TIMING

Right, it’s time for another catch-up post. 

Fused:

Team Adventurers!

I was reading old posts of mine and saw how I was unsure if I was going to do Fused, the Summer Bible Club which runs for two weeks at the end of July in Newcastle. Now, I am SO GLAD I did! It was absolutely marvelous! I met lots of cool people on the team and felt I fitted in so much better than last year. I even used my talents to help Jo to make t-shirts for our team, the Adventurers. (left) They look so class, is it weird I feel proud? Also the fortnight helped my walk with God; which I was worried about before I left because I felt I wouldn’t be able to teach others if I was neglecting my own faith.
The kids were little sweethearts, we helped with the Primary 4-7s, so they were old enough to listen and behave but still were young and easy to talk to. The girls loved my jewelry and wanted to try on my rings - it was so cute. I had my own Small Group this year - a group of round 7 or 8 girls. This really boosted my confidence because I usually turn into a big, nervous mess when I have to lead anything. By the end of the two weeks, three of the girls gave their life to Christ, two of them which I prayed with. I was so emotional when I came home I sobbed - it’s such an extraordinary thing to witness and share in someone’s life. Other kids made professions too, please keep these kids in your prayers.

With some of my Small Group

If that wasn’t enough for my brain to handle - I SPOKE at the front during the two Josh’s talk...VOLUNTARILY. If you know me at all, there’s no flipping way I would want to speak in front of a crowd unless I had to - but I just felt the timing was right, or else I was losing my mind.
Jeremy, Jo and myself were asked to speak about how God transformed our lives.
Even as I was standing up, I was still unsure what I was going to say, and as I look back on it, I hardly remember what I DID say - basically I spoke about settling into university - having to make new friends and rely on God when alone. I couldn’t have possibly constructed all those sentences in my head logically and articulate them clearly without the power of the Holy Spirit. God is so good. 

So glad I filled in that form back in May time - or else I wouldn’t have be involved in two of the most wonderful weeks of my summer! Time well spent!

The Dark Knight Rises:
Haha I’m very late with this one! I am a massive fan of great GREAT films - like blockbuster films - I guess most people are but it seems to be that most of my favourite films are legendary ones (the other genres would include Classics, Disney or Asian cinema) So naturally The Dark Knight trilogy is included in this legendary list. (Other films include Inception, The Social Network, Slumdog Millionaire and Harry Potter.)
I was very, very excited about this one from geeking out so much in 2008 after seeing the second of the series. It was later I also realised that Batman Begins was the first of the trilogy - not sure how I didn’t realise that before, whoops! 

It was outstanding as expected - it was like a big yummy sandwich with all my favourite actors - Christian Bale (with his amazing sexy mouth) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine. Then to top it all off with a small cameo of the wonderful Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane. (I actually love that man - he’s very charismatic and so striking, could watch him for hours.) So yeah, amazing. I hope to see it again before I go back to university - so if anybody wants to go... hit me up.


The Amazing Andrew Garfield:
Let’s put it this way - it was a mistake seeing The Dark Knight Rises before The Amazing Spiderman. I was very excited because I am a long time Andrew Garfield fan and have waited two years after hearing he was cast as the lead. I really did enjoy this though, it was better than I was expecting... but maybe I’m just being biased. No seriously, it’s worth a watch.

Granny Gordon:
Unfortunately I have even more bad news since my last update. My Great Granny, Ethel (also known as The Granulator!) passed away at the grand age of 93 on the 11th August 2012. The pain was pretty raw since Granny Green’s death so it was horrible that we had to go through it all again. She had fell and broke her hip a few days before, but wasn’t well enough for an operation so she was in hospital. She also suffered from dementia and other health issues, so it appeared she was getting worse each day.
Thankfully I took up the opportunity of visiting her in hospital the day before she died. Even though her condition was deteriorating, I wanted to see her, I was kinda scared though. Astonishing to us all, she was her usual witty, humourous and slightly forgetful self! It was a joy to see her like that, and being able to remember her that way is something I’m incredibly thankful for. She will be sorely missed. 

