Joyful Jezza's Journey

A night at the opera

2009-12-02T01:59:00.002+01:00

Greetings, dear readers

Well, December is here and that means three things: the arrival of summer, Christmas, and time for reflection on another year gone by. It's going to be another busy festive season in more ways than one. My sister has recently started full-time work at a nearby pharmacy, and so far she looks like she's enjoying it, despite the fact she comes home quite haggard at the end of the day. Meanwhile, I'm anticipating more shifts at Big W and am relieved that the recovery team has been expanded to 13 personnel for the Christmas trading period.

Now to the topic of today's post. Yesterday evening I went to see my first opera in over two years, and what an opera to choose: Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece AIDA (not pronounced Ay-da, but A-ee-da). To keep things brief, the plot centres around three characters. There's Aida, the soprano female lead, who is an Ethiopian princess in captivity in Egypt, but the Egyptians don't know that she's a princess. Then there is Radames, the tenor male lead, a mighty Egyptian commander who is in love with Aida. Completing the trio is Amneris (alto voice), the Egyptian King's daughter, who loves Radames, and has Aida as her slave.

While the plot may sound complicated, it is the music and the set design which makes this grand opera so well-received. Aida's music score ranges from melancholy to majestic and everywhere in between, and the current Australian production has attracted rave reviews from critics. Having now seen it myself, I fully understand why!

Just before I sign off this post, a quick news flash: I have decided (hopefully not for the worst) to take up the TESOL certificate with Teach International, and will hold off doing CELTA until a more suitable time if I still need to do it. I paid the fees for application and registration yesterday and am now waiting to receive the online course instructions. Please pray that God will give me the passion and the focus to study for the course properly, as there is a potential career on the line here!

OK, till next time, Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

It is finished!!

2009-11-16T02:45:00.004+01:00

Greetings, dear readers!

Well, at long last, after five long but amazing years, my time at uni has come to an end... for now. I have submitted my final (God-willing) piece of assessment for my undergraduate degree, a take-home exam essay, and on December 10 I shall know for certain whether or not I indeed have enough points to graduate with a B. Arts (Linguistics & Pol. Science) with a Dip. of Modern Languages (German). I hope to go back and do further study, most likely a Masters in Linguistics, at any university that will accept me. But that can wait for a couple of years. On quick reflection, the highlight of my five years at uni was easily the time I spent living in Berlin as an exchange student, and I definitely hope to go back there soon, whether for work or further study.

Now that I am free, I hope to be able to make up for all the lost blogging time in between and contribute my thoughts on some of the reading and activities I will be catching up on these holidays.
Up until the time of my graduation ceremony and beginning full-time work, I don't have much planned except doing more work at Big W, especially during the hectic Christmas trading period, and doing some reading and listening to music.

Thanks to confirmation from my aunt that she will be in Hong Kong during February, I can now make plans to visit for a couple of weeks. I haven't been to Hong Kong in over twenty years, so I am quite excited about traveling and being there, and not just hearing about it or seeing stuff about it on TV.

The other big thing on the agenda is choosing an English certificate to do. After initially considering TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), I was recommended by some others to actually do the Cambridge CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults), which is apparently a more recognized qualification than TESOL. In case you're interested, there are four institutes which offer CELTA courses in Melbourne: Holmesglen TAFE, Monash Uni (Caulfield campus), Latrobe Uni and RMIT. Hmm I wonder why Melbourne doesn't offer one...

OK, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Spring is coming!

2009-08-24T14:44:00.004+02:00

Greetings dear reader

Hope things are going well with you, whoever and wherever you may be. Over the past few days, while walking on the way home or wandering out into the garden, I have noticed some of the trees starting to blossom, which means that spring is just around the corner, and with it, the dreaded hay fever, although thankfully I don't seem to get it as badly these days. I am now well into the final semester of my Arts degree and so far I'm enjoying it.

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I am only doing one subject: European Integration, which looks at the issues surrounding the EU internally and also its relations with Russia, the US, Australia and Asia. As long as I can stay on top of my required readings and submit my essay on time, I should be able to finish my final subject with a reasonably good mark.

With all the spare time I have this semester, even with my part-time work at Big W, Mum recommended me to go and look for volunteer work. Trust Mum to come up with the good ideas! So after a couple of interviews, I have found volunteer work at the Louise Multicultural Centre in Box Hill, where I am helping out roughly six hours a week. This community centre focuses on tutoring migrants in English at various levels, although classes in basic computer skills and Mandarin Chinese are also available. From my perceptions so far, the majority of the migrants are umm very mature-aged, female and East Asian (i.e. Chinese, Korean). This has proven to be a win-win situation in that not only am I helping these migrants to hopefully improve their English, but I am also getting some much-needed practice with my rusty Chinese!

So far the volunteering experience has been challenging at times but also immensely fun and rewarding. The staff and volunteer tutors at the organization are fantastic and friendly people, and so far I have been gleaning a lot of useful hints from sitting and helping out in their classes. Through this experience, I feel that God has also confirmed His calling for my life, that I am to serve Him as an English teacher overseas. With that in mind, I have decided to take up an intensive TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Certificate III course over the summer holiday and then decide where to go. At this stage, either Hong Kong or Germany are my equal first preferences, with Hong Kong looking the more likely destination.

This year was the first time I attended the Melbourne International Film Festival. There was a lot of controversy at this year's Festival due to a documentary about the exiled Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer, which the Chinese authorities demanded to be removed. Controversy aside, I went to see two films - a Japanese family drama titled Aruitemo Aruitemo (歩いても歩いても), translated as "Still Walking" (see a review here) and a German Harry Potter/Twilight-ish fairytale, Krabat (see review here). I found the two films to be quite enjoyable, and if I'm still around in Melbourne this time next year, I will probably purchase a mini-pass so that I can go and see more movies!

OK that's it for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Congrats, Amy and Dave!

2009-07-21T04:03:00.003+02:00

Greetings, dear reader

My parents and I are back in Melbourne after a wonderful weekend in Sydney. More about that later.

Well thank God, I passed both subjects from last semester. Strangely, I got more for the subject I thought I would barely pass than for the subject I thought I would pass comfortably; I scored 51% for Comparative Politics and 56% for Conflict and Change in Australian Society. I can now look forward to my final semester, which starts next week. I only need to do one more subject, and the subject I have chosen is European Integration: Politics of the EU. It will be run by my favourite lecturer Associate Professor Philomena Murray - a fitting way to bring to a close what will have been an amazing five-year journey.

I want to thank those who prayed for me regarding my phone interview with De Agostini. I think the interview went quite well, despite some awkward moments. At this stage, my hopes of obtaining an internship with the company in London appear promising, but I'm trying not to set my hopes too high. De Agostini posted me some samples of their work to look through so that I could then make a more informed choice about whether I really wanted to do an internship with them. However, I received news from the interviewer approximately a week afterward that due mainly to the financial situation, De Agostini won't be making any intern positions available until next year. In the meantime, I will continue looking elsewhere for internship opportunities.

Now the big news. As mentioned before, my parents and I were in Sydney over the weekend to celebrate the long-awaited nuptials of one of my second cousins, Amy Cheung, to jazz pianist and composer Dave Halls. Feel free to check out his website here. The things that Amy and Dave have in common include, besides twin brothers, a love of music, love for God and His Word, and as Dave's twin Jonathan mentioned in his dinner speech, a "hate of waste". The seal of God's blessing on the marriage was evident in the beautiful weather on the weekend. Also he endowed Amy's dad (who is currently undergoing rehab after back surgery) with sufficient strength to walk Amy down the aisle. The wedding was also a fantastic opportunity to get to know some of my other second cousins, and I can hardly wait to catch up with them again soon. As I write, the newlyweds are in Vanuatu on honeymoon and hopefully having a very good time. I wish them all of God's blessings as they begin this new chapter in their lives together, that they may enjoy many years of happiness and merry music-making!

OK, that's enough for this post. I'll be putting up more stuff very soon.

Cheers and God bless

J.W.

I'm back at last!

2009-07-02T04:34:00.002+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

First of all, my most profuse apologies for not keeping you guys updated with what's been happening over the last three or so months since I posted an entry. But now that another semester is over, and I am free of most of my study stress (which will hopefully completely disappear if I pass my two subjects - results come out July 9), I will endeavour to try and stay more committed to submitting blog entries on a regular basis, by which I mean roughly twice a month.

Anyway, down to business. Besides study, the main achievement of my second-last semester was the tying-up of loose ends (namely getting my exchange points credited and a subject which was mistakenly given a fail mark amended), which now ensures that I will have a smooth run towards my graduation.

June 26 marked the passing of two icons of the entertainment industry. First to go was blond angel Farrah Fawcett, and later in the day The King of Pop - Michael Jackson. I honestly was not surprised when I heard the sad news, as I had serious doubts that he would be able to pull off his intended final tour, given the rumours circulating about the state of his health and reliance on drugs.

Although I am not a big fan of Michael Jackson, I am appreciative of the massive and unique contribution he has made to the music industry. While watching him in action on one of the countless TV docos about his life and career, it suddenly struck me just how brilliant a dancer he really was, given he had no formal training. I had known for a while how good a singer he was, especially in his early days, again with no formal training. But back to his dancing ability.

Jackson was a dancer who was blessed with an overabundance of sheer creative and physical energy, which is important in a dancer or any other artist for that matter, yet at the same time it was his ability to harness and control that energy on stage that set him apart from any other performer of his time; like other really good dancers, especially ballet dancers, he had the body control of a contortionist.

OK, now to other stuff. besides work, there is not much on the agenda these holidays except for a couple of things. in just over two weeks, my second cousin Amy will be getting married in Sydney, so my parents and I will be heading up there for the weekend. I also have time now to indulge in my current fascination of classic movies, more specifically those of the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (黑澤明).

Before I end this very long post, I have a major prayer request regarding an upcoming phone interview with an international publishing group called De Agostini. They were the only group who responded to my inquiry about doing internships at a publishing company in the editing department, and so far the application process with them has gone smoothly. The phone interview will be on Monday at 9 a.m. local UK time (which will be 6 p.m. over here in Melbourne), so please pray that I will be prepared to answer their questions and also, if the internship has to be done interstate or overseas, whether they will be kind enough to cover any possible expenses.

Cheers and God bless,

Jeremy

A busy time

2009-03-12T00:50:00.003+01:00

Greetings, dear readers

Sorry for not having put anything in for quite a while. Thankfully, as an epilogue to my previous entry, the bushfire threat is officially over, but the ESA campsite and the El Kanah guest house have been lost to the fires, and the official death toll stands so far at 209. Sadly, some of the bodies of the deceased may never be found.

But now we're moving into March, and the cooler autumn weather is starting to kick in, much to my relief. My final year of my Arts degree is also under way. Due to the way things have panned out, I am now a part-time student, which means I'm no longer eligible for concession prices on public transport. Fortunately, thanks to my permanent part-time job at Big W, I don't have to dig into my savings to purchase full-price tickets. I have also managed to get most of my enrolment issues sorted out, and the only thing remaining to fix is the status of my academic transcripts from my overseas exchange.

I have also recently resumed doing BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) after a hiatus of several years. After attending the last introduction class last week, I was told, due to the overwhelming demand for places, that I had been placed on a waiting list and might have to wait for up to four weeks until I was allocated a discussion group. Amazingly, I didn't have to wait that long as my discussion-leader-to-be called me up on Friday. I hope that doing BSF will help instill at least some discipline in doing some Bible reading and meditation on God's Word.

With that all out of the way, my week will look something like this.

Monday: Tutorial class at 2pm and then BSF in the evening.
Tuesday: Classes at 11am and 2pm and then church care group in the evening.
Wednesday: Day off to study and work at Big W from 4.30 to 7.30
Thursday: Another day off, but usually go into uni. German Tuition from 4-5, then work at Big W from 7 to 10pm
Friday: Classes from 10am to 1pm. Rest of day free.
Saturday: Work at Big W from 4 to 7pm
Sunday: Church with family at 9am. Sometimes also 5pm.

In other news, my dear brother in Christ J.P. (short for Jan-Philipp) has arrived in Australia from Germany and will be in the country for three weeks, spending just under a week here in Melbourne and then going up to Sydney to visit the Hillsong Church. Naturally, I was delighted to meet and catch up with him after not seeing him in over a year. On Tuesday we went to the Rialto Observation Deck and then to the Queen Victoria Market, where J.P. was able to purchase himself a nice bumbag. After my classes had finished for the day, I took him back home with me so that I could introduce him to my family. We treated him to dinner at the Rasa Malaya restaurant, then I brought him with me to my church care group so that he could meet some of my friends.

Today happens to be my sister Elise's 21st birthday. She had her big party on Sunday at Ruffey Lake Park, which was well attended by family and friends from church, uni and school. I am very proud of my little sister and what she has achieved in her 21 years so far, and am sure that with God's help she will continue to achieve even BIGGER things than what she has already accomplished.

Cheers and God bless,

Jeremy

One Hell of a Weekend =(

2009-02-10T03:22:00.004+01:00

Greetings dear readers!

Any events that have taken place since my last report have been overshadowed by the tragic events of what just happened over the weekend.

In what is now officially the worst natural disaster in Australia's history, 173 lives have been confirmed lost, several towns have been virtually wiped off the map, and over 750 homes have been destroyed. Sadly, over 30 of the fires are still burning, and the death toll is expected to surpass 200.

It all began even before Saturday hit, with dire predictions on Friday that the expected conditions would see fires potentially worse than those of the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires. When Saturday came, it brought with it scorching weather. It peaked at 46.4 degrees Celsius in the city at 3pm, making it officially the warmest day in Melbourne on record, and in some areas it reached up to 48 degrees! Add to that hot gusty winds and bone-dry conditions and you have the key ingredients in a recipe for a major fire disaster. Although the day is now known as Black Saturday, I think INFERNAL Saturday would be a more appropriate name for it!

It literally only took a spark or two set off the disaster, and, aided by the cowardly acts of some bush arsonists, the fires quickly took hold and spread through the woodland all through the day and well into the night. Although the majority of homes in the villages north-east of Melbourne were "fire ready", most of them were simply powerless against the fury of a firewave that moved with terrifying speed and at times resembled an orange tsunami, incinerating anything in its path.

