Queen's Birthday Mid-year Report

Greetings, dear readers!

I hope this post, which has been long in coming, finds you in good health and spirits. Today we celebrated the Queen's Birthday Holiday. Now, given that the Queen's actual birthday is on April 21 (two days after yours truly!), you might wonder why we hold this public holiday on the second Monday of June.

I did some research on this holiday (i.e. browsed Wikipedia) and found out that it has been celebrated in Australia since 1788. Until 1936, the holiday was held on the monarch's actual birthday. Thereafter it has been observed by all states and territories, except Western Australia, on the second Monday of June. I assume that this is so it does not mess with the working week.

This is also the time when uni students are hitting the books and preparing for mid-year  exams. Thankfully, I don't have any exams, but I do have a major 3,000-word assignment that is due in just over two weeks.

Just after the start of first semester, I swapped out of one of my subjects (EDUC90048 - Second Language Teaching Methodology) and into another subject, EDUC90683 - Reading: From Selection to Response. This subject, which was conducted over four Saturdays, will hopefully enable me to teach Literature, along with my other learning areas - German and English as an Additional Language.

Speaking of reading, I have just reached page 800 of Julie Rose's translation of Les Misérables, which means I am roughly two-thirds of the way through the book. I am also just over half-way through the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. So far it has proven to be a lot more readable and gripping than I imagined.

In between these two great novels, I have read three wonderful books, but time does

not allow me to review each book here. Those three books are:
* Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (the original, i.e. non-modernized version);
* Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower; and
* Mark Obmascik's The Big Year. (Links are to Amazon reviews)

I will finish this entry with some exciting news. Since my last post, I have been struggling to find relief teaching work. However, a couple of weeks ago, I attended a Professional Development conference run by the Modern Language Teachers' Association of Victoria (MLTAV). There I bumped into one of my teacher mentors from last year, who is also currently the vice-president of the Association of German Teachers of Victoria (AGTV), and she introduced me to the president of the AGTV. They recommended me to send them an email summarizing my qualifications and availability to do relief teaching, which they could then send to the other teachers on the AGTV network.

I did as they suggested, and last Tuesday I received an email from one of the German teachers at McKinnon Secondary College, asking if I wanted to take up a short-term replacement position at the start of Third Term for 3-and-a-half weeks, teaching German from Years 7 to 9. Although the school is a considerable distance from home, I have heard many good things about it, most notably that it has a strong music program.

Tomorrow morning I will take a test drive to see how long it takes to get there (I forgot to mention earlier, I now have my own car!). Then on Wednesday I will formally visit McKinnon Secondary to meet the staff, observe a few classes, and hopefully get any necessary paperwork filled in. I am so thankful to God for opening this door, and any prayer would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers and God bless!