Family:
Despite losing two members of my family this summer, I feel like I’ve built many new relationships with other family members. Here the impact of death has brought the Green family/McCullough family closer. To be honest, before I wouldn’t really have called my relatives family - because I never saw them and they knew very little about me, same vice-versa. Poor Granny Green would have done anything for the four of us to socialise with the others, but it was only through her death did that become possible. Same with the McCullough family - it was through Granny Gordon’s death brought us altogether as one. Hopefully these relationships will last. It was God’s perfect timing that Charles (my cousin), his wife Kate and 1 year old Stanley arrived from England and were able to see Granny Gordon for the last time, the weekend before she died. It was also my first time meeting Stanley, this was exciting because we haven’t had a baby in the family since Jared was born. My other cousins Gregor and Gareth and their ladies, Sharon and Kirsty also arrived down that weekend too so it was a big get-together for all of us. Above is a photo of us all that weekend, hoorah.

Titanic:

I visited the Titanic Belfast last week with my Parents and Jared. This is a new building opened this year to mark the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the world’s biggest ship. This is situated in the Titanic Quarter, beside where the Titanic’s was built. The building has 6 floors of galleries containing a variety of interactive media including CGI, film, audio, artifacts and replicas. This was interesting for me. Each gallery was well designed and used varied ways to display the historical details of the ship’s construction, launch, maiden voyage and tragic end.
It certainly was a visitor experience - the whole place was packed too. It was a great day out, but wouldn’t be something you’d return to for a few years at least. I think if you’re really interested in history it’ll be very enjoyable to read everything (like my dad), otherwise it’s a great day out - recommended!

Yay,

- Claudia

PAUSE

Hello! Short break from the meme thing to update y’all on my happenings in my pathetic little life. Okay not really, life has been alright.

University and Summer

In the middle of May I finished my exams and handed in my final pieces of coursework, which meant I was free for the summer. Hooray! Yes it’s nice to have a break however I was worried I wouldn’t have anything to do because I have 132 days off until I’m back again! (That’s quite a lot, compared to the 60/90ish days we had in school.) Therefore I devised a list of people I need to meet, places I need to go and things I need to do. So far these lists are flourishing, with a few things crossed off already - including baking, painting and sunbathing! Good stuff.

Granny

Despite my fun expectations for the summer, sadness crept it’s way into the Green family household this week. My Granny Green was battling with cancer for over three years, and alas, the condition was triumphant where on Sunday 10th June, she peacefully passed away in hospital. Although it was expected, it was still an upsetting and shocking occurrence for all of us, especially Dad. Being one of the eldest of the grandchildren, I was invited to read a few verses from Proverbs 3 at the funeral. Not an easy thing to do, but she chose the verses herself so I knew I had to make her proud. It gave me great comfort because it was some of my favourite verses. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Wise words to live by methinks. Granny was a very special lady - greatly missed, but now in the arms of Jesus. 

Mural

A few weeks ago, the community’s two Primary schools got involved in painting a mural which will be placed on one of the ugly walls within the village. It’s part of a scheme to make our area more attractive. (Unsure how successful this scheme will be, but supporting Mourne none-the less) The team required volunteers so they invited me to assist the kids. I LOVED it! I forgot how wonderful it was just to sit down and paint. Surprisingly, the picture only took 4 days to create and in my opinion it looks pretty sweet. The mural will have it’s big unveiling on Wednesday this week at 1:45pm, so you are all invited to see the masterpiece!

Olympic Torch

As you all may be aware, the Olympics are being held by London this year! Although I’m not a big fan of sports, I think it’s pretty awesome that the country has this opportunity to host such a big event. The big gold Olympic torch is currently traveling round the U.K, which included Northern Ireland. One of these stops were in Newcastle, so we had the chance to travel down at 6:50am on Wednesday 6th June to see it run by! It was a really lovely atmosphere and worth getting up so early to see. 

