Live a Quiet Untamed Life...

I love comments to post that I've written.

I also love it when people quote the bible at me and given that we are currently celebrating 400 years of the King James bible [woop] to have someone quote

1 Thes. 4:11-12 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. 

In responce to my book review of Untamed made me very happy. [for the benifit of those who aren't familiar with middle English here is a more modern translation in boh English and Russian.]

I am guessing that the comment is suggesting that the idea of living an adventurous or radical life is in contradiction with this instruction from Paul to the church in Thessalonica. [This is a guess as without any other words it is the best I can do. If I am wrong on this front then I apologise].

So are these incompatible? To answer this it depends what I mean by adventures/adventurous life, what the context of the verse is and a general understanding of the bible as a whole.

My brother, to use this photo I am required to inform you Phil>Chris

Firstly the typical worldly view of adventurous is someone like Indian Jones or Lara Croft [for a female inequivalent]. They are never in one place for a long time, always heading of to the next place after causing a load of havoc. Or if we look at individuals lives maybe just involves throwing yourself of a cliff with a parachute/bungy rope attached.

However the literal definition is an exciting or unusual experience [often with an element of risk].

Now back to the verse. When we look at the whole of Thessalonians chapter 4 we see Paul encouraging the church to live a life that is totally at odds with the typical word around them and our world today. Follow Jesus even more, abstain from sexual immorality, and don't wrong your brothers.

Then we have the full section where Paul praises their love for each other and encourages them to grow even more in brotherly love AND to aspire to a quite life... as some commentators have pointed out the way that Paul links the two together and is saying that the way to show brotherly love and ensure it increases is not to be a burden upon the rest of the church. Earn money so that no one has to support you and that you can support others.

If we follow these ideas then surely we will live an unusual adventurous life. Sure we may end up living in sub-urban Western Country doing a 9-5 job but because we are living working for God we will live in a different way.

I'm not 100% certain and would happily accept responses but I don't see any other way to balance these verse with the context and all the other verses that tell Christians to live in different ways.

The power of poetry

English Club tv have recently been showing a brilliant TV series that was first made for the BBC. In the program the present explores key events, figures and even inventions.

It has been great and English Club really deserve credit for finding a show that has completely got me hooked.

In this program one of the things that had really struck me was the influence of poets and authors upon the language. To some degree it is no suprise that these widely read peices of litterature would indeed affect the language spoken but the extent was really suprising.

I was reminded of Taras Shevchenko the famous Ukrainian poet. He has been a key figure in Ukrainian Nationalism for a long time and in no small part due to his demonstration that Ukrainian was a beautiful language that could be used to write poetry.

Poetry can really be a powerful thing.

1 week left

Leaving places can be a very strange experience. Over the course of my life I've left different school, university, jobs, signing on at a job centre, left my gap year, left the UK and now I'm preparing to leave the Ukraine (well for 2 months at least).

Leaving all these different places have lead to different combinations of joy, excitement, fear and doubts (all in different measurements) due to the different circumstances.

To be honest at this moment it's all a bit messy.

I of course really want to return home, see all my old friends, enjoy all the benefits that can be had in the UK and yet at the same time there is almost a sense of dread in me at this moment. You see one of my aims in life was to live in a foreign country for a year and, give or take the time that I was out for Christmas, my friends wedding and the summer holiday, next week I will have achieved that.

That's a big tick of my list of things I wanted to do in my life and I suppose it really brings up the question of what next....

I have already agreed to stay on and teach next year as I have really enjoyed teaching English as a foreign language and really didn't want to stop. But there is still the underlying question of what next...

What happens after next year? Or the year after? Am I just postponing facing the real decision of where to be or is this right? Is it right for me to be in a state of flux not knowing where I'll be next year or the year after?

One of the main factors behind these thoughts and feelings is my own doubt in my ability in English due to my Dyslexia. I do sometimes feel like a fraud who is just waiting to be found out by those around him and making mistakes like writing stagging not staging or similar things.

As I've said before I know what amazing progress I have made [from the kid who in year 6 couldn't even use paragraphs) and despite all this I still feel a bit like a fraud.

