The Search for Good Music

Tiana and I were sitting here missing LifeFM in New Zealand and we decided to see if there are any radio stations stateside that play a variety of music by Christian artists - like rock, hip-hop, contemporary christian, worship, dance, gospel, funk, pop, ska, and local artists. And they have to play new/current music. Cleveland's radio stations are pretty much useless. Both FM stations play older music. For one station we looked at the entire playlist and found only 5 songs that were from last year - and 3 of them were remakes! None were from this year. What?! And the other station has played the exact same music for the past 5 years and again, none of it from this year that I have heard so far. Sad! SO, we decided to check online to see if any Christian station played a wide variety of styles on their stations. Results = none. Some will play worship. Others gospel. Others rock. Others techno. Other's contemporary Christian. Other's hip-hop. We have found these music stations to be quite segregated. What's the deal?

We found a UK station that played a variety of music and this is great. And of course, LifeFM in New Zealand does too. But in America, we are seriously lacking in that area - and no one seems to be interested in local up and coming artists!

So if you're in America and want to hear some great music and local Kiwi artists as well, listen to LifeFM online and be happy just like us!

Back Home - for real?

Home. What is a home? I'm finally back in Ohio, but it doesn't feel like home. It's like my whole life here was so long ago. Ancient. And I'm just visiting.

I have changed a lot, yes. So I just need to balance the old and the new. Things are coming back to me about "home" and America, but I still see things where I'm like, woah! forgot that.

Moving back to mum's place is good, but not. Free rent for the time being, but after living on my own halfway across the world... and getting used to that...I'm not sure how long I can last here. I'm broke, so that settles it I suppose, but when I find a job, I have some serious thinking to do.

If I plan on going back to NZ soon (Jan 2009), which I do, I'll stay here and save up money, but if it may be Sept 2009, I may move in with a friend or something. I don't know. It really depends on how my sanity holds up. Haha.

Well, that's all the contemplating I care to do right now.

Cheers!

Homesickness?!

Hey, so I think I've figured out why I've been so down lately - besides the whole re-entry thing that happens when you're away for a long time.

I'm not home yet. I'm in America, yes. But not home yet.

I consider New Zealand my home. And I also consider Ohio my home. 

Right now I'm in South Carolina. You do the math.

When I'm in Hamilton, New Zealand- I miss Cleveland, Ohio. When I'm in Cleveland, Ohio - I miss Hamilton, New Zealand. When I'm in South Carolina - I miss Hamilton AND Cleveland. That's double the amount of missings!!!

I love being with my brother and sister in law and nephew, but I'm used to seeing them like once a year and having some kind of cash saved up to do things instead of mooching off of them. But I've seen my friends and church family in NZ rather constantly my whole year there. And my friends and family in Ohio even longer. And right now I'm not with any of them. Weird.

I'm homesick for 2 places!!!!

SO...I need to either go back home to NZ or go home to Ohio. None of this "in between" stuff! 

If I don't go to one of my homes real soon, I'm going to go crazy! Hopefully I can last until Wednesday when I leave!

Oh yeah, and as of this weekend I will have been living out of a suitcase for a whole month. When we moved out of our flat in Hamilton, everything remained packed during our house sitting time. So, yes, all my clothes are wrinkled. Haha!

Okay-ish-ness

I'm doing okay. Trying to shake this depression that came over me last week. There's just missing a place, and then there's depression. I won't get in to that. God's working on me. I'm better. 

I've looked up a lot of stuff about how long I can stay in NZ since I can't do a working holiday again. Looks to be about 3 months if  just did a normal holiday visa. Everything else requires a lot more that doesn't look like a realistic possibility for me and I'm not moving there permanently. It'll just be me saving up. I'm still going to try to get an artist grant, but those are usually for a month or so and don;t give out much. Art fellowships and sponsorships which are more serious income require more work than 7 months will allow, and are for professional artists who have been around for awhile...say 30 yrs in doing art professionally. Ha! So, we'll see. Maybe  won't go back until September. Definitely don't want to go back during NZ's winter or during the V8s in April if I can help it!

So, I won't look into that much more right now.

