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 Melbo
urne 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
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