March Update: 2011 aims

To see a round up of how the previous months have gone and why I choose these goals visit this page.

1.I will give at least a 10% tithe in addition to any other giving I will do.

The issue of money has not been the happiest this month as you may have observed in previous blog posts. However fortunately God liberated me from some of it a couple of weeks ago and saved me from having to be productive with it. Amazingly I have also seen God move more powerfully this month in the activities I have been involved in despite having less money.
I haven't paid all my tithe for this month though, partially out of having the money stolen, partially out of forgetfulness when at church. As such this will mean that next month I, of course have to pay this months as well as next.
Another worrying thing, I have noticed that I have given less to begging babuskas this month [a sudden realisation]. I know that I had less month this month but It's not right to use being robbed as an excuse. I Shall do better next month. [I also have the plan to invite one of the babuskas for a meal soon but this will require guts, to be on top form with my Russian and some cultural sensitivity (apparently when you invite someone over you are suppose to cook many many dishes to make them feel welcome...I usually only do one!) Please pray that this happens and isn't an idea that falls by the wayside.

2.Making Prayer a stronger habit. 

I noticed earlier this month that my morning habit said a lot about my priorities. Unfortunately what this seamed to reflect was that Coffee was number one, and checking my emails was a close second. There are some good reasons for this [I need to start the hot water flowing so by the time I have a shower it is warm!] but I decided that a small change would really help to establish pray and God as a priority in my life.
There has been some success and failures here and changing a habit certainly takes time but I'm going to stick to it. 

3.Use skype more to chat to people back home/Britain

I have had a few Skype chats this month However most of these have been done via the text service rather than actually voice chats. This has been in no small part due to the lack of high speed mobile connections on my internet dongle. Still this has been of some success.

Next month I intend to make more time and actually initiate more Skype chats [and use the voice service where I can].

4. I will improve as an EFL teacher.

This month we have been taking part in the observations as part of our International House Young learners course. This has been very useful to pick up some techniques from other teachers. One of the interesting things I noticed about most of the comments I wanted to make about other teachers, is that I am sure the same comments could be made during my lesson. Perhaps it helps to prove the old saying that everytime you point a finger. Three more point straight back at you. 

In addition some of the input session this month have been very important. One of the shockingly obvious points was about insure we put a good lesson aim down and insure we do a language analysis before we plan our lessons.

[in addition I made a resource for lessons]

5. I will improve my Russian.

I have certainly sort to have a lot of opportunities to speak Russian recently and have had some great success with a couple of people who speak no/very very little English at church, and some who do actually speak quite a bit of English but I have encouraged them to speak Russian with me so I can practice. [in fact las Sunday I spoke more Russian than I did English!]

However! I have slipped on my studies. Working till at least 8 ever night doesn't help but this is something I desperately want to set right as it is so vital to learn some of the essential words that I want to know. So that is my task for next month. Find at least 1 hour a week to really work on learning some new words and then test them out. 

[in other news you may noticed I've added some Russian language blogs to the blog role]

6. I will write more songs.

I'd say this has been the biggest failure this month, I have been working on some songs but I am definitely suffering from writers block at the moment. I guess I will just have to put something up no matter how bad I think it is as that is the only way to move past it. 

7. Host a weekly meal at my flat.

Not quite up too the weekly rate yet and with the longer working hours everyone has been experiencing it has been harder to organise meals. However I did recently cook a slightly improved version of my Borsh recipe which my Ukrainian guests said was better than theirs! 

8. Regular and higher quality blogging.

The main change this month has been the restoration of a simpler theme and a de-cluttering of the sidebar to make the blog easier to use. Other than that postings have generally been pretty regular though I have decreased the number of TEFL based post this month. Having said that I did manager to upload a resource for teaching on the blog and I hope I will continue to do similar things in the future. 

9. I will get involved with some form of charitable work in the Ukraine.

I have now gone along to an orphanage in Dnipropetrovsk a couple of times and taught guitar lessons to some of the kids there. It has been really enjoyable even though it obviously means I can't do other things that might be more relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. 

10. I will make a Public video each month.

Well I uploaded the Why I believe video. It wasn't anything too fancy but it is a video, so enjoy.]

