pride and performace reviews

I have a problem with pride... I really really do - and if you don't agree with me, well it just means that you're not as smart as I am and obviously not as perceptive! :P hehehee.. But seriously, I find myself comparing myself with other people all the time, and it is so automatic that it scares me. I often only realise it only after I have already compared myself to them and made subsequent judgements as to whether I am better or worse than they are. It's a dumb thing to admit to, but it's true! I try not to let my thoughts influence who I talk to and how I talk to them or what I do and how I do it, but unfortunately this happens quite often.

So when I was told that I have to self-rate myself for a Performance Review with my boss, I was quite conflicted in the way that I would respond to the KPIs on the form. Where is the line between self-confidence and pride anyway? Are they the same thing? Can we (if we have really done a good job at work) be truthful and humble at the same time? I know a lot of you will be saying right now, 'give the glory back to God' - but I find that this is a hard thing to do in the workplace. To make it harder, I have been told by people at work that I need to 'sell myself' and 'talk myself up', but I just feel proud when I try to do this. What do you guys reckon? Drop a comment with your thoughts - I'm interested to know.

Well anyway, I wanted to thank God also that the Performance Review went pretty well. My boss took me out for coffee and basically told me she was really happy with how I have been going and really spent time with me nutting out areas that I can develop more with training (she even mentioned a pay rise will be coming up next month - YAY!). It is such a blessing to have a nice boss - it really is. I have heard some absolute horror stories when it comes to bosses, but my bosses so far have both been really supportive, so friendly and not the slightest bit intimidating at all. I don't think I could handle having a mean boss in my job because I stuff things up quite often and I would just get busted non-stop. So thank God for Gen! (Good thing no one from work reads this blog - otherwise I would be harassed for sucking up hehehe)

my day at QV1

I had my first day at the QV1 building today. As I have mentioned before, my work recently won a big tender with Chevron and I have been assigned to be one of their onsite Ergonomists for 2 days a week. My desk is on the 37th floor and there's a great view of, well, everything really! Chevron occupies several floors of QV1 and going from level to level, it's awesome to see how the view changes so much! And I thought C Restaurant had good views!

I am absolutely knackered after an early start and a day of induction and training but I thank God for the opportunity to hang out in a nice office with awesome views and coffee machines to start off my working week every week! Cool thing is, that the work is pretty easy the difficult thing will be learning all the processes and admin stuff. It also feels a bit weird because we took over from another company and the previous girls were pretty chummy with the current Chevron people that we work with - so I think it's going to be pretty awkward for a while.

It will also be strange being in workplaces every week (well really I am in 3, but the 3rd one is for a half day only) but it adds variety and keeps things interesting too. Well that's it really, I don't really have anything deep to share - just wanted to thank God once again for the cool job that He has blessed me with :)

sunday skool

I was back on Sunday School duty today and for the rest of the month. It's always pretty fun to teach Sunday School - I have a cool class (the youngins) and they always crack me up when I see them. It's quite easy to get a laugh out of the little sausages - the same jokes are always used and now even expected by them and it's great to see the kids in Sunday School have fun, have a laugh (or ten) and have a good time while learning at the same time.

I was really impressed today when all of them memorised their memory verse too. Usually it's like trying to get blood from a stone but I think the previous teacher really drummed it into them. They ALL did it and it was word for word correct! I should have recorded them saying the verse cos they sounded soooo cute! hehe.

The Sunday School kids often make me reminisce about the days when I was a little tike growing up in church and going to Sunday School. It's funny how some things never change. One of the girls once told me whilst smiling proudly ' I memorised the verse in the car on the way over here'... As I had a chuckle to myself, it brought back memories of me and my bro trying to memorise our memory verses in the car on the way to church too - I remember when we got to the end of Bombard Street and turned up toward Ullapool Road, that was the point at which I either felt ready or started panicking (usually the latter) and started REALLY trying to get it right before the car engine stopped and it was time to face the Sunday School teacher.

