Age Of Empires, Snow & Sleepover

A couple of weeks ago, the snow suddenly started to kick into our lives with a very weak sprinkling spread around, as if to tease us, saying 'Hah! Not enough to keep you out of school, but still enough to give you false hope, and allow people to annoy you with snowballs!'

Then the term ended, and we all lost hope, the conversations of 'There's going to be snow tonight!' came to an end. Then the very first day of the holidays, without warning - well, it depends whether you consider the weather forecast warning - heavy snow finally hit Abingdon! It was the usual initial reaction, 'Oooh, it looks so pretty!' which soon turned to 'I want snow to DIE'

Recently, Jack came round to mine, and we decided to play on Age of Empires, a rather fun game of war between different national colonies set in the... 1700's? Well I don;t really know. But we decided to challenge ourselves, and put the game on expert mode, us vs the computer; we knew we wouldn't win, but we wanted to see how long we'd last. (the area we were in was coincidentally snowy)

Our initial colony was wiped out in 20 minutes, as we'd just advanced age and got to about 125 points, the other team had advanced 3 ages and got to around 800 points. But despite this, we still soldiered on! We managed to salvage 3 villagers from the wreck, and sent them off to the end of the world map to try and build afresh. And once the enemy had finished destroying our town, we sent a villager back to rescue our explorer.

Time had been kind to us, it was about 30 minutes in, and we had a new Town Centre and had just built a mill. But the next thing we know, an invasion starts! But this time, we were down to 2 villagers who were on low health, they happened to be woodcutting at the time away from the small wreck of a town. So as they fled this time, we had a new plan, this time, instead of building a colony, we decided to build an incredibly thick wall, but, to cut a long-ish story short, by the time the enemy got to it, it didn't seem so threatening.

Finally, only 1 villager escaping this time, we tried the wall again, but this time, we didn't even finish one layer before we were bombarded with cannons and soldiers. But, we'd managed to survive for 47 minutes and 5 seconds!

After this game, we decided to go back to his for a sleepover, and invited Danny aswell. We brought with us the films 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, it turns out that the latter was better. But it was more difficult to get scared, as the zombies were more agressive rather than creepy.

But once the films were over, it had gotten to about 3 in the morning, so as true lads *cough* we decided to play on GTA for a couple of hours. This was pretty fun, as we decided to have a 'Who can die in the best way' competition, now as a relative newcomer to GTA I was pretty good at dying - even if accidentally.

Then we decided to walk Jack's paper round, which was kind of my idea. But I can tell you that a walked paper round in the snow is not a particularly pleasant ordeal. It got to a point where there was a house to deliver to that was on the bottom of a slope, and both Danny and Jack said that I should deliver it. The thing is, the slope wasn;t just snowy, but very icy aswell! And so when I stepped on it, I almost went straight to the bottom. Then began the ascent.

Right, well this has been a rather long blog, I'll let you go.

Michael Mcintyre and The Space/Genesis Christmas Party!

Now, for those of you who say the title and thought that maybe Michael Mcintyre made a guest appearance at a party... sorry, you're wrong.

I've had a relatively busyish weekend the last couple of days, I've been Christmas shopping, filmed a scene for my new video, and attended a couple of Church Christmas parties.

Now, the Michael Mcintyre part of the title is about the videos, I shall explain. After recently realising how much I adore MM (I'm just going to call him that for the moment so I don't have to keep typing it out, although writing this bit in brackets is probably waaay longer than just typing out Michael Mcintyre a few times would have been... ah well) But yes, after realising how much I adore him, I have tried to attempt his voice a few times. The attempts haven't been brilliant, but they have been numerous in number.

After all these impressions, I decided that I needed to get this idea into a Christmas special video that me and Jack were going to make, but instead of Marley warning Scrooge about the three ghosts, we have MM introducing his three ghosts on his comedy roadshow. I know what you're thinking, amazing script writing.

