The Year in Review (Part Two)

As mentioned in my previous post, tonight and tomorrow mark one of the high points of the year, and something that has become an annual Christmas tradition for me - CAROLS IN THE CATHEDRAL! Based on the traditional English Christmas service with carols and readings, this year's festive spectacular will feature Siobhan Stagg as our soprano soloist.
Besides the cultural significance, audiences also enjoy the concert because they are able to sing along for the carols. There are annual standard ones such as Once in Royal David's City, O Come All Ye Faithful, Joy To the World, and Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Last year a long-lost Australian carol Christmas Day was brought back to the repertoire, and will be repeated again this year.

Then on Christmas Eve, I will be taking part in my first Midnight Mass at St George Anglican Church in Malvern. Over the last few years, I have learned that a simple Christmas is the way to go; we don't even put up the Christmas tree anymore! For me, it stems back to four important things:

• Jesus Christ (without whom the celebration would just be another mass (we get the word Christmas from a combination of 'Christ' and 'mass'!); 
• food (whether it be the big meal, or snacking on Stollen and Lebkuchen);
• family (catching up with relatives); and of course, 
• music (the above-mentioned concerts). 

If there is one present I would like, it is a copy of Alan Furst's latest book Mission to Paris. This year I discovered, almost by accident, the work of Alan Furst, an American author who specializes in a specific genre of spy fiction - the period leading up to and the early years of World War II. The main characters in his series Night Soldiers include a French film producer, a Russian journalist, a Polish army captain, a Greek police officer, and a Dutch cargo freighter captain, all of whom are drawn into the struggle against the Nazis. This series began back in 1988 with Night Soldiers, and so far I've read through quite a few of them. To find out more about Alan Furst, read an interview of him here.

So far, this is what I know will be happening for me next year. I will start back at my old school, Donvale Christian College, as a casual relief teacher. At the same time, I will go straight on to the final 50 credit points to obtain the full Master of Teaching qualification by the end of next year. I have enrolled for four subjects, two per semester, and this is what they are:

• EDUC90048 - Second Language Teaching Methodology (Semester 1);
• EDUC90587 - Grammar for Language Teachers (Semester 1);
• EDUC90481 - Content Language Integrated Pedagogy (Semester 2); and 
• EDUC90482 - Linguistics and Sociolinguistics of CLIL (Semester 2)

I want to thank all my readers for putting up with my long, sporadic (and hopefully not boring!) postings this year. I wish you all a safe and joyful festive season with friends and family, and all the best for 2013. Cheers and God bless.

The Year in Review (Part One)

Greetings, dear readers

As another year draws to a close, it is time again to look back over the events and highlights that have shaped my 2012.

This year, I had the privilege of celebrating both New Years (Western and Chinese) in China. It was my first visit to the country of my fathers and I certainly hope it won't be my last. To meet most of my grandma's extended family and gain the confidence to speak some Hokkien were the main achievements of the trip.

But the biggest highlight was discovering where my Christian and musical heritage come from. I was fortunate to attend church in China with my relatives and also participate in several family gatherings, which involved a meal and lots of talking and singing. This is the main reason I cannot wait to go back, and take the rest of my family with me, especially my dad.

In regards to study, you may remember that last year ended for me on a note of relief, in that I hadn't
been kicked out of the Master of Teaching (Secondary) course after I had failed my two attempts at first-round placement. Well, this year also ended on a note of relief, but relief mixed with euphoria. Through a combination of hard work and God's grace, I finished the Postgraduate Diploma with flying colours, and can expect my VIT registration any day soon.

