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,