The death of a blog

so for the last 2 weeks I have been trying to understand why someone could be taken from us. It saddens me to say that after what seeems like an age the blog site tomwade.blogspot.com has died. how we will last without the infinate knowledge and film reviews I just don't know. the one thing I can say is 'Rest in Peace dear blog'

Into the wild

So tomorrow I'm off to kenya for 10 days visiting a farming school that was set up in partnership with my church. The area of kenya I will be is Kisumu which is in western Kenya within driving distance of lake victoria. Whilst I am there I am going to be visiting an orphan feeding programme, visiting the farm school, seeing some farms that have been trained, visiting 2 child headed families amongst a variety of other things. I think this trip will emotionally draining but a fantastic opportunity and I hope that I can be open to whatever God wants to do with me out there. when I get back I will be doing a mini series on the trip but not sure how I will structure that yet. One of the sureal things I am looking forward to seeing is the lack of dawn or dusk!! apparently it is day or night out there. this happens because it is right on the equator. One thing that is certain, for the next 10 days I will be warm enjoying the African sun.

Back soon

Brian

and so it begins again

well here I am trying to write an essay and I think 'hey, I haven't blogged in a while'.

Am I destined in life to blog every time I need to do something important? probably so I might as well get over it and accept this fact! so my essay, I am starting early as I am in kenya when I should be writing it, visiting a charity that my church started a few years back, so I lose vital time to write it. the pain with this is that I have to try to be uber organised which rarely happens!
So my essay, its on ministry and I have to reflect over the period that I have been on the course and discuss how my ministry has developed and my vision for my ministry, any ideas welcomed!! well I suppose I better get back to it as it wont write itself!!

Love and Peace

one more thing

I am not very inspired at the moment but will try to come up with some stuff any ideas post them here

Its been a while....

Firstly my humblest appologies for neglecting you for so long. so since my last blog quite a lot has happened I have started back at uni for my final year (bricking it just a little) the modules for this year look quite interesting. I am particularly looking forward to worship and spirituality where i will spend 5 days leading a monastic life, cool. on monday i returned from my church weekend away which was at Letton Hall. this was an amazing time to get to know my church family better and I had some amazing times spent in the presence of God. Also at Letton Hall they had go-carts which where so much fun although the track was quite small so we weren't allowed to overtake so quite often ended up getting stuck behind young children who where on restricted carts.
oh yeah I also went fishing with a member of my church and unlike what I expected was quite fun. Over the day i caught 4 decent sized carp and one little perch and managed to come home stinking of fishing bait, which is not the most pleasant smell that I have ever experienced,
Also last week I finally got my pedal board and hard case to house my guitar effects pedals. I was origionally meant to get this in may for my birthday but couldn't afford it so I had to wait for my student loan to come in and I put that to good use!!

Community week?

So it all begins again for the final time (hopefully) I will be attending oxford brookes campus to attend 'community week' this is basically a week long residential where you can play a bit of football attend some lectures and generally chillax. so after this week it will really start with uni work and with ssh work as well so it will be a bit of a manic time for me. on a plus side I was offered a job this week by the Duke of Edinburgh award doing schools support. Nothing is set in stone with this yet but it looks likely that i will be getting about 6 hours a week work off of them which will be a massive help financially. this year at community week we are there for 4 days which is a bit of a downer but on a plus point I will be getting presented with my JNC certificate which is quite exciting (for those who don't know this is a professional qualification for youth workers). the scariest part of this week for me is I don't have the faintest idea what I am going to write my dissertation and time is now running out fast (any ideas welcome here) anyways I better be off will be back soon.

Love and peace

Stupidity

So I managed to completely ruin my blog today whilst trying to update it and lost a load of stuff so i copied my last few blogs deleted the whole thing and am starting again. So new blog more posts (I hope)

