Looking Back and Going Forward

Last Friday night was the first 'official' youth group of the year. There wasn't much planned for the night except for a potluck dinner where we each had to bring a plate of food to share. We were also going to get back the letter we wrote to ourselves that Gabrielle, one of the youth group leaders, had kept in a little box for us.

We had a few new people join our youth group, including the brother of one of the girls, a few of the younger girls who had just turned 13 and a couple of guys.

Earlier in the day I had gone shopping with my mum and had eaten a whole French stick after starving and dying in the heat, so I wasn't exactly starving at dinner time. I did have enough to make me full though!

After dinner, we each went around and introduced ourselves before we were given our letter. Jireh, one of the guys who was still in Singapore, had given me permission to collect his letter for him and read it, but Gabrielle wouldn't believe me, and Jenny who was there when Jireh gave me permission didn't back me up! Talk about FAIL!

Anyway I got my letter back, and even though I know the way I wrote it was tongue-in-cheek, it was quite amusing at how lame I was back then! (Maybe I still am lame, but I hope not as much as then anyway!) 

So this is how it went...

Dear Calum

Congratulations if you're still alive and survived the surgery! Hopefully by the time you read this you will have passed 3rd year of pharmacy, found yourself a girlfriend, cleaned your teeth and look a whole lot more decent than I do right now! Hopefully you will have lasted more than a week without sinning, doing or saying something stupid, because let's face it- right now you tend to say the wrong things at the wrong times!

As for Oddfellows, hopefully you and the rest of the guys become a tight-knit unit made up of very good friends. I've become quite involved with church life and only hope you continue to increase your involvement with the church to better serve God.

As for music, I sincerely hope you had a shot at the World Champs and didn't screw up on stage like past years. Tomorrow is the first music lesson and hopefully Campbell [our then accordion teacher] will have noticed the little improvement I've made over the Summer holidays. Right now neither of my two pieces are up to scratch!

Hopefully you along with Aonghas and Hamish have gotten involved with groups at uni, moved on up in the world, become somebody and become buff from the uni gym. If not, then that's why you still have no girlfriend!

In all honesty, hopefully you are still alive to read this one year on and that you have enjoyed many good times and experiences in teh year since I've written this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Calum

P.S. Hope your handwriting is a lot better than this - a result of taking notes at uni for 2 years at high speed

So let's see what I have achieved since then. First and foremost, I survived the surgery and am still alive today. This is probably the most important thing! I also did pass 3rd year pharmacy, my teeth are relatively clean, my youth group friends think I look better (even if very slightly!) and we have become quite close, or at least some of us!

As for what I haven't achieved, I never got to compete at the world championships, which is a huge regret for me, even though it wouldn't have been possible time-wise with studying pharmacy at the same time. I'm still not really a somebody, I'm not buff, and therefore I still have no girlfriend! 

We had to write a new letter that I'll get to read in a year's time. This time I took my time to write and it's a bit more tame than last year's one! While we were writing the letter, Jenny, a girl in our youth group who's known for being quite 'straight up' asked Gabrielle about when our youth group was going to split up, as it's grown quite big and the age range is quite wide now. While the rest of us 'original' youth group members have been talking amongst ourselves about it for some time but have kept quiet about it, not knowing how to address this, I found it funny how Jenny just brought it up with Gabrielle like that! Gabrielle said that they need more leaders and so they're trying to train us older people to eventually look after the younger ones.

After that was all done and it was free time, quite a few of the girls went to play badminton while the guys went to play basketball with Phillip, the new guy who goes to Rutherford!

New Year's Resolution #9: Keep practising my existing musical instruments regularly and perform at least three times in 2010, as well as learn one more instrument (maybe flute or clarinet)

I went with Grace and Jenny into a side room to play some music. I had brought a flute and a violin, so that Grace could teach me the flute, while Jenny could teach Grace the violin! Grace had lent me this flute book and so I had been trying to practise all week to impress with her skills! The fingering for the flute is actually quite similar to the recorder! I only managed to be able to play a few notes though. Blowing is quite hard! Grace is quite a good teacher though, and it really made me understand how my recorder students feel sometimes!

I got a bit dizzy and tired after a while, so I got Jenny to teach Grace the violin for a while, with Lydia helping out! Grace didn't do too badly! I think she managed to play a couple easy pieces.

Jenny eventually wanted to have a go at the flute as well and she actually did quite well for someone who hadn't touched it before!

We all ended up just talking and playing around after a while before it was the end of the night. Apparently I'm in charge of sorting out who will be leading the singing each week, so I'll have to come up with a roster and sort something out!