Together and yet miles apart

One of the advantages/disadvantages (perspective depending) of not having the internet in my flat is that to use some online services I have to stay in the school or go to a coffee shop with free wi-fi. This also present the benefit of getting to know the staff at said coffee shops very well!

At one point I did try using a mobile internet dongle in the hope that this would allow me to use skype. However, the network here seams to slow for this to be successful and so instead it just lead to an increased in procrastination and no net benefit in my communicative abilities which I had sought to improve.

There are some disadvantages to this though. Sometimes other teachers join me in the coffee shop. In fact quite often another teacher will join me to have a coffee and check their emails etc [despite other teachers having internet access at home]. And so there we sit. Two or three friends, all on the computer all doing our own thing, occasionally dropping the odd word or conversation about the news or something but not entertaining a full conversation. We find ourselves together and yet miles apart.

I sometimes wonder what a difference it would have made if on a few of these occasions I had just put my computer away and just spoken to them about, whatever! Anything! Would we be even closer than we are now?

Who am I writing (songs) for?

Continued from yesterday:

A few years back I wrote songs.

They were for no one except myself...and maybe God.

Sometimes I share a secret ambition that other people would hear them and think they were amazing and tell me so. However in general these songs were written just for myself and for no one else.

However I went to university and something changed. I stopped writing songs.

Well more precisely I stopped finishing writing songs, I could come up with a little riff or chorus but I couldn't advance.

I'm not sure why exactly but at the same time I started to do some open mic nights at university and also found myself leading worship for the CU on a few occasions. So playing music became public for me.

Maybe I decided that my songs weren't as good as the professional musicians songs that I was singing [and they weren't] or maybe it was something else but I could no longer write a song.

And so this continued and I basically gave up trying to write songs. Until this year.

This year I set myself the challenge to write a song and put it up for public display to explore this side of me again. But I haven't and it has really frustrated me that I can't seam to finish/like anything that I write, certainly not enough to put it on the internet.

And so I read these things and realised that I have been trying to write songs for the wrong people...basically you. Really I should just write songs for me again, like I used to.

They may suck but they will be for me and to be honest that is all that matters.

So I may put some songs up on here...I may not. If I do then they'll probably be really bad but hey they'll be something that I've done.

Who am I writing for?

It is amazing how many coincidences you can sometimes have in a day.

Today my friend Andrew Brims wrote a blog post about the need to take a rest from busyness, especially online and issued a reminder that to be creative we need to apply ourselves to make this happen.

Just before this I had found a link to a person who had given away a free E-book on writing online (and all I, or you, had to do was sign up to receive his blogs weekly update. Bargain!) It was amazing how it seamed to speak and challenge me about my own creativity and motives.

A while back this blog was a political blog, sometimes pulled a few hundred visits ever day with it's various snipes at different political views and issues in the local news. I even moved across to Blogger to try and actually make some money out of this.

Fast forward to a few months after the election and when I moved across to the Ukraine and I realised that I had lost something. The joy of getting views had turned to the pain and lament at the lack of views I now received and my inability to write about UK politics due to the fact that despite having the internet at my fingers I was increasingly out of the loop and unable to make wise or insightful comments on the issues of the day [partially due to lack of time, partially through a sense of political disenchantment and wondering what I actually did think/feel in the current political climate.]

So I stopped.

I changed and started writing for the pure joy of writing [and the desire to keep people back in the UK up to date with what I was doing.] Writing became fun again although the monthly updates of blog stats and similar continued the reason was less for me after all I could see these without sharing them] and the fact that I would now at best get a couple of hundred page views a month and mostly from the same people didn't matter. I enjoyed writing and trying to write in a new a different way.

I think. and I hope you agree that my writing has actually improved during this time period. There is certainly a lot more of me held within the text that you see on the pages now. But I guess that is for you to decided.

The really interesting thing is when you compare this to my attitude to music. {to be continued)

TEFL: "How regular are teaching observations?"

"How regular are teaching observations?"

This was a search term that I saw people had landed on my blog from and thought would be good inspiration for a blog post!

When I was a new teacher [from here on it to be refered to as a "noob"] I used to have an observation in every level twice a month too see how I was settling in. In addition to this I had feedback on the lessons, help planning the next lesson to work on the action points from the last lesson and I shared a class with another teacher so I could observe what techniques she used with them...and then nick them for myself!


