Part 2

As I forgot to mention in my previous post, another busy Christmas period is upon us, and with the most intense trading period of the year to come, I really have come to appreciate the joys of a quiet, simple Christmas.

However, the "fun" doesn't end at Christmas. Boxing Day is one of the busiest (if not the busiest) day in the shopping calendar, as customers descend on the various shopping malls and factory outlets to take advantage of the end-of-year sales. I don't know what made me write down "All Day" on the availability roster, but luckily I've been spared the pain and am only working a normal recovery shift.

The following day, I'm planning to go to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch Day Two of the Boxing Day Test match between Australia and England. This Ashes series so far has been a topsy-turvy affair. After a draw in the first game at Brisbane (a tale of two extremes which featured Australia's Peter Siddle taking a hat-trick and then England scoring a ridiculous 517 for the loss of ONE wicket (!) in its second innings) and a thrashing by the Poms in Adelaide by an innings (with Kevin Pietersen scoring a majestic 227), the Aussies seized back the momentum in Perth thanks to three men - Mitch Johnson, Mike Hussey and Ryan Harris, to have the series level at 1-1. With two test matches to go, the following outcomes are now possible:

- Australia wins the last two matches and the series 3-1, hence reclaiming the Ashes.
- Australia wins one match and draws / ties the other to win the series 2-1, reclaiming the Ashes.
- England only has to win one of the next two matches to retain the Ashes.
- If the last two matches result in draws or ties, England retains the Ashes.

So from these calculations one can conclude that Australia has more incentive to play aggressive cricket. I'm not saying that England can afford to go slow. The Poms have brought out a team that appears stronger than most of their previous touring squads combined (on paper at least), and will look to bounce back quickly from the heavy defeat in Perth. This struggle to gain the upper hand has increased expectation that the Boxing Day Test - one of the biggest events in Melbourne's sporting calendar alongside the Grand Final and the Melbourne Cup - will be one to remember. I think Day 1 tickets are already sold out, but I don't mind because I prefer to go when there aren't so many people and the focus is more on the cricket.

Anyway, back to the Christmas theme. On Saturday, a group of us from church went around to three aged-care homes to sing some carols and spread some Christmas cheer. It was a wonderful experience as God blessed the singing and the interaction we had with the elderly residents. Now I will share some Christmas cheer with you through some wonderful renditions of three carols I found whilst browsing around on Youtube.

The first clip is a German carol called Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her (From highest Heaven to Earth I come). Martin Luther originally wrote this carol for his son, and it has since become one of the most popular carols in the German Christmas repertoire. I only first heard this carol a few weeks ago, but it's now become one of my favourites. If you know Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", you will doubtless recognize some of the melody in this carol.

The next two clips are beautiful renditions of well-known carols sung in Swedish. The first one is "O Holy Night", which comes from France but translates very well into Swedish (O Helga Natt), and is sung here by Sweden's most famous operatic tenor Jussi Björling. The second one, "Silent Night" (Stilla Natt in Swedish) is originally a German carol but I have yet to find a version better than the one sung by Norway's angelic soprano Sissel Kyrkjebø.

I hope you enjoy these clips as much as I have. To all my friends and family around the world, I wish you Merry Christmas / Frohe Weihnachten / Geseënde Kersfees / Buon Natale / Feliz Navidad / 聖誕快樂 / Boas Festas / Joyeux Noël / God Jul / Wesółych Świąt / С Рождеством Христовым and apologies to the many other languages which I've missed.

Cheers and God bless

The Festive Season is here again...

Greetings dear reader(s)!

Another year has nearly flown by, and I haven't found time to blog as regularly as I would like. Hopefully that might change next year, with a little more organization and good time management. Anyway, let me start this post with what's been happening lately:

- After much dithering and editing of my lesson plans, I have finally completed the practical teaching component of my TESOL Level III course. Now I just have to submit a reflection on the experience and also a feedback form before I receive my certificate.

- I have decided to resume playing my trumpet as part of the worship band at church. Having barely touched the instrument in the last few years, it needed some repair work. So I sent it to the professionals at Billy Hyde, who were able to restore it for $124, and I spent a little extra on some slide grease -- to prevent the tuning slide from getting stuck again! -- and a trumpet stand. If anyone knows where I can find a cheaper brass instrument repair shop in Melbourne, please let me know! Now that my trumpet is fixed, the challenge is to practice when I can find the time, in order to rebuild the conditioning of my lips. It's going to be a little difficult next year when I resume full-time study at uni.

