Hooray for Holidays!

Greetings, dear readers

After an eternity away from the blogosphere, I have finally returned - free from formal study and assessment for nearly two months. I just had my clinical praxis exam (CPE) this afternoon, a 15-minute presentation which combined the three core semester subjects - learning, teaching and pedagogy (LTP); social and professional contexts (SPC); and Language and Teaching (L&T), followed by 10 minutes of questions from a 3-member panel of lecturers/tutors from those subjects.

Now that's all over, I need to reflect on what I've learned in a very hectic semester of study and work experience at Carey Baptist Grammar, which finished just last week. To put it simply, I've learned that:

• there's a lot more to teaching than simply rocking up to class with a bunch of materials and being friendly with your class.
• planning as early as possible is critical, and painful as it is, you need to take the time to do it!
• sometimes you need to remind the students in class who's boss, even if it means shifting students to another part of the classroom.
• you must go through the material you're about to teach your classes and become familiar with it. Because if you're not, should it surprise you that your students will catch you out?
• most importantly, always have your learning goals and objectives clear for every lesson!
  

I'm sure there's a lot more I've learned in the last few months, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

At the moment, these are the activities I have lined up for my winter holiday, in no particular order:

• Book tickets to see Carey Baptist Grammar Middle School's production of Sound of Music
• Catching up on sleep
• Reading a load of books I've ordered via Barnes & Noble - when they arrive
• Tidying up my room
• Choir rehearsals on Wednesday nights
• Watching a replay of the Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona
• Late-night Wimbledon
  
• Showing my cousin Hwee Yen around town when she arrives next month
  

On 22 May - three Sundays ago - Melbourne University Choral Society (MUCS) had their first concert of the year at the BMW Edge in Federation Square, performing English Baroque composer Henry Purcell's semi-opera King Arthur. We had two performances - one in the afternoon and another in the evening. The dress code required me to go shopping with Mum a week out from the concert to find a good suit. The Dom Bagnato we bought was expensive; I ended up paying Mum back $600, but at least I now have a nice suit to wear to formal outings.

Considering that our maestro Andrew Wailes had a hard time getting scores together for the orchestra musicians in time for the live performance, I think we put on a decent show. Not surprisingly, the evening performance was better than the first, and I can now hardly wait to get the CD of our concert! At the end of the evening concert, I went around like a little kid getting autographs on my score from Andrew, the soloists and other choir members. I see it as a sort of symbolic signing-off on a job well done!

With King Arthur now out of the way, we're turning our attention to Beethoven's epic 9th Symphony chorus An die Freude and Sir Edward Elgar's choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius. To give you a taste of what's coming, I have included the link to the climax of Gerontius, the part where the choir sings Praise to the Holiest. Both Beethoven's Ninth and Gerontius are absolute B-E-A-S-T-S to perform, but when everyone rises to the occasion, the effect can be heavenly. I'll definitely be doing my part to ensure it's going to be like that!

OK, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless