29.3.13

March 2013

An Update

It is early on Good Friday morning. Here we get a holiday on Good Friday so I don't have school today.

It has been a crazy first quarter of the year as a new teacher. I haven't had knives pointed at me yet this year but just recently I've physically had to break up a fight. And the past week I have had my 6-month confirmation observation (though really I've been teaching for three), which was really scary! I also had to help out with some stuff at my school's cross-country run (which sadly got rained out), and our Year 9 camp. Also, I'm one of the teachers in charge of our school's dance troupe, and we have a major performance in April (aahh!). Sometimes teaching feels like doing two jobs at once!

I'm still working on memorising 1 Timothy; the time taken to memorise books seems to get exponentially longer because it takes so much time to go over what you've already memorised so you don't forget it. Sometimes it also makes me feel like a Pharisee, though, because they knew the Word of God really well but they didn't put it into action. I find that one of the most convicting parts of scripture memory is realising just how far you fall from the mark, all the time.

Recently I have also been teaching my Year 7s about heroes and heroines (I try my best at gender and racial equality in the classroom). Non-fiction wise, we've been looking almost exclusively at non-white female heroines, and they actually are a lot easier to find than you'd imagine—Aung San Suu Kyi for example. Fiction wise it's a bit harder as the prominent children's books now are something like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games and Percy Jackson. Jon has been helping me out loads with the Harry Potter bits!

Anyway, I remember that last year just before the wedding I was panicking over my new classes, as I'm not very good at classroom management. Things aren't exactly smooth sailing now but I reckon we are hanging in there. The A to C rate has surprisingly not been too shabby, and I think we'll be able to push them all up in the end. They're lovely students, they really are.

On Good Friday

One of my students (whom I had told off earlier in the day) came up to me late yesterday afternoon and asked, "I'm really sorry. Are you still angry at me?" I couldn't help laughing, partly because I never really get angry (just sad) and partly because that reflected so much of me, the sinner me. As a teacher, I couldn't be angry any longer. The matter was closed. We'd moved on. The lesson was over.

And the thing is, God offers us something way better than that. More than a forgiveness that depends on the sinner learning his lesson, he offers us a forgiveness that depends on his Son. And that's what we remember on Good Friday: the ransom was given, the sacrifice was made, the atonement accepted.

As a Pharisee, as a lackluster teacher, as a sinful wife—I am accepted because of Christ. I am his glory, and he is my beloved.


via earth adventurer




19.1.13

January 2013


credit: Mike's Sorry

At the start of the year I had big ambitions about getting this blog up and running again, and posting regularly. But being married and having a full-time teaching position, while stepping up my commitment to volunteer work, apparently don't mix well with blogging.

What's been up? Well we've just started a new school year, my students are absolutely fab, I've been memorising 1 Timothy (because that's the current sermon series at church) and I have to work on a new curriculum for the primary aged kids I volunteer with. And I've been sleeping at 9.30pm everyday.

Also I have been reading the entire Percy Jackson series and cannot believe I have to wait until October to find out if Percy and Annabeth survive. WHAT.



31.12.12

December's Instagram






Also, married life is awesome.
Waking up next to Jon is unbelievable.




17.11.12

Three Weeks


via ariana lynee

In exactly 3 weeks I'll be getting married.

Some days, like today, have been extraordinarily normal.

We went to Little India in the morning, to buy some hula hoops. We had lunch at a fast food joint. I went to Clementi club; you played computer games with your brother. We met for dinner at a food court and went to get more hula hoops from Toys R Us.

Recently there have been a lot of errands to run, a lot of meetings to attend and a lot of things to organise. Some of my friends remarked in surprise that I'd gotten darker before my wedding (the Asian perspective on beauty is fairer is better) but I couldn't help it; last Saturday was spent erecting tents under the sun in a park for a community event.

The thing is, I don't want to put my life on hold for my wedding. I don't want to step back serving in club and go for fancy photo shoots and look like someone I'm not on my wedding day. The wedding, after all, is hardly for us. It doesn't really matter if we want a big wedding or an 'intimate' wedding, flowers or balloons, pink or gold. The wedding, just like what we'd like the rest of our lives to be, is about celebrating a Father and the people he's placed in our lives to make us who we are today... our families, our friends and churches. Marriage will be about putting the other person first; the wedding models that by putting our friends and families before ourselves.

So no, we haven't done a pre-wedding photoshoot; we're not doing the gatecrashing; and no, we're not going to match the ang pows to the guest list (haha!). Instead, we will be honouring the people who have poured their lives into us thus far. Not mainly because it's the right thing to do but mainly because we want to.

It will be an extraordinarily normal wedding, and we will lead extraordinarily normal lives after; no big destiny, no grand romance, no riding off into the sunset. No especially divine moments when we suddenly realised God had created us for each other, no spectacular story (read the previous two posts for proof! Haha). Just a humble recognition that we have received far more than we deserve, for to live kindly and generously with the knowledge that heaven awaits must surely be the greatest thing on earth.