what a great week...

a week to remember...

1. Tuesday morning (early) - England winning back the Ashes..
Went to bed with England at 129 for 5 on the fifth and final day of the 5th test at the Oval.. woke up at 4.30 in the morning, with England at 338 for 8, and delighted coz that meant that Australia wouldn't have enough time to bat for the runs to win, and the match would end in a draw.. and England with a 2-1 lead in the series going into the Oval, would regain the Ashes they hadn't won since when i was only 1 year old, and there was still such a thing as East Germany.. felt really good coz when it comes to most sports, i'm either Kiwi or English, and never Australian.. it gives me great pleasure to see Australian national teams fail coz they're always winning :)

2. Friday - Sam's farewell, Sydney Swans reach AFL Grand Final
Not too long before Sam leaves Dunners forever ;-( so he had his farewell party in the MTC room on Friday night and a lot of ppl turned up.. that is most ppl in Cutting Edge and Elim plus his flatmates, and old Carrington hallmates.. so that's a lot of ppl.. we had Jeremy filming farewell messages, we had a whiteboard with words like "misogynistic", "spontaneous" and "snakes on plane"(??) pointing towards Sam's name.. p relaxed.. had Sam give his farewell speech and then it was p much ppl hanging out with each other.. although Thida and Sam did give a wonderful performance in their final act as a duo..

later that night, my Aussie Rules team, the Sydney Swans aka South Melbourne FC beat a hapless-in-the-fourth-quarter St. Kilda at the MCG - where i'm gonna save up for from now on, so that i can go and see the Boxing Day Test between England and Australia in 2006, after i graduate :) .. thus the Swans will now meet the West Coast Eagles again at the G next weekend in Australia's biggest day out.. the AFL Grand Final.. and hopefully the judiciary will favour Barry Hall and rule that it wasn' t a punch..

3. Saturday - Oscars
Oscars was awesome.. really really enjoyed doing the skits, watching the films.. only bugbear was not being able to show the Purpose Driven Wife although me seeing it twice already is p good for me.. in hindsight, yes it was good we dint show it coz some ppl would have been offended by the sexist themes, and non-regulars would have been given the wrong impression of Elim.. so that was that.. we did get heaps of ppl come despite the appalling weather and election night.. plus they did seem v keen on the food at the back so the Missions teams should profit hugely there.. Jane revealed herself as a fine mc.. she did a really awesome job and hopefully she'll be still around next year to do it again coz she was v entertaining.. particularly with the fruit kebab.. most of all, i think the one person who should get the most applauds is Jarod Brown, coz without him we wouldn't have been able to get ourselves organized to work together.. he made sure we did what we needed to do on the night..

4. Sunday - Wests Tigers thrash Brisbane
finally, a great performance from my NRL team, the Western Suburbs-Balmain Tigers.. they reached their first ever preliminary final in style, thrashing front-runners-for-most-of-the-season-but-are-now-out-of-sorts-well-i-guess-that's-the-way-Queenslanders-do-things Brisbane at Aussie Stadium.. and they are essentially a Kiwi team with the likes of Benji Marshall, Dene Halatau, Paul Whaitura and their Kiwi-like black and white uniform when they're playing in Western Suburbs colours.. it's mighty St. George-Illawarra next week, but i'm p confident we can beat them even though they are favourites to win the Grand Final..

and finally, something that has made me feel really happy, got to chat with this gal properly over the weekend - haven't really had the guts to go up to her and talk to her coz she's always caught up in other stuff like her other friends... got to know her a lot better.. feel like friends again.. and she said some p nice stuff abt me particularly at the Oscars, which is always nice to hear.. :)