Khachaturian Violin Concerto

Rules to live by

• Stay away from toxic friendships, toxic family members and toxic people in general. If they are not contributing to your life (in terms of growth, joy, love), it is better not have them in your life at all or keep at arms distance when necessary.
• Stay away from toxic religious groups. Run to the other direction. I speak from experience. Whatever I did was never enough for them. They were a manipulative, deceiving and loveless group. When I was sick, they refused to take me to the hospital. When I was away, they tried to take my money. When I left them, they talked shit behind my back (harming my reputation). Never again.
• Do what you are good at and serve the community.
• Travel. And travel more.
• Learn new things.
• Set goals and achieve them in due diligence.
• Be yourself and be happy. 

The stars will be laughing

“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems... But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night. You, only you, will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me... You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Update

I've been MIA from this blog due to multiple reasons. I started a new job as a Middle School/High School teacher at a bigger International School in Costa Rica, and things have been crazy busy!

Anyways, here is the latest scoop:

• My grade 7 students are learning how to debate in a trial. It's interesting how debating open new venues of learning. Students are supporting their arguments using quotes from the book. 
• I've been asked to be an Extended Essay supervisor by two of my students. It feels like my life is coming into full circle.
• I am going to Africa on December 26th for 3 weeks. I will be supporting the ministry in Senegal for abandoned Muslim women and girls. 

Summer in Cambridge

1 Corinthians 13:12

"For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known."

There is a sense of timelessness and wonder everytime I read this passage in 
1 Corinthians 13. 

This verse constantly reminds me of the innate self-knowledge and value that God is waiting for us to explore and manifest in our lives.

This year, I became known as Ms. Chang. 

I came to know and appreciate sides of me that were unknown to me before.

-Sides of compassion, love and truth brought out by challenging circumstances.
-Experiencing the deep joy of bringing knowledge, building skills sets and showing my students different ways to view the world.
-The rewarding aspect of seeing my students' growth, success and happiness.
-The gift of building community inside and outside the classroom.
-And so much more...

And although at times I felt discouraged at the murk of the routine and challenges, this year has been ultimately empowering and healing. The positive outweighs the negative.

The Great God Bird

In the delta sun, down in Arkansas,
It's the great god bird with its altar call,
And the sewing machine, the industrial god,
On the great bayou where they saw it fall.

It's the great god bird, down in Arkansas,
And the hunters beware, or the fishers fall,
And paradise might close from it's safe flight flawed,
It's the great god bird through it all.

And the watchers beware, lest they see it fall,
And paradise might laugh when at last it falls,
And the sewing machine, the industrial god,
It's the great god bird with it's altar call.

Yes, it's the great god bird with its altar call,
Yes, it's the great god bird through it all!

Sinestesia

A ver como te lo digo,
Es como ver el mundo por los oídos,
Saborear lo que se esta cocinando con los ojos,
Palpar las texturas de las sinfonías de Stravinsky,
Oir la melodía de cada cuadro en exhibición,
Y oler las salidas y puestas del sol.

Es una curiosa condición,
Pero al ver las cosas diferente que a los demás
Resulta ser una gran bendición.

Maracuyá

Las noches en Costa Rica
Empiezan a saber a maracuyá.
Fruta fresca,
Dulce delicia,
Sabor a paz y lluvia fuerte.
Quien diría,
Como me sorprenderías
Costa Rica. 

Legalism and other thoughts

The Legalist way is not the way to life.

The Legalist way is not a way of life.

So my late 20s has been a time of considerable reflection in my life and faith. A lot has happened ever since I've been around Christian institutions and seeing the realities of our times. A lot of questions have been raised when I see what is happening around and the dubious behaviour of individuals in these institutions.

-Maybe it was the time when the leader of the church asked me for money when I got sick from Africa. And asking me to delete that email afterwards so that the congregation would not find out.

-Maybe it was the Salvadorean Pastor who appeared in the newspapers headlines after being caught in a motel having an affair with one of the churchgoers.

-And many more 'hypocrisy revealing acts' that I have witnessed throughout my life.

Yes, yes. I get it. It's human nature. We are all prone to sin. Yes, Yes. No one is perfect. Yadda...yadda...

But what truly irks me is that these individuals or institutions shame other individuals with their legalistic preaching and self-righteous ways. Thou shalt not wear nail polish or make up. But they have all the right to talk behind people's back and backstab them. Thou shalt not commit adultery or have sex before marriage, yet they are the ones committing those sins behind closed doors and begging forgiveness and compassion when their actions are brought into light.

These individuals preach legality, encourage legality and live by legality. Yet there is no ethos. No actions to back up their words. There is little to no love for those who have sinned and are wounded by life's blows. 