The full light of day on Sunday revealed much, but not all of, the extent of what nature's fury had wrought. The full extent may not be known until a few more days yet. Like many around the nation, I looked on stunned in utter disbelief as TV news reports captured images of areas that were once peaceful hamlets but now resembled a war zone. Although I know of no one personally who perished or went missing, I was deeply shocked at the news that 90% of Marysville, one of the towns in the region, which I have visited several times for Christian-related camps, was destroyed, and I have yet to find out whether the El Kanah guest house or ESA Campsite are still intact.

My prayers and best wishes go out to all those who have lost friends and loved ones in the fires, as well as the brave firefighters, volunteers, counselors and paramedics who are busting their guts to contain the fires and helping those affected by this disaster.

Until next time, Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Mid-January report

2009-01-19T01:15:00.003+01:00

Greetings dear readers!

I hope the first half of the first month of 2009 has been a good one for you so far. I know that it has certainly been the case for me!

The first piece of big news to feature in this post is the wonderfully unexpected news of receiving a permanent part-time contract from my employers at Big W. This is clearly a case of the Lord's grace and blessing working in my life. Having joined Doncaster Big W since its opening in the middle of last year, I have progressed steadily in my work, despite still making lots of mistakes, and I had not expected to receive a permanent part-time contract so soon. I have had to wait quite a while to find this kind of work, but I can say now with the gift of spiritual hindsight that it has definitely been worth the wait! According to the contract, I will be working recovery shifts from Monday to Thursday for an indefinite period, which means I have 12 roster hours per week and can do additional shifts if asked and available during the holidays. For the uni semesters, I can discuss alternative roster hours with my supervisor according to what my semester timetable will allow.

The week gone by was quite an eventful one. It started on Tuesday with my dear friend and brother in Christ Gabriel Lye arriving back home from a two-month Intensive Language Program in China. Talk about climate readjustment, the poor guy had just come from freezing cold winter of -10 degrees Celsius to a blazing hot 30-degree-plus Melbourne summer! No wonder he was, according to what he told me, sweating profusely at customs, and not because he had brought back anything umm "illegal" of course! Some of the stuff he brought back happened to be gifts (late Christmas presents if you choose to see it that way) and needless to say he was most generous! The stuff I received included:

- a Mahjong set (without the table and chips unfortunately, but those things aren't necessary);
- a picture book about the Great Wall; and
- a set of Doctor Who DVDs from Season One (2005) to the recently finished Season Four!

It also turned out to be a week of bumping into and catching up with old school friends. On Monday I bumped into Erik du Plessis on the tram while going home, then on Wednesday I had a brief chat with Rebekah Yee, whom I saw at Doncaster Shoppingtown before heading to work. On Friday I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with my good friend Steve Novak and go with him to see my first ever A-League soccer match at the Telstra Dome (soon to be renamed Etihad Stadium) between hometown heroes Melbourne Victory and the Central Coast Mariners from New South Wales. After a scrappy first half, in which the Victory were lucky not to concede a goal or two, the home team found their feet about halfway through the second half and eventually cruised to a 3-0 win. We left the ground contented and while waiting for Steve's brother to pick us up from the Nunawading McDonalds, we had the wonderful fortune of bumping into yet more people from our old school who had just graduated last year!

On Saturday, I had the wonderful privilege of attending the wedding of Ainslie, a friend from uni whom I hadn't seen in a while, to her long-time sweetheart Steve Forrest at the St. Hilary's Anglican Church in Kew. The Balwyn/Camberwell/Kew area is traditionally a very popular place for church weddings (my cousin Jacob had his at St. Marks in Camberwell last year) because the churches are quite traditional in architecture and the area is quite beautiful, especially on a clear sunny day as it was on Saturday. What made it equally wonderful was the opportunity to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a while, including some from Christian Union (which was how I first met Ainslie) as well as my "chauffeur" to the wedding, Andrea Ivanov, a former classmate who used to go to the same primary school as Ainslie and is still a family friend.

Before I leave, I have to give a brief mention about the upcoming Chinese New Year. This year it happens to fall on January 26, which coincides with Australia Day, our national public holiday. Although our family is Christian, we still make an effort to celebrate important cultural events and observe the most important aspects. For us, this will include having a big family dinner (團圓) on New Year Eve and then, now that we have a mahjong set, playing mahjong until well into the night, then at midnight wishing everybody Happy Chinese New Year and receiving those little red packets of money called hong bao (紅包), which is of course the main reason why overseas-born Chinese kids like myself still observe Chinese New Year! And so I will end this post by wishing everyone a very Happy and prosperous Year of the Ox!

Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Happy New Year!!

2009-01-01T12:56:00.003+01:00

Greetings, dear reader

Well, another year has arrived and I wonder what it will bring. I was intending to write up a post yesterday reflecting on the year gone past from my perspective, and like the general trend, it has been a year of major ups and downs. The ups included:

- Finding a job (two in fact!) to start earning pocket money for my intended trip to Hong Kong next year. I hope to be there to celebrate with Auntie Patsy for Chinese New Year 2010, which will be the Year of the Tiger (By the way, this coming year is the Year of the Ox)! What makes it special is that we are both "Tigers", so hopefully we can do something special.

- Jacob and Cat's wedding in May. What a fantastic occasion it was, especially as Auntie Patsy and cousin Heidi were able to come over from Hong Kong for the event. But what was even more special was that my sister Elise and I were given the honour to present a song item during the register, and fortunately for us the song choice was given a BIG thumbs-up by the bride. Thanks Cat!

- Following the U.S. election live on the BBC website at uni and sharing in the general elation at seeing Barack Obama, the Harvard-educated African-American Democrat senator from Illinois, defeat veteran Republican John McCain in a landslide to become the new President. Now to see if he can capitalize on his appeal and start turning America's fortunes around in 2009. So far, he's not doing too bad...

And some of the downs included:

- The passing away of Auntie Pearl in March. As I've said before, I was very fortunate to be able to see her one more time, however brief, before God took her home. Still, I feel now that I had much to learn from her, especially as she could have offered me advice about English teaching, which is looking a very appetizing post-graduate career option.

- And on an academic note, failing not one, but TWO politics subjects, the first time I've ever failed in my study grades. I don't want to use the excuse that I've been feeling flat since coming back from Germany, but it didn't help that the two subjects were focused on matters I had no real grounding in (public policy and economic rationality).

These are the events that immediately sprang to mind, and is by no means an exhaustive list, but if I go on I fear I will bore you...

To cut things short, I celebrated the arrival of 2009 at a friend's place after work. I spent an enjoyable night playing the Shanghai variation of Mahjong, which requires a little more strategy than the Hong Kong variation, which I am most familiar with.

In my diary for this year, I wrote a Bible verse in the front page, a verse which I would do well to commit to memory throughout the year, and the years to come. It is taken from Psalm 90, which is attributed to Moses, and says:

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (verse 12)

One of my goals this year, as it is every year, is to grow closer to God through developing a prayer life and learning more about his word.

OK, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Christmas is coming (and I miss Germany!!)

2008-12-11T01:42:00.012+01:00

Greetings, dear readers

Well, it's that time of the year again when the city puts up the decor and Santa comes out of his hide-out for yet another season of Christmas cheer.

Holidays are now in full swing for me, and boy do I need a good one. I just got my uni semester results today, and they ranged the complete spectrum - one distinction, one pass and one fail. It has been an ordinary year for me academic-wise, doing well in my linguistics subjects (which I have now completed) but failing in two of my politics subjects, both of which were economics and theory-based, definitely not my strong points.

But enough about that. I have quite a busy period coming up as usual for Christmas. This time last year I was in Germany getting ready to perform with the Humboldt University Choir for our Christmas concerts, which was one of the major highlights of my time over there, as well as preparing for my trip down south to Zurich, Constance and Munich. I am missing Germany so much, particularly at this time of year, with the Christmas markets in full swing, and sampling the goodies, especially the traditional Christmas pastry Lebkuchen (click here and go to the information tab to find out about it)... =(

On Sunday our church is holding an outreach concert where I will be performing in various items. The following day our family will be having a mini getaway to a resort at Cape Schanck (near Sorrento and Rye) for three days, which I am eagerly looking forward to.

This is also the first Christmas where I will be getting presents for members of my family. For mum, I will be getting her a DVD of the popular TV show Inspector Rex (PLEASE keep this a secret!) and for myself and my brothers I will be purchasing a 640GB external hard drive with which to store large media and software files.

Of course, all this does not go on without remembering what the real reason for the season is: Celebrating the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, who chose to come among mankind, not as a king flashing about in spectacular livery, but as a humble, helpless baby during a tumultuous period in history. It is my prayer that despite the hustle and bustle associated with the festive season, people will be able to stop and reflect on the most wonderful gift of all.

Wishing you all a very blessed and merry Christmas with your friends and family,

Jeremy

A very eventful week - CONGRATS OBAMA!

2008-11-09T05:16:00.004+01:00

Greetings dear reader!

Seeing as I have missed an entire month, I have a lot to get through, and I can't believe it's November already! How quickly another year has flown by! And to think that this time last year I was in the middle of studies on exchange in Berlin... I'm sitting here in my bedroom, typing this entry up as I think about what has changed (and what hasn't changed) from one year ago till now. I'll write more about that soon, maybe in my next entry.

Anyway, back to the hectic events of the recent week and with my exams looming very near on the horizon (starting tomorrow actually and finishing next Monday), it has been time to hit the books and revise on the topics we have covered during the semester. Unfortunately my study time has been nowhere near as effective as I would have liked, but hopefully God's grace should see me through after what has been overall a tough year academic-wise.

The first big event of the week, in Melbourne at least, was the marquee race of Australia's spring carnival racing season, the Melbourne Cup at Flemington. On yet another unforgettable afternoon in Australian horse racing history, trainer Bart Cummings enhanced his already legendary status as the 'Cups King' by winning his 12th Melbourne Cup (and 250th Group 1 win) with the unfancied galloper Viewed, who held out the English stayer Bauer by a whisker at the finish. As I was tutoring that day, I didn't get to see the race live on TV, and I felt a little annoyed that I didn't put a bet on the race, because I was tipping one of Cummings' horses to win or at least finish in the top placings, so might have won quite a lot of money.

Dominating world headlines this past week was the U.S. presidential election and, as most of you should know by now, the African-American Democrat senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, won in a landslide victory over the senior Republican candidate John McCain. I followed the election count live via the BBC website while studying at uni, and the sense of relief, when I saw Obama secure the minimum 270 electoral college votes needed to win, was palpable. All along Obama had been tipped to win, and for once the pollsters were spot-on in their predictions.

Thankfully, McCain was very gracious in defeat, and will retire with his reputation intact. I only pray now that God will protect Obama during his presidency and give him the wisdom to make the right decisions as he seeks to stabilize and revive the flagging U.S. economy while also restoring damaged relations with the international community.

On Friday at my workplace, Big W, I received a pleasant surprise when I was offered a temporary part-time contract of employment for nine hours a week, from Monday to Wednesday. The appointment is for a fixed term of four weeks starting today and finishes on December 6th. I am so grateful to God for finally providing me with this job and this contract has given me fresh incentive to do the very best I can in my work as a recovery associate.

Recently I watched the 2008 Rugby League World Cup group match featuring New Zealand (their rugby league team is called the Kiwis) and England. Although I prefer watching rugby union nowadays, it was still a fantastic game. Although Australia are my favourite rugby league team, I have to confess that I also love watching the Kiwis when in full flight. As usual, the haka (a Maori war dance traditionally performed by the New Zealand team before a match) set the tone for the match. The England team, in what I believe was a disrespectful gesture, bunched up in a huddle and did not even face the New Zealanders as they were performing the haka. I wonder if they'll make the same mistake, should they square off in a semi-final rematch.

In a game of two contrasting halves, England started well and sprinted to an 24-8 lead before New Zealand began to find their feet and start playing their natural game. But once they got going they were almost impossible to stop and ended up running out deserving 36-24 winners. The Kiwis had a host of matchwinners to pick from, among the standouts winger Manu "the Beast" Vatuvei, who scored four tries, fullback Lance Hohaia, hooker Nathan Fien, who won the Man of the Match award for a superb kicking game, and youngster Issac Luke, who came off the bench and had an almost immediate impact.

Alright, I'd better get back to exam revision. Until next time, cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Let the (uni) games begin!

2008-09-28T05:29:00.005+02:00

Greetings, dear reader

Again it's been a while since my last post, due to the busyness of having to catch up with study time lost by watching too much of the Beijing Olympics, but I'm sure I'm not the only to be in this predicament.

The 29th Summer Olympiad came and went, and as always there were many highlights and lowlights. For me, the main highlights, besides watching Michael Phelps become an Olympic legend, included:

- Sally McLellan's unexpected silver medal in the 110m women's hurdles. Her reaction of unbridled joy and interview afterward was one of the most refreshing things I've seen in sports in a long time!
- The emotional reaction of Austrian-turned-German weightlifter Matthias Steiner after winning the gold medal, a year after losing his wife in a car crash accident
- Matthew Mitcham's brilliant final dive to clinch a gold medal for Australia and deny the host nation a clean sweep.

There were a few more others, but the worst of the lowlights, besides seeing China's great hope Liu Xiang cruelly cut down by injury, was the reaction of Cuban Angel Matos in the taekwondo bronze medal play-off who, after being disqualified, kicked the referee in the face! Needless to say, I was deeply shocked and saddened by what I had just seen, and pray that I will never have to see it again. Sure, he was angry at his disqualification, but he could have taken it out on some sort of inanimate object like a chair or something, not the referee, who is to be respected at all times, even when s/he makes a wrong decision. Justifiably he and his coach were banned for life, and anyone in any sport that assaults a referee or umpire in the same way should receive the same penalty.

Anyway, on to the topic of this post, which is the up-and-coming Australian University Games (AUG), my first (and last) one and, conveniently, staged in my home town of Melbourne. This event runs for the whole week and is the national university equivalent of the Olympics, but the sport I'm participating in is not an Olympic sport. I will be representing Melbourne Uni in touch football, which is similar to rugby league only there is no tackling involved. I only joined the team at the end of last month, but since then I have been improving and learning new things with each new training session. In a mixed blessing, we have been assigned to Division One of the competition, which means we'll be taking on opponents from rugby states such as New South Wales and Queensland. Although we have trained reasonably hard over the last few weeks, it will be a challenge to pull it all together against these teams, but that's not to say we won't give it our best shot. It promises to be a week of thrills and spills, and fun on and off the field.

