Well i got about 8 1/2 hours sleep last night…lovely!! Still didnt want to get up though!

Andrew came into the office with us today to help direct initial blocking of More To Life. Tuesday morning we have a whole office prayer meeting. We split into groups, I was with Matt and Simon. We prayed and discussed Taste’s makeover next week!

Rachel and I line ran in the morning then for the rest of the day it was blocking and rehearsing. There was a fire drill at 11am, except our alarm didnt go off and so we got a phone call to tell us to leave, so we went out the fire exit which took us through the building site, squeezed out behind a lorry, got to the meeting point and everyone had gone back in. No-one cared about us…we could have died!!

Matt tried to persuade me to go have some Fika time afterwards but I declined, had to colour code some squares in my diary.

Lunch was a Dairylea and Tuna sandwich…so yummy!!!!

The afternoon was focusing on my emotional monologue. I hate doing monologues in front of people so it wasn’t so much fun! We then did one more run through but seriously had the giggles so it wasn’t the most productive!!

I had an indepth conversation with Keel about the correct terminology for acting. I don’t like being called an actor, i’m an actress. So he said I was actressing, but I said that was wrong, it’s acting because you don’t say actoring. But then he pointed out that a female does waitressing but a male does waiting. Hmmm….. any ideas anyone else?

By that time it was about 4.45. Rachel put all the posters and random things back up on the wall…and we came home! Curry for dinner tonight and Beth has her prayer triplet in 3minutes so i’m going to catch up on some TV i missed last week on the iPlayer!

First Optimum Wednesday Training Day tomorrow…ooooh. 

Here are some photos I took today:

Ok so there are 3 residential training weeks a year held at St Marks, Audley End. I travelled in Ivor (the Envizage Van) with a load of guys. We got there about 10.30am on Monday and were allocated our rooms. Now St Marks has been many things including a Benedictine Infirmiry and pig houses (www.stmarkscollege.co.uk if you’re that interested!)

We had a fabulous guided tour from the second years and then our first session was basically a few games and an introduction to the week. Then was lunch, afternoon session on Teamwork, bit of free time, dinner, worship service in the evening where Andy and Joy spoke about The Fall and then bedtime!

The structure of the days went something like this:

6.15 – Alarm went off
6.25 – Stagger to shower
6.57 – Make coffee
7.00 – In the chapel for personal devotion, or we could prayer walk.
8.00 – Breakfast
8.30 – Back to room to do hair/makeup etc
9.00 – First Session
11.00 – Break – Coffee, biscuits etc
11.30 – Second Session
1.30 – Lunch. Where i rediscovered the amazingness of Dairylea cheese spread. Dairylea, tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches are amazing!!!
2.30 – Second Session (apart from Wednesday when we had photos taken and then free time where I played football and Volleyball with Lindsay, Lucy and Emma, ha we rocked!)
4.30 – Free Time (Generally sat in the lounge listening to La Roche playing songs on his mac)
6.00 – Dinner (The best being Roast Pork, and the best pudding was Plum Crumble and Custard….yum!)
7.30 – Evening Worship Service: Monday we looked at The Fall, Tuesday The Law (Mike) & Thursday The Cross (Den) (Wednesday was games night – the after eight game was amazing! And the seemingly legendary cardboard box game.)
9.30ish – Free time and Bed time!

The days were pretty intense but awesome! It was quite strange having boys in the seminars, having been at an all girls school, it was quite weird to get used to!!

The seminar topics were as follows:

Teamwork – Mike Simmonds. Fairly classic stuff including team activities like building the longest and highest bridge out of newspaper, completing jigsaw puzzles (where we got accused of stealing pieces to scupper the other team…turned out the other team were just being blonde!) and building the highest tower out of Jenga blocks.

Child Protection – Claire Earl. We had to write our own Child Protection Policy which was interesting!
Adolescent Development – Claire Earl. We were in 4 groups and using magazines had to make a poster exploring what the following sexes and age groups were influenced by/experiencing: 11-14yr old Girls, 11-14yr old Boys, 15-18yr old Girls, 15-18yr old Boys. It was really good – we had 15-18yr old Girls so basically cut up Cosmo and Heat to stick on our paper. Looking at magazines objectively you realise just how much the culture is driven by sex, from adverts to articles, and even pieces of friendship were about lying and pretending to be friends. Makes you realise what a twisted world we live in! Everyone seemed to get the giggles when it came to discussing the physical changes an 11-14yr old boy goes through…
How to Run a Small Group – Claire Earl. Practical tips and scenarios on running a youth group.

