The Meaning of Life and My Lightbulb Moment

Today I was reading Alma 57 and 58 in the Book of Mormon, about the 2000 Ammonite young men who chose to join the Nephite armies to fight for the freedom and protection of their families - their parents and siblings.  They had never fought, yet they did not fear death.  But what I found really inspiring was their determination to go forth to battle against a powerful Lamanite army, despite the very real possibility of losing their lives.  In the end, none of them were killed in battle, but all of them were badly wounded.  It just made me think about life.  One life lost is only a small loss for an army at war, but for the individual it is HUGE.  That's it.  THAT was their one chance at life.  They probably had plans and aspirations for the future, but they could have had their ONE chance at life cut short, because they chose to make the sacrifice for the good of others.  It's really amazing for each and every soldier today that makes that choice, to fight in a war and risk death for the sake of others.  

I really pondered this deeply in regards to these very young soldiers - what would be the summation of their short lives?  It made me think about my own life.  How would I feel if my life, my ONE and only chance, was nipped in the bud?  I mean, could I voluntarily put my life on the line like that, even for a good cause?  MY life, my ONE chance.  What would my life up to that point have meant?  Would it have been enough?

As I pondered this, and thought of these soldiers, I realised that I have been placing a lot of value on what I achieve in life, or hope to achieve.  Even worse, sometimes I'm more concerned about what I can acquire - a comfortable home, a nice car, new things.  But that's not really what life is about.  No, the most important thing is actually who I become.  That's what I need to be worrying about, and putting my time and effort into.  That's what I need to be placing value on.  It doesn't matter what career I have, what achievements I attain, where I live, or what I wear.  The meaning of life lies in changing who we are.  Changing to become better.  Changing to become someone who cares about others.  Who is able to forgive.  Who sincerely desires the best for everyone.  Someone who doesn't give up easily, who values hard work.  Someone who is able to feel gratitude for the smallest things.

We all imagine living until we're old and grey, but we just don't know when our time will be up.  We need to be having fulfilling experiences now, every day.

It has really changed my perspective about my life and what I hope to do with it.  I don't have to achieve things to have value as a person.  I don't need to acquire things.  I just need to be a better person every day, and hope that when my time comes to leave mortality I will have travelled far enough in this journey to be able to say that I made my life count.

University - The first two (aka three) weeks

Well, I've survived the initial two-week "intensive" at uni, yay!  (I'm stuffing myself now with Allen's lollies in celebration)  

What is meant by "intensive" is a usual three weeks' work was crammed into two weeks.  Given that usually we have three-day weeks (due to two days of prac in a school) this might not sound like much, but may I emphasise all the reading!!  Instead of the usual 7 days to get a weeks' reading done, we had three...I still haven't finished all the required readings thus far - hence why I'm gonna be hitting the library tomorrow.  Exciting weekend! 

On Monday I will find out where I will be doing my first school placement, which will be for my learning area of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Langauges - also known as EAL, English as an Additional Language), and in a couple of weeks I'll start going there to observe!  

I also have my first huge essay due in a month, for the subject "Learners, Teachers and Pedagogy", which is a highly psychology-based subject (meaning a lot of new words and concepts for me!).

Time to knuckle down...more...

作文：私の生活の大切な一部分

私はクリスチャンです。八才の時にバプテスマを受けて、末日聖徒イエス・キリスト教会の会員になりました。その時から、ずっと毎週この教会に行っています。二十二才時に十八ヶ月間にアメリカのユタのソルトレイクシティーで宣教師として伝道しました。教会と福音は本当に私の生活の大切な部分です。

*どうぞ、日本語の文法や単語の間違いを直してください。もう教えてもらったことは赤色で直しました。

Composition: An important part of my life.

I am a Christian.  When I was 8 years old I was baptised and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Since that time I have been continually attending church every week.  When I was 22 years old, I served as a missionary in Salt Lake City Utah, USA for 18 months.  The church and the gospel really are an important part of my life.

*Please correct any Japanese grammar or vocabulary mistakes.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

They say life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.  Just when you think you've got it worked out, you suddenly find your life heading in a different direction.

Can't argue with that.  About a month ago, I was 95% sure I'd be finishing my crazy, exciting adventure here in Japan in May 2013, and be going back home to Australia.  The plan was to then earn a Diploma of Laboratory Technology, and work my way up in the science industry.

