What if there’s hope you never dreamed of hoping for?
What if you jump?
And just close your eyes?
What if the arms that catch you, catch you by surprise?
What if He’s more than enough?
What if it’s love?

What if you dig
Way down deeper than your simple-minded friends
What if you dig?
What if you find
A thousand more unanswered questions down inside
That’s all you find?

What if you pick apart the logic
And begin to poke the holes
What if the crown of thorns is no more
Than folklore that must be told and retold?

You’ve been running as fast as you can
You’ve been looking for a place you can land for so long
But what if you’re wrong?
- Nichole Nordeman

Interesting. It first caught my eye because she wrote it “for a friend who thinks this Jesus stuff is nuts”, which I thought was funny, but after I listened to it a few times I did start to think, as I’ve been doing for years and years, what if it IS right? I don’t know what I think about Christianity, and I never really have.

I think the best way to explain this is to quote myself, and what I said in an answer to a question in the 5000 Question Survey (which will be appearing soon!)…

1315. Tell me all your thoughts on God:
Oh dear, I think you might regret asking this question, where on earth do I start!?
My parents are Christians and both grew up in big, Christian, church-going families, I spend 7 years in a Christian school where we had to attend at least one chapel service every week, and say prayers and sing hymns, which, although it seems odd looking back now, we all did without a second though, since it was just the done thing. Now I’m at a secular university , nobody is ramming Christianity down my throat (aside from the odd evangelical student organisation) and I don’t know what I think.
I think I’ve gone through periods in my life where had someone asked me if I believed in God I would have said yes, although whether this was because I actually believed or not, or simply because I didn’t know what I was agreeing to, I’m not sure. Even right now I don’t know whether I do or not.
Common sense says no, there’s no proof that God exists and in fact there seems to be a lot of evidence on the contrary, but I still kind of wonder whether or not there must be SOMETHING!? Even if Christians aren’t completely right, maybe they’re not all completely out of their minds either.
In a lecture yesterday we watched a video with a segment about a 79 year old Roman Catholic woman dying from ovarian cancer. She said that she wasn’t afraid of dying, since her whole life revolved around her faith and she knew what was going to happen to her. She was more worried about praying for all the people who hadn’t discovered God yet.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to have that kind of security, that you know you’re going to be all right, even once you’re dead, but at the same time I also can’t quite convince myself that it’s correct and get my head around the way that Christians rationalise the beliefs they hold.
I think maybe it’s a Catch 22 situation, that before you can believe in God you need solid proof that He is real, but before you can understand and see the solid proof, you need to believe!
Yep. Those really are ALL my thoughts on God!

To add to my confusion, I have two really good friends, one is a Christian, and one isn’t. Both of them seem to be able to reasonably back up what they believe and the arguments are as convincing as each other!

The Christian friend (who shall remain nameless) grew up in a Christian family and has believed in God since she was old enough to understand the concept. It’s a part of who she is, she says she couldn’t imagine herself without her faith and to be honest, I couldn’t imagine her without it either. It seems to work for her and she can reconcile it in her head.

The non-Christian friend (who shall also remain nameless) has never been Christian and neither has her family (I don’t think) although she and I did go to the same Christian school (for academic reasons as opposed to religious affiliation!). In this respect we’re pretty similar people, and we talk about it A LOT, only she seems to be better at “disbelieving” than I am! She’s obviously really opinionated and intelligent and although I know I’m not stupid either, I sometimes feel like I think TOO much and that stops me from ever really “getting” anything the way she does. I wish I knew why.

So although I have people “influencing” me from both sides, neither side seems right. Yeah, being on the fence is confusing! Maybe this is part of this mysterious thing called “maturity” which I’m supposed to be developing…who knows!

Well so much for not having written for days and days and days! Uni is taking over my life and driving me somewhat insane!

All my lectures seem to be the same, about depression, violence, death and dying. GAH! Luckily it’s not making me depressed or anything though, which is lucky, and it is all relevant to my degree, so I guess it could be worse.

As for the short films, I did the audition/s on Tuesday and to be perfectly honest I don’t think I got either of them. They were ok, but not that good, probably not good enough to warrant my being cast, which kind of sucks, but it doesn’t really matter since it’s not my assessment and other than experience there wasn’t much in it for me anyway. They did say they’d ring or email and let me know, which they haven’t done yet, so I don’t know for sure that I didn’t get it, but I think I’ve done enough auditions by now to know what someone’s not impressed.