Within two months this retreated to one observation each month for each level as this was school policy [to show students/corporate clients that we were maintaining a high level of teacher training and to actually maintain a high level of teacher training.) At times this can feel like a lot when you have a week of solid observations in every Level.

During the course of the year, with the school gaining new corporate clients and some teachers leaving observations decreased so that all the lessons could be taught. However this was a temporary change and has returned to normal now.

This is of course half the story, there are also the observations of other teachers that we make. To be honest appart from the class that I shared with another teacher I didn't have the largest ammount of opportunities to observe my peers/superiors, teaching. Having said this I did get to observe other teachers as part of the IH young learners course that I completed and on a couple of other occasions during the year.

If you are considering going into teaching it is best to check the schools individual policy regarding observations as it can be very different within each school but I hope that has helped to shed some light on the situation for you.

If any other teachers read this then please do leave your comments bellow about how often you were/are observed. thanks

The final stretch

With the arrival of June I now face my final month in the Ukraine this year and the end of my first year as a Teach of English as a Foreign Language and what a year it has been!

I can still remember arriving in the Ukraine with a limited bag of Russian words and a CELTA certificate to my name. The train ride was uncomfortable and hot, the food took some getting use to and I didn't sleep at all. The induction week was over in a blur and by the end of the first week I had already taught more than I had before hand!

4 months later and I was preparing to return to the UK and recovering from a spell of homesickness. Coming home reminded me how much I had missed everyone in the UK but I soon realised how much I was looking forward to being immersed in a different culture again. Despite this I returned to the Ukraine feeling quite nervous and worried about what the next 5 months would be like.

As soon as I landed everything became fine and the confidence of managing to buy a train ticket on my own gave me the lift I need as soon as I was back.

Before I knew it I had reached the point of having completed more of my contract than I had left to go! Suddenly I realised how long I had been in the Ukraine, How much I had learnt, How much I had improved [I no longer received constant feedback telling me that I needed to grade my language] and how actually the idea of leaving the Ukraine wasn't that appealing.

Soon after this I returned home for my friends wedding! it was a wonderful few days, yet extremely tiring! As I wondered down the high street things seamed different, the world I had left behind had moved on and I had too. Shops had opened and closes, friends had got together and broken up and I felt uneasy. It had passed by the time I was heading back but It still struck me as odd.

A few weeks later and I had the conversation. I wanted to stay and they school wanted me to stay too.

And so it was agreed. Another year in the Ukraine, a chance to finish all I wanted here and to do more than I had thought about.

More months passed with highs and lows, reflections and rants, developing friendship and letting others slide and before I knew it the second conference was coming up and I decided to speak there! In the lead up to the conference I had several more observations which confirmed how I felt, that I had continued to grow as a teacher here. Not only that but I had also filmed a Pilot episode for English club TV!

And now I'm here! 1 month left before heading back to the UK, teaching at a summer school in Oxford and trying to see people whilst I am back home.

If I could offer some advice for people thinking of teaching/living abroad I think I'd encourage them to stick it out, of course it is hard at times but once the night returns to day the sun seams to be brighter than the last time and your confidence builds that you can get through it each time. I'd also encourage people to try and meet as many local people as you can. It's amazing what a difference just a little chat in English or broken Russian can do for my mood. As a teaching point I'd encourage people to reflect on the way they are learning the language in that country. It has been so useful for me to come here with very limited Russian and to be able to reflect how I have increased my own communicative abilities. My final point with be establish a routine, enjoy it...and break it! I firmly believe that finding a regular rhythm is important as well as ensuring that you step out of sync with your rhythm too.

Other than that I'm still learning and growing and hopefully I'll be able to look back on next year and offer better insights.

Video Challenge 2: Draw a self portrait

You may remember my last challenge [which was really more a questions] and the reward that I gave for getting 5 responces. Well I have a new challenge and a New reward! take a look bellow

The music in the intro was provided by Partners in Rhyme.
Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects Download the music and sound effects you need for your multimedia project today at Partners In Rhyme.

parable: The Long distance runners

Once there was a Long distance runner, He loved to run and had been doing so for a long time. The Runners passion was so great that he would often talk to his friends with great enthusiasm about running that many wanted to join him in running too.