It has been a busy year with MUCS as well. Our first gig for the year was the ANZAC Day Dawn and Morning Services, in which you might have seen me if you were watching the broadcast on ABC. It was my first Dawn Service, and one I won't forget in a hurry. We stood in driving wind and rain with no cover, and it was a miracle that I didn't fall sick. This was followed in May by our performance of Haydn's oratorio The Creation in St Paul's Cathedral.
In July, we accompanied the likes of Sylvie Paladino and Delta Goodrem at the Prime Minister's Olympic Gala Dinner, before joining forces with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic and Melbourne Youth Orchestra to perform the Russian Spectacular in October at the Melbourne Town Hall.
December is our busiest and most important month in the year; the concerts and carolling gigs allow us not only to make back cash on concerts which sold at a loss, but also to build for next year. Tonight and tomorrow we will be presenting our annual series of Carols concerts at St Paul's Cathedral. More about that in the next post.

However, the year hasn't been without its share of sadness as well. In August one of my aunts in Malaysia (三妗) finally succumbed to cancer after a brave fight of several years. Thankfully, she passed away peacefully, and her children are all grown up and looking after themselves. My heart also goes out to those parents and families who lost loved ones in the tragic and seemingly senseless shootings in Newton, Connecticut, last week. I pray God will comfort them, especially at this time of the year.

To be continued...

Holidays are here again!

Greetings, dear readers

Good heavens, how the last few months have flown! After another long pause due to the busyness of the season, I finally have time to sit down and write out a blog entry. There is a lot to cover, so I will try and keep this post brief and relevant to the most important information, and any other information will be included in later posts.

The first key piece of news is that I have completed the Postgraduate Diploma of the Master of Teaching (Secondary). I submitted my final assessment on Monday evening, and am now waiting for my provisional registration with the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT). Although there were a few hiccups along the way, I am pleased to say that my final placement at Vermont Secondary College was a successful mission. My mentors' feedback and marks in their final reports were better than I expected.

A couple of weeks ago, I returned to my old school, Donvale Christian College, to have an informal interview with my old Maths teacher, who is now the co-Head of Secondary. The interview was to discuss the prospect of coming back to work as a casual relief teacher next year. The interview went well, as Mr Kay said he would be happy for me to return as a teacher.

In light of my likely situation, I figured that I might as well finish the final 50 points of coursework (to obtain the Master) next year, and preferably before I land a full-time position. There are three streams offered next year: 1) Research; 2) Induction; and 3) Professional Development, which I have chosen. This enables me to specialize in an area of interest, and can be done full-time over one semester, or part-time over two semesters. Given how much I struggled under a full-time load last year, I think the latter option might be the way to go. I have until Friday December 14 to confirm my subjects, but the sooner I can enrol the better.

Last night, the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) had its annual ball at San Remo Ballroom on Nicholson Street in Carlton North. The theme this year (somewhat appropriate in more ways than one) was 007 with the corny tag License to Teach. My mission for the evening, dressed in a nice hired tuxedo (see picture), was to host two very attractive young ladies: Sophie, a friend of mine who is about to complete a PhD at Melbourne Uni in politics, and her younger sister, Chloe, who has applied for next year's Master of Teaching (Secondary) program. To keep things short, Sophie, Chloe and I had a wonderful evening, thus allowing me to say "Mission Accomplished". I can hardly wait to catch up with them over the summer break once they return from holiday in Thailand.

With Christmas now not too far around the corner, I will talk more about that and other things in my next post.

Cheers and God bless,

My Thoughts on the Situation in Syria and Egypt

Greetings, dear readers!

As promised from my last post, I will discuss in some detail the world affairs that have attracted my attention over the past month or so. But first a quick side step into some personal stuff worth sharing with everyone.

I have just started my final semester of the Postgraduate Diploma of the Master of Teaching (Secondary), and will be teaching at Vermont Secondary College. I will again be teaching German, as it is very difficult to obtain ESL places in most schools. Much as I would have loved to do a TESOL placement, I relish any chance to practice my German.

The other exciting bit of news is that Auntie Patsy will be arriving from Hong Kong next week and staying for a month helping Dad look after the grandparents. For those of you who don't already know, I'm very close to Auntie Patsy and look forward to catching up and spending time with her while she is here.

And so on to the main section now. I will begin with the situation in Syria. This has developed into a crisis which will have far-reaching implications for the world, not just the immediate Middle Eastern region. This will be the case regardless of who emerges "victorious".

