And these are a few of my favorite things....

One of the great things about blogging is that you can claim wandering round the web is not procrastination, its...research. Doing a community service by finding cool stuff for everyone else. So here's the results of some of my "research"

Noise Trade
Like new music, short on cash and don't want to take the illegal route? noisetrade.com to the rescue. How it works is you pay what you want for the album (you can pay as little as US$1) or if you tell 5 friends about the album you can get it for free. There is a great selection of music available. I've included 2 favourites below. You probably remember Sixpence none the richer from their smash hit Kiss me a few years ago. They've just released some new songs and noise trade is the only place you can get them. Alli Rogers is a great independant artist who sounds somewhere between Brooke Fraser, Norah Jones and Tina Arena. Other artists worth checking out include Phil Joel, Great worship songs, Jesse Butterworth and Jon Bauer

Ripple
Ripple.org provides a simple way to do good. By clicking on their site, money is donated to charity from the ads on the pages. They support some great causes. One of them is The Oaktree foundation who i volunteer for and think do an amazing job. The others are Oxfam, WaterAid and Grameen foundation. To make it easier i've added their widget to the sidebar of my blog so click it when you come to visit.


ChinesePod
Learning a language can be hard work but i've found chinesepod.com to be greatly helpful in my attempts at Chinese. There's over 1100 audio lessons on everything from basic greetings to how to explain you were abducted by aliens in chinese. Some of the content does cost to access but theres a lot of content, including all the beginner level lessons you can get for free and some of the subscription plans are good value. There's lots of friendly and helpful people in the discussion section. Also worth checking out is the Chinese culture show they produce called Dear Amber.

Refuge

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
(Psalm 46:1-3 NIV)

This scripture has been such an encouragement to me lately. You don't have to look far to see examples of chaos. The economy is falling apart, wars rage on and the enviroment is not in good shape. The Psalmist's metaphor of troubles being like mountains which once seemed so steady giving way seems so apt for these times. I love the contrast that is made here, God being strong in the midst of everything else being fallible and weak. Even more amazing, it talks about God being a refuge for us and helping us when trouble comes. So be encouraged, even if it looks like the world is falling down around you, God is still strong and can help you.

That's my king

This is your life

Lately the song This is your life by Switchfoot has been really challenging me. You can download it legally (and free!) here.

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken
Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes
This is your life and today is all you've got now
Yeah, and today is all you'll ever have
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything that you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose?

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over
Don't close your eyes

It is seriously so easy to live on autopilot just cruising through life ending up at another new year wondering why your new years resolutions look strangely similar to the resolutions you make last new year and probably the one before that too. How easy is it to get to the end of the week and realize how much time you've wasted doing things that are utterly unproductive or even unhealthy? Been there, done that a few too many times! How would things be different if everyday we asked "is this who i wanna be?" How different would our schedules look if we asked ourselves if what we are spending our time on was consistent with the type of person we wanted to be? How different would our spending be if we asked whether what we are spending money on is helping or hindering us in becoming what what we wanted to be? To be perfectly honest, if i was really good at this my life would look quite different. I'm trying though. For me, some of the things this means includes trying to organize my time a bit better so i can spend some time volunteering for some charity projects. It means attempting to cut back on buying stuff i really don't need (got a long way to go on that one!) It means taking the time to properly read (not just skim through) the bible and other worthwhile books

So, how about you? This is your life, Are you who you wanna be?