London

Woooah, I think I’m transforming into a different person lately because Emma and I have booked a weekend away to London! If you know me at all, this isn’t something I would even THINK about never-mind carry out. (Although Emma threatened to get my sedated when going through the airports, man I hate airports...) However!! I have turned my life around - I’m making the most of my opportunities when I am young and have the chance to do something fun, yada, yada, yada...

OH yeah, so the reason we have decided to undertake this mission is because Korean pop groups called EXO and 4MINUTE are doing a concert in the O2 arena. Heck, it was cheap so we booked it - plus we organised tickets a broadway show! We shall also shop and sight-see. So we’ve made a mini-holiday out of it. I’m VERY excited! 

It’s also stroking “See a K-Pop concert” off my bucket list. Oh, and I’ll have to learn Exo’s names before I go, just incase we run into them there - I only recognise Kai! 

Look here we all are in Piccadilly Circus. These babies aren't anything compared to my presh presh BIGBANG but it’ll be fuuuunnnn!

CARTOONS (20 - 11)

A blog post I tried to keep secret but any time I made an attempt to work on I was always disturbed. In the end James found lots of pictures of cartoon characters saved on my desktop so unfortunately that gave it away. Anyway, now it is complete, so enjoy.

I apologise about the text below each picture, it probably makes very little sense. Wouldn’t say it’s my finest work.

20. AladdinMy number 20 spot goes to Aladdin I watched the film a couple weeks back thanks to my free lovefilm subscription this summer. Didn’t realise how cool he was. You know, if he was human, he’d look smokin’ hot.

19. KuzcoRandom fact about Kuzco, did you know he was 18? Kuzco is the main character of The Emperor’s New Groove. Kuzco is a selfish, spoiled, cocky and sarcastic teenager, and after a series of events is transformed into a llama. That sounds so random really, but it’s a great film, so go watch it.

18. Shin ChanAHAHA Shin Chan, this show was the most random thing to air on T.V. This followed the adventures of a 5-year old Japanese kid. Many jokes in the series were very weird and rather inappropriate to be honest. If you have seen it you may remember that he bared his bum to the camera in every episode.

I was just reading up about Shin Chan there now and it was quoting some of the things he said. He asks “How many people have you killed?” to tough looking men or “When are you going to die?” to elderly people.
There now I just spent 10 minutes watching one of the shows on Youtube - it’s extremelt disturbing, but very enjoyable.

17. ShegoI was a massive Kim Possible fan back in the day. I would still watch it if it was still on T.V. Shego was the villain of Kim who was very sarcastic and clever and she looked AMAZING!

16. BlooI feel like the only person in the world who actually loved Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends - and to be honest I was in High School at the time. I don’t think an foster’s home for imaginary friends would work in real life because there would be too many monsters there. My favourite characters were Frankie and Bloo. Bloo is selfish and mischievous, but has a kind heart.

15. TazWhat happened to Taz bars? More importantly, what happened to Taz? As I planned this list I found a had an affection for angry and arrogant characters - Taz is no exception. His short temper, little patience and random jargon made him rather annoying; I found it rather adorable.

14. KimiThis was a hard choice between Boo from Monsters Inc and Kimi from the Rugrats because they are both so so cute. Today I’m choosing Kimi because she’s such a sweetheart as well as being super adorable. Them wee purple boots - AWW.

13. Dee DeeWhen I was younger I always thought Jared and I were like Dexter and Dee Dee. Now, not so much. Despite her being extremely annoying, I thought she was very funny. Especially that episode when she tried to show Dexter this dance she taught herself - honestly the tune is still in my head.

12. DopeyDopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is my favourite dwarf because he’s so endearing. This picture is my favourite bit in the film - I really want to watch it again now.

11. Kai HiwatariIs is weird to have a crush on a cartoon character?

I only watched one season of Beyblade (Beyblade G Revolution) and I loved it! Jared and I had a pile of Beyblades. I believe I had Tyson’s Dragoon while Jared had Max’s Draciel. My favourite character was Kai, because I think I had/have a thing for bad guys. (And seriously, what 13 year old has muscle like that??)