Anyway, that’s my unexciting life right now. :/

1. What item would you be embarrassed for people to know you own? Quite as many stuffed animals as I do, I think. I know it’s not THAT embarrassing, but I do feel kind of silly that I can’t bring myself to throw them away or put them into storage because I feel sorry for them! I also used to go through phases when I was younger of buying teddy bears and other toys at garage sale…because I felt sorry for them. Yep. I’m crazy.

2. What is something you splurged on just for you? Jewellery

3. What is something that you own with no real world value that is priceless to you? Letters people write me. One in particular, just because I know she hardly ever writes to people like that, but she did it because she knew I’d appreciate it.

4. Do you collect anything? Yep. Betty Boop stuff, and handbags, last week I even bought a Betty Boop, handbag which my friend refers to as “the giant marshmallow” because it’s big and soft and pink!

5. What item belonging to a friend/family member do you covet? I’m not sure if any of my friends or family members actually have one, but MacBooks. I really want one!

Man I haven’t blogged very much this week at all, since uni has just been so busy this week! Aside from all the usual stuff, and trying to figure out where all my lectures and tutorials are, I’ve applied for auditions for a couple of short films run by final year students from the Theatre and Film department at uni.

FILM ONE
An adolescent male unexpectedly becomes a father, after spending a drunken night with a teenage girl.
However due to the attitude and stubbornness of her and her father, he is not allowed to be a part of his sons life.
After reflecting on is own life experiences he decides not to take this sitting down, and fight to know his son.

FILM TWO
Set on a rural central Otago farm. Mary Baxter, mother to seven sons and one daughter struggles with the loss of 6 of her sons to the war. One by one, they were taken against their will to join the war efforts.
We spend a day living the turmoil Mary Baxter is feeling with her children at war. The fear and worry she has for her children is sometimes too much and causes her to create illusions in her imagination of what they are suffering. As she looks out her dining room window she is confronted with her son Archie tied to a post.
There is only one person who can help Mary through the pain and frustration.

I haven’t been cast in either of them yet, but they both sound as if they have parts that I could play (one maybe moreso than another) so I guess we’ll see in the next couple of weeks. I’ll keep you updated on what eventuates! I really hope I get to be in at least one of them, it would be very cool!

Well yesterday was the first day back at uni for this semester. I did manage to get all my classes sorted out and fix all my timetable problems, which is good!

I only had one class yesterday though, which was a Philosophy one called Ethics, Politics and Justice which should be really interesting. It was funny before the class, because a friend of mine and I went to the room where we thought the lecture was going to be, but when we opened the door we discovered that there was another class in there instead!

We were really confused, so we went to look on the computers and discovered that we’d BOTH somehow managed to misread the timetable and that on Monday mornings the class was in another lecture theatre! We felt slightly silly, but we got there eventually and since it was only the first class, it;s not like we missed much by being ten minutes late.

NB: Before I start, I would like to explain that although I refer to everything as “Tahiti”, it’s really “French Polynesia”, because as well as Tahiti, we also went to Bora Bora and Moorea, which are separate islands in French Polynesia, but most people just refer to them as part of Tahiti, since it’s the most well-known. Confused? Thank goodness for Wikipedia!

Also, the reason I went was because AXA, the insurance company my dad is involved with was having its annual conference/retreat. I’ve been going to these things forever, they’ve kind of been our annual family holidays, since they’re so well organised, everything is done for you and all you have to do it turn up! Usually mum would have gone as dad’s “partner”, but she’s been overseas in Europe and the UK for two months, and didn’t get back in time to go, so I went instead, for the first time as an adult as opposed to a child add-on.

Wednesday July 4
This is our first day in Tahiti. I was so confused when we arrived, since due to the time difference (22 hours behind NZ) my itinerary said we arrived the day before we left!

We’re staying overnight at the Intercontinental Tahiti before we leave for Bora Bora tomorrow morning, which is about a 45 minute flight away.

Tonight there was a cocktail function where I got to meet some of the other people coming to the first part of the conference. Most of the advisers are older men about dad’s age (funny that!) who have brought their wives (I’m the only non-spouse partner!), so there aren’t many other young people, aside from 4 kids. Everyone else seems nice though, so hopefully we’ll all get on well!

At this point there are 15 Diamond Advisers (top 15 in NZ), their partners, the AXA NZ CEO and his wife, 4 kids, the AXA marketing manager and 2 travel agents who organise and run everything, so 39 people in total, but when we come back to Tahiti for the main conference in a few days there’ll be a few hundred more! GAH! I’ll have no chance of remembering anybody!

