More weddings (and another funeral!)

Greetings, dear readers!

Well, another Christmas season is now well and truly in full swing, and thankfully I don't have to worry about working at Big W over the Christmas period for the first time since 2008! However, I have been kept busy, and quite a number of things have happened since my last blog post. So I will try and squeeze as much in as I can - hopefully without boring you to death - before my traditional end-of-year annual review.
  

I am currently writing this blog entry while based at Vanessa's family's holiday house in scenic, hilly and windy Dunedin in the southern part of New Zealand. More about that later.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently took up a teaching position at Deakin University English Language Institute, otherwise known as DUELI. So far, it has been an interesting and challenging experience, but I am so grateful that God has provided me with friendly and helpful colleagues for the two subjects I am currently teaching. Although the teaching rate is fantastic, and the students are on the whole well-behaved, teaching at tertiary level comes with its own set of issues. For starters, you can't issue detentions or suspend students who continually rock up late to class. You also can't really confiscate their mobile phones, which are a major source of distraction. Then of course, as at all levels, there are varying levels of language competence.
Some of the humbling lessons I've had to re-learn include:

• Speaking slowly and clearly and keeping my language simple; 
• How to concept-check to ensure understanding, i.e. ask guiding questions instead of asking students if they understood something; and  
• My students are people who have issues that affect how they are in class, i.e. get to know what's going on in your students' lives and 1) cut them some slack where necessary, and 2) suggest them to seek professional help.  

Just five days after I wrote my previous blog post, our family was hit with the biggest shock in a very long time: the totally unexpected passing of the last of my grandparents, my beloved 阿嬤 (also known as 奶奶 - paternal grandmother). From what I've heard, it is a normal thing for couples who are married for many years that the moment one goes, the other follows soon after. But Grandma had been in good health right up to the last day, so we thought she had at least a few good years left in her. I was teaching at Deakin at the time when my youngest brother Jared texted me that Grandma had passed away. Needless to say I was shocked and didn't want to believe it, but minutes afterwards Mum called from the hospital to confirm the news. Although we were all shocked and saddened by her departure, we also are assured that she is in heaven reunited with Grandpa and free of suffering, and that we will see her again.

A few weeks after the funeral, Mum, Elise, Tom and Jared flew off to Malaysia to celebrate their marriage with the relatives based there, while James, Dad and I stayed at home. While they were away, I had a wonderful time catching up with some friends whom I hadn't seen in a while: my French-Aussie friend Sophie, who had returned from her internship in Europe and finished off her PhD, her sister Chloe, who has just completed her Master of Teaching and now has a boyfriend, Joe, an IT professional from the USA, and some others.

The day after Mum and Jared returned from Malaysia, it was my turn to fly out of Melbourne for the second time this year for my FIRST EVER TRIP TO NEW ZEALAND! You may have remembered that I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that Vanessa's older brother Myles was going to tie the knot in Dunedin, but before the Chens arrived in NZ, they first had to fly to Vietnam for the traditional wedding ceremony for the bride's family; Huong is originally from Vietnam, and her family are still based there. Then they flew to Taiwan to celebrate with their family members there before a long-haul flight to Dunedin which included stops in Singapore and Auckland. Thankfully, Vanessa appeared to be over her jet lag when she greeted me at Dunedin Airport.

I might talk more about my time in NZ in another post, but to briefly sum things up, the wedding was a beautiful one, held at the historic St Joseph's Cathedral (see picture on right), and it was great meeting Myles' friends (especially his hilarious best man Joe) and being able to play small roles in making the day easier for the happy couple.

OK, that's enough for now. Time to get ready for bed and then the flight back to Melbourne
tomorrow afternoon.

Cheers and God bless!

How time flies!

Greetings, dear readers!

As mentioned in my previous post, my younger sister Elise tied the knot with long-time sweetheart Tom in the presence of God, family and friends on 6 September, a glorious spring day. It still seems not that long ago that they started dating, but the union really has been a match made in Heaven; both my family and Tom's family have known each other for years, since my mum and his mum were former work colleagues at Mercy Private Hospital.