And this leads to this thought: Legality does not bring life or love to anyone. Legality only brings scorn, shame, fear and separation. It only brings people to constantly measure themselves and others for nothing but some empty approval.

An approval that means nothing. Absolutely nothing.

No wonder did Jesus warn us about the Saducees and Pharisees in the Gospels. No wonder his ministry was so focused in revealing their hypocrisy and their hearts...because there are so many of them nowadays. 

Anyways, enough of my ramblings. It is late and there is much to do in the morrow...

Year End Reflections

I asked my students to write year-end reflections today. Looking back, this school year has been filled of mixed moments - moments of genuine joy when I see students learn about themselves and moments of frustration when I struggled with some of the student's indifferent attitude. This year's experience has significantly shaped me as an educator and as a person. I am determined to become an educator that will empower students with useful skills for life and create meaningful experiences and connections for them.

Below are some blog entries from my students:

1. It’s the end of the school year, something amazingly surprising. It almost seems like it was yesterday when we were picking lockers and meeting all the teachers, when we were all following each other because we didn’t know what class or hall was each and were very lost. I still remember that day, and when I look back at everything that happened this year I get shocked and can’t believe that this year is already going to close. And although I don’t have a very interesting social or drama life, for me, this year still contained many experiences and memories that I will remember. Some of these experiences I know shaped me and will determine my future, and others that are more personal will remain as precious memories but still affected the person that I am today.

I think that the experiences that I said will shape me and my future all start with Ms. Chang. Since the beginning of the year she has been an amazing teacher and my thoughts on her definitely never changed. The MUN that she organized for the class made me discover my passion for human rights and debating and later made me enter the real MUN, and so far I’m completely loving it and getting unimaginable success when I thought I wasn’t going to do good. I think being in MUN is the greatest academic achievement and experience of this year that will definitely define eight grade for me, so in the future whenever I think of eight grade or the year of 2016-2017, I’m going to think of my first time being in MUN. Honestly, I don’t think that MUN is going to be a temporal thing in my life, especially with all the success and fun that I’m getting out of it, recently I’ve been thinking of becoming a delegate or ambassador but I still haven’t decided that for sure because I have other dreams and aspirations. My biggest achievement of this year also had to do with MUN, so far I have only gone to three conferences and I have already won two awards, a verbal mention and a best delegate, which was honestly one of the happiest moments of my life that I thought I was never going to have.

I feel like I’ve been talking about MUN for a long time now so now I’m going to move on, but to resume this, thank you Ms. Chang for being a great teacher, my favorite, and doing all of the projects that made me learn something amazing about myself, I will sure miss you, you taught me a lot of great things that I’ll need and use in the future. The final thing that I’m going to be talking about is three things that I learned this year, it was quite a lot of things but I’ll pick three of the main ones. This year I learned a lot about acceptance and self-identity, about friendship and that you always need to look at the bright side, have hope and always give your best. This was a school year that I will definitely remember. 

2. My reflection this year is to live your life like you want to live it. You should never regret anything in life. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience. Something that I will remember forever is the happy and sad moments that I have been going through with my friends and classmates. Something that we did this year that I will remember for the rest of my life is when we went to the amusement park with all middle school and high school. In general, in life I have accomplish so many things that I am proud of, but this is the main one: I work so hard to pass eight grade with good grades.

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. The most challenging part of this year for me was the debates we did with Ms. Chang, because I am a very shy person and I’m a nervous person when it comes to talking in front of a crowd. If I could change one thing that happened this year, would be my language. Something that was hard for me at the start of the year but is easy now is my writing, now I can express myself easier in my writing. In an area that I feel I made my biggest improvements was in English because Ms. Chang help me to better my English. A person at our school that has made the biggest impact in my life were my friends and Ms. Chang because they help me to better myself in a good way. Something that the teacher could have done to make this year better was to go to more field trips. My advice that I could give students next year is to work harder. Don’t allow someone to make you feel like you’re not good enough. 
3. 

Ms Chang's Top Teaching Moments

The school year is finally coming to an end. And as much as I love my students and teaching, there were certainly moments of crazy frustration. But nevertheless, this has been one of my most rewarding years teaching Language Arts and Social Studies. Here are my top teaching moments in Costa Rica so far:

Entrepreneurship Project:
Ever since the inception of the project, students got so excited and competitive. I didn't fully realize the extent of the impact of this project until I read some of my students' blog entry. This proves that education is effective when meaningful experiences and connections are made. This unit helped me realize the importance of creating meaningful experiences that would 'awaken' students' strengths and talents. Below is an excerpt of a students' blog entry.