Thursday July 5
We’re now staying at the Bora Bora Intercontinental Resort and Thalasso Spa. Apparently it’s one of top 10 resorts in the world and having been here for a grand total of one day, I can already see why. It’s pretty amazing!

According to the website, tons of celebrities have stayed here, but I have yet to spot anyone exciting! I bet if there was a competition for the resort with the longest name…it’d probably be up there too, rofl!

Today was an awesome day, we went on a day cruise around the island and did shark feeding (small sharks that don’t like to eat people!) and swimming with stingrays!

I didn’t go in with the sharks, since you had to snorkel, which I’d never done before and figured that 30 feet of water with sharks in it probably wasn’t the best way to learn, especially since I wear contact lenses and wasn’t sure how watertight my mask would be!

I was kind of bummed, since it was pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime thing (this whole trip is really, even though I’ve been to Bora Bora and Tahiti before, in 2002, lol!), but I went in with the stingray, since the water was only waist deep. It was really awesome!

I think since Steve Irwin died people have become scared of stingrays and think that as soon as they see you they’re going to zoom over and attack you! They don’t. I think they’re kind of like dogs, yes, they can potentially be dangerous and kill you, IF you’re foolish enough to antagonise one by poking your finger into its eye or something, but if you’re careful, and let them do their own thing, then they’re fine, and, strangely enough, very very friendly once they figure out you have food for them! They feel so weird! Around their edges they’re rough, but in the middle they’re really soft, sort of like a glasses cleaning cloth! In the second photo there’s a stingray to the left of the grey-haired man behind me. In that photo I look a lot more nervous than I really was, my face is scrunched up because I was looking into the sun.

As a side note, who can spot my stylish blue Crocs!? AXA gave everyone a pair to wear when we go swimming. Because the beaches here have coral and sharp rocks on the bottom of the water it’s not a good idea to have bare feet.

After we did that we went to island for lunch and more swimming/kayaking/snorkelling etc. I decided the extremely shallow beach would be a safe place to learn to snorkel and I was surprised at how easy it was! Once you’ve figured out how to breath through the tube (and wedge it into your mouth properly so you don’t drink half the sea in the process), then you’re pretty much set! My mask did turn out to be waterproof and there was tons of stuff to see! People who had been snorkelling in places like Fiji and Thailand said that Bora Bora was the best place they’d ever been, so it sounds like I picked a good place to start!

Another woman had a surprise when she swam past a big rock and a huge eel popped out! ROFL! Kinda glad that wasn’t me!

Friday July 6
Today we did a 4×4 safari around Bora Bora. It was the same one we did in 2002 when we were last here, but it was fun to do it again, coz it’s not like we remembered everything we’d seen!

I also learned some interesting random trivia about oysters today, since we visited a pearl farm! Apparently a top quality oyster can produce up to 3 pearls in its lifetime! Random, yet handy to know if I ever happen to be on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? or some other show like that!

Tomorrow the advisers have a business session in the morning, which means all I have to do is pack to fly back to Tahiti in the afternoon and then I can do whatever I like for the rest of the day til we leave at around 4 o’clock, which should be fun!

The rest of the people attending the conference (plus partners, kids and other admin people) all arrive in Tahiti really late tonight, so we’ll see them all tomorrow, then the real fun starts! I hope some of them are nice. And/or young. o.O

Saturday July 7
Back in Tahiti now, at the Intercontinental again. We had a problem when we checked in and had to switch rooms a couple of times, but we eventually got it sorted out.

This morning before we left I had planned to go for a wander on my own and take some photos, but I ended up feeling lazy and just sat around the pool with a couple of other partners and the kids until the business session ended and we had lunch before we left. It was nice though

Unfortunately, we had an incident with the porter who came to collect our check-in luggage to take it to the airport. We were asked to leave the things we wanted taken away to be checked in next to the door of our bungalow and that anything else in the room would not be collected, so I thought I’d be safe leaving my backpack (cabin baggage) on the coffee table, on the other side of the room from the door.

Apparently not. The porter took that too! I’d been swimming that morning and had left my change of clothes in the bag, so I was none too thrilled, but thankfully we did manage to get it back before they took it to the airport! One other man however, was not so lucky, HIS spare change of clothes was taken too, only they made it as far as the dry cleaners before he got them back! FAIL. LOL!

Sunday July 8
Today there was another business session, so the partners did touristy things, lol. A group of us went to the Heiva Festival, which was pretty cool. It did rain today though, while we were out, which was kind of surprising, but it cleared up pretty quickly and stayed warm the whole time anyway, so it could have been worse!

