Jacki's little updates

I love Apple

So Mum and Dad have been and gone... I managed to keep them busy with tours of the city, watching Mamma Mia, visiting Ground Zero and Wall St, going to church, visiting the UN (passing by the diamond st on the way!) and having meals with various people. So I think they were glad to be setting off to Barbados when they left. The weather was very mild when they were here though so they probably think I exaggerate how cold it gets here. God knows the truth!!!

Also I had a good time with Wolfi and Ali in town. Wolfi preached up a storm on Sunday evening so loads of people have come up to me since and said how cool my pastor is.

I've been doing more singing recently... in the evening service, the morning service and also in our 7am times of worship which continue Monday to Friday. We've been doing that for 4 weeks now and it's really cool to see people coming regularly to worship and to see the number of people gathering increasing. Kevin leads the worship but he's also had me leading some of the time so it's been good to be able to develop my worship leading skills and to challenge myself to play the keyboard while doing so! Playing as well as leading is allowing me to be sensitive to things that I wouldn't usually be so sensitive towards. Usually towards the end of the hour I start to get bored with my piano playing though, using the same chord progression for a long time can get a little tedious! But my playing skills will only develop as I play the keyboard so it's all good.

Kevin and I are currently working to improve how the worship team accesses chord charts and recordings for the songs we use in church. We've also been working towards being able to make working-recordings of such songs. To do this we got to play more with our much cherished Apple technology and using Garageband to record things. Earlier this week Kevin, Shelby and I recorded a couple of songs that we're using in band at the moment so that we can practise with them. And this morning we used Garageband to record the morning worship. It recorded about 45 minutes and then stopped, which was so annoying because we were in the middle of somebody singing a new song and we wanted to capture that. I thought we'd lost the recording and that I wouldn't be able to save that file but the iBook rescued itself after a few minutes and we were back on our way. So now I just have to learn how to edit the tracks and make them more usable (if we do infact want to use them). I don't think we'll be keeping the tracks everyday as the raw recording was almost 500MB!!!

Next Saturday is my showcase. I got it after singing at an open mic one evening. Kevin will play for me and the rehearsing is going well except that I'm not fully decided on what I will sing!!! Anyway it looks like several people will be coming along to watch Sina (my friend who has her showcase the same night) and me, so I'm excited about that.

Also coming up is my birthday - 28th Feb for all those who needed a reminder! I will be turning 25, which seems quite grown up. Now I really am mind-twenties and not that far off 30, argghh!

The gym is still a regular haunt for me. I've worked out with Kevin 3 days this week and he pushes me harder than I make myself work so it's been good to see that I can do more. He's worked out that I'm naturally strong tho' so now when we do weights he makes me lift more! He also introduced me to the bench press this week. I was lifting a wobbly 35 lbs, which is apparently very good for a woman who's not ever done it before. So if I keep that up you may see me with rather developed muscles when I get back.

Speaking of getting back... it's now less than two months til I fly back from New York to London. I'm looking forward to continuing with my internship in between now and then and also to discovering what will be next in my journey of life. I am also v excited about going to Campus Harvest again this year (christian conference for students). I've been asked to sing on the worship team for the conference too, which is cool. So I'll see whoever goes and look forward to catching up with you there. in the meantime, anyone who wants to is very welcome to pray that God would reveal to me His plans for the next season in my life and to forward to me any impressions you get!

posted by Jacki @ 3:56 pm