Poser

I'm not afraid of going to the dentist. I never have been really. It wasn't until I was laying in the chair with a large instrument tightly fastened around my top-right wisdom tooth and the dental nurse holding my head securely in place that I thought I may have to re-evaluate my disposition towards the dentist. I was having my first tooth extraction. With a sharp twist and pull, the tooth was removed. To my surprise, the procedure was completely painless.

It went so well that I didn't just stop at one tooth, but I had the other top wisdom tooth removed as well. Don't get me wrong - I'm not some tooth-extraction addict - the other had to be removed also. I just figured that while I'm on a roll I might as well get the other out. My sister was a bit freaked-out by the fact that I brought my teeth home:



Saturday was Tony and Amanda's wedding. It was a small crowd, but a wedding nonetheless. It was a pretty casual ceremony, hence us being able to take photos of ourselves :p



I went shopping with Shaun today and we were checking out some sunnies. I seem to have lost my pair of Arnette's, so I'm thinking I'm going to have to invest in a new pair.



Queer much?

Something else a bit queer that's been going on at Church lately is the sharing of hair. In particular, a mullet wig (featured in Jordan's Peter's Trumpet - Simplifying Summer ad).



We got an email at work the other week reminding everyone to wear their ID badges. It was argued that badges allow staff to be easily identifiable by others - particularly by patients. Some people had become a bit slack in wearing their ID. Some people just simply don't like wearing it - they don't like displaying it, or couldn't care less if they are meant to stand out.

And God showed me that sometimes we forget to display our identity as a follower of Christ. I have been in situations in the past where I've neglected to wear it, or it's been easier to hide it.

We need to discover our identity in Christ and display it proudly. I don't want to hide in the shadows when times get tough. But I want to stand prominently in God's light.

God help me to be sincere in my faith.

Au revoir

I really didn't want to go to work today. Not because I hate my job or anything - quite the opposite in fact - I love my job. Today was my last day working at the lab in Murdoch, and in a childish sense, I felt that if I didn't go to work I wouldn't have to say goodbye to everybody. Let's hope Armadale has some equally friendly people to work with.

I did some baking yesterday in preparation for my farewell morning tea - banana choc chip muffins and carrot cake with lime and mascarpone icing. The carrot cake is always a crowd pleaser.



It took me a good hour to clean up the mess ... grated carrot is one of my least favourite ingredients to clean up.

We ended up having a feast for morning tea - I should have actually taken a photo of how much food there was. It was insane. I honestly didn't expect such a great turnout..! I think the most unexpected gift was from the cleaners - I'm gonna miss them too! Don't tell them though that I only knew one of their names ... after a few months I realised that it was probably a bit too late to clarfiy what their names were, so I just left it!

I just splurged over $130 on shirts tonight ... I blame the poor-performing Aussie dollar - the total price was $86USD which equates to around $134AUD. But I justify spending the money because two of the shirts are Christmas presents for mates. I have a feeling I'm going to have to dip into savings over this Christmas period ... but I guess that's to be expected.

Tomorrow I'm off to the dentist to get one of my wisdom teeth removed ... my first tooth extraction - I'm not sure what to expect. I'm guessing that with the advances in medicine it will be somewhat painless!? Here's hoping I guess...

I called Jonny today ... kinda woke him up - sorry bro! I assumed that he and Rainer - being interns and all - would be up early (I called at 7:40 Singapore time) but was enlightened by the fact that Ps. Daniel doesn't even wake up until after 10am! So much different to our culture! My bad.

Be My hands and feet.

Time out

The weather at the moment is fantastic. We're finally experiencing the spring weather that I've been waiting for.

I took advantage of the weather and went for a bike ride around the foreshore. First I rode through East Perth. The houses here cost millions of dollars to own. And they're not even that big!



Riding along for about 15 minutes brought me out to Riverside Drive. Suprisingly, there were quite a few people out today ... they can't all be uni students like me can they? Don't they have jobs to be at - it is Monday afterall!



I found a spot right in front of the Boat Shed and had my lunch. Healthy, of course - Salad, kiwi fruit and an apple.



Twas a good time to relax and chill with God. I feel as if I'm at the start of a new season - a new season of growth and action. God is prompting me to do things that are out of my comfort zone, but will help to develop me.

I also had a look at some of Jono's photos of his time over in Singapore ... man I'm wishing I was over there! We haven't Skyped yet, which means he must be having a great time over there. But I'm looking forward to going away somewhere at the end of next year when I graduate.

Jethro is having a bit of a problem at the moment too. He can't output through his HDMI port. I called HP Tech Support and "Mark" (I use quotation marks because I'm certain it's just a pseudonym - the call centre is in India) tried helping me - to no avail. A Tech is going to come and personally visit and hopefully diagnose the problem with Jethro. I reckon it's a hardware defect. We'll find out on Wednesday what the prognosis is.

Be as un-'cliquey' as possible - and they'll have no choice but to follow suit.