Now, I'm also rather pleased with myself, as I managed to get Jack to come along to the Space Christmas party, because then I thought it would be easier for him to go to Space if he got to know the people beforehand. It turned out to be pretty awesome! There was organised 'fun' but it was all good, there were a few games such as a Christmas pudding eating race, blindfolded present wrapping, throwing baby Jesus competition, and stuffing multiple balloons down tights. Now, at the Genesis party the night before, we did the tights game, and I knew what was coming; so as the lovely friend that I am, I persuaded Jack to volunteer for it.

But yeah, it was a great night, and it's getting closer to Christmas!

I'll let you go.

Logan's Adventures in the Medical Room

I've been ill(ish) for the last few weeks; and the other day at school it got particular bad, to the extent where I didn't think I could carry on, and so went to the medical room. This is my tale of what happened.

I'd arrived at the office and waiting in front of the reception desk as the receptionist was on the phone. I was just waiting there, coughing away. Eventually, she appeared to notice the dying child in front of her and gave me her attention. I asked her if I could go to the medical room, and she said that I could, but needed to let some one of the office staff know.

Now, when you're dying of coughing, you really don;t find pleasure in waiting in queues. Eventually, I got to the office, I spoke to one of them and was allowed into the medical room.

The problem now, was that there was someone in there by herself that I didn't know, and the medical room isn't particularly large, and there is nothing to do in there; so I focused all my energy on trying not to make eye-contact in this rather awkward situation. And to be honest, I think she was probably doing the same.

Time had passed, she'd left, and I'd been sitting there for about hlaf an hour, getting increasingly bored. I began to think that they'd forgotten that I was in there, and so decided that I needed to get their attention. Fortunately, I remembered that the room is monitered by CCTV, and I'dalso recently learned in Art about the rule of thirds - where things stand out in a picture depending on where you place it. Because of this, I carefully moved my chair, and tried to get into the right position in the camera as to try and get noticed as soon as possible.

More time passeed -about 50 minutes- my rule of thirds plan wasn't working, and I was slowly descending into madness. Eventually, one of the staff came in and said that she was sorry , but she didn't realise that I was in here. Great. And then the rather awkward conversation began about whether I should be sent home because I have a cough. To be fair, it was a pretty bad cough, but still...

Eventually, she asked if I'd like her to call my parents, so I said 'Yes please.' And she went away. She came back a few minutes later and asked if I could have a word with my mum. So she dialed the number and handed me the phone, and the conversation went a bit like this:

"Hello"
"Hi, Mum, I'm feeling really ill!"
"Now I know that's not true, you were fine this morning!"
"No I wasn't, I was feeling bad this morning too!"
"Look, I know you're not feeling ill, why are you doing this? Have you got homework due that you haven't done, or is Adam bullying you again?"

I was confused, and so handed the phone back to the receptionist saying 'I think you have the wrong number' The receptionist spoke with the person on the phone for a minute, and then turned to me to ask 'Are you not Dominic Stickley?'

Mock Art Exam - Coughing

For the last two days, I've been sitting a 10 hour mock art exam, it's involved a lot more painting than I've planned to ever do in my entire life, and I'm not best pleased with the result.

Unfortunately, for the last two days, I've also been quite ill, by which I mean coughing a lot, and through the art exam, the frequency of my coughing stayed quite constant. Now, when you're sitting, painting for a long period of time, when people cough, that seems to be the highlight of your day. The thing is, after a while, you begin to notice a pattern in coughing - frequency and amount.

For example, what I noticed, was someone behind me with an infrequent but loud and long cough, someone across from me had a more frequent but shorter cough, perhaps a single or double cough. Whilst someone nearer and to the right of me coughed only occasionally, and quietly. Do you see the problem with this? No? Well, here it is... I shouldn't notice these things! 

This is the kind of thing that sitting a 10 hour exam drives you to, insanity. In fact, I noticed that after some people were coughing, there was an equal cough from someone else, and eventually I realised that he was in fact mimicking the coughing. A few times he mimicked mine aswell; one time, after I coughed, he coughed, but slightly longer and louder, I looked over at him, and he gave me this look as if to say, 'Beat that.'

As it happened, I wassn't being dragged into a coughing war... or was I? No, I wasn't.

I'll let you go.

