A good friend once asked me why I thought Christian schools are useless. I wrote back a manifesto. Since it was fairly comprehensive, and since I’m short of time at the moment, I thought I’d post it: Read the rest of this entry »

… aka violinkid.

Australians are expected to spend $20m on fair trade products this year - “an 80-fold increase in revenue in just over four years”

Leading British fair trade brand now popular enough to compete directly with Cadbury and Nestle - “yet is made and co-owned by 45,000 small-scale cocoa growers from the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative, spread across 1200 villages in Ghana.”

But apparently “coffee certification systems such as Fair Trade are hollow marketing apparatuses wrapped in charitable skin that injure the very population they ostensibly protect.”

Lots to think about, especially since Fair Trade Fortnight starts today.

We had our school athletics carnival over the last two days. The weather was perfect, and as it was our last carnival we were ready to have a good time.
The slideshow below shows a selection of the photos I took. You can get the full photos or comment on them by clicking them (or something - I’m no expert).

What do you think? Leave a comment.

If there was a “Greatest Hero Award”, I know who would win it. I know because when we were shopping for camping supplies he bought the medal to go with his Santa Suit. Like all the great heroes of the past, he loves to have fun, has an insane sense of humour, is always ready for a surf, and he is a bloody awesome friend. His name is Will, everyone calls him Wilkin, and this is our story:

Part 1: The Beginning
The morning I met Will was just like any other Thursday morning. Enjoying the clear skies and the coolness of morning, a hint of warmth in the air, I climbed the seemingly endless paths through the school up from my bus stop. I threw open my locker and stuffed my bag inside. As I turned to join the group huddled in the playground, I caught a glimpse of someone I’d never seen before.
“Exchange student.” I thought, and kept walking.

As usual, no-one moved when the bell rang. Minutes later, as I dragged my feet towards my locker, I passed him again, tall and slim with hair that would have been emo but for its sandy colour. He was walking with a few other people. “Good, someone’s looking after him”.  I thought, feeling relieved of any responsibility.

Talking to a friend at lunchtime, I noticed him at his locker alone. “Lets go and say hi”, I suggested.  
“Go on then” she said. Driven more by my desire to avoid losing face than a concern for others, I walked over. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but it was probably something like this:

“Hey mate, Andrew” I volunteered in my typically awkward manner.
“Hi. Will” he replied. We shook hands.
“Where you from?”
England
“Oh yeah? You like cricket, then?”
“A bit”

Neither of us knew it, but in that moment we had discovered some small connection between us, through which we would come to be best of friends.

To be continued: Cricket, surfing, camping, parties, life - why Will is the Greatest Hero.

Dale reckons we should fight for Jesus. If you can’t work out why, episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4 might help.  

Being a Christian is 24/7. Everyday. Every hour. Every word. Every thought. Every action. Everything. Jesus matters more than being cool. Who are you trying to please? Jesus or some pimp daddies at school? Stand up for Jesus. Suffer for Jesus. Don’t be ashamed of Jesus. Tell your friends about Jesus. Join the Jesus Fight Club. Fight for Jesus.

Do you agree? Head to iagreewithdale.com and leave a comment.

Jokes are dead. The internet is responsible. Your job: to bring them back.

Has anyone else noticed the death of the Joke? Or am I just hanging around with the wrong crowd? I haven’t heard a solid shaggy dog story in months, maybe years; it seems to me the art of spinning a good joke is dead.

I blame the internet. (Blaming the net is all the rage these days)
Come back with me to a pub in an outback town, decades before ‘internet’ was even a word. What were jokes then? They were connections to other people, conversation starters, and entertainment.

But most importantly: they were jewels. Without online joke databases and email chain letters, jokes were passed through their telling. They were tested on new audiences; good ones remembered and retold complete with the teller’s signature exaggeration. A new joke might have crossed oceans, deserts, or mountain ranges, carried by the faithful word warriors in fishing boats, on horses, in pubs, camping, driving, or in trains.

Enter the internet. One of the first websites I ever visited was a joke site. On it you could read tens of thousands of jokes, rated, ranked, and categorized.

Now jokes could be mass-consumed m&m style, alone, one after the other, joke upon joke, without pause, until the reader had eaten enough. Jokes were cut off from the source of life supplied by a human speaker, whose timing, intonation, facial expressions, and all-important embellishment were the real origin of the humour. Removed from interesting environments, they also lost what made them meaningful: their ability to form connections between people.