Before I sign off, I must extend my congratulations (albeit grudgingly) to the Hawthorn Hawks Football Club, who came from the clouds to snatch the 2008 AFL Premiership from the favourites Geelong, who had a woeful day in front of goal, the final score being 18 goals 7 behinds (115) to 11 goals 23 behinds (89), with Hawthorn's courageous playmaker Luke Hodge deservedly winning the Norm Smith Medal for being the best player on the ground.

OK, that's all for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

The Olympics are here!

2008-08-17T12:34:00.003+02:00

Greetings, dear reader

It's been a while since I posted anything on my blog, hence it's going to be another long article, as there is a fair bit to catch up on.

The days of August 7, 8 and 9 proved both memorable and busy. August 7 was the official opening day of my workplace Big W, and unfortunately I wasn't present at the moment when the ribbon was cut and public came pouring in. My shift for that day was from 5pm to 11pm, but it was a lot of fun and the hours really flew by. I guess it's because there were actually customers in the store this time! My duties during the shift included helping customers find items such as bathroom scales and light bulbs, maintaining tidiness in the manchester section, where I've been assigned for the time being, as well as stocking up on items that were selling fast. At the end of the night, the final takings of the day were announced to be over $515,000! Apparently Big W stores always make a loss on opening day, but that figure still sounded quite impressive!

August 8 marked the long-awaited moment of the Opening Ceremony of the 29th Summer Olympiad in Beijing. After all the controversy that the Chinese have endured in the lead-up to the games (with the Tibet crisis and the Great Sichuan Earthquake), this was their moment to bask in the wonder and admiration of most of the world as they pulled off an opening ceremony which was absolutely INCREDIBLE and definitely the best so far, despite the criticism that has followed. I can hardly wait to see how London will go when it's their turn to host the event in 2012. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I might even BE there!!

August 9 was Dad's 60th birthday, and we celebrated the momentous occasion by taking him out to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant, where we celebrated with close friends and family. During the distribution of the cake, my sister and I read out for everyone an impromptu speech we had prepared for him. It's a speech formula that has been well-used at birthday parties but is always very effective - we took the letters of his name, found a suitable attribute for each of them, and then gave a little story about why we chose the certain attribute. For instance, P for Patience, T for Teacher, G for Godly etc.

Since then, little else worthy of note has been happening, except of course for the Olympics and the conflict in Georgia, of which there is too much to write about here. But this morning I was helping out with the music worship team at church, which in itself is not really noteworthy. What made it so special this time round was that I was asked to play piano instead of normal back-up vocals! I haven't played piano seriously since I stopped piano lessons after I completed my Grade 8 AMEB exam. Sure I have had the occasional tinker on the ivories, but I was a little nervous about how I would go. Fortunately with God's help I "survived the ordeal", and actually wouldn't mind doing it again!

Coming up over the next weekend is the much-anticipated Evangelistic Campaign at my church run by the prominent Aussie evangelist Dr. Bill Newman. I will be quite busy at the event, helping out as a musician and counsellor, and for those of you out there who are Christians reading this blog, I would very much appreciate your prayers for the event and for myself, that I will be a good witness to those yet to be saved.

OK, that's it for now. Hope you're enjoying the Olympics, and God bless!

Jeremy

End of holiday report

2008-07-25T03:38:00.004+02:00

Greetings, dear readers

My mid-year break is drawing to a close and while I have enjoyed it very much, I know that it is time to shape up and confront the new semester, which promises to be a lot more exciting than the previous one. Having had this break to recharge my inner battery, as well as landing my first real job, have been important factors in my optimistic mood for the upcoming semester.

One of the main thoughts hanging in my head going into this semester has been "How do I want to be remembered?" It is a thought that I feel God has been pressing on me over the last few days, first on Saturday at our youth group night meeting when our main leader Incy gave a small message about leading a life of influence. Then my cousin Jacob put up a note on Facebook reflecting on a sermon he was listening to about how we need to make the most of our time here. As if to drive the already-deeply-embedded nail in further, I was invited to a friend's church cafe night in the city, and one of the speakers talked about the different "masks" we wear around different people and how we are to be "everyday (not just "Sunday") Christians", or something like that. Anyway, when I can come up with a good response, I will publish it in my next article.

Due to unforeseen circumstances (primarily the induction at Big W and a sore arm from the leaders' retreat) I had to cancel Summit for the second year in a row, which was very frustrating. It is partly out of this guilt that I am determined to do all I can to attend the end-of-year National Training Event (NTE), which is a much bigger version of Summit. At least now that I have a job, I should be able to pay the expenses myself.

Other than that there have been no other major mishaps, and the last few days of this break promise to be exciting. Yesterday I took the opportunity of the beautiful weather to ride my bike with my brother James around our neighbourhood and get some much-needed exercise. Then in the evening I went to a friend's place to celebrate the safe return of fellow youth leader Kerryn from her exchange in Spain.

Tonight I will be going out with dad to see the musical-based movie Mamma Mia!, which I am really looking forward to as a big fan of ABBA's music. I wonder if I'll be allowed to sing along when the songs are playing. Tomorrow promises to be a fun day packed with lots of activity. In the morning I will be going to an old school friend's birthday party for a round of mini golf before heading off to youth group. Then in the evening I will be attending a concert at the Dallas Brooks Hall where the Star Chorale choir will be performing Giuseppe Verdi's famous Messa da Requiem. As I may be joining the choir later this semester, it will be worth my while seeing what I might be getting myself in for, but I'm sure it will be fine!

OK, that's enough of my ranting for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Mid-holiday report

2008-07-11T08:50:00.003+02:00

Greetings, dear readers

Hope things are well with you, and if you are happen to be on holiday, I hope you're having a good break. With the whole of next week occupied by camps of some sort, I have taken the opportunity to update my blog now so I don't forget anything I want to write about later.

First things first. Praise God that the operation to remove my wisdom teeth went very smoothly. The part I was most nervous about - going under General Anaesthetic (having never been under before) - was nothing to worry about as the surgical team took very good care of me and made me relax before the anaesthetic took its effect. The recovery was amazingly good, with minimal pain and swelling and by Sunday, I felt confident enough to resume eating normally again. The area around the holes where the wisdom teeth used to be are still a little tender as my teeth settle into position, but things should be fine after that.

It's been a while since I've had a day which I could truly call wonderful, but yesterday was definitely one of those. Not only was I able to go catch up with Hwee Lian, one of my cousins from Malaysia who is studying in Brisbane but is currently in Melbourne with friends on holiday, but I received news that I have successfully obtained employment at the new Big W store opening at Doncaster Shoppingtown in mid-August. I think mum knew straight away when she saw the look on my face when I heard the word "Congratulations" over the phone. The other wonderful thing was that one of my other cousins who went back for a brief visit to Singapore/Malaysia brought back 2GBs of much-needed RAM for my laptop, which I installed last night and, after a false start, my computer is now working beautifully!

Finally, in what appears so far to be a great year if you are a Spanish sports fan, I want to extend my heartiest congratulations to the Spanish football team, who defeated Germany 1-0 to win Euro 08, and to Rafael "Pepe" Nadal (Pepe is my nickname for Nadal because he reminds me of the little kid from Asterix in Spain) after beating the once-near-invincible Roger Federer in one of the greatest Wimbledon finals in history, as well as the last one to be played before the new roof is installed.

Over the weekend I will be away at a retreat with the other youth leaders from my church in a time of team bonding. Then on Monday I have a whole day of induction at the Big W store before heading off to the much-anticipated SUMMIT camp!

OK, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

On holiday

2008-06-28T13:11:00.004+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Another semester has come and gone, and I am currently in the middle of recharging my inner battery to tackle the next semester and hopefully do much better in my studies.

In fact this holiday has been quite busy, and will continue to be quite eventful. Yesterday morning, I went to the newly revamped Doncaster Shoppingtown (which will look VERY impressive once completed) for a prospective job interview with the supermarket chain Big W, who will be opening a store there in August. The standard questions (Why do you want this job? Why should we employ you? etc.) were asked, and I answered the questions as best I could. I will know in around two weeks time whether my application has been successful or not. It will extremely disappointing to have gotten this far (having been shortlisted for the group assessment and then for the interview) and not get employed.

After the interview, I headed out with an old school friend to Eastland Shopping Center in Ringwood to go see the recently-released movie Kung Fu Panda (starring the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffmann and Angelina Jolie), which was a bit different to what I was expecting, but still a good movie nonetheless. After a late lunch, I had to rush off home to meet up with a friend to practice for a karaoke competition we took part in today. The quality of the competition was... umm... interesting to say the least, but unfortunately for me and my friend we weren't able to make it to the final five. The other highlight of the competition was winning a DVD of the movie Agito in a raffle ticket draw, but as I'm not a big anime fan, I will probably pass it off to my little brothers.

The next main event coming up will be the removal of all my wisdom teeth, which takes place on Tuesday at Bellbird Private Hospital. I rang the anaesthetist and after answering a few of his questions, he briefed me about what I needed to do before and after the operation. After resting up and recuperating for a few days, during which I hope to get through a fair chunk of Tolstoy's masterpiece War and Peace (of which I managed to find a recent translation at the university library), I will be heading off to the Christian Union mid-year Summit camp in Marysville. The topic for the camp will be the Apocalypse in Revelation, a topic that baffles and fascinates Christians and non-Christians alike.

Finally, I want to wish both the Spanish and German teams all the best as they face off for European glory in the final of the European football championship on Monday morning (local Melbourne time). I am overjoyed that one of my favourite European teams (Spain, the others being Portugal, France and the Netherlands) made it to the last game, and I hope for the sake of the Spaniards that they can break their 44-year drought and win their first major football trophy since winning gold at the 1992 Summer Olympics. Although star striker David Villa will miss the game due to injury, I think Spain will have enough talent and class to cover for his loss. ARRIBA ESPAÑA!!

OK, that's all for now. Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Winter is here!

2008-06-04T13:11:00.006+02:00

Greetings, dear reader

Over the last few days fog seems to have descended like a curtain over parts of Melbourne, blanketing the areas during the night and then lifting by mid-morning. The drop in temperature has also signalled the arrival of my favourite season - winter.

As much as I like warm, clear and sunny days, I love rugging up on cold, gloomy days and eating food that warms the heart as well as the body. Bring on that home-made Shepherd's Pie!!

Another semester has come and gone, and now it's time to knuckle down and start preparing for all sort of exams and writing up final assignments. This semester has certainly not been my best performance-wise. Getting back into the swing of things at Melbourne Uni after coming back from exchange, coupled with unfinished business from the exchange, the passing away of Auntie Pearl, the marriage of my cousin Jacob and my notorious lethargy, has been quite difficult, and it turns out that I am going to fail a subject for the first time ever.

Besides that, a few other things have happened in my life since my last post. Last weekend I went with my dad and my sister to the Road to Revival seminar run at our church by Dr Bill Newman, a renowned Aussie evangelist who will be holding an outreach meeting there later in the year. The seminar was designed to help us revitalize and share our faith, and I personally found the seminar quite challenging.

I don't know about you, but Jesus' words "The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" applies very strongly to me. I really do want to see God move in my life and see my non-believing friends saved, but unless I can back it up with commitment and action (something I'm traditionally not very good at), that will probably not happen. This is especially worrying if God is correct in saying that I am going to become a pastor in the future (see here), because I know that between now and then I have a LOOOOONG way to go.

The other thing that happened occurred last Monday, when I attended a free info session run by Teach International, an accredited organization that runs TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language) courses. The prospect of teaching English overseas has really grabbed my interest in the last few years, and attending this session only served to spark my interest further. The cost of the recommended Certificate III course is around 2,000 Aussie dollars, but for what it offers it is well worth the money.

OK, that's way too much for one entry already. If you happen to also have exams during this time, I wish you all the best and try not to stress too much!

Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

The Wedding Singer

2008-05-13T07:43:00.009+02:00

Love, love changes everything
Hands and faces, earth and sky...

Greetings, dear readers!

Again, apologies for the lack of recent posts. I am over my head with uni assignments and can hardly wait until the semester is over and I can get a proper recharged break.

That aside, the main events since my previous post occurred during the weekend just passed, namely the wedding of my cousin Jacob Cheng to his long-time girlfriend Cat and then Mothers' Day.

The ceremony was held at St. Mark's Anglican in Camberwell, and it was quite a joyous occasion. My sister and I had the honour of singing an item during the signing of the register at the request of the newlyweds. The song we sang, if you know the above lyrics, was the Andrew Lloyd Webber song Love Changes Everything from the musical Aspects of Love. Although people came up saying afterwards that we sang well, the most important opinion was that of the bride, who said it was awesome. That really put a smile on my face.

The reception was held at the Manningham Council Function Room in Doncaster with dinner made by the Crystal Palace Catering group. With my sister and I having impressed the audience with our God-given vocal talents, it was time for my youngest brother Jared to shine on the dance floor, and with the help of some twenty-odd glasses of Coke, he delivered a stunning performance! I have started putting some of the photos from the wedding up on my web album under the link "Jezza's Galleries 2". Check it out!

The following day was Mother's Day. After the church service, which was highlighted by a showing of the now famous-via-Youtube and utterly hilarious Mom's Overture by Anita Renfroe, our family, including our grandparents and Auntie Patsy (my dad's other sister) and my cousin Heidi, stopped by at the cemetery where Auntie Pearl is buried in order to pay our respects. It was my first time there since I didn't attend the burial, as it was for Heidi, who came over with her mum from Hong Kong for Jacob's wedding. Afterwards, we had them over at our house for the day and had lunch and dinner together.

For those of you wondering what I did for my mum, I wrote her a letter thanking her for her support in letting me go to Germany and telling her of my new-found respect. It was a simple yet very effective thing to do, and my mum appreciated it, which made me very happy indeed!

OK, that's all for now. Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Thoughts on turning 22...

