Junior Girls Volleyball

So before you begin reading this article, I thought you should just know that this is not a recap of our tournament results over the weekend.  Also, there will be a stronger focus on my team, the junior girls.  A full recap of the boys and girls results can be found here:

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/tis/19/tpod.html

Overall, I must give credit to both the teams for putting in a tremendous effort in their first year of volleyball competition.  It takes a lot to just pick up a medal performance and these students certainly put their best foot forward to claim the honours that they received this weekend.  There are certainly a ton of proud supporters of our Tigers and every last one of us couldn't be prouder of the effort put forth by both teams.

Outside of the matches themselves, I really enjoyed letting my guard down a little for these students.  They are all fantastic young individuals and I loved getting the opportunity to share and learn about who they are.  I know likewise that the students really loved the opportunity get to really know their teacher/coaches as real people.  A trip with students are always filled with adventure and the adventures I had with these students on my first trip will honestly stay with me for as long as I'm alive.

Let me first say that I am overwhelmingly proud of my girls.  I am not basing this statement on our performance alone but on the experiences we have faced this past weekend.  Right from the start our girls demonstrated remarkable aspects of their personalities.  The girls established an immediate bond with the teams from Hong Kong Academy (HKA) and this friendship blossomed to unimagined heights over the span of 4 days.  By the time of our gold medal game against Xiamen International School (XIS) started, the HKA team were cheering louder for us than our own boys team and had come up with cheers for OUR team!  While TIS and HKA faced off twice during the tournament and were competitors in the tournament, I thought it was a beautiful thing to see such a degree of respect that both schools' players showed for each other.  When the teams parted ways earlier today, it was a drawn out and emotional affair; which showcased an amazing aspect of sports. 

A tournament really doesn't allow for a lot of time to absorb, process, and reflect upon the results of previous performances.  So, when through half a day of competition, we were 3-0 and assured a 1st vs 2nd playoff game, the girls were ecstatic with the results.  What really helped build character for this team was a consistent need to perform under pressure.  There really were no easy games (we only had 1 straight sets win) and the girls showed a degree of determination that I would never have expected at the beginning of the season.   They were excited and sometimes sloppy with their play, but when it mattered most, every player on the team stepped up to deliver for their team.  This attitude and determination is not something that you can teach but something that builds from the interactions between each of the player and the coaches.

The final day of competition exposed our team and myself so many important life lessons.  In our semifinal game, my heart was beating so intensely I thought that my ribs would start to crack.  Coaching an elimination game presents a unique level of stress.  As a sports fan, you are allowed and even encouraged to showcase a full degree of emotions for the performance of your team.  As a player there are certainly nerves and emotions but you have control of the outcome of the game.  As a coach though, you have no direct influence on a match but the stress and emotions still bare down on you while you are expected to maintain a certain level of composure.  I wanted my girls to win so incredibly badly, yet still had to do my job to ensure that they could fulfill that result.

A cynic would tell you that, sports are just fun and games meant to entertain.  I beg to differ.  Our tournament started with excitement but in the immediate aftermath of our finals loss, there was a definite sense of emotional pain.  There were no dry eyes in the team huddle after the game.  You could taste how incredibly badly the girls wanted the win.  Before the game I told the girls to pour everything they had onto the court and leave nothing behind that they would regret and at the end, I knew without a doubt that every one of them had.  But to put so much work yet falling just short of their goal is a gut-wrenching feeling that cannot be described but only experienced.

Yesterday was one of the most bittersweet days of my life.   For me this tournament reaffirmed why I love sports.  Yes we didn't win gold, but every last player on that team put in a titanic effort and hopefully woke up today feeling nothing but pride for their effort.  Yet I'm sure the bitter taste of disappointment will linger for the girls.  However, the beautiful thing is that bitter taste will provide the returning girls a drive that will push them to work and compete that much harder for next year.  Beyond that, the girls have definitely gained an invaluable life lessons on the topic of determination, trust, and hard work.

It is not a stretch to tell you that a group of teenage girls inspired me over the span of this weekend.  Again, words alone are not enough to describe how overwhelmingly proud I am of how far these girls have come in the development of not only their skills but their character in the span of 4 months.  Yesterday, my girls didn't lose gold, they won silver.  In the end, it was never about the result but rather it was culmination of an incredible chapter of the development of their identity.  I'm sure however, my girls will tell you that this story has not yet reached a proper conclusion.

A weekend filled with nervousness, excitement, pain, tears, and smiles.  These girls taught me some important life lessons.