So there you go. That was March. Bring on April! Suggestions of activities/ways to improve are always welcome. I hope to Post the statistics and highlights of March tomorrow but due to travelling to my friends wedding this may not happen. 

My thoughts about having different blogs for different topics

Recently I've been visiting some websites that offer advice on blogging, I've been running this [and the previous blog] for nearly a couple of years now and having seen some periods of higher traffic than others I wondered what I was doing right and what I wasn't. Of course ultimately even if I'm doing things "wrong" but there is a reason I am doing this way then I'm not going to change that just to get a few extra visitors.

One of the things that I have seen mentioned several times is that your personal and professional blogs should be kept separate. I can definitely see the logic in this, after all if you come to my blog to read about Teaching English or in the past politics and then you end up reading about what I've been doing in Dnipropetrovsk or Christianity it might make you not bother exploring the rest of the site or even ever returning. 

However if you look at my blog then you can see this is definitely not what I have been doing. Although the origins of the two blogs I have done were firmly rooted in Politics and in particular it's interaction with Christianity and Religion it has certainly evolved into much more of a blog of personal reflections, TEFL and Christianity and I have even come to the point of basically resigning from writing Political blog posts on this.

It does bring me back to the reason why I started Blogging in the first place. I wanted an opportunity to practice writing and develop my writing ,with the possible view of investigating if I wanted to go down the route of Journalism. However when I moved from word press to Blogger my thoughts had changed. I wanted to try and express myself in as many different ways as possible and to provided a means of keeping my family up to date on my activities out here in the Ukraine.

As such the wide range of topics has been a natural outcome of the changes in my life.

However this doesn't mean I am being as effective as I could be with what I am writing. If I write something good about TEFL then there are many people who won't encounter it if I just drop it here on this blog. As such rather than create a series of different blogs all about me I am going to try and do some more guest blog post and then provide links to them from this blog.

The logical assumption is that I will probably get less traffic if this blog becomes more personal. However I never really wanted to judge success by numbers of visitors anyway!

Why I believe: video

I was encourage by a good friend to find ways to reach the 1024 window. That being the group of people who get most of their information, community and entertainment from their computer screen [usually 1024 by 768 pixels.]
One of his suggestions was to make a short video about why I believe in Christianity. Of course the main problem with a short video is that it doesn't really show the whole story and in fact is by no means conclusive but I hope that it at least sparks your interest. If you would like to post your own video on why you believer [or why you don't believe] then please do and do so in response. I will embed all the responses [pro or against] on this page.

[The only exception being for those which are deemed to be liable, abusive or forms of cyber bullying. other than that I have no problem.]

A long weekend

Next Friday I shall begin my epic voyage back to the UK. I use these grandiose words not due to the fact that I will end up travelling some 1,800 odd miles, reach great heights, or many even the fact that last time the journey took somewhere around 22hrs each way.
No, instead it comes back to the fact that I shall do this twice within the space of a weekend. Admittedly this is a long weekend [starting on Thursday late night and ending on Monday early morning] but in totally I shall spend about two days travelling, one day being an usher for my friend, and then two half days in England. All in all potentially very tiring [especially as on Thursday I am going straight from work at 9:30 after 3 1:20hr lessons] However due to the purpose of my visit I can help but just be overwhelmingly excited.

Perhaps [see probably] this will change in the aftermath of the return journey but I still hope that I will be able to cling on to my reason for the visit and so gain a second wind of energy. I can certainly say that this has been the case with teaching.

Recently my workload has been on the heavier side of things and yet because I have so much greater satisfaction doing this job than my last one I have still found joy in what I do. I always find myself full of energy and enthusiasm in the teacher's room.

It really reminds me of what N.T. Wright says about the importance of Vocation in Christian living and especially when he looks at how Jesus' clear vocation, purpose and vision gave him the drive, courage, and strength to live the life God set out before him. I am reminded especially of the moments in the garden of Gethsemane when he fixes his eyes on the events to come, he asks for the cup to be taken away if there is another option BUT still says "Your will be done".

Or when he is talking to the woman at the well. He is clearly not feeling the best after a long journey and sits down to rest. Yet as soon as the woman starts speaking to him, and again when the town come out to see him, he starts to minister and says he has been given food that the disciples don't know of [they clearly think he too needs a drink, I wonder if they thought he had got sun stroke.]

