updates before a new trimester of teaching

Sorry to those who have visited this blog again and again but to find that it is quite dormant. Routine in life is what makes blogging lose its excitement. These is no new reflection, inspiration nor dream, nor any stirring in the heart substantial enough to record it in a blog. Meeting the daily requirements of teaching, or work in the college is enough to keep one fully occupied. But I own it to readers to make a report at this juncture when a new school term is about to begin tomorrow.

It is not to say that nothing was accomplished the last trimester. By God's grace the student feedback for the two courses I taught came back very positively-- close to full marks on the scale of five. I can only say that the effort put in has been appreciated, and the assessors have been gracious. It is by God's grace that lessons turned out well, though the preparation had been very hectic and not all the time fully satisfactory to myself because of  time constraints. So God is able to transform the five loaves and two fishes we have to feed the multitudes. The marking week towards the end of the term in the first and second weeks of April saw me going laboriously through students' essays and reflection papers. The process reminded me of how much I had learnt to be critical in my PhD studies--thanks to my supervisor who had littered my essays with exclamation marks and questions marks at the initial stage of study. I see again the pitfalls of illogical arguments, poorly delimited topics, unfocussed discussions, vague statements that perhaps the writer didn't even understand properly, etc. Reading such papers is a constant process of exasperation, littered with internal exclamations that find voice once in a while in sighs and urghs. While reflecting on how well I write papers today, I can say I have improved tremendously to be self-critical but yet I still hope to be more aware of blind spots that I may have. This perhaps is the key to getting anything published in a peer-reviewed journal. Some distance to one's ideas is necessary for one to be self-critical.

It is now the beginning of a new trimester of lessons. It is again, as in the beginning of the last trimester of teaching, a whole new journey into the subject matter of the courses I decide to teach (The World of the Church Fathers and Exegesis of the Pauline Concept of Salvation). The end result, hopefully, would be a fruitful exercise into the matter to be researched and discussed in class. If curiosity to ask questions about the subject matter dies in the process of lesson preparation (one can indeed become a machine churning lecture notes), then teaching would lose its excitement and the job its meaning! The other challenge is how one can convey the insights gained from lesson preparation so that students can also be drawn into the subject matter, and be excited and sympathetic to what is being taught.

In the past month or so, I have the chance to meet with two PhD graduates my path crossed when we were in Edinburgh. One has now become my colleague--having met him a few years back in the Chinese church there and at a conference in St Andrews. I must say the faculty in the School of Divinity English in the college where I am working is indeed gaining much strength in past year! The other who shares memories of Edinburgh days -- a member of our informal THECE group -- passed by Singapore for an interview and intensive teaching at another college. We had the chance to meet, with some other Edinburgh graduates and talk about insider perspectives concerning life here. My master supervisor also visited Singapore for half a year to teach, and there were pockets of time for us to have meaningful fellowship and conversations. I also kept somewhat in touch with an emeritus professor in Groningen by phone who had been very kind to me during and after my PhD studies. I hope he is doing well.

I am still waiting for an editor to reply about a thesis manuscript I sent for consideration, and if he is hopeful that what I have there can be (re)expressed suitably for a book format, then I would indeed be very privileged. It sometimes takes some intuitiveness to spot a talent--I am not saying I am one :), though some level of self confidence is healthy--and it takes a leap of faith to allow room for improvement so that perfection can emerge!