Tonight we went out for dinner at Captain Bligh’s Resturant, which was pretty cool. It had an underwater aquarium, which we went and looked at it, but since it was nighttime and dark there wasn’t much to see. It was funny though, because before we went out, someone told us to watch out for the step at the end of the walkway, since people often trip over there. I was walking along wondering when I was going to come to this step…and promptly proceeded to fall down it! I didn’t hurt myself though, luckily!

When we were walking back in after having looked at the aquarium there was another man walking the other way. I told him to watch out for the step and he said “Yep. I know!”, then I turned around just in time to see HIM trip too! Stupid step, and stupid lack of lighting and warnings! It’d be so dangerous if you were elderly! :O

Monday July 9
Today all 200+ of us went on a day trip to Moorea! It was awesome, and probably the best day so far. We hung out on the beach at the Intercontinental Moorea, and went on trips and stuff from there.

Dad did another 4×4 safari, which he enjoyed, and I did a dolphin encounter, which was touristy, but very, very cool. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and it’s part of my 101 in 1001! I also wanted to go hang-gliding, but the two activities were running at the same time.

The dolphin was very cute and friendly, and felt a bit like wet fabric, or some kind of firm fruit skin, hahah! It also smelled really fishy! Ergh! If you look at the photo of me “kissing” it – we’re actually not touching!

I managed to get a bit sunburnt today (thanks to being in and out of the water pretty much all day), the first time since I’ve been here! It’s not too bad though and doesn’t hurt, so that’s ok.

Tuesday July 10
Man was today ever busy! It was our free day, which meant AXA hadn’t planned anything for us to do and we had the chance to go and look around Papeete, or just hang around the resort and do what we wanted.

Dad and I went into town to look at the shops and the markets, which was cool, but as with everywhere in French Polynesia, everything is really expensive, since Tahiti is so isolated and everything has to be imported!

I’d been to the markets before, last time we came, but it was cool to go again and see what had changed. The smell certainly hadn’t! This was a bit of a culture shock for me, coming from relatively clean, smell-free NZ! It was interesting though, once you got used to it! I did buy a few things, mostly for my friends, since I already have a ton of stuff from last time, although I did buy a photo album, which I’m not sure that I’ll get through customs, since it’s got shells, coral, coffee beans, dried flowers, cinnamon and star anise on the cover! We shall see, I suppose!

One thing that definitely surprised me was how early everything closes! We were in town at around 5pm, and most places were closed! Things open early in the morning and closes early at night, which is annoying, because by the time it’s cool enough to be comfortable walking around town, nothing is open! Lots of shops decorate their security doors with cool murals, which is what the first picture is of, btw.

Tonight was the gala awards dinner, which is basically the main purpose of the conference! It was outside at the resort, which was slightly annoying since although they had floodlights, it was still really dark and you could hardly see what you were eating, or what you were about to trip over!

It was funny watching a slideshow of photos the photographer had taken over the last week! I felt like he was ALWAYS there every time I looked over my shoulder, so I was surprised to find I was only in 2 or 3 pics! Hahah! Maybe he took more of me, but those were the only ones that got used in the slideshow. Apparently they send us a disk of all the photos once we get back, so I guess I’ll find out then!

It was also funny watching certain people have too much to drink and then and try to dance, but that’s another story, and one which probably isn’t appropriate for this blog!!

Wednesday July 11
Today is our last day in Tahiti, we fly home at 1:40am tomorrow morning, and have to be at the airport at 10:30pm. I suspect checking in will be a NIGHTMARE, it was last time! It look us over two hours and, oddly, right after we went though the security gate and metal detectors, they happily sent us out into a courtyard which was only separated from the carpark by a plastic barrier! This was 8 months after 9/11 too, which was especially surprising! :O I’ll be interested to see if the same thing happens tonight!

Earlier today dad and I went to this big supermarket/mall called Carrefour, where I bought some French chocolate and chewing gum, just because it was a novelty! Then tonight after dinner there was a Tahitian dance show, which was very cool! I was sitting in the front row, but luckily managed to escape being dragged onstage!

Friday July 13
Back home now! Checking in in Tahiti took us even longer this time! Two and a half hours!! It was funny because Anita, the wife of the AXA CEO and I went to go and buy bottled water for everybody, we got 20 500ml bottles, and this guy behind us in the queue gave us this really weird look and was like “What are you going to do? Take a bath with mineral water!?” It was amusing, but I suppose if I’d seen two women buying that much water I’d have been curious too! Lol!

The airport security people didn’t end up sending us back outside again, which was a relief, and I didn’t get my photo album taken off me at customs either, which was surprising, but good!