In the best-case scenario, all parties would emerge out of this crisis as winners rather than losers. But until Jesus Christ returns to establish His kingdom, our fallen human nature dictates that we will never see fair rule, true equality or absolute justice in our lifetimes. That shouldn't stop us from striving for it though, as the Bible instructs Christians to pray in the Lord's Prayer:

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10 ESV)

If the way the Lord Jesus Christ described things in Matthew is anything to go by, we are getting very close to the Last Days before Judgement:

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. (Matthew 24:6-8 ESV)

While famine has again struck Africa, this time in the western part, there was a minor tremor that shook Melbourne several weeks ago. I was in the city at a choir rehearsal during the time when it occurred (20:53 AEST) but did not sense the quaking. It was not until I came home and was asked by Mum whether I felt the earthquake. I then checked my Facebook feed to find that everyone who was in Melbourne had commented on the earthquake!

Anyway, back to the Syria crisis. I won't waste your time going into all the details of what has happened in Syria, as it will take up too much space. However, the Huffington Post has published every week a digest of the crisis, where you can get a summary of what has been going on.

It is a sad fact that innocent civilians have lost their lives as they get caught in the civil war crossfire between government forces and rebels, but my focus is on how the crisis has been reported in the Western media. They have framed the Al-Assad government as the guilty party, and they're probably right.

The St. Elias Maronite Church in Aleppo.
Taken from Wikimedia Commons 

However I have learned, at times the hard way, to NOT take for granted everything that the Western media say. Indeed, reports have surfaced that some conflicts have been over-exaggerated. What is clear is that the rebels and the government are blaming each other, when really both parties are responsible for the deteriorating situation. As I write this post, the conflict has now reached the major city of Aleppo.

Although Russia and China have outraged many in the West for vetoing proposed United Nations (UN) sanctions, it is important that we don't condemn without understanding their attitudes. Again, I don't have time or space to go into all this, but it is worth looking through in your own time. Just google something like "Russia stance on Syria" or "China stance on Syria".

Something worth noting about Aleppo is that it has a significant Christian minority. Wikipedia says the Christian population there is around 12 per cent, but a Syrian-American called Ehsani from the Syria Comment blog has calculated it to be less than 4 per cent! Regardless of the number, please remember them in your prayers!

Now to talk about Egypt. My primary concern with that country, in light of last year's Arab Spring, has been the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is nominally a secular country; its official title is the Arab Republic of Egypt (as opposed to Islamic Republic) and official population figures put the Muslim population at approximately 90 per cent.

In case you didn't know, Egypt has not always been a Muslim country. From about the 4th century AD until the Islamic conquest of Egypt in 640, Egypt was actually a Christian country, at least in name. Today, Christians in Egypt make up 5 to 10 per cent of the population, and most of them belong to the Coptic Orthodox denomination. Over the centuries, and especially since Gamal Abdel Nasser's coup d'état in 1952, the Copts and other Christians in Egypt have faced increased persecution, mostly from militant Islamists.

However, most Muslims haven't had it easy either. During the regimes of Nasser and Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood were severely restricted in their activities until Mubarak's downfall last year. The recent election of Mohammad Morsi in Egypt's first democratic elections has concerned Christians and secularists alike, even though Morsi has said that he will be "a president for all Egyptians".

President Morsi (centre) with Field Marshal General Tantawi
(left) at a medal ceremony at a military base
(AP Photo/Mohammed Abd El Moaty, Egyptian Presidency) 

However, Egypt's military elite retain much political influence, and from what I last heard about the situation in Egypt, Morsi and his comrades are locked in a struggle to reconvene parliament after it was dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court in June.

One of the keys to resolve the conflict will be the establishment of a new constitution which both parties can hopefully negotiate sooner rather than later. Then they need to attend to more important matters, such as providing jobs for Egypt's millions of young people.