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Second half to be continued... soon.

It will hopefully be posted underneath this post, so keep watch.

CARTOONS (10 - 1)

10. SquidwardGenerally grumpy, sarcastic and narcissistic, hating everything and only wants some peace. Yes..most of these favourite characters reflects my own personal qualities. Woo.

9. Double DEver wondered what was under the hat? Honestly I thought it was his hair. Or with a greasy sock on his head. Actually. I thought he was a girl. He’s a neat freak with a need for many sticky notes, and for some reason I love the way he speaks.

8. Sailor MoonI’m not going to lie, I wanted to be Sailor Moon when I was 8. And I also became obsessed with drawing Anime too. But that was the only time really.

7. Pingu
If your trying to find something that will put me in a good mood, Pingu will ALWAYS work. I think since I’ve hit 18 I’ve embraced my inner childhood and my summer has consisted of watching this show. I go hysterical when Pingu makes his beak like a megaphone “NUG, NUG!” Also think it’s brilliant that he’s the only character that can do it.

6. Donald DuckI always found his bad-tempered nature very very funny - most of his episodes started out with him in a happy mood, then something comes and spoils his day. In many ways, he reminds me of myself.

5. Max Goof  While every other child’s favourite Disney films were Pocahontas or Snow White, mine was The Goofy Movie. Not as famous as the others but I thought Max (Goofy’s son) was the most awesome guy ever! Remember when he dressed up as Powerline and sung to Roxanne on the school stage? SO COOL!

4. Dougal   
Dougal the dog appears in the Magic Roundabout, as we all know, is the famously British children’s television which was originally broadcast in the sixties. Dougal was a skye terrier who had an odd love for sugar. This cute, hairy, legless pooch appealed to me as a child - and ever since I’ve always wanted to have a real dog called Dougal.

3. Toad
My adoration with Toad began at the young age of 8, when I made my purchase of Mario Kart: Super Circuit for the Gameboy Advance. (one of the best games ever.) Originally, I chose Toad because he was the fastest and the lightest. Not understanding that the lightness of the creature could be affected when larger characters hit him on the track, I thought being the fastest made them the winner. I’ve rarely played as any other character from that point on and I’ve always believed that Toad will help me win. Mushroom in a nappy and a waistcoat, I love you.

2. Edna Mode
Coolest lady (lady?) ever. She reminds me of myself in certain ways too: eccentric, strong-willed and obsessed with style.“Go, confront the problem. Fight! Win!”

“I don’t look back darling, it distracts from the now.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know, darling. Luck favors the prepared.”

And drum roll please....

1. TJ DetweillerIf you haven’t guessed already, of COURSE T.J is my number one. He’s been my favourite cartoon character since I was 7 years old. I still remember the plot line and most of the script lines when the show is on. (Yes I do still watch it too.) I always hoped I would have a boyfriend that would look as cute and be as funny as T.J: LOL.

- Claudia

CHOOSE TWO!

Today’s blog is about the future. Again. I’ve wrote about this far too often, and I know I should just settle, but I feel by blogging about it allows my thoughts to organise themselves a little and settle me before I sleep.

I’ve made a discovery. As you can see in my henry made diagram, I have illustrated what is likely to happen for women especially, maybe for men too, but not so much, when they leave school, A-Levelers I mean..or possibly tech. Ah blah blah carry on.

Unless you are some kind of Superwomen, which I may add some are because some have managed it, it’s not physically possible for ladies to pursue all three options: University, Traveling for a few years and Marriage and having children.

Perhaps I’m being ridiculous, or unrealistic, but I don’t think I could do all three, even though I really really really want to.

My reasons...

o University- Well I do want to do art, you all know that well. If I don’t, I am likely to end up in a dead-end job and being miserable. I have to do what I enjoy, I’d rather have a poorly paid job doing what I love than being richer doing something I don’t like. Get it?

o Travel- I love the idea of traveling. And because I’m young and healthy, I should before it’s too late. I want to explore the world.

o Marriage and Children- I love the idea of just settling down and having my own house. I know it’s difficult, but isn’t everything? And I feel being a girl, I just want to do the whole housewife and mother thing. I do love children, even if it seems like I don’t.

The flawed reasons...

o University- Okay Claudia, go ahead and do your dream art degree. Dive right in to the government’s new university prices and be in debt for the next 30 years. Fail to get a mortgage for your flat (yes, flat, not house) and enjoy losing sleep of owing the bank thousands for them 4 years you will never get back.

o Travel- Again, it’s expensive, and possibly a complete waste of money if you don’t enjoy it? And I don’t really like planes.. and what if I get stabbed or something?

o Marriage and Children- Marriage is an awful thing too, it’s hard work and children are little brats and expensive too. And you need to have children before your 30, or you would be an old Mum. GROSS.

And why they are just not compatible....

o Okay, if I decide to go to University and travel, I would be drowning in money problems forever (I already am, and that’s just eBay) I would likely not get a job after university because our country is in a bad enough state, imagine it in a few years, and then I could be leaving it too late to have children... if I get married at all that is. Then I would be a spinster for the rest of my life and live in Spain running a cattery. (Oh no, that’s Emma, LOL)

o If I do University and Marriage, I could deal with that okay, but then I wouldn’t ever have the chance to travel. Unless my husband wants to travel, but then we would have no money after the wedding. damn. Andddd that would be me spending cash on a uni education and not using it.. Or using it and failing to be a good mother or juggling so much I just combust.

o Travel and Marriage

So no university then, I would be miserable probably doing nothing. And it’s getting harder to get good jobs if you don’t have some level of qualifications. So I would be poor but I may be content after seeing the world.

Am I still even making sense? I want to be a Rich Super BusinessWoman who can travel the world for a few years, get married, be a housewife and raise kids. Basically.

LOTTO TIME.

Note that I contradict myself constantly. I guess we will just have to wait and see what’s in store. I just have no patience! Bring it on!

Your Rich Super BusinessWoman who can travel the world for a few years, get married, be a housewife and raise kids,

Claudia :)

CAN'T NOBODY

I apologise for the last post, I am so nasty, it’s a sin for me to say such things.

Shall I post some cool pictures? It’s late but I am wide awake, I cannot sleep.

Let’s blog something a little more light hearted.

A White-haired T.O.P

Woho, what's this? This guy has white hair! What Korean guy bleaches his hair? T.O.P does, that's what. Because he's so badass and so daring and so damn gorgeous he looks good no matter what he does or wears. I even make an exception that he drinks and is a total pimp: because he's so so lush.

Stella Star

I found this adorable picture on Tumblr, and immediately thought of James, who told me in CFC the other day that he had a dream that we met up in a decades time or so and I had a child called Stella who was dressed as a Christmas star. Of course, this little thing isn't a star exactly, but it's so cute I had to steal it and put it up here.

Cute kids

Men. Women. Children. Doesn't matter what, I love glasses. How CUTE is he? What age can you adopt at? I can't wait to have children so I can buy them little designer outfits and spoil them rotten. I think I'm feeling broody.

The very desirable Joseph Gordon-Levitt

After watching Inception on Christmas Eve and 500 Days of Summer on Boxing Night I have overdosed on Levitt. Can't get enough of this guy. Even the way he dresses, so spiffy! *swoon*

A stunning Emma Watson

James sent me this gorgeous photo of Miss Watson earlier, don't think anyone else appreciates this than us. She's such an icon. I do believe I get to see Harry Potter this week! :)

2NE1

Okay, last one. This is a girl band, basically a female version of Big Bang. And even though most people hate them, I love them! After downloading their whole album I realised their music is brilliant and their style is wicked. They have such an attitude and although I have a strong feeling it's all put on, it totally works because they look so cool. Kudos to you four.