On top of the waves

If I ever say I can do anything, I'm lying. Last night was testimony to this. Me and a few mates got together at Coogee beach to do some fishing, and I ended up catching no fish. Zilch. Nada. Maybe next time. Not all was lost though - it was good hanging with Tony - I don't see him a lot so I was happy to spend some time with him.

I still don't think Alisha likes me. It's 'cause I'm black.

Looking at the sunset, one thought persisted in my mind - "It's so great to be on holidays."

What's at the bottom of the sink?

It's the question on everybody's mind. Well not everybody's - mainly mine. My curiosity was sparked a while ago when I saw my asian friends cleaning the dishes using running tap water instead of filling the sink with dishwashing liquid and hot water. Apparently they are weary of the bacteria living at the bottom of the sink.

So I wanted to get to the bottom of this - is there really bacteria living in our humble sink? I devised a quick experiment to figure this out:

Two different swab samples would be taken from the sink- one first thing in the morning (to see if any bacteria are there under normal conditions) and another after running hot water with dishwashing liquid and emptying the sink. A negative control was done to confirm aseptic technique. These swabs would then be plated on a few different agar plates.

The plates were inoculated and incubated for 24hrs. The results are shown below. Note the order of the agar are: Blood, Choc, MAC and CNA.

Swab 1 - four colonies


Swab 2 - two colonies



The results were interesting. There were four different colonies present on swab 1 - showing that some baddies grow in your sink overnight and will remain there unless the sink is cleaned. Good news though - sample 2 shows that dishwashing liquid and hot water effectively kill a lot of the bacteria present.

So, looking at these results, I'm still going to wash my dishes in the sink.

On a different topic, depending on which days you visited my blog, you probably noticed it changed appearance a few times. I was playing around with a few different designs and have settled for this one - I like it a lot.

Last night was youth and AllStar was a bit low in numbers - the lowest we have had so far. I had this strange experience during the praise - it felt as if we were just putting on a show for the kids, and it reminded me of something that's been on my heart a bit lately - we really need to be seeking God on behalf of these kids - because He is the one who changes lives. He is the one who can make them whole.

Success and Failure

I did it, finally. And I think I passed! It was my first exam this morning.

Before I blog any further, let me introduce you to the newest member of the family, Jethro:

He's a bit of a spunk, isn't he? He is of the HP species. The next sassy individual to make us a trio will be the yet-to-be-named backpack of Crumpler origin:



So now to the failures ... I was procrastinating the other day and wandered over to the site failblog.org to waste some time and I had a wonderful time laughing at failures! One of my favourites:


Ouch.

Sorry Natalie, but your parking was a bit of a failure last Wednesday night:

I walked into Coles this afternoon and saw a sign that grabbed my attention. You see, in retail, it's pretty bad if you advertise a special, but don't have any stock to supply the customer. So to save face and keep the customer happy, the finger is usually pointed at someone else ... but in which direction should they point? Funnily enough, I was talking to Kristy at work on Saturday and we've realised that the universal excuse is a train derailment. Apparently Toyworld currently have no Nintendo Wii's due to a 'train derailment', and Coles seem to be crying 'train derailment' also:

It seems these train derailments happen quite often ... are people injured? Is stock damaged? Why don't we ever see this on the news?

And this got me thinking ... sometimes we use universal excuses in our lives. When there's a discrepancy in our character or actions, we quickly pull-out a universal excuse. We want to cover-up what's really happening. We want to keep people happy. We want to save face.

But God wants us to be real with ourselves and each other. He doesn't want us to hide behind excuses or lies, but He desires us to be honest. And despite what our flesh tells us, people will value and love us for our honesty.

Scooter pie.

'Tis the season to be jolly?

Yes, that time could be nothing less than exam time.

But there's nothing sweeter than studying hard, and then chillaxing with a mate and taking a hike! You'll understand when you see the photos:

We hiked to the top and enjoyed our packed dinner:

• Tuna with crackers
• Celery
• Yogo
• Fruit

How's that for healthy? Cheap too - $7.40 between us both.
Jonny leaves on Sunday and for me it's the most inconvenient time for Jonny to go overseas - I'll be on uni break with plenty of free time and nobody to spend it with! (hint hint people ... I'm available to hang soon). He's gonna have such an awesome time though.

A lot has happened since my last blog. Yes, it was a while ago - my apologies - but I just can't seem to priotise blogging above studying. I'm thinking that's a good thing though! Since then:

• I bought a brand spankin new laptop, named Jethro. He's very attractive.
  

• I created a Skype account, with absolutely no idea how to use Skype. Add me - jason.bevo.

• I have been offered a job at PathWest in Armadale - an exciting opportunity for me!

• The Bible teaches us not to judge, so keep that in mind when I say this - I watched High School Musical 2 and loved it. Bring on HSM3.

To my fellow studyers, all the best in your exams :) Study hard and achieve the marks you deserve. Stick close to God and you'll find the stress will fly right over your head.

Hoola hooping fabulous.