To get my sister's view on her big day, you can read her article here. Although I wasn't part of the bridal party, I nonetheless had a busy day, starting with a big breakfast and then getting dressed before acting as chauffeur for Grandma, Auntie Patsy and cousin Heidi from Hong Kong, and Vanessa. The wedding was a great time to catch up with family and friends whom I hadn't seen in a while, as well as an opportunity to introduce them to Vanessa.



Later that afternoon, Vanessa and I had the task of setting up a partition board at the reception venue with a selection of photos featuring Tom and Elise in their younger years and as a couple. We finished that job comfortably in time for me to partake in the traditional Tea Ceremony. This was then followed by a wonderful reception dinner, in which the only sour note was when Vanessa's entree dish had no Peking Duck pancake on it! Thankfully, it was quickly replaced by the waiters. Now that my sister has tied the knot, the attention has turned to me, since neither of my brothers have a girlfriend yet, as far as I'm aware. Let me say this now, that Vanessa and I are quite happy to take our time, and when the time is ordained by God to be right, it will happen.

Speaking of which, today just so happened to be our one-year anniversary. We celebrated the occasion by attending Vanessa's church, which also happened to be celebrating an anniversary, its 35th. After lunch, we bought tickets to a film of Vanessa's choice - and a good choice it turned out to be (despite the negative critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) - Hector and the Search for Happiness, which got me thinking about what happiness is for me. More about that later.

Before the film started, we played a game of 8-ball on one of the pool tables, and I had to teach Vanessa how to cue the ball properly, which was an interesting experience. After the film, we enjoyed dinner at the Paesano Restaurant before I drove her home. God-willing this has been the first of many anniversaries.


So what is happiness for me? Well, among other things, happiness is feeling secure in the knowledge that you have somebody to love and that somebody loves you, whether that be God or your girlfriend, and happiness is also finding fulfillment in doing something you love that helps other people along the way to achieving their goals, which is what drives my passion for learning and teaching. What about you? What makes you happy?

After finishing another developmental experience at McKinnon Secondary College, I'm excited to announce that I've recently taken up a new position as a casual staff member at the Deakin University English Language Institute (DUELI), for which I have Facebook to thank. In fact, it's scary to consider how important Facebook has been in my life recently. Without it, I potentially might not have met someone like Vanessa until much later, and by responding earlier this month to a uni classmate's announcement of teaching vacancies at the institute, I now have a wonderful opportunity to expand my experience by teaching English as an Additional Language at one of Australia's most highly regarded English teaching centres for international students of non-English speaking backgrounds. I have my first day of teaching tomorrow and look forward to meeting my new students. Your best wishes and prayers would be much valued.

Cheers and God bless!

Someone's getting married in the morning (afternoon, sorry!)

Greetings, dear readers!

I hope this post finds you well in body and mind. I'm going to try and keep this post as brief as possible, because I need to get ready to go to bed for what promises to be a hectic and happy day for my family tomorrow.

As the title suggests, there is going to be an important wedding tomorrow. The day has nearly arrived for my younger sister Elise to wed her long-time boyfriend Tom. Having watched their relationship grow and blossom over the last seven or so years has been a pleasure, and I look forward to being able to call Tom my brother-in-law, having known him for a long time already as a brother in Christ. I am not only immensely proud of my sister, I am also not at all fussed that she has beaten me to the altar. It has given me a chance to see just how much organization (and expense!) goes into preparing a wedding. By the end of this year, I will have been to five weddings, and given that Vanessa and I are still in the early stages of our relationship, I am now more than happy to wait a few years before I tie the knot.

As I said in my previous post, I returned to work at McKinnon Secondary College at the start of Term 3 in July, and midway through the first week I had to sit what turned out to be more a formality than an interview, then was offered the position the following day by the principal. The position is part-time, teaching German at Year 7 and 8 level for the term, but we all have to start somewhere, don't we? And there are few schools better than McKinnon in Victoria, let alone Australia. Term 3 ends in two weeks, so of course I've had to start looking for positions for next term / next year. Prayer for that is of course much appreciated.