I have already mentioned that we need to remember the Christians of Aleppo in your prayers. In the same way we need to remember to pray for our Christian brothers and sister in Egypt, and indeed throughout the Middle East. I thank God that He has preserved His people in Egypt for the last 1400-odd years, and can preserve them for another 1400 years, if He wants to.

I don't think I have room left to talk about Greece or Spain. I guess that will have to be for another post.

Cheers, and enjoy the Olympics!

July 2012 update

Greetings, dear readers!

Hope you are all well. I have a fair bit to get through, so let's get straight into it.

Last week I was able to sort out my timetable, and thankfully I got the times I wanted. It looks something like this:

Monday 10:00-12:00--Core subject: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Secondary Education
Tuesday 9:00-12:00--Learning Area Workshop: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
Wednesday 10:00-12:00--Elective subject: Global Perspectives in Education

It doesn't look like a lot, but on top of that is my Second Round of School Placement on Thursdays and Fridays (plus a three-week block) at a school that has yet to be confirmed.
Hopefully I get placed at a school where I get to practice teaching TESOL, as I haven't done enough in that learning area.
Add to the placement uni assignments, and preparation for job applications and a Practicum Exhibition (more about that in another post!), and this upcoming semester isn't exactly going to be easy. But I'm sure nonetheless that it will be fun.

As most of you I'm sure are aware, the London Olympics is coming up in a matter of weeks, and I'll be excited to see how the Australian athletes fare in their key events. A few weekends ago, I was invited by Andrew Wailes, my conductor at MUCS who is also in charge of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (RMP), to join the RMP to participate in the Prime Minister's Olympic Dinner at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, an A-list fundraising event for the Australian Olympic Team.
Performing in conjunction with Orchestra Victoria conducted by Richard Mills AM, we served as back-up singers for some of Australia's biggest music industry names. These included Todd McKenney, Delta Goodrem (by whom I got starstruck!) and Silvie Paladino. All in all, it was a great night, and we got good feedback from the event organizers.

As a sports follower I have certainly enjoyed my fair share of frustration and joy over the last few weeks. On Saturday June 16, I went with some friends to see my first-ever live international rugby test match between Australia and Wales at Etihad Stadium. Like most of my friends, I was supporting Wales. Call me unpatriotic if you like, but it is still an "Australian" trait to support the underdog, i.e. the team that is not favoured to win.

It was a very close match and at one stage it looked like the Welsh had the match won. They were one point in front with only two minutes to go, and they had possession of the ball in the Australian half. All they had to do was wind down the clock and then kick the ball out.
But for some inexplicable reason, they kicked the ball forward and gave possession to the Australians, who managed to get the ball down to the other end and win a penalty goal attempt, which was converted after the hooter for full-time had sounded. Australia won 25 - 23, and I was gutted.

On Monday I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to watch the final of the 2012 European Football Championship between Spain and Italy. Although Spain were the favourites going into the match, there was no way I was going for Italy as the underdogs this time.
Spain, alongside Germany and Brazil, are one of my favourite football teams, and for me, Italy in football is like England in rugby union or Collingwood in Australian football; You either love them or you hate them. If you hate them, you want them to lose ALL the time, even if they're the underdog!

Well, thankfully, I didn't have much to worry about: Spain won 4 - 0, and in doing so recorded their third consecutive major championship after winning Euro 2008 and the World Cup in 2010.
At this moment, Spain deserve to be the favourites heading to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

OK, that's enough of the sport. In my next post I will turn attention to world affairs that have caught my attention, namely the ongoing violence in Syria, and election results in Egypt and Greece, and what the future could hold for those countries.

Cheers and God bless

End of May update

Greetings, dear readers!

After several months with a range of stuff going on, I finally have the time - and the motivation - to post a blog entry. There's a lot to catch up on so I will try to keep things short and sweet.

Last week I finished my third attempt at first-round teaching placement at Viewbank College. Today I went back to collect my report from my mentors. Before meeting them, I was a little nervous thinking I might not have passed yet again, and what the consequences would be for my enrolment.