I have loved spending time with my nephew, Alex. He is such a good baby. 14 months is a fun age. He can walk though he falls down a lot. He loves to smile and laugh. He speaks his own baby-ish language and can understand a lot from us. He's developing his imagination. He's pretty good about sleeping and eating. And he's soooooo cute!!! This past weekend, My bro and sis in law abandoned us with their child so they could speak the weekend away in Charlotte. (Their home is just on the border of South Carolina and North Carolina.) We actually offered to give them a break and take care of Alex and they were very excited. It's been so nice! They come back today.

I've been searching for art jobs in Cleveland. Cleveland.com. Monster.com. Indeed.com. Yahoo hotjobs. etc. Even though I'm not home yet, I still want to be searching early. I fly home on May 21st. I'll probably try to get a temp job right away to pay for some immediate bills and to get my art website up and running properly. I will also be going full on into my art. Painting will commence as soon as I return to Cleveland and get my easel from my other bro. Also, I have tons of art to sell and tons of amazing photography to print and sell. I'll be visiting galleries and coffee shops and wherever else to sell my art I will also see if I can hold a show somewhere. I need to make up new business cards and figure out set prices for my work, update my artist statement, etc, etc, etc. Busy busy. Any job I get on the side, I will try to keep it as art related as possible. I'll be talking to some artists as soon as I get home. My grandma has been meeting some artists and telling them about me and now I have "appointments" to go see them and tell them about NZ and get some connections, y'know? I'm starting to get real excited. 

Maybe this is part of the reason I'm feeling better. Trusting God with future plans and just following him in what he wants me to do. He is so amazing!!!!

The Return

Yes.

I'm back "home".

I'm really trying to be excited. I was very excited to see my brother and sis in law, and my Nephew Alex. He's great. So cute. So fun. So stubborn. Haha. I guess it's in our genes. This time in S. Carolina will be good for the re-adjustment to American culture.

See. Alex already loves his auntie.

Went to the airport on Sat with friends. It was really hard, but God kept my spirits up well enough. I didn't start crying until the middle of the night on the plane. I went in the airplane bathroom and lost it. Then was fine, until the next flight where I sat next to some family where Tiana and I swear we saw the father on some TV show (we were flying from LA). Tiana was in the seat in front of me, so I couldn't really talk to her. I started looking at some pictures of friends from NZ and got to about the second picture and I cried like a little girl for the whole flight. Good thing I had the window seat and the little girl next to me was asleep for most of the flight. I had a real good silent talk/argue/prayer time with God and by the time we were leaving the plane I was well enough. Geez. Who knew that a year abroad could have such a huge impact on my life? I'll never forget just looking back and seeing everyone waving goodbye. Some with smiles. Some with quietness. And everytime I looked back, they were still there. It was almost too much to handle. I can only imagine that the only reason I didn't break down and cry was because of God. It's such a vivid picture in my mind and it keeps replaying over and over like some scene from a movie.

I love New Zealand. I love my friends. I love CBC.


I miss it all very much.


But I love God even more and I go where He wants me to go. Right now I'm supposed to be back in America. And though I'm a little sad and wake up crying in the mornings, I'll be fine. It's good to be with family again. It's good to be back in America too, though it is quite an adjustment after living in New Zealand for a year. But most importantly, it's good to be doing what God wants me to do.

To his glory and honor.

Resolved.

Resolved.

It's good to know that Jesus cares. I already knew it, but it's still good to be reminded.

Friendships restored. Heartbreaks getting healed. Preparation for the big move back to the states going okay. Drama down to a minimum.

All in all I feel pretty good.

I still don't want to leave New Zealand. C'mon! No offense to America, but New Zealand's got it going on.
But...
No offense to New Zealand, but America's already had it going on.
Haha.

What am I talking about?!


Hmm... someone's going to have to throw me onto that plane cause I don't think I'll be going willingly.

Goodbye BBQ on Thursday. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not too, because it'll be like the 'final' goodbye. Some people I may never see again. Others I'll see in January 2009 when I hope to return. But I hope to stay connected to everyone cause I love them soooooooo much!

Cheers!

April Events

So yeah, my posts were getting a bit too reflective. On to some happier stuff. Hangin' out with friends, every week, sometimes more than once a week. A good time can always be expected.