Certain teachers were real sticklers when it came to memory verses and wouldn't really give hints, whereas other Sunday School teachers gave hints too liberally (I used to want to tell them that I was smart enough and didn't need the hints - but I never had the guts). I like to think I am a bit in the middle - though with the bigger kids who have it all under control, I like to play the Memory Verse Nazi and ensure that the verse is recited to the exact punctuation marks etc too. hehe I know... But through emotional scarring, one grows to be stronger :) hehehe

Today I had no materials for my class which was a bit of a challenge. I kinda realised late last night (which is bad, but a reality in my tendency toward forgetfulness) that the materials that I had been given had been finished in May and I was told this morning that the new materials hadn't arrived yet (bum-bowm!). So I had to wing it totally. I spent the first part doing attendance (tried to drag that out a bit by mucking around with their names) and then I had a bit of a celebration with them (one of them mentioned they didn't have to go to school tomorrow and I promptly advised them that I didn't have to go to work and high fives were had all over). So that was the first 10 minutes. I still had about 50 minutes to use up. So it went a bit like this from hereon in:

Me: Ok guys... we don't have a story today
them: no story??
Me: yep no story. So uh... what is your favourite story in the Bible anyway
them: Jesus
Me: ooooo ok... what about Jesus?
them: Noah's Ark!
Me: *thinking* [did I miss something?]
them: Noah built the ark, and the rain came down so much, and all the animals were inside the ark, and then there was a rainbow
Me: Yeah that's right, what do we learn from Noah's ark?
them: rainbows... and Jesus!
Me: Ok... [*thinking* did I miss something?.. man these kids are random] what does the rainbow mean?
them: God made a promise to Noah.
Me: [finally!!] yeah that's right! Was God happy with Noah?
them: yes
Me: Why was God happy with Noah? Was he good or bad?
them: good!
Me: how about the people who lived in Noah's time? were they good or bad?
them: bad! They killed people and wrote things on the wall..
Me: [what??] yeah... So what do you think God wants us to be?
them: good!
Me: [ok.. that will do - there's a lesson there already!] Alrighty then, how bout we draw Noah's Ark?

OK it was pretty dodgy, but I had to think on my feet alright - and I didn't feel really well either so that's the best I could come up with! Hopefully, there will be material for next Sunday (I seriously won't take the Sunday School material for granted from now on!). But yeah, as you can see, it's pretty fun to teach Sunday School - the kids are always good for a laugh and it's great to see them really enjoy themselves at church too! I would encourage anyone out there to have a go at teaching Sunday School - there's always room for more teachers and assistants. You can learn a lot from the youngins and you will also have a great time too! :)

On another note: a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Carinesky! Love ya heaps babe! :D

i LOVE this pic!

This is such a cool shot taken by David during the last City Evangelism! When I saw this picture, it really really really warmed my heart. On Victor's blog, there were some pics of the blue shirt boy reading the tract and then the boy in the black shirt not looking interested at first, but then slowly moving closer to the blue-shirt boy and eventually having a read of the tract himself :)

Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not [Jeremiah 33:3]

30 acts of love

Last night at Regeneration, the 30in30 for acts of love was kicked off. So in the coming month, every day we are supposed to do one act of love (three differnt categories - encouragement, giving, and actions I think). I think it will be a really good exercise for me personally because I reckon I can be a pretty self-centred person (last night at Fast Eddy's, people said I was spoilt cos I am the only daughter in my family - which I still maintain is a totally false accusation! I just have a lot of stuff cos I need it ok?) and that is something that I really want to change. It's difficult though because it's what comes naturally to me (and I guess any other human) - it's my default way of thinking. So hopefully, the coming month will be a step toward more selfless thinking by doing more acts of love.

Let me see if I can remember the memory verse now... John 15:9... OK... all I can remember is the last bit that says continue ye in my love or something like that. Crap! It's only been a day and I have forgotten already! I seriously dunno how the Sunday School kids do it! Alright, gonna open Sword Searcher...