However, I am very relieved and happy to say that this time I PASSED! I can now look ahead to next semester with renewed confidence that God will see me through as He did through this placement.

Based on my reflections on the semester and the discussion today with my mentors, some of the things to work on for second-round placement include:

• Being more pro-active about knowing my administrative duties and doing them;
• Keeping to my space, small and crammed as it might be;
• Planning how to manage fatigue and lapses in concentration; and
• Preparing an inventory of learning activities that target the various language skills and are more student-centred.

On Saturday, I had my first major concert of the year with MUCS. We performed Joseph Haydn's amazing oratorio The Creation in English (it's normally performed in German) at St. Paul's Cathedral. We were accompanied by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra and three wonderful young soloists - tenor Daniel Todd, his soprano sister Janet, and the Singaporean baritone Matthew Tng.

Given that we only had two rehearsals with the soloists, the concert went as well as could be expected, and was well received by the audience. The only downside was that we didn't sell out. Since we were going to make a loss if we sold out anyway, this means that we're going to make a substantial financial loss. As a consequence, we will have to work harder during the Christmas period to recoup as much of the loss as possible!

Our next major concert is in October, when we join forces with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra to perform a Russian Spectacular at the Melbourne Town Hall. This concert will feature Alexander Borodin's Polovtsian Dances and Sergei Prokofiev's epic cantata Alexander Nevsky. If you love Russian classical music, this is one concert you WILL NOT WANT TO MISS! I will also be sure to sell tickets for that next concert more aggressively.

I have more things I would like to write about, but I've probably bored you by now. So I will keep them for the next entry, which I hope to post soon.

Cheers and God bless,

Back in Australia, and missing Xiamen

Greetings, dear readers!

After another long hiatus, the time is long overdue to update you on what has been going on. But first, let me wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day, especially to the newly wedded couple of Jeremiah and Karen, who tied the knot on Saturday.

I was hoping to post something while I was in Hong Kong (The Blogspot domain is blocked in mainland China!). However, I fell ill with a serious bout of food poisoning during my first day there and had no energy to write about what I had been up to in China.

Fortunately, I recovered almost fully before flying back to China. Although I had a fantastic time in Xiamen, I do have one main regret. Besides not being able to stay longer, I regret not being able to visit Kinmen, where my family's ancestral village is located.

As a first-time visitor to mainland China, I couldn't obtain a multiple-entry visa, which I needed as I was also visiting Hong Kong. I could only apply for a single- or double-entry visa. And because the tickets for Hong Kong were already booked, it meant that I wasn't able to re-route my itinerary to fly from Hong Kong to Kinmen via Taipei and then make my way back to Xiamen via ferry.

In terms of learning Amoy dialect (otherwise known as Hokkien), Grandma actually ordered me to learn to speak it while in Xiamen, and told me that when I returned she would give me a test! After probably my first week-and-a-half, I summed up the little courage I had and tried to speak some bad-sounding Amoy, and the relatives patiently encouraged me as I began to speak more. At Chinese New Year time, I spoke on the phone to Grandma and used Amoy. I don't think my pronunciation was anywhere near perfect, but I think she was pleased by the fact that I made an effort to speak Amoy! The challenge back here in Australia is to improve my Amoy for the next trip back, which I hope will be very soon.

Some of you may remember I mentioned in my previous post that I had to face an Unsatisfactory Progress Committee at uni following my two placement failures last year. The news from that is that thankfully I have been allowed to continue the course, albeit with conditions imposed. I've met most of the conditions so far, i.e. re-enrolling for placement and meeting an academic support staff member for consultation about time management. Now the only thing I need to do is put my head down and make sure I pass my placement this semester, and I'll be set for the rest of this year.

Since coming home, I have been busy sorting through the 400-odd photos from the trip, with a few more yet to come. I have started to upload them onto my Picasa Web Album, and will make them available for you to view soon.

That's all for now. Cheers and God bless