Hamilton Gardens, just chillin

Balloons over Waikato - we couldn't get the camera centered

Balloons over Waikato - Nightglow at Waikato University

Remember, I was supposed to do study abroad there?

Nightglow - Hot air Balloons, lit to the sound of movie soundtracks

Putt Putt golfing - this course was quite dull, but hangin out with friends was fun.

There were little teddy bears set up all over the course. It was quite lame.

The guys, checking their scores

Will the ball make it into the hole? I don't think it did.

The concert we went to during V8s weekend. It said Happy Hour 6-9. We weren't there for drinks. Haha. We wanted to see Radiator and Kissed by the Moon. Showed up a little after 6pm and the gates were closed and nothing opened. We waited at Starbucks for 3 hours, seeing some of the members from the bands come around 8pm and wait outside for an hour for people to unlock the door. We went in around 9pm. Concert started around 10pm. They need to work on getting their timing right. Sometimes they start on time, sometimes they start 4 hours later. Who knew?

Still growing

So...

Apparently forgiveness is a daily practice.

Who knew?

Question is, how many times can a friend hurt you before they realize...or care...that they are? And how long does it take for a friend to stop acting like a jerk? And how long does it take before a good friendship is ruined?

And how long will it take before I stop crying?

But I read in proverbs today that we should "never abandon a friend." And I also read in Psalms that "The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and rescues the crushed in spirit."

This is where I'm at. Totally confused, and hurt, and confused, and hurt, and leaving NZ in less than a week...wondering if this will be resolved before then.

Prayer please.

Forgiveness and the growth of Cara

SO...the V8 car races are over. I won't get into it much. Cars were fast and loud. Fun, then not so much. Serving at church was real good. God worked in the midst of a whole lotta darkness. Read Tiana's blog for more info of how that worked.

Right now I'm learning about forgiveness. This weekend was real good and real bad and a friend screwed up big time. The world tells me that who cares if they are sinning about such in such, it's no big deal. My flesh is saying hate them and avoid them - 3 strikes and they're out. But God, he's saying - forgiveness. We are all human and struggle with sin. This friend fell this weekend. But God forgives him. And in my attitude about his sin, I fell this weekend- and maybe more so yesterday morning when I was heartbroken to see a good friend doing the very thing that pierces down to my very core.

Lust. Guys have it so hard in this world when it comes to that, and it seems that many of us women only encourage it in the way we dress and act and...yeah.

I was prepared to end a relationship over this person's struggle. Isn't that just like people? Just like the kinda Christians I can't stand who, when someone falls, shuns them and kicks them while they're down. God doesn't call us to be that way. God hates sin more than I do, yet he loves people and he helps them through their struggles. He's done this in my life so so SO many times. God calls us to forgive as we have been forgiven...and I have been forgiven much. I need to forgive and come alongside this friend with love, and help him through this struggle, and call him out when he needs to know how his "seemingly innocent" actions can offend his sisters in Christ. Sometimes people just need this to know that they are being wrong.

If I really care about him as a valued friend, I won't just ignore this, and walk away. Fly back to America and pretend that this person hasn't impacted every part of my life, and just drop it there- never to speak to him again. How harsh unforgiving would that be? How un-Christlike would that be? You don't sin in response to sin.

I would hope a friend would care enough about me to call me out when I'm in the wrong too.
And my sister has.


See? See how God is growing me every single moment of my life!

From the Desk of Cara at A.C.C.

Yes, I'm writing from A.C.C. It's been a slow day today so, yea-ya!!

So, today is my last day at work. Am I excited? You betcha! But it's kind of a bitter sweet leaving. I'm not much of an "office" person, nor do I like to talk on the phone all day. My throat gets tired of talking. And why do you have to dress up at a call center? You're just talking on the phone!

But this also marks the very nearness of my time in New Zealand ending.

I don't wanna go back to America. I miss it terribly, but there's so much I'm involved with in New Zealand, and so many new friends that I've really connected with, and such an awesome church that I am so involved in, and it's so beautiful and sunny and green and yeah. But I miss my friends at home. And I miss my family. And I miss people from my church at home. And I miss lots of things. But it's going to be so different when I go home. Living in another country always means that you'll go through some kind of culture shock when you return home. Not looking forward to that.

