back in business

too lazy to edit video tonight, so heres a little clip from today, probably a little rough...
and for some reason when i uploaded it, the quality got ruined!

thursday night

the coolest shirt i have seen in a while.

tonight i went to a meeting at a family's home to plan and pray for an upcoming easter outreach for the kids of York. a few of us from the bible college will be helping with dramas, arts/crafts, and general organizing for a "holiday club" themed around easter on April 6th and 7th. it will be a fun way to reach out to the local community and share the gospel with the kids [and, in turn, their families] in an area where the gospel message is surprisingly not very common knowledge.

tomorrow is friday, one last class for the week, and i will be taking my wheel in to the bike shop nearby to rebuild it with my new hub. hopefully that means lots of riding this weekend, the weather has been beautiful [but still VERY COLD] the whole time my bike has been out of service, hopefully it stays sunny!

i bought some chicken thighs, shoyu, sugar, and rice [that hopefully cooks alright without a rice cooker] and im ready to make a local style feast this weekend. [yogurts, pb&j, and eggs only taste good the first 14 days in a row and then start to get horribly boring] :)

have a wonderful aloha friday!

bike bits

i managed to strip the lockring threads on my bike's rear wheel, so i had to order a new hub. just got it in the mail and it's so nice and smooth [and well-sealed], i think i will break down the wheel at the end of the semester and bring home the hub for my bike in hawaii. these hubs are made in wales, so it will be a nice UK souvenir. :)

day at the park

yesterday after church everyone walked down to the park to hang out, play some games, and freeze to death.

i didn't have my camera but i stole a photo from a friend on facebook :)
left to right: james [with no head], me, kyle, lindsay, kimberly, emily, michaela, justin's back. there were a bunch of people there but most of them didn't make the photo cut.

my highly anticipated album release of 2009

i cant wait for this cd to come out, take a listen! the last 2 minutes of the song are the best :)

new look!

i decided to have a little fun today with the appearance of the blog, so here you go!

and heres a picture of me sitting here drinking a nice warm americano and listening to chuck smith.[i had to listen to pastor chuck for about 8 hours in the last 2 days since i put it off all week haha]

skype

for some strange reason the only thing that will run on the wireless internet at our flats right now is skype. i cant check email, ichat, or load any webpage, but skype works fine. i have no idea if this is normal or why this works, but if you wish to talk to me online, use skype because i cant get on anything else.

my skype name: seth.goodnight

also, i figured out the phone number to my flat, it is 01904 675428.

i have no idea how to call internationally, but if you would like to talk to me feel free to figure it out and give me a call!

grizzly adams 8D

three weeks and still no sign of a mustache!

outreach to finland

yesterday morning we signed up for our outreach/mission trips to various parts of england and europe. due to the remaining options [or lack of options] when i went to sign up for the trips i felt this was the outreach which God has called me to be apart of. i honestly had no idea what or where finland was at the time of signing up so i had to do some research. when the options for outreaches were presented to us i was hoping the tasks associated with one of the locations would stand out to me and i would be able to make the choice based on what we would be doing rather than based on location, so i would know i wasn't making a selfish decision on where to go... of course all the options basically involved to the same type of ministry and work so it made the decision nearly impossible. anyways, i am signed up for finland and it sounds like its going to be an awesome place to visit. be praying that God prepares the hearts of our team and the hearts of the people in finland for whatever He has in store. of course the one person whose personality i totally clash with ended up on my team, i guess God has something to teach me through this after all :).

i think we will be in finland for about a week, serving the local church and community there through street evangelism [my greatest challenge], community service, and helping in the church and local schools.

here is finland on a map, the city we will be staying in is Turku, it is on the southern end of the country near the coast. Finland is the dark orange country on the map, in northern Europe and bordering Russia, this will probably be the farthest north i will ever get on the planet. it is currently -4ºC [24ºF] in Turku, so i plan on freezing when i am there.

english breakfast

on monday morning we headed over to the york auction house (where they auction off livestock to farmers) to eat a traditional english breakfast. it is definitely nothing like breakfast in hawaii.

one egg, a sausage, bacon, a hashbrown, beans, tomatoes [which was essentially a pile of tomato sauce, i wasn't really sure what to do with this], mushrooms [which magically did not end up on my plate and therefore spared me the embarrassment of shoveling a whole pile of mushrooms off to the side], and black pudding [that is the black circular slice of sausage in the top left that is essentially a slice of congealed animal blood]

YUM!

after we finished eating breakfast we walked by the building they keep all the pigs in and saw them squealing and screaming as they were herded into the back of a truck to be shipped off somewhere. this almost made me become a vegetarian :)

fountains abbey

aloha friday

good afternoon everyone!

its been a busy week so i haven't been able to get on the internet very often.
the internet in the flats still isn't up and running and the internet in the coffee shop is so overloaded by students that it cuts out every 5 minutes.

anyways, a quick update on the events of the week if i can remember what happened...

-on monday evening myself and justin caught the train to manchester and picked up our new track bikes that we bought off ebay. here's my new ride next to the york city wall. i had to invest in some serious mud fenders because the streets here never seem to dry off. the first ride i went on left stripes on the whole front and back of my body.

-my new notebook for class. i'm still trying to figure out where they came up with that name cuz i can't find a hole anywhere.

