“Your call is important to us...”

Since I moved to Wollongong earlier this week, I have been running the gauntlet of 'change of address' processes with a number of companies and organisations who, for one reason or another, have my address details. This has been surprisingly painless, as they all had either toll free or 13- (local call) numbers and relatively simple procedures for entering the changes into their databases. Unsurprisingly, I have put up with a range of hold music/hold advertising and had to choose the correct option from the 4, 6 or umpteen options available in the automated call directing system. But I think these systems have been developed to a much more user friendly standard than they used to be. For instance, you usually get told how many options they are going to offer you so you can anticipate and use your powers of deduction to work out which of the options your problem fits into. And then I normally got to speak to a real person in the end, all of whom I was able to understand without any problems and who were generally friendly and helpful, and once I had 'proved my identity' they were able to change my details for me quite simply.

The funniest experience was when I went to the bank to register my change of address. Upon entry to the building I was met by a rather intense fellow with a clipboard who wrote down my name and some code presumably corresponding to my enquiry. He directed me to sit down and wait for a consultant to become available. Then I sat there for about 15 minutes waiting with a few other bored-looking people. As I waited I observed the man who had greeted me and pondered the nature of his job. It appeared that his whole job was to wander around in the bank greeting people who came in, writing things in his clipboard, guiding people to cubicles where bank staff attended to their query, and generally trying to maintain an appearance of busyness and importance. I found it all quite amusing. Good on them, I guess, for trying to make the 'bank experience' a personal one by employing someone to be a 'greeter'. But really, I would have been quite happy to just take a number and wait my turn like I did at Medicare!

My life in boxes

For three weeks I've been gradually clearing out and packing up the material accumulations of 29 and a half years in preparation for the move to Wollongong, which will happen on Monday 25^th January. It has been an exhausting but strangely enjoyable activity in a 'trip down memory lane' kind of way. I found many things I was surprised that I had kept: speeches I made in primary school and high school, meticulously handwritten out on tiny 'palm cards'; a diary I kept very sporadically (a total of about 5 entries!) between the ages of about 10 and 12; school assignments I must have been particularly proud of; a 'time capsule' scrapbook my high school friend and I wrote along with our sisters when we were about 13 or 14; a heap of train tickets dated from the mid nineties to the early noughties; a collection of coasters from various pubs visited between the ages of about 18 and 20; and many other things that have already blurred into a mass of forgettable articles. I've kept some of the things that I thought might interest me in the future as evidence of what things I had thought about in my earlier years and what my writing style had been like (ever the linguaphile!), but with the rest of the paper matter I filled two yellow-lidded recycling bins!

Now I have a large number of boxes stacked up in the lounge room, marked according to how soon I'm likely to need them. I'm moving into a furnished 2 bedroom granny flat so a lot of it I won't need while I'm living there. Those boxes are marked 'STAY', and they'll hang around at my family home until I move into more permanent, unfurnished accommodation. Some are marked 'GO LATER', which means I'll bring them after the initial move if I find I need what's in them: extra bits of crockery. The rest are marked 'GO' – things like towels and sheets, food, clothes, cleaning stuff, decorative items to make the place feel like home, and of course the mix master and baking tins!

I'm looking forward to unpacking and putting things where I want them in the new place, and making it my own. It's a whole new adventure!

A 'language of the heart'?

Here is an interesting blog post written by a Linguistics colleague. What is a 'language of the heart'? Is it important to be able to read the Bible in the 'language of the heart'? Certainly, it's important to be able to read (or hear) it in a language you can understand. The language of the Bible (whatever that may be) will then speak to your heart through the work of the Holy Spirit (cf. Ezekiel 2:1-3, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16).

The year past and the year to come

Well, I know it's already the 3^rd of January, but better late than never to think through the year that has been (2009) and think ahead to 2010 – the beginning of a new decade brings many new beginnings for me. In February I will begin a new job at the University of Wollongong, lecturing in English Language and Linguistics at the Language Centre. Initially it will be for 6 months, but may become longer, God willing. So that will involve moving to Wollongong (for the uninitiated, that's about 1.5 hrs drive south of Sydney), finding a new church, getting to know a new city, making new friends, somehow trying to keep in touch with family and friends in Sydney, and getting my head around a different university, its administrative systems and the curriculum I will be teaching.
The final year of the 'noughties' (BTW, what will this current decade be called?) was a very full and busy year, and I was able to witness God's work in my life in many ways. I give thanks for many things, including:

• Being able to complete my thesis on time, and the encouragement and support of friends during the writing up stage
  
• The blessing of an office on campus for the final 12 months of my PhD, and a friendly and supportive office-mate
  
• The encouragement and support of my supervisors and colleagues at uni
  
• Continued fellowship with the Lighthouse Forum at Macquarie Uni, and the work God did on campus through all the Christian groups throughout the year
  
• God's provision of everything I needed throughout all the lean and stressful times, especially the provision of work after my scholarship expired at a time when work appointments at uni were very hard to come by
  
• Safe travel to China twice, and the helpful experiences I had there at the conference and job interview
  
• Safe travel to Canberra for the inaugural Cite conference, and the great encouragement and inspiration it was to meet with other Christian academics there
  
• Safe travel to Victoria at Christmas to spend time with family
  
• Opportunities to make new friends in a number of contexts, and opportunities to share the good news about Jesus with various people
  
• The generosity of my family

I'm really thankful for this new job also, because not only will it be helpful financially (boring pragmatic reason), but it is also a really good opportunity for me to develop skills in lecturing and convening university courses. And it's a good time for me to move away from home and branch out a bit too. Wollongong is a very pleasant city, from what I've seen of it, and it's not so far from Sydney!