These past few weeks we've really been hanging out with people constantly and it just makes it harder to go. And some people I'm going to really miss...not sure how I will cope..some very dear friends that I won't be seeing anymore. Can I convince everyone to get video skype?


When I go home, my plan is to save up for coming back to New Zealand in January, and I really mean to. But I have bills at home to pay, debts to pay off, an art career to fully begin. And life without New Zealand is no life at all, right.

I'm not looking forward to being bombarded with questions about how my experience was in New Zealand. How can I sum it up? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was amazing! God has grown me soooooo much. Will I seem different to others at home?

Because of the whole culture shock thing, I probably won't see most people until June. It'll give me some time to re-adjust to America. The first two weeks of May we'll be staying in South Carolina and visiting my brother and sister-in-law and my little nephew whom I haven't seen yet. After that we'll go back to Cleveland and meet up with some friends from New Zealand that have been travelling in a RV around America. Fun times. Then, I'll be over my shock and jet lag and can talk to everyone more normal-like.


Tiana and I moved all of our furniture out of our flat last night! We have such amazing friends who are so willing. We had to drop stuff off at three different houses and we began at 8:15pm, so it was fun. But it took us till about 10:30pm so that's not so bad. Our Life group leaders are going to throw a Goodbye Barbecue for us May 1st, so I guess we're staying until May 3rd. Haha I'll take it! It's so sad how empty our flat is, but it's funny because we didn't have a ton of stuff. Today after work, we're going to take the bus down to the Korean restaurant and have an early dinner (cause last night we didn't plan dinner and ended up having canned cream rice) and then we're going to go to the Warehouse and get a few cleaning materials, and go home and get to it. Hopefully we can clean most of the flat today and only have a little bit of the bathroom to worry about tomorrow.

Tomorrow marks the first day of the V8 races. I'm so excited. Me and Tiana have tickets!!! We got them discounted too. I'm not a huge fan of car races, but I saw the movie Cars, and I know they go fast. I played the video games. I'm heaps excited!!!! They built the whole racecourse circuit right near where we live. Our church is on the inside of the track, so we're serving the community and running a cafe. Today was the big Powhiti (Welcome) with the Maori King and there was some cancellations of the caterers last night so I know people at church were a little stressed. How do you cancel on the Maori King? This is like huge! The prime minister is supposed to be there too as well, to usher in the first of many V8 races in Hamilton for the years to come. NZ is definitely different from America. I'm so excited to help on Sat and Sun and just be real servants. God has opened up a tremendous opportunity!

As of Today

I only have a few weeks left in New Zealand, and I am devistated. But I'll be fine. I miss America too. Kind of.

This week God laid it on my heart to do a prayer walk around the track that is for the V8 races here in Hamilton. Yes ladies and gents, we will be hosting a huge race car race around our city next weekend. Fun times.

It was such a good time of prayer with a few people from church. 36,000 extra people from all over the world will be in our city for this. Our church sits right inside the track, so we will be serving the community for this event and hosting something with the Maori king. I suppose the prime minister will be there too. It's such a good opportunity to reach these people who may not usually be crossing paths with us. What a great opportunity to be like Jesus to them! It's exciting, but can be very stressful. I won't get into now, but there's a lot to pray for with this.

It was so good. Talking with God is soooo good.

Tonight, I'll be going to Nightglow at University of Waikato. This past week has been Balloons over Waikato - hot air balloons. We saw them launch as were waiting for our bus at the bus stop every morning. There's some cool shapes too. One of the ballons was a Darth Vador head. Haha!!! Anyways, tonight is like the final festivities and there's music, and the balloons will be on the ground with lights shining on them, and there will be fireworks. All in all, it sounds quite cool. I'll take some pictures and put the in the next post.

But right now, I need to do some art!

Fun times in the last few weeks...

Touch Rugby Tournament - I cheered our team on

Stations of the Cross Art Installations at the Hamilton Gardens with friends. Sokun took this picture, but we never got one with her in it. Awesome artpieces!

Easter Weekend - We bought Callalillies

Easter Service was amazing!

Easter Weekend - borrowed a car and went to Mt. Maungatautari. Not much of a mount, but we were straight up in the country. We've missed it these last few months without a car.