-been hanging out with this local guy called rob (trying to practice my english phrases haha) and we took his puppy to the fields next to the horse race track. there were frozen puddles all over the field, it was hilarious watching the dog slide across the ice as she chased her ball:

then me, rob, and justin went to ride bikes around york and stumbled on a park with a little zip-line swing. look at rob's face hahaha
grocery shopping!! england has an endless variety of yogurt.
hopefully i will have lots of exciting stuff to post after this weekend!

i just bought a bike on ebay.

lets go ride!!!

night out on the town

cheers!!

fish n chips

me and justin made a journey out to get some fish n chips this afternoon. we ended up stumbling on a place called mr. chippy. we entered with smiles and left with stomach cramps. i wouldn't really recommend fish n chips.

the cute little ketchup packets you see below cost 25p each, thats about 40¢ each.
i've realized that people in england love salt and vinegar. they load this stuff on their fish n chips and most of the potato chips around here are salt and vinegar flavor.the aftermath:

thursday

nothing much to say today. woke up for devotions, went shopping for a few random school supplies and LOTION. my hands and face are already starting to dry out bad and i now look like i have a rash on the tops of my hands. this is probably my favorite thing about being in any place other than hawaii for an extended period of time :). today was the 2nd day of intro to hebrew language class and i am pretty lost. i am not used to classes where i actually need to sit down and memorize information.

it has been snowing off and on again today, its kinda fun!

i need to find a bike to ride around, hopefully something works out.

i think i will attempt to put together a video tour of my flat and post that on here. maybe that will be my goal for tomorrow.

$2.99

i just had to spend $2.99 to download the latest office episode because both hulu.com and nbc.com do not allow videos to be played outside of the US :)

i had I&II Samuel class this morning, i am excited for that class, already sounds like it is going to be very interesting! the only problem: two 10-12 page term papers. that is definitely bad news for me.

this afternoon i have apologetics class, i will update on how that is, but sounds like it will be very interesting as well.

its so funny to hear the different phrases and expression people use here and how we get so accustomed to saying certain things that don't necessarily make sense but have become such a common expression that the original meaning essentially disappears... around here people always ask "are you alright?" in place of such phrases as "hows it going?". the first few times i heard this i kinda just stared at them and smiled. i couldn't figure out what i was doing that made them wonder if i was not feeling good or lost or something hahah.

alright my computer is about to die so i will sign off now.

good morning everyone.

updated entry

scroll back down to the entry entitled "sunny day". i finally found some time [and internet connection] to add some captions to the photos that probably made absolutely no sense before.

contacting me, part 2

here's an update.

email: sethgoodnight[at]gmail[dot]com

AIM: sethgrom

skype: seth.goodnight

the old fashioned way:

Seth Goodnight
10 Barbican Road
York
YO10 5AA
England

if you miraculously decide to send me a package, make sure you fill out the customs declaration form and mark down that it is a gift so that no customs charges have to be made.

M-I-A

missing in action.
sorry to everyone who has been waiting to hear from me. the wireless internet router at the college has been down for about 2 days straight already, i guess they just found out today that they blew the router and need to replace it, hopefully that will be done ASAP because the time difference alone makes it hard to keep in touch with anyone. i was able to track down a borders nearby that has wireless internet access so i will take advantage of this for a little while to update everyone on the last couple days. this will basically end up as a random list of jumbled information as i am rushing to type everything that comes to mind.

it snowed off and on for about 2 days here, it was so colddd! today is sunny and pretty much all the snow is gone now. heres some pictures of the exciting weather and a short video also. i have been pretty busy so i haven't been able to get too much pictures and stuff but heres what i got :)

some other notes...
coffee at the church's coffee shop is amazing, met lots of cool people.
yorkshire tea is also great.
today was the first day of classes, definitely a complete change from engineering... should be an exciting semester!
i went grocery shopping last night, thats definitely an interesting experience. i never realized how difficult it would be to shop in a different place where there are no familiar brand names and its almost impossible to tell if what you are buying is cheap or ridiculously expensive. at the grocery store here you bag your own grocery as the clerk slides it down the counter and then when everything is complete you proceed to pay for your purchases. that is definitely a humbling experience. try counting out 70-something cents when you can't tell a 1 pound coin from a 5p coin... i think i found out how to pay for things here, carry around large bills so you never have to worry about counting out coins, i think i am going to collect alot of coins by the end of this trip :)

our flats are pretty nice, my room is definitely a little cramped, i will be rooming with 2 guys from california, justin and brandon, both of them are about 18 or 19 years old. i think we all have alot in common so it should be fun. our flat has about 12 or 13 guys in total, its a 3 story building. our kitchen is kinda a disaster, it will be interesting trying to not starve here. i cooked some eggs for breakfast and the pan we have is so old and destroyed that i think half of my eggs ended up burning to the pan before the rest was cooked enough to eat, that and the fact that i have no idea what to buy because nothing looks like it does in the US.

i haven't had much of a problem staying warm here, as long as i am bundled up in my big coat with a hoodie underneath and jeans and shoes on i think i can survive...

the classes i will be taking are intro to biblical hebrew, 1,2,3 john, 1&2 samuel, and apologetics. in addition to those classes we daily morning devotions and worship, 4 hours a week of work depending on what job we get assigned to, and weekly men's discipleship group. i think i covered everything in that list...

for my 4 hours of work a week (labeled M199), i signed up for coffee shop as my 1st choice and maintenance as my 2nd choice, so we will see where I end up getting assigned to.

theres a slight possibility that an optional trip to israel might be in the works sometime during the semester, totally excited if that works out!! i guess its about a 4hr flight from here to there and im sure it would be an awesome experience!

hmm i think that about covers everything i can think of right now. hopefully internet is back up in the flats within the next day so i can uphold slightly higher levels of communication with the rest of the world. my roommate justin got here in the middle of the internet outage and still hadnt told his parents he arrived safely until today (about 2 days after he got here) hahaha i bet they were stoked to here he is still alive :)

-seth