Wordaholics

The other day, me, Dad and Jack headed down to London to be part of the studio audience for a radio recording for BBC 4. It was for a new show called 'Wordaholics', and whilst the name didn't grab me, a couple of the guests did - Milton Jones and Jack Whitehall.

I've been 'healthily' obsessed with Milton Jones for a while ever since I missed his show at Greenebelt, and since youtubed all his shows, including Mock the Week, which is where I've seen Jack Whitehall.

Even though we had the tickets, we weren't definitely going to be able to get in. This is because the BBC give out more tickets than there are spaces, because inevitably, some people with tickets wont be able to turn up, and that would leave some seats empty, making the BBC look bad, and they don't want that. This meant that we had to leave school early so that wecould get there in time. As it happens, we left at exactly the same time that school had finished, and all that we'd achieved in the extra time was buying much too many sweets than we needed, and watching an episode of the inbetweeners.

Anyway, once we were there, and in the queue, Jack started tapping me on the shoulder. I looked around, and who should I see but Milton Jones walking past us in the queue! This was pretty amazing, but what I probably shouldn't have done was gasped just as he was walking past me, yep, a full blown gasp. He smiled at Jack, but I think he just gave me an odd look...

Anyway, the recording was good, it went on for about an hour and a quarter, which was good because the final edited show itself will only be about half an hour I think, so we got a lot of material! And in the words of Milton Jones...

I'll let you go.

When Not Leading Worship

I've been musing a thought recently about your role in a band when not leading worship, here are some of my thoughts...

Recentlyish, I went early to church to rehearse the puppet sketch that I was in; when I got there, I heard the butting-in voice of 'someone I shall not name' (SISNN). I looked round to see that band rehearsing, and SISNN paused the practice to say that the guitar was supposed to start that part.

Now as a suggestion, it wasn't awful, although as the band consisted of 2 guitars and a piano, and electric guitar intoduction where the bass and drums were supposed to kick in - but obviously didn't - didn't sound brilliant. But my query was with the way that he said it; rather than suggest that the guitar started it, he more seemed to demand it, and as he wasn't leading, this seemed out of place. (although, even when leading, demanding something would be less than helpful)

And recentlyer, when I was in the band, we played a song that I'd suggested adding, 'Saviour of the World' But when we started playing it, the tempo seemed a bit fast. I didn't think it was noticeable enough to point out, but then a friend made a signal to me, showing that she thought the same; but still I said nothing, recalling SISNN and how he sounded when he interjected.

Now, whilst the story of a slightly too fast song may have been the least exciting possible, my point and query was whether I should have made the suggestion or not. I later thought that I should have, and regretted not doing it, and realised that whilst SISNN sounded a bit big-headed and arrogant to me, I could have still suggested lowering the tempo, but making sure that it was just a suggestion.

And this to me is how people should act in a worship band, if they have a thought on how something could be improved, don't hold back suggesting it, but keep it as just that, a suggestion.

I'll let you go.

Cups

I've recently returned from an amazing weekend away with Space. But rather than go into detail about the whole trip, I think I shall just focus on one incident. The cup war.

It all started when at about 1 in the morning, we were all in our dorms, when Dan spots something out of the window at the top of the door. It turns out that two of our youth leaders- Matt and Sarah - were in the corridor lining up cups of water into neat rows. It goes without saying that we were a little confused. So then about 5 minutes after we checked that the coast was clear; we snuck outside, and Sam had the idea of rearranging the cups to spell 'Lol'. It took a few minutes, but finally it was done. We also decided to leave a note, in a polite way.

A time a bit later, we noticed that they had returned, and looked rather perplexed; I don't think that this was what they were expecting. They disappeared and then returned again a few moments later to rearrange the cups and reply to the note. We decided it was time for action!

There were a double set of fire doors at the end of the corridor, and as it was dark outside, and light inside, I imagined that if we were to hide between them, we could see them perfectly, without being seen. Ben and I decided to undertake that mission, taking with us some beanbags for extra comfort, as we were unsure how long we would be camped there. Sure enough, about 30 seconds after we closed the doors, Matt and Sarah popped around the corner, Matt giggling even more than Sarah... unsurprisingly.