2008-04-19T03:00:00.003+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Sorry for the lack of postings over the past few weeks. The busyness of uni has caught up with me again, and I am in the middle of researching / writing up papers for two of my subjects.

Anyway, today happens to be my 22nd birthday and compared to last year's one, it will be quite low-key. But it is still a good time to reflect back on the events that have transpired over the last year, from the joys of getting accepted to study overseas at Humboldt University to the sorrow of saying farewell to Auntie Pearl.

There was something that had been brewing in the back of my mind since I got back, but I think I shall let it pass. I was intending as my last exchange posting to write a big thank you letter to acknowledge everyone who, in some way or another, helped me out on my exchange. In the end, I figured there were just way too many people, and to write a special thank-you for most of them would just have been too much effort. But anyway, those people know who they are (you might be one of them!) and I just want to say Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love you all!

Throughout this time, I think I can well and truly say that I have grown quite considerably in maturity and independence, which my exchange sort of forced on me, but I still have a long way to go. The same could probably be said of my spiritual life, although there will always be much room for improvement in that aspect of my life.

I know that I have not always loved God the way I should, and sometimes I still turn away from Him, but I thank Him for His amazing grace for the times when I don't deserve it (which is most of the time!) and that He continues to supply my every need according to His boundless riches.

OK, that's all for the time being.

Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

My tribute to Auntie Pearl...

2008-03-31T06:33:00.006+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

It happened just over a week ago, but it is with mixed feelings that I announce that on the night of the 22nd of March 2008, just sixteen days after her 51st birthday, my dear aunt Pearl Cheng Wong Pak-Yung departed this earthly life and went to be with the Lord.

Her funeral was held today at our home church, ECC Blackburn, and the sheer number of people who turned up (friends, family and colleagues) and the moving tributes given showed just how much of an impact she had on those around her.

Although I didn't get to present my own tribute at the funeral, I shall do it here:

My dear Auntie Pearl,

I praise and thank our Heavenly Father, the Lord God Almighty, for the blessing and inspiration you were (and will continue to be) to those around you. As one of your several nephews, I will always remember you as a creative and caring aunt who was the Joy of the Lord personified. Your positive attitude and your laugh and smile will stay in my heart forever.

I will always cherish my memories of my times with you, whether it be at family gatherings or coming over to your house to get help with my Chinese. The beautiful calligraphy you gave me for my 21st birthday will always remind me of the amazing care that you had for those close to you.

Until I see you again one day in heaven, you will be sorely missed and fondly remembered.

As it turned out, that brief visit I mentioned last week would be the last time I was able to chat with Auntie Pearl before seeing her in hospital the day before she died. I thank God for that opportunity to see her and be able to talk with her until I meet her again in heaven.

In other news, I finally finished that beastly Hausarbeit and submitted it back to my teacher in Berlin last Monday. The only thing now is that I have to fax the other Scheins back to Berlin in order to get an Academic Transcript made of my semester results.

OK, till next time... Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Missing Berlin, but glad to be back

2008-03-18T06:07:00.004+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

This is my first posting since arriving safely back in Melbourne with mum and so far the readjustment has gone pretty smoothly. There are a few things that still need to be done, including claiming back insurance for the skin infection I suffered while overseas and the bloody Hausarbeit which, due to the heat that Melbourne has been sweltering for the last week or so, I just haven't been motivated to finish. It's nearly there, but needs to be touched up and checked over before submission. And because my Hausarbeit isn't finished, I won't be able to submit my Scheins in order to get my credit points here. on top of that, I've gotta start worrying about getting a start on some of my assignments here as well.

But enough of my complaining, and on with the show. Anyway, the above-mentioned heat wave is about to end, thankfully, and the Easter break will be, besides being a time for contemplation and rejoicing, a time to properly sit back and relax for a little while. The subjects I am enrolled in for this semester are again quite interesting. They are:

Public Policy Planning;
Europe: Identities and Citizenship, and
Second Language Learning and Teaching

Last Sunday was a hot and memorable day, not necessarily for the right reasons. First, I was able to do some driving for the first time since I got back from overseas, and while there are still a few chinks to be ironed out (including a mini-accident when I bumped into the back of an Audi while trying to slow down - a long story), I will be back to driving at my optimum best in no time.

Second, I saw Aunty Pearl, my dad's younger sister, for the first time since coming back, which was a bittersweet experience. You see, Aunty Pearl has been undergoing treatment for bowel cancer for about a year and a half now, but things don't seem to be getting any better. Before dropping my brother off to play footy, we stopped by to pay a brief visit. The sight of my dear aunt reduced to virtually skin and bone from cancer treatment and medication was extremely distressing for me (as it has been for the whole family), but I was still glad to have the opportunity to see her. It is my desperate prayer that God will sustain her until at least she gets to see her son, my cousin Jacob, get married in May. Keep on fighting, Aunty Pearl! We are all praying for you!!

It has been 20 days since I left Berlin, and while I miss the taste of doner kebab and, most of all, the public transport, I have also realized how much I missed Melbourne - the air, the water, my family and friends, the Baillieu Library, and even the chatter of birdsong in the morning!

OK, that's enough for now. Better get back to work.

Cheers and have yourselves a blessed Easter break!

Jeremy

Mixed feelings about coming home

2008-03-06T08:29:00.012+01:00

Greetings, dear reader

As this post goes to print, I am currently relaxing at Uncle Seng Chong's house (one of my mum's eight brothers), and then tomorrow evening I will be boarding the Singapore Airlines flight SQ237 at Terminal 3 of Changi Airport for the seven-hour trip back to Melbourne with my mum.

Tomorrow evening! Wow... Again, as I have said many times already, how time has flown! It was just over a year ago that I got this blog set up, and it's still running reasonably well. As I reflect on what has transpired over the last six months, for better and for worse, it has definitely been a life-changing experience. I can now claim to be a more independent, and maybe more outgoing person than I was when I left Australia, and my perspective on the world and my circle and diversity of friends has also broadened. There are also, of course, SO many wonderful memories to take home!!

And naturally there will also be mixed feelings about being home. I was warned in the pre-departure session about 'reverse culture shock', and although I thought it was a small thing at the time, the more I thought about it, I do actually have to be a bit careful about reintegrating into life back in Australia after having been away for six-and-a-bit months, during which lots of things can still change.

In regards to Berlin, I think the highest compliment I can pay is that I would most definitely move back to live there if I am granted the opportunity. The main things that Berlin has going for it (and the things I am probably going to miss most about the city) are the superb transport infrastructure (it is the only city I've seen so far that caters adequately for all forms of transport - cars, bikes and especially public transport) and the comparatively affordable cost of living. Other than the friends that I have made over there, I am also going to miss eating Döner Kebab and Currywurst every week!

At the same time though, I am looking forward to being back among familiar faces - friends and family, and I won't have to wait too long for that; I will be spending all of this coming Sunday at church, my sister's birthday falls on Wednesday, and then one of my best friends from school has his 21st birthday party next Saturday.

In other news, sporting news of course, Real Madrid and AC Milan are out of the Champions League race after being defeated by AS Roma (won 2-1) and Arsenal (won 2-0) respectively. I got up very early to watch both games and I was very impressed by the way the winning teams played. Arsenal were more willing to attack and take it up to Milan, and in the end, their persistence paid off, first with Fabregas' long-range shot at the 84th minute, and then Adebayor putting the icing on the cake in injury time. Real were without guys like van Nistelrooy and Ramos, but that was no excuse for their loss against Roma, who were simply the better team on the night.

OK, that's enough from me for now. So, signing off for the last time from overseas for the while at least...

God bless and take care!

Jeremy

Finishing in a flurry

2008-02-25T21:02:00.007+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

I can't believe my time in Berlin is very nearly up, and what a time it has been! I just saw my mother and aunty and uncle off at the station this afternoon after spending a wonderful final weekend in Germany with them. On Saturday I took them around the main sights of Berlin, then on Sunday we went to the nearby town of Potsdam and took a tour of the cultural attractions (i.e. Sans Souci Palace and the University of Potsdam). The separation won't be long however, as I will be rejoining them in Holland on Thursday before flying off to Singapore with mum late Sunday morning.

BUT before all that happens, there is still a fair bit to be done, hence the title - finishing in a flurry. Tomorrow, Thomas Paul, a self-employed professional cleaner, will be coming to clean my mattress. Then in the afternoon I am meeting up with a friend for lunch before returning back home and closing my Berliner Bank account.

Wednesday will be spent mostly packing and cleaning my room as well as returning books that I borrowed from uni. Then in the evening I am hosting my own farewell party at a bar in Prenzlauer Berg called Zu mir oder zu dir, on the recommendation of Manfred (or Manny as I call him), a friend from Hillsong Berlin.

On my final day in Berlin, I will need to get up reasonably early and do a last minute wipe-down of everything before Micha, my guide and contact when I arrived in Berlin last year, comes to collect the stuff I borrowed from him and Herr Engel, the Hausmeister, comes to inspect the room. Hopefully it won't take him that long and I can get my Endabnahmeprotokoll, which I need in order to get back the €200 deposit I paid for my room. Then it's "auf wiedersehn Berlin" and on the train back to Holland.

Throughout all this, I don't know if I will have time to complete my Hausarbeit, which is the last remaining assessment I still have to submit. Fortunately:

I am three quarters of the way through it,
I have received permission to do it in English,
AND I can hand it in online via email

The only issue will be how I receive my Leistungsschein (results certificate) for the subject, which hopefully won't be too much of a problem.

OK, that's all from me until I arrive either in Holland or am in Singapore / Malaysia. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Nearing the finish line...

2008-02-13T15:36:00.002+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Well, the winter semester is nearly over (for me at least). I had my final exam yesterday, which I'm hoping I passed, and now all I have left to do is a Hausarbeit - a big essay on a given topic, in my case the general topic of Anglicisms (English words) in German, which I have to write at least ten pages about. Hopefully it shouldn't be too daunting, now that at least I have the overall structure set up and the resources that I need.

In other big news, my mum has safely arrived in Europe (she landed in Amsterdam on Monday) and is currently touring around Europe with her sister. Next Friday she will be arriving in Berlin to visit, and I can hardly wait to see her. I haven't seen any members of my family since last September and she can update me on what has been happening at home.

There are now only 15 days (including today) remaining before I depart from Berlin, and 25 days (also including today) before I am back home in good old Melbourne! Until then, it's going to be a busy time of getting the Hausarbeit done, obtaining my Leistungsscheins (achievement certificates), packing up my room, showing mum around Berlin, and saying goodbye to everyone.

OK, I shall leave it there for the time being. Cheers and God bless.

Jeremy

Simply living...

2008-01-25T19:02:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Not much worthy of note has been happening since I got back from Paris, hence the lack of recent posts.

The weather in Berlin for winter has so far been surprisingly mild. Except for the light snowfall on New Years Day, the winter here has been much like Melbourne, only that it's a bit colder and the sun goes down earlier. Today I took the opportunity to go to Potsdamer Platz for the first time since my arrival and go see a movie at the Sony Center. Chances are that I might be going again soon - student tickets at Cinestar on Fridays can be purchased at the reasonable cost of €6!

The movie that I decided to watch was the recently-released My Blueberry Nights by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai, starring Norah Jones in her film debut alongside established stars like Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. My Blueberry Nights is a romantic drama centering around Elizabeth (played by Jones) who, according to the director, "takes the long route instead of the short one to meet up with the man she loves."

I personally found the film quite enjoyable to watch, and if you want more info on the movie, you can easily find it on Wikipedia. The background behind the film is quite fascinating. The movie is in English, but the makers of the film are Chinese and the company that released the film (Studio Canal) is French.

As this entry goes to post, some of you may be starting to celebrate Australia Day. For those of you reading this blog who don't already know, January 26 is our day of national celebration, commemorating the establishment of the first European settlement in Australia. It is a public holiday and a day to celebrate being Australian, whether it be going to the beach, playing tennis or cricket, enjoying a backyard BBQ or simply hanging out with mates.

For all the faults Australia might have, I still consider myself lucky to be born and brought up there. As one of a myriad of Aussies overseas at this time, my thoughts go back to home and my family and friends there, and that old sentimental tune starts to ring in my head...

"All the sons and daughters
spinnin round the world
away from their family and friends
but as the world gets older and colder
it's good to know where your journey ends...

Someday we'll all be together once more
when all of the ships come back to the shore
I realize something I've always known
I still call Australia home!"

OK, that's all for now. Cheers, God bless, and Happy Australia Day to all my Australian friends in Australia and wherever you are around the world!

Jeremy

Paris, je t'aime!

2008-01-16T15:51:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

First of all, apologies for the lack of recent postings, due to a combination of my notorious lethargy and lack of creative inspiration. However, enough of my lousy excuses!

I was fortunate to be able to spend a wonderful weekend away in Paris with Suan-Ee Ong, a dear friend of mine from Melbourne Uni. Like my previous adventure, there is soo much to write about, I shall only be able to paraphrase what we got up to.

Last Thursday afternoon, I flew out from Tegel airport (one of the three airports in Berlin - the other two being Tempelhof and Schönefeld - and, fortunately, the closest to where I live) and after a brief stop over in Vienna, I arrived in Paris at around 9 p.m. Suan-Ee and I had established "exit 1" at Chatelet Les Halles station as our meeting point. I arrived at Chatelet without a problem but finding "exit 1" proved to be harder than I thought. To cut along story short, I took a wrong exit and had a hard way finding my way back to the station, but all's well that ends well, and by the time I finally met Suan-Ee and got back to her place, it was past one in the morning.

Friday was gloomy and rainy, but nonetheless very productive. After running a few errands, Suan-Ee took me to see the famous Notre Dame cathedral. It is sale time at the moment in France, and the inclement weather gave us all the more reason to spend the rest of the afternoon shopping. I ended up buying a few things including a French rugby team scarf, a nice shirt and a little present for my sister. If you happen to be 26 years or under and can prove it, you can go and visit the Louvre museum for free on Fridays from 6 p.m.

I have read in the Lonely Planet guide to Paris that it takes NINE MONTHS to see everything in the Louvre! Suan and I spent about two hours in the Louvre and came nowhere close to even covering a whole floor! After the Louvre we went to see the spectacular Eiffel Tower (see my photo above) which glitters at night for the first ten minutes of the hour.

