Hayley vs. Gareth

…She thought her 2,000 word essay was 2,500, and therefore had to spend the morning it was due in butchering it, so that it is no longer recognisable and is bleeding very badly!

Hello there all you beautiful people (bit of a Stevie G moment there…Griffiths not Gerrard by the way), it seems like a while since I last blogged but maybe that’s because of Hayley’s newly found addiction to blogging…it’s been cool to read this website and not just read stuff I’ve written…you all probably like it too!

I have a few things to blog about, and so if you think this is a bit of a random post and a bit too all over the place I apologise

Over the weekend, I became a Christian…okay well I didn’t become one because I am one and have been for almost 5 years now (I am getting old!) but I did have a really cool weekend away for the 11-14’s Sizewell weekend that CYM do and had a wicked time and learnt a lot and got close to God (whatever that means) and had a brilliant small group too in which one of the young people became a Christian. The young people in my small group were really cool and one of the quotes of the weekend was from a girl who said when asked if Jesus was really Lord over everything and everything belongs to him said, “Well, he’s either Lord over everything or not everything and since the Bible says everything, it probably means everything” I liked it even if you don’t!

As well as all that, being at Sizewell meant that I got to hang out with Mark for the weekend since he was doing the talks and it was really good to catch up and hang out with him and then even better to go to the pub on Sunday night with him and we enjoyed a lovely Chinese at the Fat Cat…mmm…tasty!

I had two days at Ridders (Ridley Hall to all you non-gangsta’s!) this week and on Monday night on my mate Tom’s convincing we watched a film called ‘Once’, you may have heard of the film now as one of the songs (An absolutely beautiful song, and when I say beautiful I mean wonderfully drop dead gorgeous song called ‘Falling Slowly’) won the Oscar for Best Song. The film is really nice, beautiful, sweet and funny but not cheesy, vomit inducing or luvvy duvvy but what absolutely makes the film is the amazing soundtrack, the songs are so brilliant, kind of like Damien Rice but even better. The soundtrack is so good that I have now ordered it off Amazon and look forward to having a lovely listen to it!

Jesus said: I have come to give you life and life in all its fullness….

Next week is Chester University’s CU mission week: 10: ten

It would be fab if you could pray for it in the run up for it and also next week for it as it’s going on. Here are some prayer points…

• The CU would be excited about getting out on campus and sharing God’s love with it. And that people would step out of their comfort zones!
• People on campus who don’t know Jesus would be open to receiving his love and to hear the amazing things that he has done for them.
• The things that we have organized will all go well!
• All the final preparations will all go smoothly!

Thanks guys and ill keep you up dated about the exciting things that God does!

Again…don’t be too shocked that I’m posting for the 4th time this week!

I watched Juno last night…and although not wanting to like it I must admit to having enjoyed it! My reasons for not wanting to like it is because I didn’t like the idea of making light of something as serious as teenage pregnancy. As it is advertised as a comedy I was worried that it would make be a mockery of the subject! At times Juno was a tad irritating, but all in all I really enjoyed the film, it made me laugh and at times brought me close to crying. I would recommend it!!!

I’m aching muchly today after I ventured to the wilds of Manchester to ski yesterday! No there wasn’t suddenly a blizzard up north, but there is an amazing indoor ski centre! After going to Les Duex Alpes to Ski in January, I am loving it; it is the most scary thing ever, cos literally you are throwing yourself down a with two planks attached to your legs! But is it awesome!

Below is a picture from the holiday. This is our beginners group with our amazing instructor Jacque!

First off, it was my great pleasure to see the return of Hayley blogging yesterday, was actually quite shocked when I clicked onto the website and saw her post and thought “I didn’t write that!” only joking but it is great to have her back and blogging!

On Wednesday night, myself, Neil Fox, Neil’s mate Graeme and Phil Green went to see the ever so wonderful comedian Russell Howard at the Ipswich Corn Exchange and as much as I would love to review him “officially” on this blog but I couldn’t be bothered and I would tell you some of his ever so funny things that he said but I’m afraid that you might be offended or dislike use of swear words so I wont. I will say that he was flippin’ hilarious and proper cracked me up so much and there was one point when Phil Green was looking like he was struggling to breathe he was laughing so much! The tour is going to be released on DVD later this year and I advise you all to get it, go on, I am definitely going to.

My mate Amy who I go to college always says that I remind her loads of Russell Howard and she thinks me and him are really similar and it got me thinking, is there a comedian that you think you are like? Or one that people have said you are like?

Finally, I went to see a play last night (Shock) and it wasn’t just any old play, it was a musical (Even more shock) and it wasn’t just any old musical, it was Oklahoma! (Drop down dead with shock)

The reason being that my sister Tanya is head of dance at Sudbury Upper School and it was their school play and being the good lovely supportive brother I am, when she asked me if I’d go, I said I would.

Most school plays or performances by anyone under 18 are either of two extremes, either they can’t sing, dance or deliver a line what so ever and it is just painful to watch! Or they are the kids who can only act and sing by moving their entire face around in weird movements in a Co-op Juniors/Hermione from Harry Potter way and you just hate them for how rubbish and annoying they are. However the kids who were in Oklahoma last night where blooming amazing, no joke, they were really good, there was some with really wicked singing voices and there was a few who were the absolute bomb at dancing. Overall for an evening I was worried was going to suck hard, it was actually very enjoyable! Shock Horror!!

“Your beauty should not come form the outward adornment such as braided hair and the wearing of gold and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner-self the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. for this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.”
God has been challenging me a lot recently, and teaching me loads. Especially looking at the areas in my life which I hold in great importance (which I shouldn’t). This verse is one which he has really spoken to me through, so I thought I would share it with you. He has reminded me recently of how faithful he is, and even though we let these different things get in the way between him and us he is still there, we just need to give everything back to him. For me that’s giving everything to him in the morning in the evening and at lots of points during the day, reminding myself that nothing else matters, only Jesus. I want to be a holy woman…guess I’m going to have to learn to be quiet…!!!!!

As of Monday I am officially part of a world record breaking attempt! Chester University now holds the record for having the most number of people dressed as smurf’s in one building! To qualify as a smurf you had to be wearing a blue top, white hat, white bottoms and white shoes and have every part of your body which was showing painted in blue! It was a top night…and I’m still finding blue paint on me!! The previous record was around 440 and we got around 880! Hurrah for blue paint and all smurfingness!

On today which is maybe the worst day of the year and I have been in probably an absolutely foul mood for all of it so far, I have debated on what to do to help me feel quite so emo and depressed…

After a bit of a pray and a good old whinge to God, I decided that a bit of listening to loud music would be a good idea…

One particular song was ever so good in yelling (in my head) along to and meaning so much. It was first said to me last year that this should be my anthem by my mate Cheadle and she was right…if you’ve ever been heartbroken then it is more than good at yelling to

Click here to listen to the song…you know you want to

On Sunday night I went to the pub because Paul and Kev were back for the weekend and wanted to enjoy some time with mates before another week of friendlessness!

Whilst we were there we were joined by a few people from Paul’s church and we were talking about films. Now films as this blog may suggest and if you’re my friend you will know, mean a lot to me and I love movies and in my years of having a well paid job I have built up a collection of DVD’s and video’s that is very worth being proud of. We were talking about films that are ‘must see’, films that if you want to consider yourself a fan of films or want to be able to make any comments on films then you need to have seen…

Before I put into the hat the films I consider to be ‘must see’, I challenge you all to comment and name some films that you consider ‘must see’