Individual and Group vision can certainly be important.

[P.S. You may have noticed that the Blog design has changed a bit, I've taken of a load of the widgets and simplified things a bit. Although I did enjoy having all those little gadgets on the blog, ultimately it looked a bit congested and so I've taken some things of. I hope you like the new layout, if you have any suggestions of things to add/take of ways to improve the blog, then please comment]

Highlights and Lowlights of the weekend

My weekend was filled with a variety of ups and downs. The highlights included going to Shevchenko park [Named after the famous Ukrainian Poet Tatars Shevchenko not the footballer] on Saturday, and then getting to watch the more commonly known Shevchenko the next day in the Dianamo Kyiv vs Dnipro match [Dnipro went on to win the match].

I had hoped to put up some pictures from the park and the match But unfortunately my wallet and Camera were stolen whilst I was sitting in the pub on Saturday. As such the amount of picture that are posted on the Blog may decrease for a while until I happen to acquire another one [though I do still have the web camera built in to the laptop so I can take pics.]

In other news I have been visiting the "English Club" Television studio in preparation for making a pilot episode for them. It sound like there is a lot of potential for this and hopefully I will be able to post more details soon.

Finally, some nice news, I won a competition on "Brimming over" for comments/suggestion on certain post, so Why not go visit it and see what it is like.

Any questions? 

Putting the Р in pRoblem

One of the biggest problems I have faced in learning Russian is the pronunciation of certain sounds. In particular Р and Ы [R and what can best be described as Ey but with the sound coming from the back of the throat rather than the front.] The R in particular has caused many problems for me as here, they role their R's here.

For someone who hasn't grown up and naturally developed this skill it is very hard to suddenly try and master it. I have spent many hours standing at street corners, waiting for people, and making attempts to master this sound but instead gaining strange looks from passers by [and occasional laughs]. What surprised me was discovering how common this problem is for Ukrainian children as they are growing up. In fact because of it I discovered a tip for helping to learn to role R's [so far it hasn't worked].

In addition apparently Lenin couldn't properly role his R's and so used a cheating method of pronouncing D's or T's just beforehand so he could get that affect.

So I am still trying to role my R's and using techniques such as those found on this Wikihow.

REblog: MPs warn student visa proposals could 'cripple' sector

I'm glad that the BBC has picked up on this.

As a teacher of English as a foreign language in the Ukraine I know quite a few students who would and will be affected by this if they change the law. In addition it would also impact the TEFL profession in England and cause a reduction in income. It seams so counter intuitive to reduce the number of students who come into the country and benefit our economy just because some may stay beyond their visa's [and they will probably continue to do so anyway].

BBC News - MPs warn student visa proposals could 'cripple' sector

[I know I said I wouldn't do any political blogs but this crosses over with TEFL so I don't think it counts!]

¹⁶ “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ¹⁷ But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Mathew 6: 16-18


Hum...maybe I should have thought twice about this post....


Or is lent in some way different? Was it right to do something where people would obviously know I was fasting or should I have done it more secretly?


in other news here is a song for you to enjoy by Sufjan Stevens

10 things I miss, 10 things I love.

I had recently been reflecting on the fact that I have been out here in the Ukraine for over 6 months now and I started to think about some of the things that I miss from home, but also some of the things I really love about being here.

In no particular order

10 things I miss.

1. Family and friends
2. Hugs
3. Things being open later than 11
4. Singing Christian songs in English
5. Hot curries 
6. Yorkshire puddings
7. Cycling
8. The Well
9. Non dubious fruit and veg
10. Not living alone

10 best things about the Ukraine.

1. New friends
2. Salsa dancing
3. Being totally immersed in a different language
4. Tea.
5. Living alone.
6. My job
7. Certain Ukrainian dishes
8. Cheap trains/transport
9. Being able to communicate in secret [in your native language]
10. The simpler lifestyle

TEFL resource: blog page

Something I have been meaning to make for a long time now and finally gotten round to creating is this, a Blog page hand out. The idea being that your students write down their blog post, or general writing, and then the other students can write in the comment section bellow. It still could use some polishing up but it will do for now at least. I hope you find it useful.