They started rearranging and popping back around the corner, as if they were trying to lure us out, then we realised, as we left the dorm, we had left the door open! This was starting to turn into a bit of a war. Luckily, I had my torch with me, and tried shining it in the open door to alert the others, they never noticed. Then, Matt and Sarah quickly ran around the corner, Ben and I exchanging a quick high-five. At the point where we were deciding that the coast was clear, we readied ourselves to dash back, but suddnely, there was a loud crash on the door behind us! That was enough for me, I sprang back into the dorm instantly!

This was the final straw! This had gone on long enough! At this point, there had been maps drawn, plands made, and action taken, it was time to go from defensive, to offensive. But just as we thought this, hands appeared on the window which we'd been looking at, terrified, we ran outside to chase them down, we caught them at the stairs, and all six of us burst into fits of laughter, this had gone on for three and a half hours, it was now half four in the morning!

I'll let you go.

I reckon I'd make a good hostage...

Seeing as my last blog rather rather... crap. I shall now interest you with a recent tale.

I was at a space social the other day, when me and my 'crewage' headed towards the back room after hearing the promise of 'gubbins' which were awaiting us. We all sat down rather unhappily to find out that gubbins were in fact not food, but toys designed for people of a much lower age.

So, here we were sitting there quite contentedly, when someone brings up the suggestion of typing me to a chair... rather out of nowhere I must say. So here I was thinking, 'Oooh, my silly friends, thinking of tying me to the chair. Now, I'll just leave after having had a good old laugh'. But upon reaching the door, I was grabbed and thrust upon the chair, meanwhile, flailing any and every limb that I posessed.

I then had my arms strapped down, and my legs, I was becoming increasingly worried. I decided to call for my trusted youth leaders, Matt... and Matt. After a few minutes of mindless screaming, they came to what I thought was  a daring rescue. Turns out they came to help tie me up. I then realised that Ihad another trusted youth leader, Tim. But after yet more mindless screaming, he never heard me... or so he said later on.

Eventually, they decided to let me out, but not before numerous times of throwing myself against the door, screaming, biting, and having a green pen moustache.

But as the Space weekend away is coming up, I know that I shall have my revenge!

I'll let you go.

French Oral

Je detest Francais.

French orals are probably one of the worst things I can think of, they are always there, in the back of your mind, looming over you. No matter how much you've done on it, there's always the feeling that you should do more. In fairness, I probably should have done more, I didn't really do very much.

The recording wasn't brilliant either, my mind went completely blank in one of the questions, but no matter how obvious I made that to my teacher, she just sat there smiling at me as if she expected that with a couple of minutes time, the answer would come to me... it didn't. In the end, I just had to whimper 'I don't know' hoping that it wouldn't be picked up in the recording.

And then, to top it all off, in our French lesson, we had one of the worst substitute teachers possible. She doesn't tell us what to do very well, and she seems to think that if she talks loudly, then we will understand it. We didn't.

Anyway, I'll let you go.

The Following Year

Now that it's my last GCSE year, I have made the decision that I may have to work pretty darn hard, and unfortunately, that will require giving up a large portion of whatever social life that I had, which judging by the fact I write a blog, I didn't have much of.

It will be hard for me, reducing time spent on all my beloved things, facebook, msn... well... that's pretty much it.

I guess my inspiration for this would have to be Rosie, who spent a fair slice of her life last year revising non stop, and whilst I may not go to that extreme, I may have to go along that Idea, after all, she got pretty amazing results, and is now set for life.

This will come as a shock to some, as one time when I wasn't on facebook for a couple of hours, no less than two of my friends got worried about me and thought that I may have been kidnapped.

I'll let you go.

Catch Up

I haven't posted for a while, so i guess I'll just have to whizz through recent happenings.

I'll start with holiday club, holiday club was pretty awesome. I was worried about being in the band at first because kids songs often tend to be in an awkward key with awkward chords, but in the end I just figured; stick a capo on, and all shall be well.