Trips To Taiwan

So for those of you who don't already know, I have not 1 but 2 upcoming trips to Taiwan within the span of a month, starting with one this upcoming weekend.  Both trips are school-related, but regardless it is still going to be a really neat experience.

The first of the 2 trips will be to Taichung, Taiwan to take the junior girls volleyball team to their end of season volleyball tournament.  It is kind of a funny system of school sports games here at an international school where instead of a regular season and playoff games spread throughout the year, we instead have a single big tournament at the end of the season with the possibility for smaller tournaments throughout the year.  This is actually the first year TIS has had a volleyball team at any level and so it is definitely a really exciting experience.  The teams (both junior teams will play in Taiwan next week) have been practicing for a good 4 months and the anticipation and nervous energy is steadily building throughout the past weeks.

The hype level really ramped up a notch the last week as we had a pep rally for the players of both teams and the players got their first taste of a real game through a mini-tournament TIS hosted for the local schools.  For the pep rally, I had been taking sports posteresque photos of each player, and putting together a "meet the team" video for that pep rally.  There was definitely some trepidation amongst the players as they've not had this kind of attention thrown upon them likely ever before, but overall the other students really got behind them and the presentation was really well executed. 

TIS managed to pull together a set of informal games with other local Macau schools this past weekend for both the junior teams.  For all of our players, it was the first time they had ever played a real volleyball match and it really did serve as a good learning experience for our big tournament in Taiwan.  The local schools are all pretty talented but our girls team did manage to stretch out a set point in one of the games and battled tough in all 3 games despite some pretty frigid conditions and the fact that was were missing our team captain and starting setter for the day.  The boys similarly did really well and even managed to pull out a few set wins.  Overall, the mini-tournament served as a barometer of what needs improving and a chance for players to get a small taste of what to expect in Taiwan.

To follow with up-to-date information about our tournament in Taiwan check our the TIS volleyball travel blog at:

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/tis/19/tpod.html

You can also check out:

http://forum.tis.edu.mo/sports/?p=987

The pep rally video photos at the end were single-handed shot, edited, and put together by yours truly.  A TON of work for 6ish minutes of run-time but really fulfilling and worthwhile nonetheless. 

As for my other trip to Taiwan, that will be for the grade 7 experience week trip.  If you don't already know, our experience week is a week long educational field trip to help student define their global identity through exploration of difference cultures and assisting in social welfare projects.  Currently we are in the stages of sorting out visas and other important travel documents with the students.  It is a bit of a headache sorting out who's handed in what, especially since the consequences of any bookkeeping errors could result in students being stranded at the Taiwan border!  I expect experience week to be an exhausting but enjoyable trip.  Regardless the specific outcome, this ought to be a very good learning experience for me, as next year I will be the trip organizer for the grade 7 experience week trip... yikes!


Well that's it for now.  I'll leave you with our junior girls volleyball team poster, the rest of pictures are in the slideshow.  Make sure to check out those links above during the coming weekend, they should be updated frequently.

The New Year

Hi All,

Well it certainly has been a while since my last blog update.  The pace of life seemed to have picked up immediately upon my return back to Macau after Christmas break.  It was a little strange to have another full week off for Chinese New Year after just 3 weeks back from the previous break, but that is hardly a complaint. 

The Chinese New Year break was actually quite relaxing.  I didn't end up going anywhere in particular but decided on a "staycation" as we call it here.  There was still plenty to do as there were Chinese New Year's festivities going on each day of the week.  I managed to head to various locations around Macau to check out the performances, street festivals, and fireworks that marked the arrival of the Year of the Dragon, which just so happens to be my Chinese zodiac symbol as well.  Managed to make a few trips up to the peninsula side of Macau and be a part of the crowd at a few of the big touristy places.  I'll let the pictures with my new 50mm lens tell the rest of the Chinese New Year story.

Even at the school, Chinese New Year was a big deal.  We had essentially one full day off classes to watch first the elementary then secondary students in their Chinese studies class performances.  The young ones were super adorable and the performances from the older students were quite entertaining.  All the festive spirit really made it feel like the Far East's version of Christmas.

Following up on my earlier point of the pace of life picking up, it seems wild that we're already starting to plan for the end of the year and new things next year at the school.  Talks about hired teachers for next year, the school building project, the expanded athletics program for next year, and the start of the 2nd half of the school year puts into perspective the progress that has already been made this year.  At the school, 2nd term report cards have just been distributed and all secondary school students are now in there 2nd term classes, although as I teach 2 core subjects, there is no difference in my schedule at all. 

