Thongs. One Aussie word that I will never use.

I was up late last night, so it was a slow start this morning. I talked to my mom a little bit online and I showered before going to Christmas in July. Instead of the regular CIF (Crossroads International Fellowship) at 4:30, they had a Bible study/lunch/thingy for Christmas in July. Apparently they had double booked Manning Clark for that time, since Christmas in July was at 12:30 today instead. They had some other Korean church thing going on. I was really confused because they had food and I didn't realise that it was for something else. I was wondering why it was Asian food and when I was in line they asked if I was here with the church. I thought they meant Crossroads, so I said yes. I guess they were equally confused why a white girl was getting their food! I went over to the Crossroads half and they explained it to me.

Christmas in July was cool. Apparently Christmas in July is a big thing in Australia because it is the time of year that it is cold, well at least relatively, so they celebrate Christmas twice. Anyway, we had some people give talks, sang Christmas songs, prayed, played games, ate lunch, ate desserts, and just hung out.

My table was full of some crazy people! First of all, we played this game where each table got a piece of paper with the first line and last line of a story. You have to then come up with the rest of the story by going around the table twice, with each person contributing a sentence. Our story started out with "my girlfriend stepped on toe in her high heel" and end with "that photo enrages me." Our story involved a cinema on fire, the girlfriend losing her contact lens, paparazzi, a big muscular dude, an inflatable hammer, and using a fire extinguisher to hit the big muscular dude. The stories at other tables actually made sense. Ours, not so much.

We were also talking after the main scheduled part of Christmas in July. We played the "how do you pronounce this" game. There was on Aussie at our table, someone from New Zealand, and someone from Sri Lanka. The girl from Sri Lanka kept apologizing to me that they were so weird. It was hilarious. I think I just attract weird people, and I love it!

Oh I also told them that I met Rohan while on the bus trip from Perth to go to NTE and Jo, the girl from Sri Lanka, thought it was hilarious! I guess it's like a well known fact that people always get to together, for lack of a better term, on bus trip, but she never met anyone. She was super excited about it and told one of her other friends, who was equally as excited. I guess they thought it was just an urban legend. Haha

Christmas in July ended at like 3:30, but I stayed until 4ish talking. Then I decided to go back for a couple of hours before church to read. Well, I ended up falling asleep. Oops. I had set my alarm, but just as a reminder so that I didn't get too engrossed in my reading and forget to go. When it went off, I was just way too tired and didn't have time to wake up enough to move before I was already late leaving. I had to skip church, but at least I went to Christmas in July! (and if the people at CIF are reading this, I swear that it wasn't your weirdness that made me not go to church tonight. I just couldn't wake up quick enough!)

I also talked to the people at my table about Focus, which is the Christian group that is part of ANU, so I'll probably start going to that. I'm part of the facebook page, but I haven't been to their meetings or Bible studies yet.

After my nap, I went online and played on my phone. I really need to get back to my homework, though. Also when I got back, I realized that in the lobby for Davey, they have a whiteboard with tallies for Olympic medals and a bunch of flags. They don't have an American flag, though. It does say next to the whiteboard to let the person at reception know if your flag is missing, so that will be changed soon. Reception was closed when I got back, though.

There were seriously so many good quotes from my conversations at CIF today, but for some unknown reason I can't remember any! That seems to always happen when there are a bunch of good ones, rather than just one good one. Maybe because I can keep one good one in my head much more easily. Anyway, when we were playing the "How do you pronounce it" game, I said the title. The Kiwi (someone from New Zealand) agreed with me on that. They have the same meaning for a thong as the US, apparently.

EDIT: I totally forgot about one of our other conversations at the table. Two of the girls said that they have this irrational fear of male pastors. It was hilarious because they can't even talk to them. One of the girls even works in a church or something and her boyfriend is at a Bible College to become a pastor. One of the guys at our table asked her if she was going to be able to talk to him when he finishes.

EDIT 2: We also talked about this book that was written by one of the pastors for Crossroads or something about dating and relationships for Christians. Apparently there is this term that he uses called "Special friends." I guess it is like before you actually start dating. I don't really get it. The girl whose boyfriend is at a Bible College was "special friends" with him before they started dating. Special friends was a recurring joke amongst our table.