I was disappointed through, because of Greenbelt, I missed the barbeque on the final day. And Greenbelt wasn't brilliant fun, it's basically New Wine but without the fun, friends and good worship, which leaves you with very little good. Beyong missing my friends, nothing on the program particularly interested me, besides the stand up comedian Milton Jones performing, which despite me getting there 40 minutes earlier to queue up for, I still didn't get in as the venue was packed.

The last week was generally good, I met up with friends on some days, had to do last minute homework which was less fun, and on the Sunday, I led worship at the Space Celebration which was amazing. It's all one step closer to being a worship leader.

And today, first day back at school, despite an unfortunate hour of boy girl seating plan and a school rules presentation from someone who clearly never got hugged as a child, the rest of the day went alright. And I invited one of my closest friends to go along to Space, and they seemed alright about it, so hopefully it will all work out.

Anyway, I've kept you long enough, I'll let you go. (That would be funny to anyone who has seen Milton Jones)

New Wine Memories

I decided that because Rosie asked me, and I have left some things out of my other New Wine post, that I should do another one including the things I missed out.

Some of the best memories of New Wine:

One of them would have to be the constant attempts of climbing/jumping over the fence into the field. Many times we attempted it, and many times we failed, admittedly I was the worst. One time, I had a massive run up to the fence, ran up to it, raised my legs to jump over, but aimed a bit low and smashed through the fence! My first instinct as the coward I am was to run away. But then I relalised that I'm not the 'menace to society' type, and so I stayed to help fix it, fortunately we did, and no damage was done. Well, I say we, I just stood and watched everyone else.

Another memory would be my first shave. Rosie had become fed up with my 'moustache' which she escribed as looking like bumfluff. Because of this, I signed a contract agreeing to shave it off, as it happened, I didn't, Sof did. As he was sat there, attacking my manhood with a razor, I thought of the clever idea of shaving off his sideburns, as it happens, I didn't do this fully, Mike did. He was not best pleased.

Something that I doubt I'll forget, is the mighty tumbleweed. We decided that there were too many awkward silences that had gone un-tumbleweeded, and so we came up with the catchphrase 'release the tumbleweed!' However, this wasn't enough, we had to MAKE one. We grabbed a load of dried up grass and spent about half an hour neatly balling it together until we had the finished masterpiece. We now had a fully funtional tumbleweed ready to protect the world from awkward situations!

On the last night, we decided that it would be fun to all sleep outside in our sleeping bags. As it happened, it was! Although I did have my face abused with a sharpie marker to find out that I had a goatie, moustache, glasses, smiley face and Harry Potter scar drawn on. I looked like a walking doodle cliché

Healing on the Streets

After an amazing week at New Wine I felt inspired to carry on some of the stuff that was happening into regular life. The base theme for the talks at Thirst (14-18s group) was 'Untoppable' and one of thr talks that really made me think was about not just being a 'comfortable Christian' and instead get out there and do something.

So me and a couple of friends decided to go into Oxford to offer prayer and healing. At first I was really nervous, but as we got to it, the nervousness turned into excitement, and I was really looking forward to it. However, when we got into Oxford with the chairs, Bible and banners, it was raining. We met this man who had set up a table with booklets and books on for people to take away, we spoke breifly and prayed for each other, the good thing is, it didn;t feel weird or out of place praying in the middle of Oxford. We decided to move on to different shops and cafés and pray there, and it still felt normal.

After about an hour and a half, it was still raining, and we decided to call it a day, as it was showing no signs of stopping. I will admit, I was disappointed, but it was good because I now know that I feel comfortable going into Oxford to do something like that, and it has strengthened my faith.

New Wine

I have come back from what has been an amazing week at New Wine and I'm missing it incredibly. I've decided that I'll recall it in the form of a list of thing that I miss and don't miss about it.