The classes themselves have been progressing as they have all year but despite that, I've found that as the year progresses I'm developing better and better strategies for dealing with classroom management and academic performance issues.  Although there is still a ton of things to look forward to this year, I already can't wait for next year as there are so many new teaching techniques and classroom implementations I want to try out.  At our school, there seems to be a stronger teacher-student connection than anything I've experienced at other schools before as a student or teacher.  I find that getting to know the students personally really does help me help them overcome personal obstacles.

Well that's the short and sweet of what's been going on here the last few weeks.  I'm definitely thinking of throwing together another blog post really soon updating you on specifically on the happenings with my 2 trips to Taiwan.  Until then enjoy the photos.  

Zodiac animal mascots

Lion Dance!

Big fluffy lions

Dragon

Year of the Dragon

New Year's wouldn't be New Year's without fireworks

Shooting with a 50mm

Hi All,

Things are settling in nicely again here in Macau.  This however isn't a regular blog update to recap what I've been up to the last few weeks.  This post is solely centred around the new Sigma 50mm lens I got for my SLR camera.  I've always wanted a "50mm" and having worked with one earlier in the year with a school camera, I decided that I had to eventually buy one.  I've literally JUST got back from the store and on the way home I stopped by the downtown "heart" of Macau and took a few pictures at Senado Square.  These are just very "rough shots" but you can see that with no effort at all on my part (other than to open up the aperture to f/2ish... sorry for the technical speak) I was able to take some really nice shots.

Just so you know I'll do another post prior to the end of the week to update you on life in Macau the last few weeks and post some Chinese New Year pictures from around Macau.  Enjoy the photos!  I apologize in advance for the geek speak and awful photo layout, I'm too lazy to battle with the formatting and captioning options. 

Let me introduce you to the Sigma 50mm F1.4 D beast.  It actually weighs a ton too, probably cause of the metal construction and the fact that it has a whooping 9 shutter blades.  She's a thing of beauty. #imageek

Chinese New Year Decorations Set Up at Senado Square

Sharp as a knife

The Grand Lisboa in the distance

European church architecture

Firecrackers galore

Festive colours

Senado Square

The only disadvantage of this lens seems is the lack of any zoom capabilities.

Delicious!

Look at that bokeh (background blur).  F1.6 right here I believe.

A Time to Appreciate

Hello again and Happy 2012!  Things are settling in once more here in Macau with the school having started up again and things falling back into a routine.  I just wanted to let everyone know that I am indeed back safe and sound and back to helping students learn.  I wanted to again thank everyone back home (even the people I didn't see during the Christmas break) and tell you that I'm very thankful to have your unending wonderful support.  While teaching abroad has been an amazing experience so far, coming home made me realize the value even more the little time I have with friends and family back home.

Well that's all I have to say for this post.  It's really just a big thank you to the people I care about.  I leave you now with some photos I've taken during (and a little bit before and after) the Christmas break.

Andrew came to visit Macau.  Good times.

 Hand on Fire!  Science Rocks!

The Teaching Must Go On

Hi All,

Days have stretches into weeks and now weeks into months.  I've only realized how close it is until Christmas and a trip back to Canada.  I'm really interested to find out how I'll handle going back home.  Now that everything has settled into a routine, there is a funny sense of limbo.  A few weeks back I had a conversation with a friend from home (also a beginning teacher) and we marveled at the fact that we were finally "real people" making real contributions to the greater world now.  Yet there are still times when I wonder how exactly I got here.

Life at school has eased up considerably since report cards were done with.  Granted the life of a first year teacher can never really be considered easy, things now do seems more manageable than a few weeks before.  With the handing out of report cards, comes parent-teacher interviews.  I'll admit that I felt a bit of apprehension because I wanted to convey myself professionally to the parents and not have any angry confrontations.  For the most part I had very co-operative parents that just wanted to know about how to get their kids to do better in my class.  The interviews themselves ran from Thursday after school until evening and Friday morning as well (day off school for the students).  Thursday evening was exceptionally busy for me.  I talked straight from 3:30 until 6pm and just barely managed to duck away for dinner.  Friday morning was definitely a good deal less busy but still did manage to meet with a lot of parents.  Over the span of the 2 sessions, I probably talked to at least 30 students parents.  Quite the novel experience and for better or worse there will be a few more of these in the future.