Right, John 15:9 (at least I remembered the reference!):

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

Man... it's so SHORT! I'm so heading toward dementia when I get old... OK.. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love, John 15:9. Yay! (just so you know, I didn't peek ok?).

on cold nights like tonight

Today was my last day of doing Job Capacity Assessments at work. Since we have won a pretty big tender recently, I am moving to 'bigger and better' things and will have to leave these bonus-attracting-assessments behind - hopefully I will get to go back to them someday! But anyway, the reason why I am writing is because I had three refugee appoitnments one after the other this afternoon and I was just reflecting back on my day, and it really made me think how blessed we are to live in Australia for starters (which is such an AWESOME place that it opens it's doors to refugees from all over the world - Iran, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Malaysia... Singapore... :P AHHAHAHAH.. sorry I couldn't help myself). And secondly, how blessed we are to have a home with friends and family and a place to sleep every night.

Through the assessments, I found out that these people were staying in temporary accomodation, were dependent on a social worker to take them around to appointments etc, had little (or no) money, no friends (and some, no family), were in a totally different culture, with a totally different language, and were surrounded by totally different people who were changing all the time. It made me think what it would be like to be in their shoes. It would be seriously depressing and SUCH a challenge. We really don't know how good we have it until God leads us to people like this.

I then started thinking about all the homeless people in Perth, unfortunatley there's quite a few. I have even started to recognise some of them after working in the city for a while now. (The one who I see most days is 'Pigeon lady' - she wears a hat and had two long plaits in her hair and she keeps pigeons with her in cages. She talks to them and mumbles to herself.) Ever since I was young, I would always think of how homeless people keep warm on cold nights like tonight. We complain of being cold when we are in our insulated houses, with blankets and warm clothes, but really we are so blessed to have a home to go to, with warm clothes to wear and a bed to sleep in. I think that's why, as Christians, we should do our part for our local charities. Reminds me of the song, where one verse goes 'and they'll know we are Christians, by our love'. I really want to do something but I just don't know where to start. I guess one thing is to start rounding up some spare clothes (of which I have plenty) and blankets for the Good Sammy's Bins. But we'll see what happens hey.

worry wart

Thought I would share some points that I picked up when I was reading a chapter of 'Tired of do-list christianity?' by Scott Morton. The chapter was on worrying. I have always thought myself to be pretty relaxed with a she'll-be-right attitude to most things in life, but I have recently come to realise that I am really a closet-worry-wart who is probably too proud to admit that she has plenty of things to worry about. This chapter confirmed it and taught me more about this disabling condition.

OK main points in this chapter:

• Worry is a sin (Luke 21:34). Worry is different to concern. Often we as Christians will say 'I'm not worried, I'm concerned' but concern can be a disguise for worry. Morton says Concern leaps to worry when we take circumstances into our own hands rather than looking to God for His grace. Concern plua God's grace equals peace. Concern plus my coping mechanisms equals worry.
• Jesus tells us three times 'Do not worry' in Matthew 6:25-34. But also gives us reasons why we shouldn't worry: (1) vv25-26 because our Heavenly Father cares for us, (2) v27 because worrying won't change anything, (3) vv31-32 God knows what we need
• Morton says: Worry is a symptom of giving in to the fear that lurks behind it. Worry is choosing to fear rather than to trust. And that's why it is a sin.

So now that we know why worrying is a sin, what can we do to stop worrying - it seems almost automatic at times and sometimes goes undetected until it takes over every thought. Well, Morton offers the following suggestions as to how one can overcome this problem of worrying:

1. Identify when you are temmpted to worry and bring it to God immediately
2. Be thankful (Philippians 4:6-7). Saying 'thankyou' in faith brings peace.
3. Limit mental arguments (e.g. replaying the circumstances over and over in your mind).
4. Realise that most 'what-ifs' never come to pass.

Well that's all I had to share on that. This book has been a blessing to me so far (still got a bit to go), and if you are interested, it is definitely worth a read. A lot of the time, we become victims of Christian myths that hold us captive and stop us from growing and doing more for God and this book really helps identify them and gives practical steps to overcome them too.