On Saturday, the weather took a turn for the better, and we went to visit the beautiful Basilique du Sacre Coeur in the Montmartre district and then the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery, where we visited the final resting places of Chopin, Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf.

We spent Sunday afternoon at the spectacular Versailles Palace and then the evening at one of Paris' two Chinatowns. It was sad to have to leave early Monday morning, but I know for sure I will be back at the next available opportunity!

In other news, mum has confirmed that she is coming to Europe and will be visiting me during my last week in Berlin. I know what follows is all going to sound very cliche, but I really can't believe how quickly time has flown! It seemed like only yesterday that I arrived in Amsterdam, and now I only have a month and a half left before I head back to Melbourne! There are going to be several things I shall miss about Berlin, but I shall talk about those in a later post.

OK, that's been my longest post in quite a while. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Farewell 2007, Hello 2008

2007-12-31T12:31:00.001+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Well, for some of you, another tumultuous year is about to end, hopefully in joyous celebration. As this entry goes into publication, there is under 12 hours left until entry into the new year.

I hope you had a very blessed and merry Christmas with family and friends. Again barring inclement weather except for the last day, my Christmas adventure down south was simply fantastic, catching up with friends who I hadn't seen in a while, getting the opportunity to visit Zurich, Konstanz, Munich and Neuschwanstein. The day I went with my friends to visit Neuschwanstein was to date the BEST day of my exchange! Unfortunately, my intended post covering the trip was much too long to publish here, but I shall reiterate that it was a fantastic adventure. I shall have the photos from the trip available for viewing on my web album soon.

As I reflect back on the year that will soon have been, I think I can safely say that it has been the best year of my life so far and a year of great personal growth for me. Besides turning 21, which was great as I had TWO parties, and obtaining my long overdue driver's license, the other highlights of the year included a visit to Sydney, the prophetic word spoken over me by Pastor Chris Hope at the LInC Youth Camp (he said that in the future, God is going to call me into full-time ministry as a pastor) and the study exchange to Berlin.

The study exchange has probably been the best thing to have happened to me in my life so far. I have broadened my horizons, increased my circle of friends, experienced more of the goodness and grace of God, and probably most important, for me and my parents, I have gained a greater sense of independence.

In Germany, New Year's Eve is called Silvester, and it is actually quite a dangerous time of year as well! Unlike in Melbourne, where people are not allowed to buy and set off firecrackers unless they have permission to do so, people in Berlin can buy them from the shops and set them off in the street!

For Silvester I will be going out to dinner with some friends at an Italian restaurant called Vaporetto, and then afterwards we will be going somewhere to view the fireworks, anywhere but the Brandenburg Gate, which is a very dangerous place to be at this time of year due to the above-mentioned random firecrackers everywhere!

OK, that's it for now. Signing off for the last time in 2007: Cheers, God Bless, and GUTEN RUTSCH INS 2008!

Jeremy

Christmas in Constance... what a splendid idea!

2007-12-14T16:30:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Apologies for not getting around to posting any entries on my blog. My lethargy has been getting the better of me lately.

But anyway, there's a fair bit to catch up on, so I'll get into it straight away. Barring the inclement weather, my trip to Cologne and Bonn was great. I made some new friends, visited the magnificent Cologne Cathedral and the Beethoven Museum, and on the bus ride I caught up on watching some of the classic German movies I hadn't yet seen, among them Run Lola Run, Good Bye Lenin, Die Fetten Jahren Sind Vorbei (The Years of Plenty Are Over) and a new favorite of mine, Der Zimmerspringbrunnen (try that for a mouthful!), which is a romantic comedy about a man who becomes a successful salesman of those water work thingos you put on your coffee table.

We had our first choir concert last Saturday at the Heilig Kreuz Church in the suburb of Hohenschönhausen, which is way out in the east of Berlin. I live in Charlottenburg, which is in west Berlin, so it took me quite a while to get there. All in all, I thought we performed reasonably well, and the acoustics of the auditorium were simply AMAZING!!! On a very forgettable sidenote however, I forgot to ask to borrow black shoes from somebody. Fortunately I happened to have black socks on, so I went up on stage in my socks! Gotta make sure I get black shoes from my friend Hendrick tonight!!

Well, as my title says, I will be spending Christmas in the town of Constance (Konstanz in German), which is situated on the border with Germany and Switzerland. Due to a sudden change in plans with my friend Chris, I will be taking the train to Zürich on December 22, staying there two nights, then on Christmas Eve Chris and I will head off to Constance, where I will spend another two nights. Then Chris has to leave me because of his work and family commitments, while I will go to Munich to meet up with a friend from Melbourne Uni, where I will again spend two nights. On the 27th we are planning to visit the nearby Neuschwanstein Castle, the famous fairytale castle which inspired the Disneyland castle. Then we will depart back to Berlin early on the morning of the 28th and arrive back at Berlin Hauptbahnhof at around about 1 p.m. It will be an expensive whirlwind tour (I have booked almost all my train tickets and hostel rooms, which will end up costing well over €300!), but I'm sure it will be worth it!

In case I don't get around to submitting a posting before I leave next Saturday, Ich wünsche ihnen eine sehr frohe und gesegnete Weihnachten und Alles Gute in 2008!! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

OK, Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Cologne and Bonn, here I come!

2007-11-29T14:16:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

The temperature in Berlin is now going into the minus range, but I am coping with it pretty well, thanks to the gradual drop, not like what we can get in Melbourne, where it can be 35 degrees Celsius one day and then 15 the next!

As I have stated in my title and in my previous entry, I am going to Cologne and Bonn over the weekend, which I am greatly looking forward to. Let me take out time to give you a basic overview of the city, drawing mostly from Wikipedia, every uni student's best friend...

Besides being famous for it's massive cathedral - the Kölner Dom (pictured) - and Eau de Cologne, Cologne (called Köln in German) is the fourth-largest city in Germany and the largest in the Rhine area. Founded by the Romans in 38 BC and granted city status in 50 AD, Cologne is a major cultural center in the Rhineland, and boasts over 30 museums and hundreds of galleries. It is also an important media center in Germany, with some of the nation's important radio and TV stations, WDR and RTL, having their headquarters based in the city.

Just a few kilometers down the Rhine from Cologne is the city of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany and the birthplace of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) composers of all time, Ludwig von Beethoven.

In a postscript to the previous entry regarding the election, the result is official - Kevin Rudd is the new Prime Minister of Australia. And by all accounts, it was a comprehensive victory; Mum rang me up on Saturday at around 1 p.m. local time (about 9 p.m. in Australia) to tell me the news. The challenge will be to see now whether Mr Rudd and his cabinet can follow through with the proposals they have put forward to the Australian people. I wish him all the best.

OK, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless,

Jeremy

There's a feeling of Christmas in the air...

2007-11-22T14:16:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

It is almost the end of November (already!), and I am sitting here as usual in the Library of Germanic and Scandinavian Studies at Humboldt Uni trying to get some study done.
Well, it's that time of the year again... Christmas is just around the corner (literally!). On my way to uni yesterday, I observed that the Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets, an important part of the German Christmas tradition) were getting set up in the grounds of Schloss Charlottenburg.

Let me give a brief update on what has been happening over the last week.

On Friday (my day off) I decided to spend the day relaxing and strolling around the Zoologischer Garten (Berlin Zoo), the oldest zoo in Germany. It was a little bit annoying that the weather was so cold (it even snowed lightly that day!), so the animals were mostly indoors and not doing very much. Nevertheless I managed to get quite a few photos from my trip there and I will soon have them posted up on my gallery. The above picture (which I didn't take) is of the famous Elefantentor (Elephant Gate), which is where I exited the zoo from.

Thanks to a reminder from a fellow Aussie living in Berlin, I rocked up at the Australian Embassy after class on Monday to register my vote for the federal election, which takes places this Saturday. It is somewhat comforting to know that God already knows who is going to win the election, and no matter who the winner is, that God is still in charge of the situation and here are just some verses which sprang to mind. Paul writes in Romans:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. (Romans 13:1, English Standard Version)

Furthermore, the apostle Peter writes in his first letter:

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. (1 Peter 2:13-15, English Standard Version)

May those of us who call ourselves Christians set an example to the community in submission to the authorities for the sake of our Lord, so that no matter who comes to power, they may see God work through us and give Him the glory He so rightfully deserves.

Well, today happens to be Thanksgiving in the USA, for those of you who happen to be unaware, and tomorrow I will be going to my American friend Calvin's house for a Turkey dinner, which will be great as I haven't seen him in a while. And then next weekend I will be going to visit Cologne with the Humboldt International Group, which will be worth looking forward to.

OK, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless.

Jeremy

"Always look on the bright side of life..."

2007-11-15T14:48:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

The last few days have not exactly been the best days, but then again they haven't been the worst either. For those of you who haven't been following the European news, Paris and Berlin are at the moment in the middle of train strikes, although thank God the strike in Berlin is not as bad as Paris.

But let me start with the choir weekend at Gross Väter See, which was simply fantastic. Of course, the main part of the camp was taken up with preparing our songs for the upcoming Christmas concerts, but it was also a great opportunity to meet and get to know some of the other members of the choir who I don't usually get a chance to talk to.

On the Saturday evening, there was a concert hosted by particular members of the choir who had prepared items. The concert was naturally quite funny and for me it was OK, when I could understand what was going on. After a while, I had had enough and went outside and joined Carmen, one of my new friends, at the bonfire. She has an interesting background, being able to speak German, Finnish (her mum is Finnish), English and some Chinese(!), after having spent a year in Beijing. Over the course of the night we were joined at the bonfire by more and more people, mostly the other international members of the choir who had no idea what was going on in the concert!

On the Sunday morning, I was quite pleasantly surprised to see snowfall. It almost never snows in Melbourne, and although I had been up to the snow a couple of times, I had never seen snowfall with my own eyes or experienced it. So for me it was a wonderful experience walking through the soft European snowfall on Sunday, and I'm now looking forward to what Christmas might bring!

We got back to Berlin in the late afternoon, and I decided to stop over at a nearby internet cafe on my way home to check on my emails, through which I learned from Suan-Ee that the railway workers in Paris were going to go on strike starting Tuesday (so it's already started), effectively crippling the metro, and thus forcing us to postpone our meeting until the middle of January, which was quite depressing news indeed. On the upside though, I have found a person who can give me some French lessons in Berlin before I go over, so that will be good, and I can look around for a cheaper ticket.

Yesterday I went around to get my ticket canceled at STA Travel, and amazingly I was able to get some money - 27.35 euros to be exact - back from the cancellation. However, while the process was going on, I felt around in my pocket, only to discover that I had NOT lost my semester ticket!! Oh, I can't tell you what frustration went through my head at that point in time, particularly because I had obtained a replacement ticket the day beforehand. But again, on the up side, at least I have back-up in case I actually do happen to lose one of my tickets.

Anyway, that's enough for this post. Wishing you all God's blessings and good health and high spirits!

Jeremy

Joy and peace in the midst of stress...

2007-11-07T16:16:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

I hope things are well with you, wherever around the world you may happen to be. The last few days have been quite stressful for me. Classes at Humboldt Uni are VERY challenging, to say the least, and on Monday I lost not only one of the nose-rest pieces on my glasses but also my semester transport ticket! Fortunately a replacement costs only ten euros, but I'll have to get it done soon.

Add to that the need to re-enroll for studies back in Melbourne next year, and the voting at the Australian Embassy for the upcoming federal election (which is actually not that much of a worry, but it will still be interesting to see who wins), and juggling study with choir commitments and meeting up with my Christian friends, and... well... you get the general picture.

It is at times like these that I am brought to remember various verses from the Bible, such as 1 Peter 5:6-7, which says:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.

And Matthew 6:34, in which Jesus says:

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

And one of my all-time favorites from Philippians 4:6-7

[D]o not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

It is somehow also appropriate that one of my favorite Bible teachers, the Rev. Dr. John MacArthur, happens to currently be talking about how to be joyful in all circumstances, drawing from Paul's above letter to the Philippians, and if Paul could endure with joy much worse things than what I am going through, I have all the more reason to rejoice in the Lord and His enduring love and mercy!

Aside from all this, there is a lot to look forward to, particularly over the next two weekends, during which I will be away from Berlin. The first weekend will be spent with the uni choir at a retreat about 40kms or so to the north of Berlin called Gross Väter See (pictured above right). We have a LOT of songs lined up for Christmas and so I expect the weekend to be one of intensive rehearsal.

On the second weekend, I will undertaking a whirlwind tour of France with my dear friend and Melbourne Uni classmate Suan-Ee Ong, who is currently doing a year-long of exchange at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (often referred to as Sciences Po), which I can hardly wait for.

OK, that's it from me for now. Better get back to studying. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Almost at the halfway mark...

2007-11-02T14:50:00.000+01:00

Greetings, dear reader!

I am now into the third month of my exchange (already!) and the days are really starting to get short. Just yesterday I was walking across the main platform of Friedrichstrasse station and noted outside that it was virtually pitch black, and the time was only 5.30pm!

Just when I thought things were starting to settle down, life has again started to get quite hectic - this time with juggling commitments with studies, choir, church friends and, in coming weeks, traveling. I really thank God for the times of rest that he gives me, because BOY do I need them!

Anyway, as I wrote in my last post, I went to see Carmen at the Staatsoper on Saturday night, and although the stage interpretation was umm "modern" to say the least, and a little off-putting at times (all the main characters had been killed by the end of the opera!), the music and the singing was top class! I am planning to now go and see The Barber of Seville on Sunday with some friends, and I can also hardly wait to go see the Nutcracker ballet around Christmas time.

On Sunday, I went on the Schiffsrundfahrt (round trip via boat) on the Spree river around Berlin with people from uni. I arrived an hour early, because I forgot about daylight savings, and it was quite chilly. Although I was warmly dressed, I forgot to bring my gloves, and my poor hands were this close to getting frostbitten! As expected, I took several photos during the cruise and they are now available for viewing (and downloading) from my Picasa web album.

And then this Wednesday, I finally received my passport back with my Aufenthaltserlaubnis (residence permit and visa extension), which will allow me to stay in Berlin until the end of March, if need be.

