All things new

New hairstyle

New coat

  

New dress

New job ... I'm thrilled that yesterday I was successful in my application and interview for the post of Medway Campus Chaplain.  There were two other candidates and my day began at 10:15am when I had to present a topic and lead a discussion with a group of seven students; whilst being 'observed' by the interview panel of five.  The topic I chose was 'stress management' and I felt that it went very well :-)  Then followed coffee, a tour, lunch, another coffee and finally at 2:45pm my formal interview.  
I was so excited to get a phone call soon after 5:30pm to offer me the post.  Yeah, my lucky pants paid off!!!

Sometime soon - new house ...

(Van not included)

But my day contained a double blessing from God  ... when I heard from the estate agent that someone had put an offer on my flat in Paisley!!  Many of you know, that has been a loooooooong time coming so it was wonderfully welcome news. Please continue to pray that the sale will go smoothly.

When will winter end :-(

A few of my favourite things

Last night our discussion topic was 'A few of my favourite things'. One of the statements was "my favourite day or time of the week is ..."  My response to that would have been Thursday evenings at TABLEtalk, that is sooooooooo my favourite thing!!!
Another favourite is seeing new students coming along on a Thursday ... so, a BIG WELCOME to Mary, Manar, Attia, Ahmed & Ghofran who joined our TABLEtalk family for the first time.
Here are a few other things we discovered ...
Shahir's favourite junk food is  ...
hmmmmmm, so much to choose from!

Both Chinwe and Manar's favourite

subject at school was maths (ugh!!).

Ghofran's favourite household chore is mopping the floor

(I'll show you later where my mop and bucket are).

Here are some of people's favourite apps:

beep an go, snapchat, diet diary,

my fitness pal, night owl, spotify.

Various favourite places included:

Dubai, London, Liverpool

Favourite pieces of advice:

Areti: "Never give up!"

Jon: "When meeting someone for the first time,

always listen before you speak."

Lynne: "Take the path of least regret."

People's favourite things about 2016:

Aiste: a proper holiday at the beach,

graduating and being accepted for PhD.

Daria: coming to study in the UK and

meeting the brown boy with the big ears!

Bring & Share

Other than TABLEtalk, our Bring & Share lunches are one of my favourite things :-)  Hmmmmm ... favourite things just happens to be our topic at TABLEtalk this coming Thursday (Feb 9th).

As always our table was laden with pizza, stir-fry, rice, jiaozi, bean casserole, American biscuits, and a plethora of salads. All that was followed with Dutch apple cakes, cheesecake, lemon tort, plum cake, apple pie and veinetta ice-cream. 

This pair of lovable looking rogues have just moved in
with me whilst they look for long-term accommodation.
Ghofran & Ahmed both did MSc at Greenwich, went home,
got married and have now returned to do PhD.

'Caption It' has become one of our new favourite games. Here are just a few of the winning responses ...

Food for Thought

Save our Planet!

A BIG WELL DONE goes to Gabriella for scoring 31 out of 40 in our 'How Green are You?' questionnaire. A not so well done to Arshad for his score of 7!!!

After brainstorming some of the issues affecting the environment today ... deforestation, plastics & non-degradable products, weapons & war, over-consumtion, carbon emissions, etc,  each group then discussed a specific topic ...

The girls looked at the issues of 'over-production and over-consumption' recognising some of the fundamental causes as that of greed, profiteering and lack of education. They concluded, amongst other things, that there should be a fine on companies for over-production and/or charities should benefit from such over-production.









Our second group looked at 'ignorance and political lobbying' and decided that re-cycling should be made compulsory, with incentives for 'going green'. Fines should also be introduced for over-consumption. There also needs to be increased education of the effects of climate change; along with government intervention to political lobbying.










Group three reviewed the increased use of 'plastics' concluding that the production of plastics needs to be limited and eventually stopped all together. Greater re-cycling of plastics currently in use must happen but work also needs to happen on finding alternative materials.

Our final group was concerned with 'technology waste'. They agreed that there needed to be greater emphasis on fixing products rather than simply replacing; with a ban on disposing of toxic products. Governments need to make it mandatory for companies to fund research into new materials and products with longer lasting micro-chips. Companies also need to take a more ethical approach to re-cycling.

Year of the Rooster

Here are just a few of the famous people born in the Chinese year of the Rooster  ...  Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Roger Federer, Beyoncé,  Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eleanor Roosevelt, Eric Clapton, Groucho Marx, Serena Williams, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rod Stewart, and Yoko Ono.

As usual, at World Cafe we held our annual Chopstick Challenge. For some, like Areti, this began as an almost painful challenge.
But, after much perseverance, resulted in success.







I think this was the point at which Acsha asked Yankun, "Are you sure you're from China?"