As such it was no surprise that when he set himself his greatest challenge yet, to run the length of Britain His closest friends all agreed to join him in the race.

I say his closest friends, there were of course some exceptions, a few people scoffed at his idea, questioned his sanity and how doing this race would actually help his, and others, lives. But despite this he still had a group of friends eager to run this race with him.

The day finally arrived and the runner turned up at Lands end and sure enough there was the rowdy gang otherwise known as his friends. As he looked around he saw that many of his friends had brought tents, large camping bags, great sums of money, laptops with internet connections and some even their work!

He could barely believe his eyes, it was almost as though they had brought their whole lives with them and it would certainly be impossible for them to run so heavily laden! He started to plead with his friends to take off their bags, he had already planned and paid for the places they would stay at along the way, but they wouldn't listen and started the race with their heavy bags on their backs.

Sure enough when lunchtime arrived the friends who hadn't taken a backpack arrived at the restaurant the runner had booked. As they sat down for a meal the Runner picked up the phone and started calling all the mobile phones of the friends with backpacks. They were some distance behind but were in good spirits, they too had stopped for a meal they had brought with them in their backpacks. Again the runner encouraged them to leave their packs behind and to simply run without them (rather than walk as they had been) but the friends wouldn't listen.

When the first evening came and the non backpack runners arrived at their hotel again the long distance runner called the backpacked runners. By this point a couple had already stopped, they had found that running with a backpack was just too hard work and they weren't going to continue. Those left were in a variety of states, some were determinded that they were going to finish the race, no matter what. Others were starting to feel less certain and had started to wonder if Running really was for them at all. It seamed just a bit too uncomfortable and when they could just drive to the finish line there seamed no real point in running. Plus all this camping seamed rather dangerous, why weren't they just at home in bed?

Over the next few days the backpacked runners slowely but surely stopped running, some found their backpacks were just too heavy, some had got lost and all lost faith in what they were doing. After a while their mobiles had stopped working and the friend, despite all his attempts to call them just couldn't get through. Meanwhile the other friends who ran with the Runner reached the finish line and celebrated the race they had run.

Hospitality and Zacchaeus

I've been thinking about the story of Zacchaeus and what it tells us about hospitality.

Recently I have been thinking quite a bit about hospitality partially as part of a long term realisation of how important it is as part of othopraxy and also after reading some posts on the compatability of Hospitality and Entertainment [or the lack there of].

So when I read the story of Zacchaeus for the 3 time in a week and a half or so (for various reasons) I had a strange realisation. Usually we think about the importance of the host in initiating hospitality, in inviting others in. Yet here we see Jesus, the guest, invite himself to someones house and disciples him into hospitality.

It's an interesting point that sometimes being Hospitable isn't just about opening your house for other people, but also making the sacrifice of your precious time and in some cases reputation to go to someone elses house.

Drawings Paintings and Photos

One of the things I love about drawings and paintings is that often the artist inserts something of themselves into the picture of drawing. After all you could get 5 artists to paint the same building, person posing or even the same picture and there would be something different about each painting that would reflect the artists.

But can this even be true of Photos? After all they are still only taken from one perspective and it just happens to be the perspective that the photographer happened to be at or choose to take the photo from. If you look at the type of photos that my brother takes, compared to those that I take then you can clearly see the difference. Partially this is down to his ability with a camera but it does also include his personal style that he throws in too.

So what I’ve been wondering is do we actually add in something of ourselves into whatever we do or make.  

Update: Good News/Mixed News

Today has been a very interesting day! At about mid day I received an e-mail informing me of my flight details back to the UK! I was so excited that I went round informing everyone I could find that I was returning on then 2nd of July and would return to the Ukraine on he 28th of August.

An hour and a half later the situation had changed.

I had heard that one of the teachers had been asked to go over to another city and cover the work load there until more teachers could come over and I had also heard via the grapevine that he was less than happy at the prospect of uprooting and changing cities. So perhaps I should have expected the phone call that I received requesting if I would go over to Donetsk and help out there for my last 3 weeks before I returned to England.

