Everything For Everyone

I deserved this. No break in transition between two jobs, including two weeks working both, and a lifechanging month after a lifechanging career change, my psyche was worse for the wear. This is my little adventure, a much smaller version than last year's. This is my story. Here are the pieces and fragments that came along my way up till this very moment, two days into it. Hillsongs Con 2009, Day 1. Here goes.

Large expectations give way to a myrriad of ways to get disappointed. Disappointed people give way to anger flares. Most of the time nothing that nobody has is black and white. Most of the time, everybody are wrong and right in the same proportion. Nobody is an exception. Neither are Christians in a Christian conference. We're all humans afterall. The sooner we accept that fact, the better.

Second time around in the big city, the wonder and awe has diminished a little. Just a little. And even then, that's because the surprise factor has been cut off. Not many new buildings and new shops here today compared to last year. The Virgin store looked much poorer now, representative of the economic crisis. The "Grand Opening!" sign on what was last year a Vietnamese place near the hotel turned out to be nothing more than a sign that the place is now under new management. The place is still Vietnamese. So much for change. But I stoond agape in awe again on Martins Place, just as well as last year. That little piece of oversized-alley still amazes me. The grandiose, the skyscrapers, the busy-ness, the sheer scale of it all, and most ironically, the very business-like way people all around me seem to take it. Of course, I stood there right in the middle of evening rush hour, so they were all office workers caring for nothing more than getting home as fast and hassle-free as possible, day in day out. My holiday, their daily grind. The irony can't get any more delicious than that.

Everything For Everyone. Sounds like a dream straight out of Starbucks' book of what-could-have-beens. I've stopped dreaming for a while now. On Sunday Andrew touched a nerve when he asked us to pray for something that we want to happen. It got me stuck cuz I got nothing I really want right now. I got a new job, and as far as I'm concerned right now my life is in the groove. Anything else that can and need to happen will surely happen in time. I have lost my dreams, grinding my way day in day out on the concrete road of life. That's cool and all, but I've lost my dreams. So faintly I thought, I want to dream again. And what crazier dream is it than one that defies logic? Everything For Everyone. Every single thing. For every single one. It's crazy, as far as logic and logistics are concerned. I don't have enough heart for everyone, was my immediate reaction. Fair enough, but the dream has to be dreamt. No idea what's gonna come next, but this is only the beginning.

This is my third time doing this trip but this is the first time it has rained really hard. Make of it what you will.

I made a point that my holidays have to include elements of culinary tour. For tonight's dinner, thanks to said semi-new Vietnamese just around the time I got there, I walked around to find a white trailer-thingy outside a food court near the hotel. Typically, it's pretty much a different version of The White Lady, only this one serves more-normal-looking hotdogs and pies. Now, I don't know where the guy got his pies, but I dare say it's something special. Medium-sized pie, topping, and sauce, four dollars thirty. I had two. My first was a beef pie, pea and gravy on top, and chilli sauce. When he said pea and gravy I thought yeah well that's normal on pies, right. Well no, *mashed* peas isn't normal with pie. The topping was of the same size as the pie itself. Now, I don't know much about pies so I can be wrong, but that was one mean looking pie. I don't mean schoolyard bully sort of mean, I mean seriously-dude-look-at-me-wrong-and-I'll-stab-your-face-punkass sort of mean. For the price, it's pretty awesome too. Had I not been a big eater, one would've been enough for me. My second one was chicken with mince and beans and again chilli. Chicken doesn't go well with mince, I can tell you that. But stupidities aside, it's still a mean one. There is still a late-night place I want to try just right outside the train station, so I'm not yet sure which one I'll do tomorrow. But for sure, tomorrow will be pretty interesting as well from this aspect.

And that, as they say, was the first day.