However, I now have my eye on a different diploma.  The Postgraduate Diploma of Teaching (secondary) to be exact.  That's right; I want to be a Japanese teacher!

Now this all started as a "maybe" floating around in my head, spurred by the fact that I love my funny/shy/cheeky teenage students and have found this job as an ALT to be the most satisfying of any I have had.  I find language teaching to be very interesting, and now finding myself in the "real world" trying to apply the Japanese I learnt at school, I'm very excited to try and teach others in a way that is fun, practical and most importantly, productive.  Every day this "maybe idea" become a bit more real, and now the idea of doing anything else seems so strange.  And so, we have a change of plans.

Now at this point, I still assumed I'd be going home in May.  But when my company asked recently if there was anything they could do to convince me to stay, I decided to give it some serious thought.  I had played with the idea, but despite 'loving my job' there were still many frustrations that came with it, and the thought of enduring another year of it seemed unbearable.  But after discussing some possible changes which could lessen my frustrations, I really began to consider it.

I recognised that since my career objective has now changed, I have a greater priority to learn Japanese, and learn it well.  After the progress I have made (though still far from fluent), another whole year on top of that sounded wonderful, and got me feeling quite excited and relieved.  I asked and was granted the wish of finishing the next contract at the end of January 2014, instead of March, so I would be able to go home just in time to start university in February.  And seeing as I have to wait almost a year to begin my teaching studies anyway, I might as well spend the time in a relevant job as an English teacher, and in an environment where my Japanese skills, now important for my future job, can continue to improve greatly.  

With all these benefits, even my current job frustrations didn't seem so bad after all, and I recognised there was much more I could be doing to possibly resolve the problems, and was willing to take this on as my challenge for this year.

So, realising that there wasn't really much to come back home for just now (except for wonderful, glorious, normal food!!), my decision to stay became quite clear too.  And so I have now informed Interac that I will be accepting their offer to stay on until January 2014.  

To my delight I was told I could take some leave after January this year (as my permanent assignment at my schools goes from June - January each year), instead of working until the end of March.

And so the life plans of Maz have now become thus:

January 2013:

Finish teaching in Nerima for the school year, endure the cold winter, now made more fun with snow;

February 2013:

Escape the rest of winter and take a trip back to the land of Aus, catch the last month of summer and  eat copious amounts of mum's delicious home-cooked meals and many other foods I recognise and love;

March - April 2013:

Enjoy the beautiful cherry blossom season of Japan, do a bit of travel around the country;

June 2013:

Recommence the early mornings and frustrations fun!  Work on my proactive skills...


July 2013:

Take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficency Test) level 3;

August 2013:

Head over to Estonia and meet up with mum for a 2 week summer holiday;

December 2013:

JLPT level 2?  Would probably fail that one but worth a shot, right? Also, enjoy Christmas and show mum the sights of Tokyo;

February 2014:

Tearfully bid fairwell to my friends and my second home of Tokyo, Japan, and move back to Australia to begin my Postgraduate studies (I'm hoping to get accepted at the University of Melbourne);

2015:

Begin teaching Japanese in Australian high schools!  And maybe do that additional work to make my diploma a Masters Degree.

So that's it, my new 3 year plan!

And now, a bit of David Bowie to celebrate the New Year and my new life plans!  Cheers, everyone!

If I were a recipe, what would I be?

At my work recently for our yearbook we were each asked to come up with a personal "recipe" for ourselves, for which at first I had no idea what to write.  But weeks later, inspiration finally struck me.  They didn't end up including them in the yearbook, but here is mine for your reading pleasure...

Ingredients:
3 cups of nice
a pinch of feisty
1/2 cup of procrastination
a handful of optimism
a dash of perfectionism
3 teaspoons of creativity

Directions:
Mix all ingredients together carefully, ensuring all measurements are exact, and leave in the sun until warm.


And voila!  You have me!

What's your personal recipe?

A Curly One

Decided to give the curling iron a go with my new haircut, I think it turned out well.  I shall now be gracing the op-shops in style!  It's gonna be a good day...haha.

So I've started a blog - who knew?

Yep it has been many a year since the whole personal blog phenomenon hit the cyber world, yet I have never jumped on the band-wagon - until now.  Sure, I've made blogs for various groups, and then my own photography blog, but this is the first one just about me.  Or my thoughts and/or life experiences.  A bit of thinking out loud perhaps.  Which could be slightly disturbing...haha!  But life is an experiment, so I'm giving this a go.  Look out!