I didn't really know what to say, mainly due to the fact that I only had a minute till my next lesson and I knew that I had to get my head into lesson mode. When I finally managed to get to a quieter spot in a lesson and the shock waves had faded, I found my mind returning to the prospect of shifting over to Donetsk this weekend [oh yes it really would be in only 3 days time!] and what the implications were.

At first I started to think about all the good things, like getting to see the teachers over there, who I haven't really had a chance to see that much recently, and getting to teach some new groups and spending more time in a different city. However, unfortunately, my thoughts quickly shifted to the negative sides of the whole affair.

Firstly there are all my plans for the last weeks that I have to cancel, then there are all my friends here who I will barely get to see before the end. Including my friend Mari who is going to France this weekend. As such unless one of us goes to visit the other then we won't actually see each other before she leaves!

Then I started to think about my lessons and to be honest I started to think selfishly. I had only a few days of intensive Kids classes and then our timetables reduce. So if I am going to a different city I can be pretty certain that the work loads is about to increase exponentially (and I know they have morning classes at 7:30 am!). Then I started to think about whether I could really reject the request and I knew that if I couldn't then it was very unlikely that anyone else could, after all some of them have cats, and don't usually travel anyway. Some have husbands and many are actually from this city so it would be a lot harder for them to actually leave.

So basically I had worked out that it wasn't ideal for me, but it was what I probably had to do, unless I wanted to stick my tongue out act like a child and kick up a big fuss. And so, as can so often happen in life, all my plans have been ripped asunder and the rock of planning and preparing has been laid bared.

Image: Hope

A little image I put together, sometimes it can feel as though we are surrounded by darkness and that our hope is only a dim light in the distance. But even at these times, Hope shines in the darkness, and it lights our way.

May 2011

So here is the Blog round up of the month of May, I hope you enjoy it.

This month I have had most page views than I have EVER had before! With around 207 visits.
The top three countries were The United Kingdom, The Ukraine and The United States.

The most popular post was "My house shall be called a house of prayer." Which was helped in no small part by Andrew Brims mentioning it in his weekly email.

I did a total of 25 posts the month! [when I have set the target of only 8] and I even made a video or 2 !

My favourite post that I wrote was probably the parable of the dancer [and yet had very few views and no comments :( ]

My most commentated on article was for my video about what makes you feel yourself.


So comments, what did you enjoy this month? What do you want more/less of? How can the blog be improved?

2011 Aims: May update

A link to the page with the overview of my previous months

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

almost, I would guess at lowest 70% and at highest 90% unfortunately not fufiled...yet

2. Making Prayer a stronger habit. 

This month has simply been amazing.

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

I finall had a long overdue chat with some family members back home last week and I have definitely had more skype chats this month than ever before :)

4.  I will improve as an EFL teacher.

This month I presented a workshop on teenagers in Kharkiv as part of a national conference. Despite a highwork load and the complition of the IH Young Learners workshop I still managed to take part [in no small part thanks to my DOS's prompting. So I think that counts!

5. I will improve my Russian.

I was set a challenge by a coffeeshop waitress to learn a new word in russian each time I come in. So far I have not failed in this task! In addition the ammount of conversations I have been having in Russian has increased. There is still a LONG way to go but I am very pleased by the accelration that has occured this month.

6. I will write more songs.

Writing has been occuring actually but I still haven't finished anything. This mental block must stop as it's becoming a cycle where I can't finish a song because...I can't finish a song. Unfortunately that means finishing a bad song first before a good one can follow...

7. Host a weekly meal at my flat.

Massive fail, I think I've only hosted 1 meal this month! It has been very busy and we have had a few BBQ's but still. A big fail.

8. Regular and higher quality blogging.

Definitely this month, I've posted many more posts and received many more compliments on their quality

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

The orphanage was actually out of bounds for the first few months due to an infection [probably just a cold/flu outbreak] and then last weekend I was in Kharkiv, as such nothing has really happened in this respect this month.

10. I will make a Public video each month.

I actually put 2 videos up this month!!!

Well there it is, May's round up of aims. Tomorrow the best of the blog