Before I finish up, I want to extend a very belated congratulations to Die Mannschaft on their deserved World Cup victory. Argentina were brave, and annoyingly I missed Mario Götze's extra-time winner because I was in the car driving to McKinnon!

OK, that's all from me for now. I'll follow up with a more detailed post next time, with of course information about my sister's wedding.

Cheers and God bless

Half-Year Recap (Part 3)

As I said in my previous post, May was an eventful month, both for me and my family. I have already talked about Vanessa's birthday (which we actually celebrated in June!), but I'm going to focus on three events that immediately come to mind:

1. My car crash; 
2. The passing of my paternal grandpa; and 
3. My cousin Vivian's wedding.

When I look back on all three events, I can see just how abundantly God has blessed me and our extended family.

First, the car crash. How did it happen? For those of you whom I haven't told yet, it happened on May 6th, my last day of replacement teaching at Viewbank College. I had just finished tying up all the loose ends for the teacher who was coming back, and for some reason I felt in a rush to get home. I drove out of the school and turned into Cheryl Grove, heading downhill with a sharp left turn at the bottom of the slope. Furthermore, the road was wet, a fact that didn't register in my mind until those fateful few seconds when I knew I was in big trouble.

I carelessly cruised down the hill, until I suddenly realized I was going too fast. I then put my foot on the brake, only for the wheels to lock and skid. At that point, I knew in my mind I had lost control and uttered, as any normal person might, "Oh shit!"

The car mounted the curb and smashed head-on into a concrete power pole. Although the car was written off, there were a number of things to be grateful for. First, nobody else was involved in the accident. Second, I know now what to do in case I crash a car and write it off, not that I hope it happens again. Most importantly, I emerged from the car shaken but unhurt, except for a bruised right knee and slight whiplash.

With the generous assistance of the nearby residents, I was able to call a tow truck to take the car back to my place. Once home, I called my friend Gabriel (check out his garage's website here!) to come and assess the damage. He confirmed my worst fears that the car was a write-off, and took me through what to do next: de-registration, policy refund, and towing by salvage wreckers.

I now have a new car and, having learned my lesson the hard way, pray that I will get several years out of it before I can afford a new car.

On May 12, almost a week after my accident, came the news we were dreading but knew had to eventually happen. My paternal grandfather Wang Zhongqing (王鍾慶), whose 100th Chinese birthday we had celebrated in 2010, was admitted to On Luck nursing home (next to my old school Donvale Christian College) at the end of March after grandma had done all she could taking care of him on her own. Nonetheless, my dad and other relatives took turns bringing her every day to the nursing home to tend to grandpa, a testimony which moved the staff at the facility deeply.

On Mothers Day, we brought grandma over for dinner, and when I inquired about grandpa, she said he was "not good", which meant it was very serious. I found out later that he was no longer taking in even water or milk. Early the following morning, we received a phone call from the nursing home informing us that grandpa's situation was deteriorating and asked whether we would like to send for an ambulance. Dad referred the callers to grandma, who decided to let him be. The news that he had gone reached us via Uncle Ambrose a bit before 9 a.m. Although the timing of his passing was somewhat awkward, with my cousin's wedding the following Sunday, we are thankful to God that he departed peacefully. Indeed, when my brothers and I went to pay our respects at the nursing home that evening, he looked as though he was asleep.

His funeral on the Wednesday after my cousin's wedding was a wonderful opportunity for us to thank God for his amazing life and say thank you and goodbye to a man who has left a great legacy to his descendants during his 103 years on the earth. Rest in peace, 爺爺, I look forward to catching up with you in Heaven.