Love and Peace

Up my nose and down my throat

So today I had the pleasant experience of having a fibre optic camera rammed up my nose to look at my throat. Why I couldn't just open my mouth and say 'ahhh' is beyond me.
To explain, I am unfortunate enough to suffer from fairly bad snoring and as a result my wife nagged me to go to the doctor who told me I was fat, but also referred me to a specialist sleep clinic. so the date finally arrived that I had to go to Charing Cross hospital. the day started fine until someone decided to attempt suicide infront of a train at the station i needed to get off at (very inconsiderate) but i eventually got through and got off at the next station with a longer walk facing me but the exercise is good for me. so when i eventually had the appointment the doctor said he wanted to look down my thoat, and got out a camera with a little light on the end seeing the size of it i presumed it would be going down my throat so leaned my head back and opened my mouth. At this point the Dr had a litle chuckle and explained it would be going up my nose to look at my throat. I asked him if it was going to hurt and he paused for a minute and then said 'well.... its not going to be confortable'. And he wasn't lying. He lubed it up with ky jelly and went up, and to say that i couldn't feel would be a lie. from the second it entered I felt it all the way in until it was just below my adams apple at which point I gagged and nearly threw up on the doc if it wasn't that I had a camera up my nose and down my throat I may have found this amusing. After the appointment for about the next 2 hours all I could smell was ky jelly and seemed to have a constant dribble emerging from my nose. The camera that was used was quite scary to see and leaves me thinking that i must have a huge nose for it to have fit in there.

the best and worst films this year (so far)

Okay, so in 2 days i have seen the best and the worst films so far this year (this is only my opinion if you disagree then get over it) so anyway, last night i went to watch the dark knight which was absolutely amazing (best line 'I'm not wearing hockey pads' made me chuckle a bit) i thought Christian Bale did a fantastic job as the Dark Knight and was only out done by Heath Ledger's psychotic interpretation of the Joker which I believe deserves a post humous oscar. one of my favorite parts was the magic trick with the pencil! from this fantastic display of cinematography I stupidly followed it up with the mummy 3 (only watched it tonight and i can't remember the name already). My good friend André's summed this film up quite well in saying 'don't even wait for the dvd, when it comes out on tv, not sky, tv, arrange to go out with your friends' my thought is if you can go through life having not seen this film then a good thing has been achieved. 
So maybe I am not being fair, after all I did see this film after seeing Batman, then again I think I am trying to find good in it and make excuses for the film. So I will sum this up in 1 line 

"DO NOT WATCH THIS PIECE OF UTTER CRAP, IT WILL WASTE YOUR MONEY AND YOUR TIME" However I would 100% recommend 'The Dark Knight'(possibly not to a 12 year old though!!)

Converts

So, after months of nagging i have finally convinced Clare to get a blog!!! she is still a bit unsure about what she is going to blog about but she is up and running at last. It could be quite interesting to finally after 6 years of marriage to get a little insight into my wifes mind!!!!

Holiday

'bonjour' as i am writing this it is 05:58am and i am just on the way down to portsmouth for a week in normandy i have been awake for 2 hours already today so am having a very needed coffee but enough said i better get back on the road so that i don't miss my ferry as that will stuff everything up!!

I lost my virginity last night

it's true last night was my first time......... in the cinema, on my own! okay so i thought i would grab your attention with the title, but really last night was the first time that i have been to see a film on my own. Clare was going to the pub with some friends for a couple of cocktails and I was at a loose end on my own so I decided to go to see a film. When I was booking this I thought it was a great idea but as the time drew closer I started to panic and get a bit nervous and by the time I got into the cinema I was a virtual wreck. It was at this point that i started to text people and ended up dropping a text to my friend Tom who is a hardened solo cinema user for some help and advice of how to cope with this new experience, who replied with some sensible advice 'breath deeply and enjoy the experience'. the hardest part was the adverts when the lights are still on. I could feel everyones eyes burning into me and I could tell they were looking at me thinking is anyone else going to turn up or is this looser on his own, but then finally the lights went down and the film adverts started and I thought I could relax but no being the idiot that I am I forgot to go to the toilet and had to get out from mid row! needless to say I did not go back to that seat when I returned from my toilet stop but instead slipped into the first empty seat I could find on the end of a row so I could get out quickly if the stress became too much to bear. after this though I actually stated to relax and enjoy the film (forbidden kingdom) although it wasn't the best film I have seen and can understand why it was in a small screen (which was good for my first time) I think it was a good film to start me off on my solo viewing. on the whole I enjoyed the experience as I didn't have to talk to anyone and had no-one talking to me throughout the film. I think that this will be something that I will definitely do again but will be braver next time and choose a bigger film.