OK, that's all for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Well done Boks!!

2007-10-25T15:15:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

The second week of winter semester has just finished for me, and I am sitting in the Germanic studies library on my laptop typing up this post entry. Finally being able to connect to the internet with my laptop at uni was thankfully not as frustrating as I thought it would be (not to mention relatively cheap). I also received my Berliner Bank ATM card, which however I think can only be used at Berliner Bank outlets. Fortunately there happen to be a lot of those around here! Yesterday, I had my Vorsingen (formal audition for the choir, even though I joined the choir last week), and praise God I passed with flying colors!

Two big pieces of news from last weekend. First is that I finally booked tickets to go for a weekend trip to France in mid-November. To my friends in France, Suan-Ee and Celine, here I come!

The other big news is, of course, that South Africa beat England 15-6 to WIN THE 2007 RUGBY WORLD CUP, thus banishing the nightmare that was the 2003 campaign and becoming only the second country after Australia to win the William Webb Ellis trophy twice. Again, I was fortunate to be able to watch the game in a lively atmosphere at Wine and Biltong, which was packed to overflowing with expat South Africans and Germans, most of whom had some sort of connection with South Africa.

It's gonna be yet another busy weekend, with choir rehearsal on Friday and Saturday, going to see Carmen at the Staatsoper, which I can hardly wait for, and then on Sunday, going on a boat cruise around Berlin.

OK, that's all for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Hier kom die bokke...

2007-10-18T17:32:00.001+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

It feels like a while since I have posted an entry on my blog, and quite a fair bit has been happening. The winter semester is in full swing now, and I still haven't received news about subject approval. Fortunately I don't have very many contact hours, and the workload is quite reasonable (reading, reading and more reading).

Yesterday, I joined the Humboldt University Choir, which was great for me, as I haven't sung in a choir for ages and was looking to get involved in some of the cultural activities while here on exchange. We have rehearsals on Wednesday evenings and sometimes also on weekends, and we are currently preparing some songs for a Christmas concert.

After weeks of searching, I have finally tracked down a place in Berlin that is showing the Rugby World Cup action. It is a small South African pub called Wine and Biltong and it is situated in the eastern suburb Prenzlauer Berg. I went there last weekend to watch the two semifinals. Needless to say I was shattered to see France lose to England AGAIN at the semifinal stage, but South Africa looked quite impressive as they brushed past the gallant Argentinians 37-13. I only pray now that South Africa wins the final on Saturday! I can't bear to see England win the World Cup for the second time in a row!! COME ON BOKS!!!

OK, that's all for now. Cheers and God bless,

Jeremy

Miracles do happen!

2007-10-10T14:28:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

It is an unusually blue sky day today as I write this article entry, a nice contrast to the gray skies of the last few days.

Quite a fair bit has been happening over the last few days. Let me begin with Friday.

On Friday we finished the pre-semester Intensive Language Course, and I received my Leistungsnachweis (certificate of achievement) with a very acceptable overall score of 2.7 (The scale is from 1-6; 1 being the best). We finished class early that day because the uni was hosting an official welcome for international students in the main building. After a lengthy greeting by the vice-president, we were presented with important information for the upcoming semester.

I then spent a very enjoyable weekend in Leipzig with my friends from the intensive language course. Leipzig is about a one-and-a-half-hour train ride south of Berlin, and being one of the cultural capitals of Germany, it is a VERY beautiful city. We covered most of the city on foot the two days we were there, and stayed at a very comfortable hostel paying only about €20 per person for overnight, bedding, and breakfast. I will be posting the various photos taken from the trip up on my web album.

Now what was the miracle I was alluding to in my post title? Well, if you happen to be following the Rugby World Cup, you would probably happen to know that FRANCE BEAT NEW ZEALAND 20-18 (which is the miracle) and that England beat Australia, which is also a miracle. I just hope France beats England when they meet in Paris for the semifinal on Saturday.

I was lucky at the hostel we were staying at in Leipzig that they had TV coverage of the game, so while most of my friends went out for the night, I stayed in the TV room, glued to the action that was going on in Cardiff. I didn't actually see the whole match (when I turned the TV to the correct channel New Zealand were already leading 13-0) but at least I got to see the best part of the match. When France hit the lead with about ten minutes to go, I was overjoyed, but sitting (and jumping and cursing and cheering and covering my eyes) through those last ten minutes of the match was sheer torture as New Zealand desperately tried to conjure up a score from somewhere and the French defended as if their lives depended on it. Unbelievably, France held on and when scrumhalf Jean-Baptiste Elissalde scampered across the field and kicked the ball out of play to finally end the match, I (along with millions of other French fans in France and around the world) went completely bonkers for joy!! We had just beaten the tournament favourites and in the process staged what will go down as one of the most memorable games in rugby history!

OK, that's all for now. Will add more later.

Cheers and God Bless,

Jeremy

Getting ready for the semester...

2007-10-04T16:32:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Not much worth writing home about has been happening this week, except that I have virtually got my enrolment sorted out (which is great) and there are now still a few important things remaining to be done. These include:

Getting my visa extension sorted out,
Getting wireless internet connection set up in my room,
Setting up a bank account with Berliner Bank (now that I have my enrolment sorted out), and
Selecting my subjects and getting them approved by Melbourne Uni.

Yesterday was a public holiday. For those of you who still remember where you were, October 3 1990 was the day that Germany was officially reunited, and it is this day that is recognised as the Germany's National Day (the equivalent of January 26 for us Aussies). the official title of the holiday is German Unity Day (Der Tag der Deutschen Einheit). I didn't really do very much until the afternoon, when I went walkabout and saw the Reichstag for the first time. Luckily I had my camera with me and took some pictures of it (which I shall post up on my web album soon). In the evening I met up with Calvin and Micha and some other friends from our Bible study group and together we went to see the celebrations near the Brandenburg Gate.

Meanwhile, in Rugby World Cup news, France did what they had to do, beating Georgia 64-7, but Argentina again dashed their hopes of finishing on top of their pool, beating Ireland 30-15 to book a quarterfinal against Scotland (and potentially a semi-final berth) while France must now face Cup favorites New Zealand in what should be an absorbing contest at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. While I won't be surprised if New Zealand win, I'm praying for a miracle repeat of 1999, when France toppled the All Blacks 43-31 in their semifinal clash and played probably their best-ever rugby. Mind you, to beat New Zealand at any time, you have to play your best rugby!

I wish to extend my heartiest congratulations to the Geelong Cats Football Club, whose fans have endured 44 long years to finally see their team clinch their eighth VFL/AFL premiership. Geelong was easily the best football team this season, but I'm sure that not even the most one-eyed Geelong supporter could have anticipated the whopping 119-point winning margin!! This breaks the previous record winning margin for a Grand Final, which was set in 1988 when the Hawthorn Hawks (who were almost invincible at the time) beat the Melbourne Demons by 96 points.

And, in a wonderful Victorian double act, the Melbourne Storm captured their second National Rugby League premiership, running over the Manly Sea Eagles 34-8 to cap off yet another brilliant season. The victory is small compensation after losing last year's Grand Final, albeit in controversial circumstances, to the Brisbane Broncos.

OK, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless,

Jeremy

Ich bin ein Berliner...

2007-09-26T13:29:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

It's been now a little over three weeks since I arrived in Berlin, but now I think I can say, in the words of president John F. Kennedy, "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

The days have been busy as usual. On Saturday before church at Rock Berlin I decided to go for a wander round Alexanderplatz and check out the new shopping mall Alexa, which had been in the news the whole week. I don't know if it's as big as Eastland or Chadstone, but it was still mighty impressive. Forming a large part of the mall is Europe's largest Media Markt, the store for all your electronic and media needs. Here I was able to purchase an extra lithium battery for my Olympus digital camera, which is great as I'll probably need one when I travel to France later this year.

After church, I went to Calvin's house and met some more of his friends, and together we played a very interesting board game called Puerto Rico. The rules are many and a bit difficult to explain on this blog (it's one of those games where it's best to learn as you play), but if I can find it when I come back to Australia I can teach it to those who want to learn it!

On Monday, our class had an excursion to a conference at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung on youth unemployment in Germany and Sweden. We didn't stay for the whole day, and besides much of the content was too deep for me to understand. The highlight of my day was actually seeing the famous Siegessäule (Victory Column, pictured above) for the first time. It is a mighty impressive landmark, and I hope to climb it on a good day to get some nice photos of Berlin.

In my epilogue to last week's sports report, I was relieved to see that France defeated Ireland 25-3 in their crucial Rugby World Cup pool match on Friday night. Now France only have Georgia left to play before the quarterfinal stage, and although they should be easybeats, France ought not be taking any chances against them. They know what they have to do i.e. Win and score four tries in the process to get the bonus point. Ideally France should aim to score all four tries in the first half, and then give their substitutes a run in the second half.

I also saw from the Australian Football League website that the Grand Final this coming Saturday will be played between the Geelong Cats (who have quite simply had an amazing season) and the Port Adelaide Power (somewhat of a surprise, considering they weren't one of the favorites at the start of the season). I never thought I would hear myself say this (as I am a Western Bulldogs supporter) but... GO CATS!!!

Ok, that's enough for now. Cheers and God bless,

Jeremy

KulturKaufhaus and Fedora Eis (these are a few of my favorite things)...

2007-09-21T16:00:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Life is starting to settle into routine now in Berlin, and I can tell you routine has never felt so good!

It has been the end of yet another busy week, getting settled into my routine, having paid the fees for my upcoming semester, and presenting my Referat (spoken presentation to the class on a given topic) at my Intensive Course on Wednesday. The topic I chose to present for my referat was my favourite opera, Carmen. I also noted at the end of my presentation that there was a planned performance of the opera at the world-famous Staatsoper Unter den Linden (pictured above) on October 27. Afterward about ten of my classmates told me they wanted to come along to the performance, which was surprising in a pleasant way!

Now for some unexpected news. Earlier this week, I received a phone call from my mum asking me how I was getting along, and then told me that SHE IS COMING TO VISIT ME IN FEBRUARY!! Before I left Australia, my mum had been mooting the possibility about coming to visit me in Europe, but I never thought she would go through with it! But she's gonna do a bit of travelling first. As far as I know, she'll be flying to Amsterdam to meet up with her sister and brother (i.e. my aunt and uncle), who she hasn't seen in a long time. Then she is planning to go to Paris, as she's never been there before, and then she will come to Berlin towards the end of my stay, probably to help me carry my luggage back home.

Now to explain the title of my post. In my time here so far, I have fallen in love with a few places - the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, which is beautiful on the outside (and EVEN MORE SO on the inside!), the Dussmann KulturKaufhaus on Friedrichstrasse, and Fedora Eis. For all your music (all sorts) and book (mostly in German) needs, the Dussmann KulturKaufhaus is the place to go! Take a look at the website for yourself. The other place I mentioned in my title was Fedora Eis, which is an ice-cream shop just across the road from the dorm I'm staying at (Eis is German for "ice" and "ice cream"). I only just tried my first ice-cream from there last night, but I tell you it was the BEST ice cream I've EVER tasted so far! I think I might become a regular weekly customer at that place, even though winter is not too far away on the horizon.

Before I finish, I hope France beat Ireland in their crucial Rugby World Cup pool game tonight. I don't know what to make of my beloved Les Bleus - losing the opening match to Argentina 17-12 (mind you, France have struggled against Argentina in recent years, and Argentina played very well) and then thrashing minnows Namibia 87-10... but TONIGHT is the night when they really have to perform, and I really hope, for the sake of rugby in France, that France performs well and wins comfortably. ALLEZ LES BLEUS!!!

OK, Cheers and God bless.

Jeremy

Getting used to Berlin pt II

2007-09-14T18:04:00.000+02:00

This is a continuation from yesterday:

After the church service Calvin took me and another friend to the outskirts of Berlin to meet another one of his friends, Björn, who was having a birthday party. It was a typical young people's party, not dissimilar to 18th birthday parties I've been to in Australia: loud music, lots of booze, and lots of shouting. I didn't take part in the booze bit (I think I've said already that I'm on a NO ALCOHOL policy while I'm here) but that didn't stop me from having fun chatting to various people. By the time I got back to my apartment (after having to wait over half an hour at the nearest train station for the train to arrive) it was past 5am on Sunday!

After getting what sleep I could, I again went to the city to meet up with my new friend Martine (we had arranged this the previous day) and we spent a pleasant afternoon together wandering around Unter den Linden.

On Monday the Intensive Language Course began, and so far it has been quite an enjoyable experience. We have a nice teacher, Frau Gelbhaar (it helps that she actually has blonde hair, making her name easier to remember; gelb = yellow, haar = hair), and our class is quite diverse. To date there are five French girls, two Aussie guys (me and James, who also happens to be from Melbourne Uni!), two Swedish girls, two Poles (guy and girl), a Danish girl, a Finnish girl, a Slovenian guy, a Japanese girl and a Californian guy.

We have become quite a close-knit group, the fact that we are all foreigners in this country and all struggling to master German being the main factors that pull us together. And because our class is in the mornings, one of the main things to look forward to is having lunch together at the Mensa (uni food court).

OK, that's all for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Getting used to Berlin pt I

2007-09-13T14:28:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

By the grace of God, my days in Berlin have been getting better and better, barring the odd slight mishap.

Anyway, I have a lot to catch up on so I'd better get started. Last Thursday I cooked dinner for myself for the first time, and although I took a long time to prepare and cook the food, I can at least say that for a first time it was a resounding success! Mum would have been so pleased!

On Friday I had to sit an Einstufungstest (placement test) for the intensive language course at Humboldt Universität. It was in the same format as the online test I had to do for my exchange application to Humboldt. I must have done pretty well, because I ended up in the Mittelkurs 2.2 level, which for me is a good level. After the test I met with my classmate from Melbourne Uni, Tessa, who is also here in Berlin on exchange. We spent the day at the German Historical Museum which is just next to Humboldt Uni's Hauptgebäude (main building) and then we went to Boulevard Friedrichstrasse for lunch, where I had my first (and definitely not my last!) experience of currywurst. Mmmm...