"Since I was a kid, I’ve always had talents within me that I’m starting to realize now. For example, I never knew that I could handle a business the way that I did in the entrepreneurship project. I never thought that I could finance projects and get two times the profit. I never knew that I could be a leader and enjoy making new projects and ideas. I guess I’m innovative, creative, open minded, hardworking, tough, and most importantly, I set goals to myself. Aside from these talents, I know that I need to develop new talents so that I can become an engineer or a business man. I can develop new talents that I will learn during my years of study and dedication. I think that these two careers are the ones for me, I like building and creating stuff, I like managing my own businesses, I like numbers, and many other things."  
 
An Inspector Calls:
There is nothing more rewarding for a Language Arts teacher walking into a room full of teenagers begging to read. Literally Begging. "Ms Chang, can we PLEASEEE read today." There is something magical about connecting literature to the mundane and to real-life drama, and seeing students taking pleasure in it. 

A Passion for Debate and Public Speaking:
I introduced my students to Model United Nations and the Classic Debate earlier on during the school year. Students spent weeks doing research and learning how to structure arguements and counter arguments. Some students went on to participate Model United Nations in other schools. My proudest moment was when I learned that one of my students won Top Delegate in one of the Model United Nations at one of the best schools. And one of my other proudest moment was when students asked me to practice their debating skills in my classroom during lunch time. Seeing them voluntarily discuss about Women's rights, Domestic Violence, Religion during their free time made me literally cry internal tears of joy.

All in all, I have really come to see education as a way to empower and to equip students for the future. They need to be challenged to grow, nurture skills for real-life situations and to step out of their comfort zone.

Milk and Honey

I have been lately obsessed with Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey -honest, minimalistic poetry that takes you to so many places of the heart. 

Those teaching moments

That moment when your students gather in a circle, under a tree to practice their MUN debate voluntarily while you are doing duty. "Roll Call". "Moderated caucus". "China you have the floor." "5 seconds." There is nothing more rewarding than to see their growth, enthusiasm and skills flourish so beautifully. Nothing more rewarding than to see them happy and growing.

Bucket List

The places I want to go:

• Islamic China
• Tibetan China
• Yunnan (China)
• Vietnam
• Thailand
• Malaysia
• India
• Pakistan
• Nepal
• Myanmar
• Eastern Europe (the Baltic countries)
• Greece
• Croatia
• Scotland (the Highlands)
• Argentina
• Chile
• Mexico (again)
• Morocco
• Canary Islands
• Portugal
• Spain (Andalucia region)
• France (Provence)

Life lately

It's crazy to think that it's been almost one year since I moved to Costa Rica! Here are some pictures chronicling my life lately:

I love the climate in Costa Rica!

My students on Twin day

My lovely students

Officially part of the IB team! I will be teaching TOK for the IB Programme.

One of my close friends got married recently. I am thankful that I got to be one of her bridesmaids

Sketches

The smell of tumeric, curry, anise and dried shitake impregnate the small room at the back of the restaurant. The shelf, an aglomorated collection of relics from my parents travels around the world -jasmine tea, canned mackarell, ferrero rochers, satey sauce...you name it, we even have that dried fuzzy mushroom they put in soups -stands next to me as I catch the last rays of sunshine in the late afternoon, my favourite time of the day.

As I have grown older,  I have realized that we sell more than Chao Mein or Chop Suey; we sell the idea of China, the Far East, the Exotic, the Mystique to the people in El Salvador. And people buy that. They often ask: "Do you speak the language?" "Have you been to China?" or even more funnily, "Are you a Korean Chinese?" "What's the difference between Taiwan and China?" People often approach out of friendliness for some small talk. But I have often realized how little do I know about China, or what it means to be Chinese. Yes, I do speak the language, I do know the core values of honouring family and hard work. But I also eat Pupusas with my hands, speak in Salvadorean Caliche and laugh in Spanish with hand gestures and all (yes, there is a difference between hahaha and jajaja).

There are elements of the Chinese culture that still baffles me to this day. Why do we not openly talk about our feelings? Why do they talk about their children's salaries in their get-togethers? Why do Chinese families adhere to strict patriarchal structures that are rarely questioned?

Maybe some children of Chinese Immigrants might relate.

As I continue to ask questions (as I always do), I have been drawn to reading more about China and its culture. I have been reading Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart,  a fascinating book by a Russian author about China's indigenous groups. Goullart describes with much detail about the Mosuo -an ethnic group near Lujiang with a matriarchal system that allows women to run the family and have walking marriages, meaning the men only come home to spend the night with his women and leave in the morning. How fascinating! There is zero to none marital problems, since husband and wife do not live together. Children are raised under the mother's home with the help of uncles and male members of the family. Women own the land that is passed down to their daughters.