And so, jokes stopped being funny. Still amusing, still entertaining, but now hardly able to bring more than a smile. And so also, jokes ceased to be remembered. Once we prized the ability to recall every detail of a dozen jokes, but now, who would need to, with such vast compilations at our fingertips?

But is it so far gone?

 In a world of ever expanding cities, of busy, faceless strangers, of stress and rush, people need to connect. We often share our busses, trainstations, Starbucks, bars, park benches and offices with the same people everyday, but remain trapped in our own world by our ipods and magazines. Jokes are perfect ice-breakers and ideal conversation-starters; comforting and entertaining. It’s time for the joke to make a comeback.

And the job falls to you. You will notice I have not linked to a single website in this article. Of course not. Jokes must be sought and collected, not searched and downloaded. This is what you must do: When you’re next on a bus, in a restaurant, at a sporting event, ask: “Do you know any good jokes?”. Or, better yet, tell one. But that’s only half the job. You’ve got to remember their joke, spread it, and, most importantly, improve it - add to it.

Corny as it sounds, how better to start a conversation and get people to open up than with a laugh? Try it, and, who knows, maybe the joke will be resurrected.

Now get out there! You’ve got a job to do!

3 great things happened to me today:

1. I woke up, which is always nice. As far as I can work out, it means I’m alive.
2. I had the last of my trial exams - just my real exams to go now!
3. I took my new board out for a test run. Yesterday I wrote about how to get into surfing, and point 4 was “Do it often”. This afternoon I found out why. I haven’t been out for a while so I was very unfit and even more un-surf-fit (the surfing muscles… were gone!)
   Even though I was a bit rusty, the new stick is very, very nice! I haven’t tried out all the features yet (like standing up… kidding, sort of) but I like it heaps.

Tonight will be sweet too: youth group. Good food, good music, good fun, good people, and learning about Jesus - good times! If you live on the Coast, 7-9:30pm tonight @ the Erina High School hall (on The Entrance road) is where it’s at!

This afternoon I drove out to Long Jetty to pick up my new surf board, which my awesome friends and family bought me for my 18th.

Thanks guys: I love it!!!

It’s my first real board, and I’m super-dooper excited to try it out. If you’re interested, it’s a 6 foot 1 custom Wizstix fish, something-or-other inches thick.

 But I reckon it needs a paintjob. I could pay to get one done, but I have some arty friends who would probably do a sweet job. I’ve got basically no idea what sort of design I want - hopefully they will have some ideas.

Watch this site for updates.

What do you think? Have you got any ideas for a design?

If you’re procrastinating an exam, done for the week, or just interested - I’d love to see your ideas! Leave a comment.

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Summer is on it’s way! Last weekend saw the return of boardies, t-shirts, and thongs as the weather warmed from a beautifully hot couple of days last week.
My appetite was whet: I can’t wait for summer! (If you can’t wait, here’s how to bring back summer.)

In the meantime, here are 65 Reasons to LOVE Summer:  (in no particular order)

What do you love about summer? Have I missed anything? What are your Top 10? Do you hate summer? Leave a comment.

One of the ‘mantras’ that I try to live my life by is the motto Don’t Waste Your Life.

“I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!”
I never, ever want to come to the end of my life and say that.

My post yesterday about how to (not) succeed at school was a wake-up call. Recently, and on this blog in particular, I’ve been wasting my life. I’m going to try spending less time on stuff that doesn’t matter.

3 ways to waste a life:

• Wasting it in the little things - frittering away time minute by minute. Watching just one more youtube video or pressing the snooze button one more time. I don’t think there is anything bad about these things, but there is the potential and temptation to let them soak up your life. (How to stop)
• Wasting it in the big things - A career, an organisation, a sporting team, a family, friends, and relationships. Have any of these amounted to anything? Did you suck the most juice out of every opportunity at school? When you are with friends, do you spend more time discussing lotto results than important stuff?
• Wasting Jesus - Of all three, this will be the one you disagree with.
  If Jesus was who he said he was, the other two ways are of no importance compared to the tragedy of ignoring him. It is worth it to check him out. (Contact me if you don’t know where to start)
  (Disagree? Leave a comment.)

I don’t claim to be perfect in any of these. I find the temptation to waste life in the little things the hardest to resist and the easiest to forget. Procrastinating is dumb - do the stupid assignment and then get out and enjoy life. (Preaching to myself on this one.)

What do you think? Do you ever catch yourself wasting your life? Disagree with me completely? Leave a comment.

Addicted to the internet? Wondering where the last few months of your life went? Always telling yourself “Just one more click“?

It’s time to end it. Click here.