On Saturday I met up again with Tessa, this time to visit the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie. We were joined by Sarah, another classmate from Melbourne Uni, and her friend, a Dutch girl called Martine, with whom I also quickly became friends. One of the main highlights of the museum tour was the true story of the famous hot air balloon escape by two families from East Germany to West Germany. The actual balloon used for the escape is housed in the museum and there is a screening of the movie based on the event called Night Crossing, dubbed in German but with English subtitles. I will have the photos from there up on my web album soon.

After our visit to the museum, I was due to meet up with Calvin to go to a church at 6pm. However, I took a wrong turn at one of the train stations, and by the time I arrived where I was supposed to be, it was nearly 6.45! Naturally I apologised profusely to Calvin for making him late, and he, being VERY gracious, accepted the apology, but couldn't believe how I managed to get on the wrong train! The church we attended is called Rock Berlin, and it's sort of like a house church. The atmosphere is very relaxed, and the service is bilingual English and German. Unfortunately, Calvin and I missed out on most of the service, but I think I will definitely be going back there. Just next time I have to be punctual!

OK, that's already a bit too much for one post. I will continue the story tomorrow.
Till then, cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Surviving in Berlin

2007-09-06T15:52:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Berlin, typing up this message and listening to John MacArthur talk about Jesus' thousand-year earthly kingdom in Revelation 20. So far things have been OK. Let me go into a bit of detail.

I arrived safely at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main station) at 1p.m. on Monday, and my contact / guide Micha was able to meet me when I arrived. The first thing we did was go to the student office to register my accommodation and get my keys. Then we went to the accommodation in Charlottenburg, which is in the west of Berlin, where I was able to unload my heavy luggage. The room is reasonably simple. There is a bed, cupboard, wash basin, desk with chair, and shelves. But hey, I'M NOT COMPLAINING! There are kitchens and bathrooms on each storey and the laundry is outside in a downstairs basement.

Af ter I dropped off my stuff, Micha took me out to buy bedding. He then had to go somewhere, so he told me the directions about how to get home. Unfortunately I got a little bit lost and there was a downpour, but eventually I was able to find my way back, albeit quite wet from the rain.

Public transport in Berlin is fast, efficient, and quite easy to get used to once you've been on it enough. The basic difference to Melbourne is that there are TWO railways (an S-Bahn and an U-Bahn, which is underground) instead of one.

The accommodation where I'm living is VERY secure. In order to get to your room, you first need to get in the building with a general key (when it's not unlocked) then when you get to your storey you need to open another door, and then finally your own room, with which you need a specific key to unlock the door. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to open them properly (I never thought opening a door would cause me so much trouble!), so I had to ask for help. Fortunately, the people were very helpful and now it's no problem! :-)

Today Micha took me to see Humboldt Universität, where I will be starting my studies next week, to see if we could get my Aufenthaltserlaubnis (residence permit) sorted out, but the office was closed. This is a highly important document and I'm going to have to get it sorted out soon 1) for peace of mind and 2) to get my local bank account set up! I also went to the Australian Embassy to register my details, and then we went to see the Brandenburg Gate. I shall post photos up on my gallery as soon as I can.

On yet another sad note, the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti passed away today at the age of 71 in his hometown Modena, Italy. His passion for music and life shall be greatly missed, and as an opera lover who enjoyed listening to his recordings, I pay him my deepest respects.

I will be going into Humboldt Universität again tomorrow to sit a test for the upcoming intensive language course, which I am now glad I signed up for! I can hardly wait to meet more people.

Ok, that's it for now. Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Less than a week to go before Berlin...

2007-08-30T11:03:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

I have managed to start posting photos of my exchange up on a new web album, I shall call the link Jezza's galleries 2. I'll be updating it as often as possible, so check it out when you can.

As the title of my post goes, there are only four days left until I leave for Berlin. It's a bit of a shame because I was really starting to enjoy Holland. I particularly looked forward to going with my aunt and uncle to breakfast at the local IKEA department store. It's really cool... you get 3 bread rolls, a piece of cheese and ham, one mini-tub each of butter and jam, a cooked egg, and unlimited coffee / tea... all for ONE EURO!!

That being said, I'm sure I'm gonna enjoy Berlin heaps. Everyone's been telling me so, so I await arrival in earnest expectation.

On a sadder note, I was shocked to hear of the death of promising Sevilla footballer Antonio Puerta, which has clouded what promises to be another interesting season of La Liga football. Even though I don't know him, I nonetheless send my condolences to his teammates and his family, especially his poor girlfriend who is expecting a child soon. R.I.P., Antonio.

OK, Cheers and God bless.

Jeremy

Groete van Nederland!

2007-08-24T21:26:00.000+02:00

In case you didn't understand what that meant, that was Afrikaans / Dutch for "Greetings from the Netherlands!" It is currently night time in Rotterdam as I am sitting here at the table of the apartment of one of my cousins, typing up this message.

It has been ages since I submitted a post, and for good reason... It has been pretty hectic over the last few weeks, and I still can't believe I'm now in Europe!!!

Anyway, I will try and cover what I can. First big news is that I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST WITH 90%!!! :-D The only problem is that I won't be doing any driving in Europe, so getting used to driving again is going to be one of the several interesting challenges to overcome when I return home.

And also, my dad found out that in order for him to transfer money from my HSBC account into a local German account, which I shall open when I arrive in Berlin, I would need to set up an account with Berliner Bank, not with the Berliner Sparkasse as I initially thought.

After a few days of saying goodbye to family and friends, the day of departure finally dawned. Before we left for the airport, my family gathered at the front of the house to pray for God's protection over me. It was quite emotional, especially since Dad was struggling to keep his emotions in check as he prayed for me.

Other than a few issues at Melbourne Airport customs and security (I forgot to claim back GST on my recently purchased notebook PC, and because the office where you do this is located BEHIND the security check, it meant that I had to go through security TWICE!), the trip to Amsterdam was uneventful, and in air travel terms, "uneventful" means "good"!

We flew out at 3:50 p.m. Melbourne time and landed in Singapore at about 9 p.m. local time. I then had to walk across the airport to another lounge to take the connecting flight to Amsterdam at 11:45 p.m. I figured out that it would be best to get some sleep once the plane had taken off in order to minimize the jet lag when I arrived. Thank God I managed to get in some solid hours of sleep on the plane.

Funnily enough, our plane arrived in Amsterdam earlier than expected. Fortunately my aunty and uncle were aware of this and were already waiting for me when I arrived after picking up my baggage. Getting around airports by myself isn't as difficult as I thought it would be, although I have yet to encounter Heathrow, which is said to have a not so good reputation among travelers.

Anyway, I shall end my post for today. I will start putting up photos in my gallery soon, so look out for those. You will be able to access them on my links under "Jezza's galleries".

OK, Cheers and God bless

Jeremy

Changes are afoot...

2007-08-08T06:19:00.001+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

Another week has come and gone, and as usual my exchange is slowly but surely coming together. The plane ticket is booked, accommodation is virtually confirmed, and subjects will hopefully be confirmed soon.

Finances are still a bit of an issue though, and because it will be more convenient to open a local account in Berlin, I have just inquired from the Berliner Sparkasse bank about its accounts for students.

Now, you may be wondering what I meant by my post title. Be patient, I shall explain!

It all began last Thursday, when I changed to a new mobile phone plan with the 3 Group and got a new phone (a Nokia 6120) as part of the deal. And then on Friday, a few great things happened:

I (well, mum actually!) purchased my new ASUS notebook (which I happen to be typing on at the moment!);
I PASSED MY HAZARD PERCEPTION TEST WITH 67%! Apparently, according to my driving instructor, the average pass mark is 60%, and he thinks the Test is not a good form of assessment;
After giving my usual weekly tuition, I received €100 in cash from the mother of my tuition student, which was a totally unexpected but very pleasant surprise!

Here is an updated list of my "important" dates:

August 9 (tomorrow) - Dad's birthday
August 11 - SOAR JumpStart launch
August 12 - Commissioning at church for exchange
August 15 - Driving License Test
August 19 - Flying to Amsterdam with Singapore Airlines
August 20 (morning local time) - Arrive (safely, I hope!) in Amsterdam
August 26 - La Liga season 2007-08 kicks off
September 3 - Taking train from Hengelo to Berlin
September 7 - 2007 Rugby World Cup kicks off in France

OK, Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Fairytales do happen...

2007-07-31T02:33:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear readers!

Well, arrangements for the exchange continue to slowly fall into place. My flight details have now been confirmed - I will be departing Melbourne on Sunday 19th August with Singapore Airlines to Holland. I will stay there with my aunty for about two weeks before taking the train from Hengelo (A town in Holland close to the border with Germany. Click here to see the location) to Berlin on September 3. At the moment, I am looking to open an account at a German bank, but I don't know where to look. So I've asked a few friends I know whether they can give me any information regarding German banks that provide "Girokontos" at special student rates. Hopefully I'll receive news about that soon.

In the meantime, recapping from the last post, my dental appointment at my new dentist, Dr. Wing Chan, went relatively smoothly. He did say, however, that I would have to get my wisdom teeth out soon, around some time shortly after I come back on March 8 next year.

On Saturday night, due to booking problems, the youth leaders ended up not going to Lazy Moe's but to La Porchetta, a popular Italian franchise restaurant in Melbourne, where we enjoyed an all-you-can-eat feast of good quality Italian food. Luckily I "paced" myself reasonably well through the night so that I didn't end up feeling like my tummy was going to explode!

In one of the year's feel-good sporting stories, Iraq won the Asian Cup final against Saudi Arabia 1-0 in Jakarta on Sunday night (Click here for the ABC report and here for the official AFC Asian Cup 2007 website report). This will doubtless be a major boost to the morale of the Iraqi people, who are still suffering at the hands of insurgents and suicide bombers.

On Friday I will be sitting my Hazard Perception Test. For those of you who don't have this sort of driving assessment, this is a computer-simulated scenario test assessing how well you react in various driving situations. You cannot sit your driving test unless you first pass this test, so I'd better make sure I'm well prepared for it.

And so, here is an updated list of important dates:

3 August - Hazard Perception Test
9 August - Dad's birthday
11 August - SOAR Jumpstart Launch
12 August - Commissioning at church
15 August - Drivers License Test
19 August - Leaving for Holland
3 September - Taking train from Hengelo to Berlin

Ok, Cheers and God bless!

Jeremy

Dinner by candlelight

2007-07-26T05:12:00.000+02:00

Greetings again, dear readers!

While thinking up the title for this post, I reflected back to the strange events of last night. We had just started eating dinner when PIAONG! out went the power. After overcoming the initial shock and surprise, we turned off all the power sockets we could as Dad went to check the switchboard outside. Nothing was abnormal or broken. Even weirder was that our neighbors didn't seem to have experienced the power failure. "WHY US?" I screamed without thinking. It was only later on that we found out that someone had run into one of the electricity hubs on the nature strip and thus some of the underground cabling was damaged. But the proverbial show had to go on (i.e. we had to eat our dinner), and so dad brought out two candles from the storeroom and we enjoyed a rare dinner by candlelight, thus making very memorable what would have been a quite ordinary day.

Anyway, from a sporting view of things the Tri-Nations rugby tournament has concluded, with New Zealand yet again the victors, although they were made to work hard for their 26-12 win against Australia in Auckland. You can read the match report here (ABC report) or here (Planet-Rugby.com report). The photo is of All Blacks captain Richie McCaw holding the Tri Nations and Bledisloe Cups. I can hardly wait for the Rugby World Cup to start in a few months time, especially considering I'll be in Europe during the tournament. My heart wants France to win, but my head says New Zealand should win it.

In other sports, the drug scandal with the Tour de France deepens even further, as the current race leader Michael Rasmussen is expelled by his own team for not turning up to drug tests (see ABC report here - yes yes I do like the ABC and I'm not ashamed to say so!), and that means that Cadel Evans, who is the only Australian left who has a genuine chance of gaining a podium finish, moves up to second over all. COME ON, CADEL!! In Aussie Rules, legendary Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy has added to the coaching drama of the past weeks (with the resignations of Neale Daniher from Melbourne of Chris Connolly from Fremantle and then the sacking of Carlton coach Denis Pagan) by deciding to call it quits at Bomberland, having coached at Windy Hill since 1981.

The next few days are going to be quite busy. Tomorrow morning I have a dental appointment (with a new dentist - should be interesting :S). Then I have a driving lesson in the afternoon before going to give Chinese tuition in Glen Iris. In the evening, I will be attending my friend Stephen Ireland's 21st birthday party at the Box Hill Golf Club. Should be a good one!

Then on Saturday I will be spending the whole day at church, first to practice a song item with my quartet group INDEPTH (I sing bass) and then we're having a meeting regarding the restructuring of Bible study small groups. From 4-6.30 I will be helping out at Youth group before going out to Lazy Moe's with the other leaders for a nice warm dinner.

OK, here are few more important dates to come:

3 August - Hazard Perception Test
9 August - Dad's birthday and election broadcast
11 August - SOAR Jumpstart launch
15 August - Driving License Test
19 or 21 August - Flying to Holland via Singapore Airlines

Cheers, and God bless

Good things happen on Fridays...

2007-07-18T15:08:00.000+02:00

Greetings, dear reader!

It has been a rather long time since I posted an entry but rest assured there will be more frequent postings in the coming weeks. The reason why there will be more postings can be explained in the title...

Now you may not agree with the statement of the title but if you were in my shoes over the past two weeks you would probably agree with me.

The first Friday, July 6, was the day in which my uni semester results were released. Now for those of you who aren't aware of my situation, I needed to score a minimum average of 70% in my results as a prerequisite for my intended uni exchange to Germany. In the lead-up to this particular Friday I had been stressing about the results all week until on the Thursday night, thanks to the advice of a friend, I decided to leave it in God's hands (where better?) so that I could actually get some sleep. The following day I went in to uni and logged into the computers and waited nervously for the results... I had to do a double-check before I was convinced! The results read: German - 85%, Discourse and Pragmatics - 78% (totally unexpected!), Australian Foreign Relations - 77%, and Phonetics - 66% (Thank God the exam was only 35% of the subject!). This gave me an average of 76.5%, which meant that I had safely met the requirements at least from the Australia end. Now it was just a case of waiting PATIENTLY for the response from Germany...