Easter Weekend - Hamilton Gardens in the daytime- Lovely -This is the Italian Garden

Easter - Waihi Beach - Keeping with our holiday tradition of going to the beach

Last Weekend we went with friends to see a rugby game and hang out. Chiefs (our team) won, randomly ended up seeing part of the Hamilton Gospel choir at the Salvation Army on our way to dinner, and ate some delicious Indian food. But I didn't have a camera!!

I'm gonna miss New Zealand and hanging out with my kiwi (and Canadian) mates.



Until next time...

Yeah yeah yeah...no

It's not everyday that you get a ride home from two former Olympic BMX racers who are quite interested in "misplacing" orange cones in your empty parking space for kicks.
Oh the laughs.

Last week was a rough week. But it forced me to talk to God rather constantly. Nothing wrong with that. Lots of questions. Lots of "wait" answers. Hmm...

This will be better only because of the grace of God and his teaching me how to pray. This week is a week for focusing on other peoples prayer needs and less on myself and my wants and me me me. Other people are hurting and although I need this constant prayer time with God, I can use it to pray for others too...more than I have been. SO.....

I'll be praying "BIG" this week.

And I will still be praying about the other, rather intense, situation of last week and this week and for however long it needs prayer for.... but not from my view of it, but for the, ah... other...um...yeah.


Oh, and I love my kiwi church very, very much.
Why must I go back to America again?

To sum up my week....

(These) Lonely Places

by Cara

Feels like
Shadows
Closing in
On me

Heartbreak
I've played the game
Now shadows
Are creeping

So many times
In different places
So many times
On me


Shadows why do you seek me?
Why are you following through my room?
Where am I supposed to run to
If you are always waiting there too?

"Shadows!", love screams:
"Leave me, in some peace!"
"Shadows, go away
And, give me some release!"


Feels like
Shadows
Closing in
On me

Heartbreak
I've played the game
Now shadows
Are creeping

So many times
In different places
So many times
On me

Slightly delayed -- apologies

Uh oh.

It's been awhile.

That's how you know I really have a job.

I work at a call center for ACC - New Zealand's nationwide health insurance - unique only to NZ
In other words, I work for the government.

I have a headset, two computer screens, a corner of a make-shift cubicle decorated with as much fabric, art, and quotes that I can fit on two small square bulletin boards. Hmm. I try.

I'm surviving. It's not half bad. It 'ain't have good neither', but it'll do. Hehe.

I'll get into it more later. Right now, I'm getting over a bad cold and I need to take a nap.





I miss Mexican restaurants.
And I hope mom is recovering okay from surgery.

Late-Breaking News

This just in...

...Cara gets a job.

:)

On to the next prayer request:

To have a car, or not to have a car. That is the question.

What can I say?

SO...

How do I follow a post like that?

I obviously was upset. I still am, I suppose. But I keep having my many intense conversations with God and letting Him give me peace.

Okay, so I'm broke, in debt, and unsure about my future? So what?

It's not the end of the world.

Meanwhile, I'm turning out some sweet-as art...

Y'know, sweet-as-sugar. Good-as-gold. I'm gonna get into trouble using Kiwi slang when I go back home.

A Vent to beat all Vents

New Zealand temp agencies are the most unprofessional and unreliable wastes of time in the history of my experience! I have never seen such lack of care or responsibility in all of my cognitive life.

A word to the masses...

If you plan to do a working holiday in New Zealand, save up all the money you will need for the whole time you're here. That way you don't have to be bothered in dealing with any sort of job here. It'd be a real stress-saver.

Meanwhile, Tiana's lovely job that she's been working for over a week, and her temp agency, so kindly told her that they can't pay her this week because they didn't collect her bank details in time (an no one asked her for them in all this time), and she finally inquired about it before this Thursdays pay date, only to find that it's too late. Now we can't pay rent or buy groceries this week. And there's no credit card to the rescue because we're both almost on $0 and can't even pay our bills.


There comes a breaking point when enough is enough.

And I've just reached it.






I can't wait to go home.

Title: I can't think of one. Ha!

Since the last entry was rather morose, I decided I'd begin this blog with three random
things I enjoy.

1) Eating Dal (exotically flavored lentils) and Indian curry rice is one of my favorite things
ever. Today.