Devotional Life – Lindsay Norton. Really good stuff!!
Social Skills – Lindsay Norton. Funny session – basically on communication and how to behave correctly, i.e. don’t burp or otherwise at the dinner table.

Overview of the Bible – Dennis Pethers. This went on for the all of Thursdays sessions and was INCREDIBLE!!! I can safely say i didn’t know about 98% of what he said. Looking at the sections of the Old Testament and the history of the formation of Israel. Really fascinating stuff and so helpful in understanding how to approach the Bible! It seems to be a legendary session at Optimum Training Week One that everyone finds incredible and wants to go back to teach to their youth group. And everyone says the same thing – why don’t we learn this at church?! Everything makes so much more sense now!!

How to Share Your Faith Story – Andy and Joy Clark. Looking at writing your testimony, or story and how to share it with people.

I can say I have learnt so much from this week and loved every moment of it!!

We left about 2.30 on Friday, back to the office and loaded up the vans with all the equipment for Saturday’s commissioning service. Then went home, unpacked and went back out to Pete and Cor’s house just down the road where the Kent people (Ryan, Maddie and Jayne) were staying overnight. Lots of people came and we had pizza and garlic bread and watched Juno. I left about 9pm because i was tired and went home to bed!

I’m afraid you still have to wait for information on my training week, i’m slowly putting it together!!

This weekend went in a bit of a blur…

Saturday morning was a Chelmsford ‘youth’ coffee morning. Mmm, coffee morning says it all. My favourite line i heard being ‘Ooh, hello Vera!’. So lots of old people, a few kids and one teenager. I don’t think they quite understood what was going on but they seemed to enjoy it and I found it good practice performing without feeling too nervous!! Andrew, who was in Envizage a couple of years back came along to help perform in some of the sketched so it was cool to work with him. Then it was off to Southend to begin to help setting up for the commissioning service. I left there at 2pm and met up with Mum and Dad and later Sarah and co for some fun on Southend sea front. Maddie loved the Ferris Wheel…Sarah not so sure!!!

Then back to the sports hall for the Commissioning Service which went really well. I was interviewed and have since had countless comments on how Essex i sound. Great. Afterwards me, Lewis, Tom, Aaron and Andy drove thru McDonalds and sat eating in the car park. Lewis drove me home which was a very weird experience…watch out he drives quite fast!!

Sunday, I went to Sawyers Church in Brentwood with Rachel and Andrew which I really enjoyed. We then went out for dinner, meeting up with Tim Leeson, had an all day breakfast, yum! We then went back to Tim’s house (which he shares with Rich, my current host’s son) and had a lazy afternoon talking, watching Eddie Izzard, playing Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox (war fighting game – i just watched!!) We then decided to go to the cinema for 9.30pm to see the new Will Ferrell film ‘Stepbrothers’. Quite funny, bit too crude and silly for me! got home about 11.30pm and crashed into bed!

Was mega miffed when the alarm went off this morning!! Today was back to learning lines, a play called More to Life (often referred to as MTL). We learnt Acts 1 and 2 before lunch and then Act 3 after. Act 3 took a lot longer as post lunch sleepiness set in and we kept getting the giggles and making strange noises… Then I took down all the posters and pictures on the wall opposite my desk and spent best part of half an hour trying to get all the blue and white blue tack off the wall. We left 10minutes early because we decided we’d worked hard today!

Then tonight has been fairly lazy. Stephen introduced me to the hilarity of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, funny stuff!!

Start proper rehearsals tomorrow, woo!!!

Sorry to all the people who have logged on each night eagerly awaiting my next installment, only to be repeatedly disappointed.

I have been on a training week near Saffron Walden all week which was AMAZING!!!!!!!!

I will gather my thoughts and write about it later, now I am tired and need sleep as tomorrow is going to be a crazy day! We’re doing an event in Chelmsford in the morning, then off to Southend to help set up the commissioning, then back to the commissioning service for 5.30.

Details of my exciting week to follow soon!

So looking back at the first week…

What has struck me the most is how nice everyone is, genuinely nice. Usually as a newbie you expect people to judge you, look down on you, for you to in some way feel inferior but there is none of this at all. Everyone speaks to each other as equals and treats you really well. Maybe this will change as the year goes on but its a good first impression!

I love what I’m doing and feel totally settled. I have such a peace inside me knowing that I’m doing what I want to be doing, and more importantly what God wants me to be doing. I know that whatever the year throws at me is to ultimately bring me out a stronger, better person and God will be with me every single step of the way…hurrah!!!

Yay!