And this leads me to this thought. We are born into a pre-established system with the purpose of maintaining the status quo. This status quo is what have helped to maintain order for that social group for a long period of time. The problem lies when the 'system' starts to clash with the changes that modern times inevitably bring to the newer generation, such as gender roles, communication styles, expectations, different values and so on. My theory is that there is a breaking point; when the new generation establishes a new status quo, forms its own system, their offsprings are born into it and voilà, the cycle starts again.

Conversations

While students are working in their speeches during Language Arts class

"Ms Chang, have you ever been in love?"
"Yes, I have."
"How do you know when you are in love?"
"When all you want is to make the other person happy."
"How do you know if the person is right for you?"
"When the other person makes you a better person."

So simple yet so true.

Realization

It never ocurred to me, but some people are no longer in my life because they were not right for me and simply, we were not meant to be.

This applies to ex "friends", ex-boyfriends, ex-fellow churchgoers, ex-supervisors and (ex)family members.

It's a way of the universe's doing to kick toxicity out of my life and invite me to dance freely (and bravely) again. 

It's easier to let go this way and embrace growth.

#healing #late20s

Quote of the moment:













----Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time

nightly musings

[While the music of the night plays]

Some things are not worth remembering.
Worth forgetting.
Worth leaving behind. Forever.

Yet there are memories,
That keeps me alive during the darkest hours of the night.
You were the Summer of my life.
Alive and brilliant.
Tender and intelligent.
Loving and patient.

My True Brother. My Best Friend.

Cambridge, here I go!

Letter of acceptance to Cambridge Summer School--two weeks of studying literature and exploring England.

It will be a wonderful Summer. 

Ms Chang

The Love Song of Har Dyal

Can a man stand upright in the face of the naked Sun;
or a Lover in the Presence of his Beloved?
If my feet fail me, O Heart of my Heart,
am I to blame, being blinded by the glimpse of your beauty?
Alas! alas! Can the Moon tell the Lotus of her love when the
Gate of Heaven is shut and the clouds gather for the rains?
They have taken my Beloved, and driven her with the pack-horses
to the North.
There are iron chains on the feet that were set on my heart.
Call to the bowman to make ready —

Life is a series of adventures

Costa Rica is pura vida!

Pictures of White River Rafting with my colleagues. What a fun weekend. 
 

Entrepreneurship

My students have been working on an entrepreneur project for the past few months. Basically, they have been working in teams of 4-5 in order to create their own company and products, and sell it to the school community. The students have been reaping nuggets of learning - they have learned how to work better in teams and learned more about entrepreneurship. My ultimate goal was to expand their vision and help them see the benefits of entrepreneurship.

I asked my students to write a reflection about their experience. Below is one of their reflections. I shedded internal tears of joy when I read that "women can be creating their own businesses so they don't have to rely on men anymore and people." #empowerment #education

"Creating your own business is an interesting and complicated experience but there are many benefits to it and it’s definitely worth it. The first benefit is that you get to make your own decisions instead of just following someone’s rules. You win respect of all your employees depending on the kind of boss you are instead of always trying to be respectful to a person of higher authority that’s intimidating. And finally, if your company becomes successful after all the hard work, you become known and powerful. I really liked the experience of creating our company from scratch because we learned and improved so many things that we need in life like team work, responsibility, tolerance and learning how to accept other members’ opinions. We had to come up with an idea that would sell a lot so we could donate one third of the money to charity and I believe we did a good job. The idea of just having a company thrilled me, I wanted people to love our products so I did everything I could to make this company the best one. The things that I didn’t like about this experience are a few, it was a little hard working with my coworkers because we had different opinions and we argued about them, and also sometimes they were lazy and didn’t want to work. Entrepreneurship is a big part of Costa Rica, we make a lot of money by it and it definitely needs to continue growing. This needs to happen because we would be making Costa Rica more known and respected and we would also be giving many people a job. Some entrepreneur opportunities in Costa Rica is that women can be creating their own businesses so they don’t have to rely on men anymore and people can also be expanding different areas like tourism."

Christ in me

The more I love my students,
In spite of their brokeness, mishaps and whatnots,
The more I feel that Christ forms in me.
It's like fibres of being binded with chords of love resonate within
Everytime I whisper prayers and good thoughts for their day.
I hear the Spirit groan and yearn so dearly for them.

Unsurpassing Peace

I am so thankful for moving to Costa Rica.

It's the first time in my life that I have experienced so much peace in my heart.

So much peace.

Pure Magic

Celebrating the first day of 2017 in Niagara Falls with the mother.

What a wonderful day.