"Is that not the type of fast I require?"

Here in the Ukraine many people take part in the tradition of fasting something during the period of Lent. I say Fast but in reality it is actually a Diet that happens to occur at the same time as the traditional Lent period. Now being fair this isn't an easy fast, there is no dairy, no meat, fish only once a week however it does reflect some interesting ideas and thoughts about fasting that are present not only in the Ukraine but around the world [and that includes within myself]

The first reflection is that during the period of lent I often hear people talk about giving up something that is bad for them. This obviously isn't the right type of fast, after all if something is bad for you then you shouldn't consume/do it anyway. In fact if you only fast then this can lead to feelings of well being and that it is now okay to go back to your old ways and so the fast has no affect.

The second is similarly linked in to the first and that is about fasting and gaining something out of it. For example, fasting and then spending the money you would have spent on food on yourself for something else. Or fasting so that you get thin. It really does distract and defeat the purpose of fasting if really you are just gaining something out of it.

So what makes a true fast? How should we fast over Lent? 

¹"Cry aloud; do not hold back;
    lift up your voice like a trumpet;
 declare to my people their transgression,
   to the house of Jacob their sins.
² Yet they seek me daily
   and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
   and did not forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
   they delight to draw near to God.
³ 'Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
   Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?'
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
    and oppress all your workers.
⁴Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
   and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
   will not make your voice to be heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
   and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
   and a day acceptable to the LORD?

 ⁶"Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of wickedness,
   to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
    and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
⁸ Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up speedily;
 your righteousness shall go before you;
    the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
⁹Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
   you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
    the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
¹⁰ if you pour yourself out for the hungry
   and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
 then shall your light rise in the darkness
   and your gloom be as the noonday.
¹¹And the LORD will guide you continually
   and satisfy your desire in scorched places
   and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
   like a spring of water,
   whose waters do not fail.
¹² And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
   you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
   the restorer of streets to dwell in

Interestingly enough in these verses, Isaiah tells us that the people were doing fast and from the sounds of it a lot! They were seeking God, they wanted his favour and reward and they were humbling themselves. So why isn't this right? Well their complaints tell us a lot "WE have fasted, have you not seen? WE have humbled ourselves..." It's all about what THEY have done and yet God hasn't responded to their acts. It's a classic case of the vending machine God where we insert 24hrs of fasting and then he owes us for what we have done. It is total self justification and nothing to do with Grace.

In fact this point is reinforced when God points out that they say they are seeking God's will and want his way and yet oppress their workers and fight. Hardly trying to become God like is it?

And so God points out the characteristics he want's in a fast, one where we are seeking his will and kingdom and what that will look like.

 ⁶"Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of wickedness,
   to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
    and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

This is the effect of the fast that we shall see. One where we are moved with compassion and humility to help those who need it, where we are transformed truly into who God wants us to be.

Sure it is possible for this to come about from giving up bad things for us, but we should always give them up! sure it is possible to occur when we give up good things for a short period, like a particular food, but the reason can't be so we will lose weight, it has to be to seek his will and to be changed.

SO!

why have I written all this, well the long and the short of it is that lent is upon us tomorrow and I was considering fasting something. After a long reflection I decided it should be something I like rather than something I think is bad. This will remind me more regularly that I am fasting and as such it is more likely to have an affect.

As such I have decided to fast facebook and twitter During this time. I did contemplate blogging however I feel this serves more of a purpose [I actually create something when I blog] and I actually do Blog less often. If people want to contact me then you can do so via my email address, blog comments [which are all approved first], Vyou, Skype or maybe by good old fashioned post! I welcome any or all attempts.

If you have decided to give up or take up something for lent, why not leave a note bellow. 

Tell Me Your Favourite Poem.

One of the teachers here and I are preparing for a discussion club about our favourite poems. I would love to have some of your favourite poems to share. This could be done via simple leaving a comment with what your favourite poem is, or even better, recording a video or audio of you reading your favourite poem.
Feel free to comment, link videos/audio bellow.

2011 Aims: February Update

Tracking my month to month progress

It's been a very interesting month this month. Not least because it has been shorter [by 2 days!] but in general the month has been rather strange. I think this comes out in my successes and failures this month when compared with last month.