These next few years will be weddings galore, and by the end of this year alone I will have attended at least five! On May 18th, I attended my first wedding of the year, that of my cousin Vivian and her long-time partner Kevin. It was a beautiful wedding and a beautiful day, and among other things I was finally able to introduce Vanessa to my beloved cousin Heidi, who had come over from Hong Kong with Auntie Patsy for the wedding. I was encouraged by Kevin's testimony and how God has shaped him into a mature and responsible young man, without losing his bubbly character. One of the most touching moments of any reception is the dance with the bride and her father. This dance was especially poignant, as Vivian was wearing her late mother's wedding dress for the dance. It's been six years now, but I miss Auntie Pearl more than ever, especially now that I have become a teacher.  

Tomorrow morning, the grand spectacle that is the FIFA World Cup comes to an end with the Final between Argentina and Germany at the Maracanã in Rio, both deserving finalists in their own way. Kick-off is at 5 a.m. Melbourne time, for which I am very grateful, because I will most likely be able to watch the whole game, assuming it doesn't go into extra time. I shall quickly add here that I am returning to McKinnon Secondary College tomorrow, replacing a German teacher who has taken long-service leave for the whole term. Although I love the school, it is a considerable distance from home (40 minutes by car one way!), so if the game kicked off at 6 a.m., I would miss a significant chunk of the second half because I would be driving to school.

Up to this stage, I have supported La Albiceleste, but for the final I'm going to jump ship and support Die Mannschaft. After all, I have more in common with Germany than with Argentina. I will still be happy if Argentina wins, but given what a wonderful tournament this has been, I hope most of all that the final will be a climax befitting of the occasion.

OK, it's off to bed for me. Cheers and God bless!

Half-Year Recap (Part 2)

After returning from my European adventure, one of the things I looked forward to was catching up with Vanessa. Thankfully I didn't have to wait too long.

Our first Valentine's Day together was a special occasion, as we were finally reunited after one-and-a-half months of separation. We exchanged gifts: I got her a teddy bear dressed in lederhosen from Kitzbühel, which she named Hans, and she got me a cuddly toy tiger, which I christened Figaro Jr.

Because Valentine's Day this year coincided with the Lantern Festival (元宵節), the last day of the Chinese New Year festivities, we stopped by at Dessert Story after dinner to eat glutinous rice balls (湯圓). We ended the day with a visit to my beloved grandma before I drove Vanessa home.

I thank God that our relationship continues to grow steadily as we get to know each other better. In March, I finally had the opportunity to meet Vanessa's older brother, Myles, and his fiancée, Huong. Thankfully it seems that they have accepted me, because not long afterward I received the formal invitation to their wedding in Dunedin in December this year. Even though Vanessa had told me about it last year, I dared not assume I would be invited just because I was her boyfriend.


Then we had the chance to celebrate our birthdays, mine in April and Vanessa's in May. My 28th birthday was easily the best since my 21st back in 2007. While it was fantastic to celebrate over dinner with close friends and family at Svago Ristorante and receive some very nice presents, I could not have guessed the surprise that my girlfriend had in store. She had asked one of her friends, who is a professional cake maker (click here for more info), to make a birthday cake for me in the shape of a red panda, one of my favourite animals. When it came out after dinner, I squealed like a woman on Oprah, it was so adorable!

For Vanessa's birthday in May, I got my idea for her present thanks to a double date we had a few weeks prior with Andrew, my old school friend who got married last year, and his lovely wife Amanda. They introduced us to Claude, the Kitchen Companion, a cute tablet / cookbook holder. Their one is blue, but since Vanessa's favourite colour is burgundy, I got her a red Claude, since that was the closest colour they had. Thankfully she was very happy with her present, and I hope she gets a lot out of it. May was a busy month for our family, and I will save explanations for my next post.

As I said in my post yesterday, I was at a German teacher colleague's house this morning with her family for the much-anticipated World Cup semifinal showdown between Brazil and Germany. As my colleague is Brazilian, she was of course supporting her home country, while I did my best at the start to remain neutral. But my reaction to the first German goal from Thomas Müller betrayed my real sentiments: I jumped up and yelled GOOOOOOOOOALLLL!! But never in my wildest dreams could I, nor anyone else for that matter, have foreseen what would happen next.

