Mancunian vs. manchurian

It is now week two of my mancunian adventure. The word mancunian is not recognised by my word processor and it wants me to put Manchurian, which incidentally is not recognised my the thesaurus, who wants to replace the word with ‘manage on your own/manage without/manage to survive’. How apt I thought to myself and for those of you who know me well, I love to make up words so I am going to adopt this word for the purpose of this blog entry as it is perfect! When I first arrived, which is hard to believe was just 8 days ago, I felt rather desperate and alone in a huge (and I really do mean huge!) city. However I can now get to the basic places I need to go and back without sat nav and can breathe a little easier when driving on the roads, most of which always have three lanes! Although I pat myself on the back and think how great I am in overcoming this small hurdle, I couldn’t have survived this first week without the lovely texts, calls and cards from you lovely people. They have encouraged me to be positive, kept me amused while I wonder the streets lost looking for something I recognised, and kept much laughter in my life. With all your help I am 'managing to survive'.

On a serious note though, there were many stories on induction week of people being held at gunpoint, stabbed with dirty needles and only last Thursday a CPN (community psychiatric nurse) and a student were both stabbed whilst out on a visit. If you ever get an urge to pray for me or I randomly pop into your thoughts please pray for my protection. I stand firm on Psalm 23 but believe prayer is a powerful weapon!

I have to say one of the highlights of the week has to be the engagement of Jen and Ed!! Congratulations to you both. It was really sad not to be there to hug and scream and get excited with you (I'm obviously talking about Jen, don’t think Ed would have appreciated it) but that will come in a couple of weeks when I’m back. For now the phone excitement will have to do! Coming in at a close second is starting work and getting my own desk, drawer unit, computer, mobile and rather professional looking phone on my desk. I feel like I have finally made it now I have a space to call my own. The psychologist on the team is also from Norwich so I think he will appreciate my 'I’d rather be in Norfolk’ mug given to me before I left. Last week also included falling down the stairs and cutting my elbow, spraying my hair with sun lotion instead of heat protection spray, and a trip to see a band called Bora, which a guy from church is in. He spent his childhood in Norwich and grew up in the youth at Kings so I felt a strong urge to support his endeavours. I also visited the Christmas markets twice as they are spectacular! Please excuse the poor picture quality as they are uploaded from my phone and in the bustling crowds it is extremely difficult to stand in one place long enough capture the view. They really are rather splendid.

I have really struggled since arriving knowing what to do with my new found free time. I am starting to embrace it and see it as the luxury it is rather than believing I am wasting my free evenings lounging around not doing anything of any particular consequence. I felt a bit selfish using it for ‘me’ time but find that I can fill it rather quickly with reading, planning, spending time with God, etc. I am in the process of finally signing up for Spanish classes and looking into other community activities I can get involved in. At church yesterday the preach was about spending time with God and how much time we waste on activities of far less importance. The underlying message was no time spent with God is a waste. Sounds simple but defiantly struck a cord (or is it chord?). Instead of moaning about having too much time on my hands, a situation I can’t really ever remember being in, I should see it as a privilege.

If you fancy wasting some time with Jesus check out the preach - http://christcentral.org.uk/Groups/112277/Christ_Central/Media/Media.aspx (as I write this it isn’t uploaded yet but I’m sure it will be very soon).

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The majority of this entry was written last night but due to technical difficulties I was unable to upload it. I now know that it was devine intervention. When I returned from a hard days work today, I was greeted with a rather wonderful homemade card for the brilliant Caroline who had sent me another very appropriate instalment of the dinosaur comic. This one was themed around speech and T-Rex always getting his words wrong. How perfect I thought?! Check it out - http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1841

Thank you all SO much for the love, support, encouragement, and laughter you continue to bring to my life as I battle to become a true mancunian rather than Manchurian.