A couple of other blog worthy school activities to mention include a middle school dance for the students.  The dance was 80's themed and despite the fact that I am the youngest member of the TIS staff, having a dance based in the decade I was born in along with the fact that the students have a very poor understanding of the music and culture of the 80's made me feel really old.  Preteen/teenager awkwardness aside, the dance was a big success.  The students really seemed to enjoy it and I definitely enjoyed chaperoning it by interacting with the kids in a less formal situation and partaking in a small bit of dancing myself.  Truth be told, I really wanted to dance but had to tone it down for the sake of professionalism... also didn't want to outshine the kids either.  With regards to other extra-curricular duties, the tennis season has now come to an end and I've started to help out with junior girls volleyball now.  I thought I'd only really be there to lend a hand but apparently I've taken on enough responsibilities that I was told that I would be expected to go to Taiwan with the team.  If you've been keeping count, that means I'll be going to Taiwan twice in the span of a month.  The final roster does have a few of my grade 7 girls, and seeing their excitement moments after making the team is definitely put a big smile on my face.

There's definitely much more happening at the school than I'm letting on but I could bore you to tears with every little thing that happens here.  Outside of school, I've had a chance to visit Macau a little bit more since the end of report cards and interviews.  A few weekend back, I made a trip across the border to "mainland China" to visit the adjoining town called Zhuhai.  While Macau technically is part of China, going to Zhuhai felt like going into a new country.  For one, I had to cross the border to get there and back (I've never crossed border between 2 "countries" in such a short duration, nor walked between 2 "countries" before), the second was that I had to fetch some Chinese RMB currency, third being the fact that traffic orientation was back to the old familiar of North America, and finally that I was hearing a bunch more Mandarin than I was used to in Macau.  My day in Zhuhai, which was spent with another teacher from TIS,  involved walking about the busy downtown streets and partaking delicious food, and trying out a massage for the first time.  I'll be honest, massages really aren't my thing; I don't mind being pampered a bit, but I'm still too young to really NEED a massage.  Unfortunately I didn't bring a camera with me to Zhuhai but I will absolutely be going back to Zhuhai in the not too distant future to do some more exploring, and perhaps grab some "unofficial" movies or tv show dvds and get myself a cheap haircut (apparently there no such thing as a cheap haircut in Macau).

I'll mention quickly that I also went up to Macau, to places like Red Market, and Macau Tower a few times during the past weeks as well.  There was the annual food festival up there a few weeks ago and I actually went twice!  Some of the other teachers started to drop off their food coupons from the food festival with me so I couldn't just let those go to waste.  While I was up at Red Market, where you can get tailored suits for unheard of prices by Canadian standards, I also got a good Mandarin workout by haggling the price of a purchase for another teacher at TIS and her friend from Canada.  For the food festival I did remember to pack my camera and a few of the pictures can be seen below.

Well, this will probably be my last entry before actually being back in Canada again for a bit.  I'm definitely looking forward to seeing some familiar faces again and sharing some more stories in person.  I also want to apologize for rarity of my posts of recent.  Perhaps in the future I may change the format of my posts to more frequent smaller posts about little happenings through the week worth mentioning and longer posts when there is something actually worth talking about.  Hopefully I will see you all soon during the Christmas break. 

Hitting Culture Back Moments: I'm actually be relied on to speak Chinese on behalf of some other Canadian teachers quite frequently of recent.  This definitely helps me feel not completely incompetent with my language skills.  I even managed to conduct one whole interview with a parent entirely in Mandarin.  I can hold my head high, for a little while at least.

The Life of A Teacher Moment: It was suppose to be a (relatively) early exit from school today but I just so happened to run into one my students at the end of the day today.  This student just so happens to be one of my at-risk students both academically and behaviourally.  One thing leads to another and before I know it, he's helping me decorate my classroom for Christmas, which is followed up a quick trip to the gym to shoot some hoops, and finally sitting down to some math homework while he waited for his mom to come pick him up.  This probably isn't what I suppose a typical teacher does at the end of the day, but I honestly enjoyed taking up this bit of time to really connect with this student.  

When I have nothing better to do with my time, I take pictures of flowers apparently.

Delicious nom noms for frying

Culinary delights await

The Macau Tower

Food Festival goodies!

Tasty or creepy?

Steamed treats

The Grand Lisboa in the background.

World's tallest bungy jump is found here.  That's quite the fall.

A Hard Day's Night

Hey All,

Yes it has indeed been quite some time since my last post and you'd be correct in guessing that I have been keep pretty busy here since the Fall Break which now almost seems like a distant memory.  Though the school day might officially end by 3:05, my school day stretches on quite a bit longer than that.  Usually if I can get out of school before 6pm that is a pretty big accomplishment.

