48 Hours to Live

This past week has been marked in my calendar as my 'Mid Semester Break'. However, unfortunately I had an assignment due yesterday and me being the procrastinator that I am didn't start until Tuesday. At this point I sat down to start and went 'Holy shit this is really hard!' so from then on, my holiday week was a stressful one.
Anyway, as I already said my assignment was due on Friday. Today is Saturday - which means I have 48 hours of freedom in which to dub as my 'holiday' so for once in my life I am getting off by lazy butt and doing something about it.
I woke up this morning at the delightful hour of ten to an empty house and an incredible summery day just abroad of the shadow cast by my own home. With every minute that passed, stealing another fragment of my already shortened time, I threw on my bathers and a cotton dress, jumped in the car and in no time at all tasted the salty air on my lips and felt the chilled water lapping at my feet.
There were quite a number of people on my formerly hidden-away-beach, but I put it down to it being a long weekend. There were families, creepy looking old men skulking around in the sand dunes, a group of male twenty-somethings kicking a football around along the shore line and the funniest would have been the bikini-ed teenagers taking MySpace shots of each other.
I stayed for about an hour then walked the long way back to our beach house, stopping on the way for some hot chips with chicken salt.
On my return I convinced my dad to come on an adventure with me to this cute antique shop in Coolangatta. I like second-hand shops when I'm with him because he can point out the significance of particular pieces and tell me truthfully if they are worth the price tag. I ended up with a very attractive purchase - a sewing box from the 1940s.
The other great thing about my dad is that he shares my sweet tooth. We visited the lolly shop and the world's greatest ice cream parlor - Cold Rock. By the time we got back it was about 4 o'clock (probably having something to do with my late morning sleep in) so I hurried home to shower and change for church.
Today's gospel was about Lazarus and his unfortunate life, and joy in heaven after ascending from the world of the living. Obviously it went a bit deeper than that but the theme throughout the service resulting from this story was "Practice one act of kindness every day" and in doing this, good will come to you both during life, and after it.
It made a lot of sense as I sat in the crowded church and it wasn't just this message that I pondered. Rather, that as seemingly unattainable the values are, that are preached for use in life, I accept them and strive to become a better person as a result. Days later it may all seem too difficult as my attempts are challenged by people around me, but as I sit with other Catholics in the rows of pews that we occupy, I believe it, I feel invincible. When I am there, both my body and spirit, I am home.
Rushing out during the final hymn I made it in time before the doors were shut to The Legend of Rain, this self-devised drama performance by a group of kids, directed by a young man who beat me at the Eisteddfod (and we are friends - not like see you all the time friends, but 'Hey! How've you been?' type friends).
So the performance went for just over an hour and one of the girls in it used to be a student of mine. I stopped teaching her at the end of last year and since then she's been having unofficial lessons with her cousin (who happens to be the director) and sad as it may be for me to admit it, she has progressed beyond words. She blew me away with her performance but at the same time I think I was a little jealous - I'd never been able to make her act like that!
But overall, the performance was like HSC Group Drama meets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. For me it was a bit slow moving and I thought that each scene needed to be linked together more, but apart from that it was an amazing experience.
Afterwards I returned yet again to my empty house, cooked myself some pasta, put on a DVD and had a Smirnoff. Now here I am!
But now, I think it's time for bed.
Until next time,
x