This holiday will be quiet as usual, even more so as Mum and my siblings are flying to Malaysia after Christmas to attend a cousin's wedding. So it will be Dad and I keeping house for four weeks. Although I'm disappointed not to be attending, the upside of staying is that I get a car and the home internet all to myself. Fair deal, I reckon!

I've decided not to take any of my accrued annual leave from Big W (now up to 50 hours), but instead to continue working until the end of January. Then I shall resign from my part-time contract and take out my annual leave in a lump sum payment, which will go toward funding a winter trip to Germany/Austria in 2012-13.

OK, I'll leave it at that for now. More to follow very soon.

Cheers and God bless :-)

Part Two... at long last

Here is the second part covering the rest of the topics from my previous entry.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this year marked my paternal grandfather's 100th birthday (according to the Chinese calendar, which actually means he's only 99 when converted into the Western calendar!). To celebrate this wonderful occasion, we first held a private family dinner at which Amy - one of my second cousins from Sydney who got married last year and is expecting her first child in December - was able to make a special appearance, much to the delight of my grandparents. A few days later, our family hosted a Special Thanksgiving Service at our church where we invited friends and acquaintances to share in the celebrations. There would be another pleasant surprise awaiting Grandpa as two of my distant nieces from Singapore, Diana and Ros, were able to make it to Melbourne especially for the service. Not surprisingly, the auditorium was packed.

There were numerous musical items, as well as a special slide show with photos of Grandpa over the years, some of which I hadn't seen before. We had a few people coming up to me and my cousin Jacob after the service telling us how much we look like Grandpa when he was young. I mean, come on! What else do you expect, we being his grandchildren??

After Dad gave a moving testimony about the time God miraculously healed Grandpa from back pain a couple of years ago, various members of our family banded together as a choir - something like the Von Trapp Family Singers, only a little bigger - to present a medley of four songs, each in a different language. The songs were What A Friend We Have in Jesus (至好朋友就是耶穌) in Amoy Hokkien, 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus (信靠耶穌真是甜美) in Cantonese, Amazing Grace in English, The Gift of Knowing You (這一生最美的祝福) in Mandarin. There was also a song that popped up regularly during the service, and has since become a personal favourite of mine. The song is called Jehovah's Blessings Abound (耶和華祝福滿滿), a Christian song in the Hokkien dialect composed by a Taiwanese group called Stream of Praise (讚美之泉). For those of you who can read Chinese, I've posted the lyrics for reference:

田中的白鷺鷥，無欠缺甚麼。
山頂的百合花，春天現香味。
總是全能的上帝 每日賞賜真福氣，
使地上發芽結實，顯出愛疼的根據。

耶和華祝福滿滿，親像海邊土沙，
恩典慈愛直到萬世代。
我要舉手敬拜祂，出歡喜的歌聲，
讚美稱頌祂名 永不息。

You can view the video here. One of the comments for this clip is a Chinglish translation, which is hilarious and almost makes no sense:

Tanaka, white egrets, no lack of what.
Peak of the lily, spring is fragrant.
God Almighty always reward one lucky day,
Seed germination to the ground, showing the love of pain is based.
Lord bless full, pro-earth, like sea sand,
Grace and mercy through all generations.
I want to raise their hands to worship him, the joy of singing,
Praise His name forever praise interest.

Here is my attempt at a proper translation:

The white egrets in the field lack nothing.
The lilies of the mountain-tops burst forth their fragrance in springtime.
All this is the work of the Lord God Omnipotent, who bestows real goodness every day,
He displays the source of his affection by making the earth bring forth its fruit.

Jehovah's blessings abound, like the sand on the shore,
His grace and compassion extend to all generations.
I will lift my hands to worship Him, sing a joyful song,
Praise and exalt His name without ceasing.

After some consideration and discussion with parents and relatives, I have decided to resume full-time study next year. I have applied to study a graduate diploma in secondary teaching, specializing in ESL (English as a Second Language) and LOTE German (Languages Other Than English). I have submitted applications to Melbourne and Monash University, and will find out on January 10 which course I will be doing. I will be happy with either course, but it will be a massive jolt to the system to resume full-time study, especially as I've applied for the intensive stream, which means I can finish the course in one year, but it will be very full-on and I was warned at Melbourne Uni's information session that I won't have much of a life next year. Anyway, that's something to worry about later.