You'd think that now having been in Macau for a while now, reality would have started to sink in already.  It certainly has but there are still moments I catch myself thinking it's all still a dream.  Each day is filled with so many remarkable things, whether at school or outside of it, that it doesn't seem real at times.  I try not think about how long I've been here but simply to take things as they come.  That seems almost to be the key to surviving first year teaching.  With all that goes on each day I am always trying to learn from the experiences I have.

It has been a solid 4 weeks of school after the Fall break and things have been busy during the 4 weeks.  This past week was report card week, where the general stress and anxiety level amongst the teachers was at an unprecedented high at the school.  I have first hand experience now in telling you why I always noticed as a student, that teachers seeming to be a bit worn when report card marks and comments are due.  This week was one of long evenings and tons of marking.  I've actually been pretty good about keeping my mark up to date but having to squeeze in 2 unit tests this week was not an enjoyable experience for my students or myself.  For the first time this year it seemed I wasn't the only person consistently leaving school after 5pm.  There was definitely a feeling of "we're in this together" being conveyed whether that was through conversations, or putting in a group order for coffee from the casino/hotel across the street.  I am happy to say that it is all over now and I have finished the brunt of report card business... for this term.  Only 3 more terms to go!


Outside of report card stuff, things have been pretty lively at the school.  I've had the secondary principal and head of school sit in on a few classes and that definitely made me feel like a was a student teacher again.  Thankfully those particular lessons went quite well.  The school has also thrown together a few family events, one being family community day and the other being Halloween night.  I don't really know how it got started but it seems as though I am the backup event photographer when the other teacher who knows photography is busy doing other things.  I got a chance to handle a Canon 7D, which is an incredible camera but also a bit intimidating having never used as high quality a camera as that before. 


Halloween also signaled another dress down day for the students and staff.  Showed up at school as a vampire that day (no not the Twilight type... ugh... more like Dracula) and I think the kids really appreciated it.  It was also a perfect time to do some Halloween science demos.  I first showed them the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by a catalyst reaction (otherwise known as the Elephant Toothpaste demonstration) and the students were thoroughly entertained by it.  What I didn't expect was how much they loved the second simpler demonstration where I "ate a candle".  By the end of the day, apparently every student in middle school now knew me as "that teacher who ate the candle".  I literally had some of my students running down the middle school hallway yelling "Mr. Liu ate a real candle"... hehehe.


As busy as school life has been, I've still managed to explore around a bit in my spare time.  I finally got a chance to go down to a popular black sand beach down in Coloane called Hac Sa.  Apparently the "must-do" while down at Hac Sa is to try out the Hac Sa barbeque.  I had another go with the pork chop burger and it was AMAZING!  I was actually do there twice within the span of one week.  Once we took our youth group kids for an evening on the beach.  I think they really enjoyed their time at the beach but I was exhausted by the time I got home.  A group of teacher also went to a nearby place called Norman's Pub to celebrate Canadian Thanksgivings.  Couldn't complain about the food (both quality and quantity) or the company and together we roused up a stirring rendition of O Canada.  I also had the chance to swing by Old Taipa a few times, once to catch a bit of the Festival of Lusofonia which was a celebration of the Portuguese culture here in Macau (remember Macau was a former colony of Portugal).  Unfortunately I didn't get to linger for long but it was still nice to get a small taste of an interesting bit of Macau culture.

Well that's about all I can tell you about now.  Hopefully it won't be as long a gap between this and the next post but I can't make any promises.  As before, let me leave you with some photos and a random story.

Getting Hit by Culture moment:  When I first got to Macau, the change in currency was something to get adjusted to.  1 Canadian dollar is equal is approximately 7.5 patacas or MOP.  So during the first few days, when I would eat out at restaurants, even the most simplistic meal (approximately 35 MOP) felt like a lot (which of course it wasn't).  Over my time here I've definitely gotten use to doing such things as paying for groceries with $500 MOP but I worry that once I get back to Canada, I'll look at a price tag and say to myself "$100 only?  Of course I'll buy that".
 

Flowers on a step

Deocrative wall frame in Old Taipa

If you were wondering, it still feels like a Canadian summer here right now... jealous?

The path into Old Taipa

Zoom zoom!

Narrow roads

A happening part of town

The busy side streets of Old Taipa, packed a weekend as usual.

So colourful

A long way up