Things that I won't miss about New Wine:

1. The Showers

I was pretty lucky in the sense that I never really encountered a queue for the showers, although once I did have to wait inside the toilet block for around 15 minutes which wasn't the most pleasant experience I've had. But once you've got over that and you get in, the first thing that you notice is the state of the shower, you have to stand on a damp, mouldy wooden crate, which is ok with shoes on, but once they're off... Once that's over with and you stand on the raised shower platform, you then notice how low down the door is, which sets off the paranoia. Once you actually turn the shower on, it comes out as a dribble similar to the amount of standing under the drain, and it takes a while to get the correct temperature, once you're done, you have to reach for your shoes so as to avoid having to stand on the mouldy crate, once all this is acomplished, you've changed and youre out of the shower, you just have to wait for tomorrow.

2. The Smell

I can't complain about this for most of New Wine, but you get some areas which smells like the middle of a cattle sewage system, it's especially bad when the smell comes around in the middle of your campsite.

3. Waking Up

Sleeping is surprisingly pleasant, I generally slept through the entire night and it was pretty comfortable for camping. But when it's 8 O'clock and you hear someone shouting "Hey! Who wants to wake up Logan with me?" You then want to rush out of bed feeling tired and grumpy

4. The Coach Journey Back

The coach journey back was alright in the sense that I was relaxing whilst listening to music, however, then you hear a noise so high it puts you off whatever you listen to. You look at the T.V to find out that someone had the clever idea of playing Alvin and the Chipmunks. I tried to ignore it and turned the music up louder. After a while, I noticed that it had finished, but my victory didn't last very long, as I noticed someone had the clever idea of bringing the second one.

But enough with the negative which in no way reflect the week, onto the things I will definitely miss about New Wine! :

1. The Presence of God

Now, of course God is always with us, he isn't just at New Wine. But what's so great about New Wine is you feel him so much more there. With morning and evening celebration consisting of a 2 hour long worship and talk each, it's hard not to notice him working. Then there is the community consisting of pretty much 100% Christian, if you see people praying in the street, you don't really give them a second thought or look. There is also the contant playing worship music in the background from the practising bands which completely adds to the atmosphere.

2. Friends

Second only to God, friends is a vital part of New Wine. I am certainly going to miss waking up and having breakfast with about 20 of my friends. And it is brilliant being able to just pop into town with friends pretty much any time you want. And the bonding is incredible, as you can imagine, spend a week with anyone and you get to know them pretty well, I got to know people that I'd only really heard of before.

3. The All Nighter

After our entire youth group hd run through New Wine in our boxers and we'd got back, I was completely awake and starting to get bored. So i decided to move into Mike and Simons tent, along with Sof. We then decided that we would stay up all night, as it turned out, this was a genius idea. We stayed up and talked for about 6 hours, which was a lot more fun than it might sound, and we all really bonded, which was great.

4. The Milkshakes

Every day, we would get a different chocolate-flavoured milkshake, they are absolutely delicious, and the best £3 that I'd spend each day.

There are many other things that I'll miss aswell, but I've already spent over half an hour on this!

Countdown to New Wine & The I.T Crowd.

It's now almost a day until New Wine and I can barely contain the excitement! Although I'm less happy to have read through what my Art homework is for the summer and found out that it might require a fair bit of effort, and I don't even understand much about what I have to do!

It was also the last episode in the series of the I.T Crowd tonight, which I'm a pretty big fan of, but I have been pretty disapointed about the last series. It seems to be like a lot of other good T.V programs where the earlier series' are beter than the new ones. The humour just seems a bit more forced and clichéd and doesn't run as smoothly as it used to.

Countdown to New Wine!

It's now technically 2 days until New Wine and I cannot actually wait! Althought it is my first time and I'm not enitirely sure what to expect. The one thing that I don't think will be brilliant is the 11 o'clock curfew, but hopefully I will be able to sneak out, and if not, I will be asking for some alcohol to be snuck in by Sof, assuming there isn't a youth leader there, ready to shine a beefy torch in my eyes the second I touch the tent zip to get out!

I've already planned out the seminars that I'm going to, including a couple of healings on the street which I'm looking forward to alot. I'm also extremely excited about the morning and evening worships and am bitterly dissapointed that Brenton Brown won't be there, even though he was there for the previous week!

But that aside, I'm looking forward to what will hopefully be a life-changing week!