Before I end this post, a grudging congratulations to the 2010 AFL Premiers - Collingwood. Even though I wanted St. Kilda to win, there was no denying that Collingwood deserved their victory.

Cheers and God bless

I'm back, and Well Done Spain!

Greetings, dear reader

I'm finally back after a long hiatus, due to a book that has taken me longer than expected to finish. More about that later.
It has been a busy last few months, with the main highlights being:

• The 2010 FIFA World Cup;
• Grandpa's 100th birthday;
• Making plans to return to full-time study next year;
• After too much procrastination, finally finishing the Auxiliary Unit of my Level III TESOL certificate! I am now in the middle of preparing for my supervised practice teaching session, which is the final requirement to obtain my certificate.
  

Although not the worst World Cup ever staged, the 2010 FIFA World Cup did have several forgettable moments and aspects. There was a royal fuss kicked up over the Jabulani ball (especially how it behaved at high altitude) and the annoying buzz of the vuvuzelas, as well as FIFA's incompetent organisation of selling tickets (resulting in many matches with glaring empty seats), the at-times dubious standard of refereeing, and Ghana's tragic elimination at the hands of Uruguay thanks to Luis Suarez's "hand of God" act. And then there was the farcical episode that was France's campaign. Already unpopular with most fans because of the way they qualified (cf. Thierry Henry's manual assist against Ireland), the French players looked barely a shadow of their normal selves on the field, and off it there was turmoil and revolt, culminating in a players' strike against their coach Raymond Domenech, after he sent striker Nicolas Anelka packing for telling Domenech to - in much harsher terms than these - "go and get stuffed".

Nonetheless, there were some bright moments. Besides Spain winning the World Cup (which I had predicted as far back as two years ago), there was Paul the German Psychic Octopus, who amazed everyone with his accurate predictions (even Germany losing to Spain!), and the performances of teams like New Zealand and especially Germany, a team traditionally known for its effective yet dour style of play. But under Joachim Löw, die Mannschaft has changed its image and played with adventure, and even I have to admit that Germany was unlucky to bow out in the semifinal to Spain. With such a young team getting so far, I have pencilled them in as one of the favourites alongside Brazil and Spain for the next World Cup.

With the football out of the way, it's now time for my first book review. The book I will be reviewing here is Susan Maushart's The Winter of Our Disconnect, which should be available in any mainstream bookstore. I came across this book while doing my recovery shift in the book section at Big W, and was so fascinated by the idea of the book - which I am about to explain - that I decided to buy it. I can now say it was definitely worth the purchase, and if anyone would like to borrow it from me, they are most welcome to.

To put it as simply as I can, the author (who is a journalist and single mother of three teenagers) conducted a six-month "experiment" of no electronic media in the house during the first half of 2009. As you can probably imagine, this idea didn't go down too well with the three teens, and even the author, who herself is a tech junkie due to her profession, had doubts about how the experiment would fare. Yet all four did not merely survive those six months, they thrived! How they managed to do that in today's media-saturated era (and that saturation is only going to get worse until Jesus' coming) I will let you read for yourself. Written in an informal yet informative style, Maushart invites us to get to know her and her family and how all of them changed over the six-month period. Interspersed throughout the text are some interesting findings on the influences, good and bad, of media and technology on our society, which Maushart has researched and referenced at the back for those interested in further reading.

Before I finish, I would like to share with you about a hobby that I have decided to take up a little more seriously - BILLIARDS! Well, to be more exact, pool and snooker. For me, the first step to becoming a more serious player was getting my own cue, which I bought at Harry Evans & Sons Billiards in Fitzroy, a locally renowned family business specializing in billiards equipment. From them I have learned about how to look for a good cue and also how to take care of it. The cue that I purchased was a beautiful two-piece costing $300, which is just above middle-range. I know it sounds like a fair bit for two pieces of wood, but like a samurai sword, crafting a good billiards cue is a work of art, and as long as I guard it jealously and take good care of it, it should provide me a lifetime of enjoyment.

The next step is to get membership at the Red Triangle, also in Fitzroy, a billiards hall where I try to play at least once a week. There I encountered a member from my church, a middle-aged Malaysian Chinese bloke named Jason, who is a long-time member at the Red Triangle and has taken me under his wing. I have learned a lot from him and hopefully, given I have more opportunities to practice what he has taught me, I might one day be able to compete in a pool tournament.