The second Friday, which was last Friday July 13, I wasn't expecting anything special. The previous night I had been checking up the status of my application to Humboldt Uni as per usual and nothing had changed, then when I went to the institution's website (click here), I read that I might not receive a confirmation until at least mid-August! This made me very worried, because I had applied for the pre-semester intensive language course which begins in September, and thus this wouldn't give me much time to organize and prepare everything. So, like the previous week, I went in to uni and logged into the computer and I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I HAD RECEIVED CONFIRMATION FROM HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY IN BERLIN TO GO STUDY AS AN EXCHANGE STUDENT IN THE COMING WINTER SEMESTER!!! The euphoria lasted me the whole day, but it seems to have worn off now as reality has kicked in. There is sooo much stuff to organize for the exchange that it seems almost overwhelming at times. Travel, finance (including obtaining a scholarship if possible!), accommodation, insurance, uni admin and studies. But I'll elaborate more on those in later posts. Before I go, I've decided to include a new feature that will help me keep track of stuff I deem "important" and might include in coming posts. Here is my first one.

Important dates coming up:

July 21 - Bledisloe cup decider - New Zealand vs Australia in Auckland
August 3 - Hazard Perception Test
August 9 - Daddy's birthday
August 15 - Driving License Test
August 19 or 21 - leaving for Holland!

OK, that's it for now.

Cheers and take care!

Jeremy XOXO

Happy Birthday to me...

2007-04-19T08:20:00.001+02:00

Greetings everyone!

It has been a really long time since I posted an entry, and quite frankly, far too much as happened in that time to cram in to one post. I will soon have a PDF mini-journal of what's been happening over the last few weeks available for viewing (there's THAT much that has happened!) once I figure out how to do it.

Anyway, yes, by the title of my post today, it just so happens to be my 21st BIRTHDAY!!! Yippee!! For lunch today, I invited several friends from uni to lunch at a one of the many Italian restaurants on Lygon Street in Carlton - Villa Romana. I ordered a Ravioli Casalinga (very yummy) with a glass of Taylor Ferguson Pinot Noir (At last, I'm beginning to get some sort of a taste for red wine). I have another party on Saturday night at a church friend's restaurant. My mum is going to shout this one, bless her soul. I will be giving a speech when all the others have done theirs. It will be in the form of a thanksgiving testimony and will be available here along with the PDF very soon.

Till then, Keep safe and God bless you all!

Jeremy

A little bit of linguistic humour

2007-03-22T02:02:00.000+01:00

Greetings again!

NOTE: This article was actually posted on Monday March 26.

Hope everyone's having a good week. There's not a lot happening in my world at the moment (except for uni assignments), but in the outside world, the big news in Melbourne was the inferno disaster in the Burnley Tunnel, an important arterial traffic tunnel in Melbourne. In the sporting world, it was good to see Australia thrash South Africa and show them who's REALLY the boss in the Cricket World Cup, and also seeing the highlights of the Socceroos' 2-0 against a near full-strength China team, with excellent goals by Holman and Bresciano. GO AUSSIES!!

Now, you may be wondering what the title of this post has to do with what I've just written. Well, the answer is... Nothing! I wrote in my profile that one of my hobbies is Linguistics and Languages, and one of my favorite genres of humor is linguistic humor. The following anecdote is one of my all-time favorites, and is aptly called "Euro English instead of German". Enjoy!

The European Union commissioners have announced that an agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communication rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as Euro-English (Euro for short). In the first year, 's' will be used instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard 'c' will be replaced with 'k.' Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced by 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' by 'z' and 'W' by 'V'. During ze fifz year, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou', and similar changes vud, of kors, be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kom tru.

Ha-ha. OK, that's it from me for now. Cheers, and have yourselves a blessed week!

Photos at last!

2007-03-19T05:29:00.000+01:00

Hi, everybody!

Hope you all had an enjoyable weekend. I know I certainly did, and my poor throat is paying the price for it! On Saturday, I attended my former Bible study small group leader Andrew's wedding reception and dinner, which was quite rowdy and lots of fun! I hope to soon receive the photos of that joyous occasion from my friends.

Talking about photos, the main news (other than the fact that IRELAND BEAT PAKISTAN (!!!) in the Cricket World Cup and Bob Woolmer's subsequent and tragic death - those St. Patrick's Day Leprechauns were working their magic, I swear!) is that at long last, I have managed to start posting some of the pictures from my Sydney trip onto a separate blog. The picture I've included is a little preview of what you can expect... :)

Within the next few days, I hope to have finished posting all the pictures I want to show, but for the meantime, you can view what is available by clicking on the link Jezza's galleries in the bottom right hand corner of the blog.

Before I finish, as a cricket fan I think it appropriate to pay a little tribute to the late Bob Woolmer as he was so widely respected by the cricketing world. As I don't know much about him, I'll let others do the talking. Unlike most cricketers, he won more prominence as a coach than as a player, according to his Cricinfo obituary:

As a coach, his pioneering use of computers to show, for example, where opposing batsmen scored their runs may have stemmed from an experience of his own, batting against Mike Brearley's Middlesex. "Knowing I liked the cover-drive, he had Mike Selvey bowling at me wide of off stump, with two slips and two gullys. In 45 minutes, I scored 12. Then I chased another wide one from Selvey and was caught at second slip."

In the 1996 World Cup, [when Woolmer was coaching South Africa,] Graeme Hick [a brilliant batsman who couldn't quite convert his county record into success on the international stage] was a notable victim of Woolmer's computer-based analysis, which revealed that if Hick could be kept scoreless for a spell, he tended to flick an off-stump ball in the air to midwicket. The trap was sprung by Fanie de Villiers, and Brian McMillan took the catch.

Woolmer was creative and adventurous. But his coaching was based on a simple premise: the more enjoyable he could make the game, the better his players would respond. No two fielding practices were alike when Woolmer was in charge.

Bob Woolmer will be sorely missed by all in the cricket world, particularly those who feel he still had so much more to offer, me included. Rest In Peace, Bob.

OK, that's it for now. Cheers, and have yourselves a very blessed week!

Lots of catching up to do!

2007-03-15T15:26:00.000+01:00

Greetings, everyone!

Sorry I haven't been keeping up in my blog lately. There's been lots of stuff happening and I've been just too lazy to post anything. Anyway a quick recap of what's happened in the last month or so...

February was reasonably quiet until the end of the month. The 18th was Chinese New Year (Happy Chinese New Year to everyone, especially those who are born in the Year of the Pig - 恭喜發財 and 新年快樂 ! ), and it so happened that day that my cousin Hwee and her husband Paul also arrived in Melbourne. They'll be living here for three years: Hwee will be doing a PhD while Paul will be studying if he doesn't find a job. They live in a unit at College Square, which is literally a walk across the road from where I have most of my classes, so it's quite convenient to pay them a visit and deliver stuff to them (usually food from Mum!).

About a week later, semester one 2007 began. For my major in linguistics I am studying Phonetics and Discourse and Pragmatics, and for my political science (international relations) major I am studying Australian Foreign Relations. I am also finishing my Diploma in German this year, which is a bit disappointing considering I was just starting to really enjoy learning it, but I will get to finish with a bang. A few days into the first week I received a letter saying that I HAD BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE UNIVERSITY EXCHANGE PROGRAM!!! Now it's just a case of hoping I get to study at the university of my choice: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

OK, that's enough for now. I will endeavour to keep more up to date as the year goes by, particularly when my 21st pops around, and particularly my exchange to Germany! Also, I just found out that my sister has uploaded the photos from our Sydney trip, so hopefully I can soon start putting them on a separate web album.

Till next time, God bless!

Jeremy

Moving on from Sydney...

2007-01-31T02:48:00.000+01:00

It's been over two weeks now since we got back from Sydney, and I still haven't finished writing up our trip there! Ah well, what I'm planning is try and create another blog simply for photos and then I can caption each photo. That looks like the best plan at the moment. Anyway, I have to go eat lunch now, so from the next post onwards it will be back to normal. Bye!

Sorry about these delayed posts

2007-01-25T23:13:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone!

Sorry I've been getting very lazy with this blog. I've finally posted Day Two of my Sydney trip here and for mine it was probably the best day of the whole trip. Oh, and Happy Australia Day by the way! :)

January 11, 2007 - Whew! Day Two of seeing Sydney is finally at an end! I don't think I've ever ascended or descended so many flights of stairs in one day before in my life; my feet are absolutely aching! Today I was taken on a little adventure around Sydney by Benita, a Sydneysider I had the privilege of meeting at the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students' National Training Event in 2005.
We met up at Circular Quay and went to lunch at Pancakes on the Rocks (which was quite good), then we went around to the Opera House. We didn't bother taking a guided tour (it costs $26 per person!), but we did see a nice Chinese calligraphy exhibition in the Utzon Room. We also went to the Conservatorium of Music and the Art Gallery of NSW. As it was a very warm day, we headed off to Centrepoint to enjoy a refreshing gelato at Gelatissimo.
After we parted ways, I rejoined my mum and sister at the Queen Victoria Building, which even as a Melburnian I have to admit is arguably the most beautiful - if not the most expensive! - shopping centre in Australia.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Benita, for taking time out of her holiday to show me around Sydney and also for taking the pictures of our little adventure, which will hopefully be available shortly. Thanks a million, my fellow sister in Christ. XXXOOO

All Creatures Great and Small...

2007-01-18T14:16:00.000+01:00

January 10, 2007 - We spent most of our first full day in Sydney at the world-famous Taronga Zoo. My cousin Amy was running late for work and so she dropped us off near a bus stop that would take us directly to the Zoo.
Initially we were a bit flustered, not knowing how public transport works in Sydney et al., but with the help of the friendly locals we managed to bus our way Taronga Zoo with no trouble at all. Once we were inside, we allowed ourselves to become kids again as we marvelled at God's wonderful creation. It's so cool how God created every animal the way it is for a purpose. For example, I learned that there is more to a Zebra's stripes than camouflage!
Unfortunately, our camera ran out of battery very early in the day, so we weren't able to take as many pictures as we wanted, but we still got some good ones. When I can finally get my hands on them and when I have time I will post them here. OK, that's it for now.

Blessings!

Home Sweet Home

2007-01-15T03:35:00.000+01:00

Greetings, everyone!

We arrived back in Melbourne yesterday, and as much as I actually enjoyed Sydney, it feels good to be home!
I haven't added anything since my first day in Sydney, but as you will soon see in my "very-delayed" posts over next few days, we have had a very very busy time! I also hope to get the many photos of our trip to Sydney posted on the blog as well, once I find out the best way to do it!

Yesterday morning we checked out of our hotel and went to a service at our cousin's church - Central Baptist Church on George Street. Established in 1836, it is the oldest Baptist church in Australia. We heard a very challenging sermon about a bloke called Achan from Pastor Steve Turner. For those of you who don't know his story, here it is in my words. If you want the real, word-for-word account you can find it in the Bible in the 7th chapter of the Book of Joshua:

The Israelites, led by Joshua, were on the road of military conquest to reclaim the land that God had promised to their great father Abraham long ago. They had just conquered Jericho, and most of you, especially if you are Christian or Jewish, may have heard the story about how God made Jericho's seemingly impenetrable outer wall collapse at the sound of the priests' trumpets and the peoples' shouting. The Israelites won a great victory that day, and I'm sure they would have been feeling ten feet tall and bulletproof as they returned back to camp.
This is where Achan comes into the story. In the lead-up to victory in Jericho, Joshua had strictly warned the people not to take any plunder for themselves, especially the gold, silver, bronze and iron items that would be consecrated for God. In plundering the city however, Achan's eyes lit up when he came across a beautiful Babylonian robe, some silver and some gold. So he took it back with him and hid it in the ground under his tent, thinking that he could get away with it and that it would affect nobody. Unfortunately for him, God saw all this and as you can imagine when orders are deliberately disobeyed, He was furious and withdrew His presence from the Israelites.
And because God wasn't with them on their next assignment, the smaller town of Ai, what should have been a walkover turned into a humiliating retreat. If ever the Israelites needed a reality check, that was it. To cut the story short, Achan was found out and confessed his crime. In a grisly ending, not only was he stoned to death, but his family and possessions were also exterminated. God's wrath thus subsided and Israel successfully conquered Ai at the second attempt.

After the service, our uncle and aunt took us out for a delicious yum-cha lunch where I met another cousin, Amy's twin brother Paul, and his wife, Doris. I had been hoping to meet Paul for some time, as he and I share a passion for linguistics, and we were able to have a nice chat about a whole range of linguistics-related stuff over lunch. After we said our goodbyes we took one last walk around the block, picked up our luggage from the hotel, took a taxi to the airport and flew home safely. OK, that's more than enough for one post.

Cheers, and God bless you all!

I have arrived in Sydney

2007-01-09T13:14:00.000+01:00

Hello again!

Well thank the Lord my mum, my sister and I have safely arrived in Sydney. I am currently at my cousin's place typing this post and I can't take too long because I am using her company laptop and she has to work on it. So I'd better keep this brief...

Well, my profile is almost complete, with just a few things to add here and there. For those of you who chat with me on MSN, you'll notice my profile picture is exactly the same. That will remain my picture until I can find a "better" one.

OK, that's it for now. We have a busy day tomorrow, so I'd better get a good night's sleep.

Cheers and God bless!

Greetings - My first post

2007-01-08T11:05:00.000+01:00

Greetings, everybody!

January 8, 2007 - This is indeed a very history-worthy occasion, because I... Jeremy Wing-Zit Wong of Templestowe, Victoria, Australia... am posting my FIRST-EVER blog!
(APPLAUSE) (APPLAUSE)

Yes, yes, thank you, and now to the real stuff. I don't know how long I'll be able to maintain this blog for; I definitely won't be contributing to it daily. But hopefully over time I can make this blog grow and customize it to show the best parts of ME.

Anyway, I happen to be heading up to Sydney tomorrow, which should be lots of fun. Being a true-blue Melburnian, I am going to try to put aside my Sydneysider prejudices and hopefully have a good time up there.

OK, that's the end of my first post.

Cheers, and the Lord Jesus Christ bless youz all!