On Thursday I had some progression with my Airforce application. I got to go to a J.O.E.S. (Job Options Evaluation Session) day. Basically it’s the first testing phase in the selection process. I sat an apptitude test, then had a medical interview with a nurse, and finally an interview with a Defence Recruiter.
I was kinda worried that something would go wrong on the day, but thanks to God and all those praying for me on the day it turned out better then I could have imagined. Other than the long periods waiting around between each subsiquent testing phase, the day progressed quickly and smoothly. But let’s jump past all the boring stuff and get to the bit that really made my day. The last event of the day was my interview with the Defence Recruiter. The first words that came out of his mouth were, “Mate, can I ask you something? (nervous nod from me) You did really well on the apptitude test, why arn’t you applying for an officer position?”. I was like a stunned mullet. Although such a statement doesn’t gaurantee that I’d get through all the testing stages, the very fact that he was shocked that I hadn’t applied for an officer position to start with really blew me away. This guy believes I’m officer material!!!
Ma’s funeral was today. I’d like to say mission complete. I managed to write a eulogy that everyone seemed to be able to relate to and appreciate, and I felt I managed to honor my Ma’s life worthily. Only thing was, I cried during it’s entire delivery. Fortunately I managed to get through it all without piking, I had my Jesus to hold me up and gave me strength. I didn’t stutter or fumble my words, but the amount I was crying probably made me sound a bit off key. None of that really mattered though considering the circumstances.
Eulogy aside, the services was beautiful. My Dad delivered a flawless scripture reading, and the minister shared some lovely analogies and comments about life and its journey. I think Ma would have been pleased with her send off.
I’ve included the eulogy for anyone who’d like to read it. I’d like to say thanks once more to everyone who’s supported me over the past week, even though there’s not a lot you can say at a time like this, knowing you’re all behind me reaches heights in my heart than no words could begin to scale.
My Grandma (I call her Nanny) and my Uncle Rob have asked me to give the eulogy for my Ma’s funeral. I think this is the biggest honour I have ever been granted. To represent the life of a person as great as my Ma and they want an immature 23 year old boy to do it? I really hope I don’t let them down. This is my mission, to write the best bloody eulogy ever written, one which encapsulates the very spirit of the wonderful person my Ma was. I guess the question I have to ask myself is, “Do you feal lucky? Well, do ya? Punk?”
…Yes. Yes I do.
Pray for me guys, pray that God speaks the right words through me on the day. If you don’t believe in God wish me luck, and if you don’t believe in luck….why are you an atheist anyway? Seriously though, I’m not the best public speaker, and when I have to speak I have the tendancy to fumble my words. Pray for strength, pray for wisdom, and pray that I can compose this eulogy to best honour my Ma’s life.
My Ma passed away last night at 1am, so I didn’t get another chance to see her this morning. She apparently passed away peacefully, though I wonder how peaceful you can be when you’re hooked up to a respirator, with a thousand different monitoring cords hooked up to you. In any case I am confident she’s resting in the arms of God now, and I hope she’s making good use of her new incorruptible body. I’m really glad I stayed with her for as long as I could last night, though I wish I could have been there to hold her hand as she slipped away. It’s pretty sad knowing that someone who’s been around in my forever is no longer going to be.
Though her old body couldn’t keep her moving through this dimension, her new one will take her into the next. I’m really happy she doesn’t have to suffer anymore, but I’m real proud of how well she fought to stay alive. I think she would have made Pa proud too. I hope they got to meet up last night, seeing him again would have made her day.
I love you Ma, see you in eternity.
Leila Hanchard
Thursday, July 13th, 1916 - Saturday, 15th May, 2004
My Great Grandma went into hospital on Wednesday. She came down with pneumonia and didn’t see a doctor fast enough. Or should I say the doctor that she did see said their was nothing wrong with her and she didn’t get to hospital in time. The hospital doctors have said that she’s dying. I found out yesterday (Thursday) afternoon and went to see her in the early evening. My Ma is 87, she was born in 1916, and she’s getting on. She’s had health complications for a while but I’ve always hoped that she’d keep fighting until Melly and I had our first kid. Probably unrealistic considering her age, but nevertheless, like with many things, I have these idealistic notions that things should be a certain way, even though they very rarely are. There is always hope.
The last time I saw her she was in pretty good shape considering, and it was a real shock to see her in hospital hooked up to a ventilator with tubes stuck all over the place. Because of the pneumonia she’s developed fluid on her lungs and in her heart which has lead to pulmonary oedema. The fluid is making it very hard for her to breathe and the respirator is pumping oxygen into her lungs via a mask to help her breath. The poor girl is so exhausted because she hasn’t slept in days. If they put her out she would probably stop breathing and not regain consciousness. On the other end of the scale, if she doesn’t get enough rest her body won’t recover from the pneumonia, so they’ve been drawing a fine line between the two extremes to give her the best chance of pulling through. No one seems to be giving her much hope of surviving, except me. While I acknowledge that there is a high likelihood that she will die, I refuse to give up hope. Isaiah 53:5 - “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” There is always hope.
OK, it’s officially official. My host sucks. My last post was actually in relation to :melly:’s site moving to my server. Obviously it’s no longer here. After getting everything “just so” some inconsiderate jerk hacked my host’s server and ran a malicious script that totalled their hard drive. The newest back-up they had? 2 weeks old. Do you think I actually remembered to make a back-up myself? Insert Murphy’s Law. Here I was getting used to the site being up, and boom, down it goes in a magnificant ball of flames. Uptime cometh before a crash. Unless of course you’re talking Micro$oft, then it’s “Crash cometh after crash, and so continues the saga.” I probably shouldn’t have expected better, their track record with me has been pretty poor. Only a few more months though and I can hopefully find someone better.
I have actually worked up the enthusiasm to fix it all up again which I should do in the next day or so. This is of course while I’m in the process creating my whole new layout and theme for my relaunch when I transfer to my new host in August/September. For those of you who still actually look here, thanks for keeping the faith and checking back in. Things should pick up soon…ish 
. Until then read :melly:’s blog, she’s cute.
Ok, so much for the wonders of free hosting. As some of you may have noticed :melly:’s blog has been up and down for some time. The host she (and Rob, Fiona, Dan, and to some extent myself) had been using decided to upgrade their server over the easter break. Since then their site has had about 90% downtime, and it’s taken it’s toll on our patience. So, in a preemptive move for later on this year when I had planned to host it myself when I change hosts, I’ve decided to go ahead and host it now.
For those of you who jump to her site from eSinner.com you don’t have to worry, the link stays the same. I did originally have psychokitten.esinner.com redirect to psychokitten.sinner.ashst.com. Since I’ve moved her site onto my own domain the psychokitten.esinner.com domain doesn’t redirect anymore, it will load the site from that exact domain. This means that anyone who has bookmarked :melly:’s site from the ashst.com server will have to update their bookmark to look to the esinner domain. If this is confusing for anyone just leave a comment and I will elaborate. Basically, remove whatever bookmark you have to :melly:’s site and add a new one that links to psychokitten.esinner.com. Sorry to stuff you all around but any frustration experienced by editing bookmarks is better than having no psychokitteness at all 
Hope you’ve all had a great weekend and make sure you read my wife’s blog **insert subliminal messaging here**