I shall cover the rest of the topics in my next post, which I will post very soon.

Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Contemplating teaching in Singapore

Greetings, dear readers!

I think this will be the last time I apologize for not posting an entry in over a month. Unless you can be bothered to make it a habit to blog regularly, it is actually very hard to maintain regular updates. Nonetheless I will try to make an effort to put in a post at least twice a month. Let's see how that goes.

Anyway, on to what's been happening. Autumn seems to have taken a vacation this year as the warm weather, which lasted all the way until late April, suddenly gave way to the first signs of Melbourne's winter cool. The first major event of May was the arrival of some of my grandma's siblings from Xiamen (廈門) in South-East China. My nan is the oldest of nine siblings, a normal number for Chinese families in those days (After all, my mum is one of ELEVEN siblings!), and it did a world of good for her to see her second brother (二兄), second sister and her husband (二姊), and fourth brother with his wife (四兄). The five of them arrived in Australia with a tour group and were able to come to Melbourne for a few days to catch up. On the whole it was a joyous time, full of stories and laughter, and naturally they implored us to come to China to visit them. I hope to be able to do that very soon.

After they left, I attended my third wedding for this year - and somehow I don't think it will be the last - between two more church friends, Anthony and Melisa. Their story together, which started in a parking lot, to when they decided to put the relationship on hold in order to mature individually, then getting back together and finally tying the knot a couple of weeks ago, says to me a lot about how much they value each other and also their relationship with God. God put his own seal of approval on the wedding by providing a splendid facility for the ceremony (Holy Trinity Anglican in Doncaster) and turning on a clear blue day.

Now some of you may be wondering how I'm faring with my TESOL certificate, and you'll be happy to know that I have nearly completed the course and have resumed relief volunteer teaching at LMCC. Really the only major thing left to complete now is my practical teaching placement, which I can do at LMCC under the supervision of a qualified volunteer teacher. Besides all that, I have had to think ahead and start considering applying for teaching positions here and overseas.

However, there is a problem with teaching here. If I want a proper teaching post, I either need a Level IV TESOL certificate (I'm doing a Level III) or need to go back to uni and study a Graduate Diploma in Education for one year (Melbourne University's is two years), and much as I love uni, I'm not exactly keen to go straight back at the moment. In terms of looking overseas, I've virtually ruled out teaching in Germany, much as I would love to go back and live there. Germans have a preference for either British or American teachers, and not having an EU passport doesn't help my cause either. In the wake of my relatives' visit from China, Xiamen was yet another option, but that option was put on the shelf after Auntie Patsy voiced her concerns to my parents.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Auntie Patsy a lot, and her concerns are quite valid. After all, I don't really know anyone there, my Mandarin is so-so at best, and of course you have to be careful about what you say and to whom you say it, not like in Australia. But how else am I going to find out unless I actually go there, and how else will I improve my Mandarin? Now that's probably just me being impulsive, but I really hope I do get the opportunity to one day go to the land of my forefathers and give back something in the way of helping improve the standards of English in order for China to become more accessible to the world. I will probably have to consider joining a mission group called CNEC Partners International (Christian Nationals' Evangelism Council), who run short-term English teaching trips to southern China. That may be a starting point for getting a taste of what China is really like.

There are two other overseas options that have crossed my mind: South Korea and... surprise surprise... SINGAPORE!! I have heard the demand in South Korea is proportionally greater than even in China. I don't know whether it's true, but I do know that English teachers are highly respected and well-paid in South Korea. My only problem, according to a friend who taught there, might be my Asian appearance, as Koreans generally prefer people of Caucasian appearance to teach them English.

Now some of you may be wondering, "Don't people in Singapore speak English already?" Yes, people do speak English in Singapore. In fact, they probably speak the best English in the East Asian region. But in recent years an influx of migrants from mainland China and other Asian countries has increased the demand for teachers to maintain Singapore's high English standards. Personally, Singapore looks very appealing to me. It's clean and safe. The food is great. The MRT is a dream compared to the shambles of a train system that we have in Melbourne. I have family and friends there. The weather is warm all year round, although for someone who likes cold weather, that's not so great. Finally, Singapore's convenient location is great for travel, especially for someone who holds KrisFlyer membership. Suddenly, I am really drawn to the idea of teaching in Singapore!

OK, that's more than enough for now. More to follow soon.

Cheers and God bless