2) Cheese and crackers is very important in my life. Camembert, Brie, Edam, etc. All good. All yum.

3) Eating a salad with leaf lettuce, capsicum (green or red bell pepper), ripe, sliced avocado, onion, and cubed feta cheese all topped with a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar is absolutely lovely. Sometimes if I used marinated feta cheese, I don't need any dressing. My, how my tastes have changed. Three months ago I hated most salads (except for those at Aladdin's Eatery). Thanks to a Canadian, an American, and a Kiwi (all living in New Zealand), I now love salads with these toppings together, and even some others. I eat a salad regularly now. Like, a few times a week. Ha! Crazy World!

Being constantly broke has meant that I eat healthier. In New Zealand, fresh fruits and
fresh veggies are a lot cheaper than America. Go figure.


Parachute Music Festival was AMAZING! We got to see some great NZ bands (Lieutenant Funk, Radiator, Spacifix, Calling Elijah) and American bands (Switchfoot, Jonezetta, Red). Fun times! We even walked through a WorldVision tent that documented the true stories of three young children living in Africa in poverty and the threat of A.I.D.S. Each person going through the tent gets a mp3 audio story of one of the kids and follows their lives and whether or not they get A.I.D.S. and how they were helped. Very powerful and very eye opening.

Lieutenant Funk

Radiator

Red

Jonezetta

Calling Elijah

Our pastor took us with his family on a Saturday Evening. The festival was four days long. We couldn't afford to go even though we had been looking forward to it for months, and then out of the blue, Campbell said he was taking us with his family. There was massive amounts of excitement going on in our flat! We had already circled the bands we wanted to see on Saturday, way back in November, so we were already set. We couldn't see Rapture Ruckus (I'm sad), or our friends in the Holy Rollers, but we've seen them a lot so we're good. Maybe we can catch Rapture Ruckus before we leave. Who knows.

Tiana and Campbell's family looking down at Parachute

Life FM - Live from Parachute. I think Jase was in there.

They said no crowd surfing, but they instituted this little contest...

In other news...

We had a close call last week. A serious decision. We almost had to make the decision to leave Hamilton cause we're running low on cash, and we weren't hearing from temp agencies, We had no clear direction from God about if we should move to the South Island and work on a fruit farm to save up money to go home or try to wait it out in Hamilton, hoping for a temp agency to call. Either way, God is good.
And he apparently wants us to stay in Hamilton.
Tiana got a job. At a call center through a temp agency that should last the rest of our time here.
Amazing.

Prayer and more prayer.

I suppose I'm growing.

Hmm...
I still need a job.

I called one of the agencies, today, just to check up on things and I was sternly and promptly brushed off. I was told by...um... let's call her 'Natalie', that, yes, she had received my CV (I didn't ask) and it was on file blah blah blah, but that there are just other people that are way more important to deal with and take priority over anyone new blah blah blah, and that she's busy blah blah blah so basically, stop calling and asking for an interview and maybe she'll get back to me if she has the time or care. The ol' "don't call us, we'll call you" speech in a rather rude and unprofessional delivery.

Typical.

I could have easily lost it on the phone. My temper is a struggle everyday, but I remained professional and calm. And wondered why they advertise that they have tons of temp jobs available and need new people everyday, and yet it took me 4 weeks to actually get a hold of 'Natalie" who deals with the temp work and realized that she was well aware of who I was and just really could care less about me.

I sent 3 separate emails with my CV (Resume) because I didn't hear back from 'Natalie' after the first and was told from my sister who got a prompt interview with her, that she didn't receive it, so I tried again. Still no word, so I tried from another email address and gave specific instructions to be emailed back when the email was received. I got a prompt answer back and was told I would get a phone call in a couple of days. One week later I call, and leave a message with a secretary for 'Natalie' to call me back. That was about 5 days ago. I call again today and am finally put through, only to be mildly insulted.

Ha. Well. Humans are humans all over the world. What can I do?


Temp agencies in New Zealand. I highly recommend. Really. If you have all the time in the world, perhaps they'll get back to you...
...in a few months
....or years.
And if you're an artist...well...
Don't hold your breath.

My Chaos

Big decisions need to be made by tomorrow.

Oh joy...

...not so much.