1.I will give at least a 10% tithe in addition to any other giving I will do.

I was very happy to pay January's tithe as soon as I got my money for that month.  A great success considering I usually delay it too long. In addition this resulted in one of the changes I had really been hoping for. It made me attend and keep attending church here. As you may or may not know I had been experiencing some very significant difficulties with attending church and not understanding a lot of the language. As such to return and to find that I could understand so much more made me very glad indeed.

2. Making Prayer a stronger habit. 
Definitely some improvement here. I'm trying to think of some different ideas to use to help me focus on prayer. This months use of a map and a focus on actually saying grace at meal times really helped. There is still a lot of progress that could be made but these practical ideas really did help. 

3.Use skype more to chat to people back home/Britain

Although this month there has been less people who I have chatted with on Skype, I have had more regular chats. my brother Philip being in New Zealand has certainly helped this. If you want to have a skype chat then comment bellow and I will give you my details [if you don't have them]

4.  I will improve as an EFL teacher.

I received feedback from the director on one of my lesson and I have also signed up for an online workshop [regarding teacher talking time]. The feedback has already shown some great fruit in my lessons and they have definitely improved as a result of this. In addition I have also been observed by a fellow teacher, at the same level as me, and It she correctly identified that I need to work on my Concept check questions and a few other points. Next month 

5. I will improve my Russian.

attending church is certainly one way to listen to natural Russian. Outside of this I haven't really kept to my commitment of studying Russian 2 a week, as such I am going to reduce my commitment to once a week. Despite this I have made progress through my second listening CD, Learnt some more colloquial phrases and on two occasions been bought a shot of vodka by a Ukrainian that I ended up talking to in Russian. All in all fairly successful.

6. I will write more songs.
I have been experimenting wit some recording software. As such I actually spent much longer this month making a song than last month and yet I have very little to show for it! I am afraid that this months one shall have to wait till march [which it is now]. Hopefully this will mean that in future months productions can come out quicker. I just need the ideas now!

7. Host a weekly meal at my flat.

Like last month this hasn't always been at my flat. However, regular meals have been occuring and I have been cooking for people a fair amount trying some different meals. Interestingly I think I have had more success with one of last years aims [a new meal each month] than hosting! Still my flat has hosted regular events.

8. Regular and higher quality blogging.

Blogging has been very regular this month with very few exceptions I have kept to blogging on Monday and Friday with a few extra ones. I have decided that I am going to try and write an EFL post for every Friday. A general personal post every Monday, every other Wednesday write an update on events and also try to encourage more comments on the Blog. As for quality, well if you comment then I will know if it is getting better or not!

9. I will get involved with some form of charitable work in the Ukraine.

perhaps by chance there may actually be some movement here, in the last few weeks I've had some conversations with a friend about possibly going to an orphanage at the weekend. I am not certain how possible this is yet but I am very hopeful! 

10. I will make a Public video each month.

Well January's video never emerged! I am sorry about that and have considered whether I should continue with this aim at all. I'm still undecided but [inspired by a message from Andrew Brims] I have actually made a small video for February. Unfortunately youtube wasn't too happy with it. 


So....to round up I make that 7 out of 10 with 3 works in progress. agree?

February 2011 Blog Update

Well another month gone and so here come the stats.

This month there was a total of 137 page views from 84 visits and 49 Unique visitors. Over 50% came from the UK, with the other visitors from Belarus, Spain, The Ukraine, The United States and a whole host of others [in that order].

The top viewed Blog post was the general site page with 2011 January aims update and reflections on learning a foreign language following.

My personal favourite post from the month was the revelation that I love speaking foreign languages. [with embarrassing words second]

I would still like people to ask me some questions to reply to [no one has yet].

I would also like to share with you my successes and failures with my 2011 aims this month.

Blog posts I have enjoyed. [in no order]
The start of Andrew Brims 7 signs series

Generally been enjoying Virtually Naked blog this month.


Interesting things on the internet

Gorod.dp.ua a website with information about Dnipropetrovsk, the closest thing to a local news blog.

Tastyfresh. Christian dance music site.


Video of the month:


So that's February in Hindsight.