My song is love

So, as I've said, I'm now seventeen. My birthday was completely wonderful, thanks to all my lovely friends, and my family.

What I haven't really said is that being sixteen was perhaps the best year of my life. So I thought I'd write a little list here to show you why. Not to mention that I just like lists :)

1. A new house.
In January of 2009 our family relocated a few suburbs closer to the city. One can hardly call where we now live a 'suburb', as there is nothing very burbish about it. We live about as close to the city as you can get without actually being in it. But I love that. I love the busyness of my life, the vibrant streets of newtown and enmore. I love that TAFE is walkable from my house. I can also walk to the movie theatre, cafes, many-a-take-away-food-shop, the grocery store, the library, the newsagent, and most of all 7-11. Yeah it's pretty awesome. And the best part was that I was old enough to start wandering about a bit on my own.

2. NIDA
Some of my best and worst memories of being sixteen come from NIDA. I will name a few of each. 

The best:
- Meeting some fantastic young actors
- Having the privilege of being taught by Paul Caesar
- Learning to be comfortable performing a group dance
- Perfoming on a full stage with music, lighting and set design
- Absolutely LOVING what I was doing
- Having a great time with some people completely different to me
- Learning how to share my faith in small bites with non-christians

The worst:
- Missing out on being in the SALT band, and having to leave church early
- Feeling afraid that I wasn't doing the best I could for God

Definitely more good than bad there.  :)

3. Open Uni
Just a small thing here, but sixteen was the year that I sort of finished home schooling. A neato accomplishment. I took the next step forward in my education :)

4. Coldplay.
Oh my gosh. I need to find a picture to accompany this later. AMAZING. I can't believe this was a year ago. I would see them again right now if I could. And again and again again.

5. Commedia dell'arte
The highlight of homeschool drama that year. I had been dreading it for a very long time, but now it's up there with my best acting moments. Whaddya know. I'd do that again for sure.

6. My friends
Yes, this means you! This includes my family too. I don't know where I'd be without any of you guys. You all mean so much to me, more than I can say. I am so happy to know that you are always there for me, and I love every minute we spend together and I only wish I had more time to spend and more love to give to each and every one of you, because you deserve more than I could ever give you for being such amazingly wonderful friends. I am excited when I know I'm going to see you, I am joyful when we are together, and I miss you when you are gone. If I had room for you all I'd just bring you back to live in my house so I could see you all the time; because I can never get sick of any of you! I love love love love love you all! And this message barely even touched the tip of the iceberg in how much you all mean to me. Don't ever go away. Please stay in my life forever? I just want to keep on writing about how much I love you, but it's starting to get a bit repetitive and hard to read now so I'll stop. xoxoxox I rate you all 5 stars for being top friends. Other people should be jealous of your awesomeness, and I know they wish they had friends like you!!

7. SOC
Not all of this was good. But, seeing as this is a list about the best moments of being sixteen, I will most definitely be focusing on the amazingly good moments/things God gave me at SOC. So here they are:

- God showing me that he always works for the good of those who love him.
- A fantastic speaker who gave us excellent talks from Luke. Dave Miers, you are awesome. You can visit his site here.
- Taking 2,000+ photos on my SLR camera over three days. No joke. That was awesome.
- Having a fun time hanging with all my SALT peeps, and doing ninja secret stuff for people. Plus this epic banner I made for Jono :D
- And most of all, I gained a beautifully strong friendship with Katherine. We've been friends for a long time, but God did something incredible to us over that weekend. Katherine, you bring such joy to me and I love seeing your light for Jesus shine brightly. You are such an encouragement to me and I feel so blessed to have you in my life. You spur me on and excite me about the day that Christ will return, and I am so, so glad to know that you will be by my side for the rest of my life, and into the eternity that we will spend with our beautiful savior Jesus.

8. Baptism
I confessed my faith the year I turned sixteen. I know that I grew far more in Jesus that year than ever had in the rest of my life. Lord, you are my Rock, and my Redeemer. You fulfill all my heart's desires, and I know that with you in my life I will never need anything else. I cannot wait for heaven! The joy I have in knowing you while I am in the world can only be greater when you return. I eagerly await the day, and pray that I can love you and serve you with all that I have in this world, and that this year I can grow even more to know and love you.

So yeah, those were some of the highlights of my sixteenth year. There were many more, but 'tis a tad late and I am rather tired and the little light in my brain is beginning to fade from lack of energy. So I shall say farewell for now. xxx