In six minutes of mayhem which would shake Brazilian football to the core, from the 23rd to 29th minute, the score suddenly blew out to 5-0, thanks to a combination of Brazil's inept defence (and even that is probably too nice a description!) and Germany's clinical finishing. I had said before the game that I wouldn't be surprised if Germany won, provided they came out to play with a ruthless attitude, and that is EXACTLY what they did. The final score had to be seen to be believed: 7-1! It was a result that set numerous records, among them the first time a team had scored 7 goals in a semifinal, as well as Brazil's heaviest loss in its football history.

I had read in the day leading up to the game that a Brazilian voodoo priest was planning to place a curse on one of the German players. As a disciple of Jesus, I know (and now understand why) black magic is a strictly off-limits area, and that those who dabble in it do so at great personal risk. So I thank God for causing the curse to backfire, in dramatic fashion, on the Brazilians.

Now I am about to head off to bed to try and get some sleep before watching the second semifinal to see who Germany's opponents will be. I hope you enjoy the match between Argentina and the Netherlands. I am almost certain it will be a closer game than the carnage we saw this morning.

Cheers and God bless!

Half-Year Recap (Part 1)

Greetings, dear readers!

Wow, I can't believe this is my first post for the year, how time has flown! Well, it's good to be back, after several busy months. As always, when I leave things for too long, there's too much to include in one post.

It has been several months now since coming back from my second trip to Europe, this time with members of MUCS, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (known colloquially as the Phil or the RMP), and the Chamber Strings of Melbourne (CSM). Although I had intended to write some posts while overseas, our schedule was a hectic one which left me with little time to put something together.
To summarize, the tour was just about as good as it promised to be, barring a few slight personal hiccups. Everything was organized through the Salzburg-based Chorus, Culture and Art Concert Tours (click here for more info), whose services I would gladly recommend and use again. Our Austrian bus drivers, Werner and Rudi, drove us around with minimum fuss and maximum professionalism. Our effervescent tour guides, Eva from Slovenia and Greta, an Aussie-born Austrian ski instructor, were at once warm, funny and, when needed, able to whip us into line. After all, adults can sometimes be more immature than kids!
Among the many highlights of the tour, several stand out:

• Making new friends among the touring party;
• Catching up with relatives in Holland for a few days before the tour, and meeting for the first time my second nephews, Julian and Kato, and niece, Mimi;
• Watching the world-famous Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO) perform two of my favourite symphonies, Beethoven 6 and 7, at the Concertgebouw; and
• Finally visiting, and falling in love with, Austria.

Then there were the various venues we performed at, some of them absolutely unforgettable, the appreciative audiences, and the local groups we performed with, all combined to make the tour a memorable lifetime experience.
I was also glad to escape Melbourne before two major heatwaves hit the city in January, but the day after I arrived back it reached 40 degrees Celsius. With the combination of heat and jet lag, it was not surprising that it was a very unproductive day!

Now to fast forward to the immediate present, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup is now down to the last four teams. The Brazil vs Germany semifinal will take place tomorrow morning (Melbourne time) and then Argentina v Netherlands the following day. In spite of concerns that Brazil would not be ready in time before the first kick-off, this edition of the World Cup will go down in history as one of the best, at least in terms of the quality of football witnessed. Of course, some incidents and refereeing decisions have been controversial, but it wouldn't be a normal World Cup without those.
I will be going tomorrow morning to the house of a German teaching colleague (who is from Brazil!) to watch the game. It will be tough for Brazil without their captain Thiago Silva, who is one of the best defenders in the world, and their star Neymar Jr, who was accidentally (at least in my opinion!) injured in the quarterfinal against Colombia. Germany will probably never have an opportunity like this again, but even so it will be a tough task to defeat the host nation. Nonetheless, I wish both teams all the best.

Stay tuned for more posts soon. Cheers and God bless!