Socials

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My 11 year old girl went to her first social last night, and Yes! they have it on a school night!  It lasted from 7.30 to 10 pm.  The social was held at an all boys school which invited 2 all girls school to attend at $5 per head.  It is only restricted to Years 7 and 8 students so ages may range from 10 years to 13 years old.  I was a bit apprehensive to let her go but of course, all her girlfriends are going so she wants to go!  I found out from my colleague who has a girl going to the same school that it is well supervised so I have nothing to worry about!  My reluctance was also that 11 years is too early an age to socialise with boys!

So last night I sent her and her good friend (whose parents were too busy to send her at the stated times) before 7.30pm.  All girls are told that they are not allowed to wear pants or too short skirts!  They were really excited to go and I dropped them off at the boys school.  At about 9.40pm, I went to pick them up.  I went past 2 older boys seated on guard on two chairs at the entrance.  I found out later that they were on duty preventing the younger ones from leaving the building!  Actually both my girl and her friend complained endlessly all the way home about how they were not allowed out of the stuffy hall to get some fresh air.

On the way home, it was quite amusing when my girl told me the fierce look she gave the boys so no one dared to approach her while her friend had 3 requests to dance with boys but she said,"No!"  I laughed at them and told them they should have let the poor boys down softly like, "No, thank you."  Then they chatted about whether they would dance with the boys next year!

It finally dawned on me that the girls wanted to go more out of curiosity rather than to meet up boys!  They were also anxious to meet up with their ex-classmates who went on to the other girls' school!  They had practically no interest in the boys at all!  Phew!!  Hope this continues for a few more years...........

Well, this is the New Zealand way of life for the young school children, socials, that is, but usually well chaperoned by parents and teachers, too!

Teenagers' Faith in God

My parish - St. Joseph's Cathedral in Dunedin, New Zealand

My daughter has just participated in her first full Easter celebrations by altar serving in the Wednesday's Chrism mass, the Good Friday's mass and Easter Sunday today.  She is always eager to serve as I think it is a novelty for the children her age.  These days the altar servers are between 10 and 13 years old as the teenagers probably see it as not cool to be an altar server once they get older.  Also, the number of teenagers going to church with their parents has dwindled through the years.

This is one of the laments of the church and almost every religious education teacher you talk to.  A lot of teenagers would rebel and frankly tell their teachers how they hated their RE classes and as they grow older they always try all sorts of ways to escape these classes including truancy!  The church is very aware how they loose a lot of teenagers as they struggle with all the problems of growing up into adults.  Then when they start to have families, some will come back to the church if they want their children to grow up having God and embracing God in their lives.  

Here in New Zealand, all Catholic schools and also Christian schools are all integrated in that the school buildings belong to the church but the teachers' salaries are paid by the government.  Because of these reasons, only 5% of the students can be other than preferred students in that one parent or even grandparent in some cases is Catholic.  International students are not in the head count as they pay full fees and thus no connection with the ministry of education.

No one seems to know the solution to get teenagers to be interested in their faith and I guess it is always easy to blame God when things are against you and then drift away as they cannot reason as 'where is God when bad things happen to them!'

I know all I can do is pray for my students in that they will accept God and have faith in Him!

Teenage Freedom

In New Zealand, the 'freedom' age is 16 years old.  They are allowed to leave school or home and parents have not much control over that as the law allows them to do so.  Most school principals would also try to get rid of challenging students once they reach 16!  

When I first started teaching in here, one of the hardest thing for me was to keep anything a student tells you in confidence as secret.  We only passed information on if we think what they tell us may endanger their lives.  Otherwise it is zipped up!  I really feel sorry for parents who are in the dark about the actions of their children because once they reach 16, we cannot pass on any info if our students say their parents do not know what they are doing.  The NZ privacy law really should not in my opinion be for young people until at least they are 18 or 21 years old!  And they wonder why the teenage suicide rate is one of the highest in the industrialized nations.

Most of my fellow teachers would agree with me that we really do not want to know their students' private lives especially their sex lives but sometimes students are very open and they would tell all and sundry what is going on with their lives or their friends' lives.  Once you know, you are somehow obliged if something happens sometime in the future.   So I would rather not know if my integrity is at stake.  But somehow it will not happen that way because to get your students' respect, you have to bond with them and that would mean you have to share your life and they will share theirs with you and some have quite miserable backgrounds, too.

In the long run I always console myself with the successful students who have left school and lead good and useful lives rather than think about the number of funerals I have attended since coming to New Zealand.....

Easter Celebrations

courtesy of wikimedia.org

As we are in the Holy Week, we have been busy with my daughter taking part in altar serving for the Chrism Mass and also for Good Friday.  As we approach Easter, stores are offering Easter eggs galore as well as bunnies, too.  However, from the Catholic point of view, eggs signify new birth and thus we are not allowed to eat any until Easter Sunday.  Also our Director of Religious Studies always stressed to all of us teachers that we are NOT ALLOWED to give out Easter eggs until next week when school starts back on Wednesday!  Here in New Zealand, we get a 5 day Easter break starting from Good Friday.

I just learnt recently this past Tuesday also known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday, a tradition when all pantries are cleared in preparation for fasting on Good Friday so leftover flour are made into pancakes and there were lots of pancake tossing competition in many parts of the Western world.  It is quite a sight seeing priests take part in pancake tossing and running competition and some parts of the world it is done inside churches and cathedrals, too!

There is a current fight in New Zealand between retailers and church organizations on Easter working days.  Only retailers associated with the tourist industries are allowed to open and restaurants and fast food places can open but some charge extra to cover the wage cost over opening on public holidays.  

Here's wishing all you fellow bloggers a very Happy and Blessed Easter 2008!  It will be another 152 years before we have Easter this early in the year again!

Gold Price Yesterday - $1000

The  largest gold nugget found at Moliagul, Victoria, Australia in 1869 was called the "Welcome Stranger" weighing in at 72.04 kg : above picture was a piece of 210 lb which was broken into 3 pieces so that they could be weighed. (source)

Gold bars (source)

Gold nugget (source)

Today I was teaching my 15 - 16 year olds about density and we calculated the density of gold and I thought I'll drop in the price of gold per oz.  We only teach the metric system in New Zealand so almost all the students have no idea about the Imperial system.  So it was a good place to slip in some conversion to them.

So I told them that the gold price was $US1000 per oz yesterday.  Then I told them that 16 oz make 1 lb and that 2.2 lb make 1 kg.  So what does 1kg of gold cost?  To my pleasant surprise the naughtiest boy in class actually calculated in his head and told me that 1 lb of gold cost $16000.  Then I asked him how about 1 kg?  He estimated and told me about $34000.  Another student calculated on his calculator  and showed me the answer at $35200.  And I told them that is how much a 1kg gold bar is worth now.  We then went on to discuss about money based on gold reserves and how Asians like to buy gold as investment.  It was quite fun for me as I got to share my work experience with them on the days when I was exploring for gold.  

One student also asked me what is the biggest nugget ever found so which made me decided to look up so see above picture.   The biggest nugget I have ever seen and touched was in Kalimantan, Indonesia in a gold smith shop which was over 200g (cannot remember exactly how much as it was about 20 years ago!).  Even then I can just imagine the gold miner who found it in the river when he or she saw it!  Must have been ecstatic!  

Curry Puff - part 2.

 

  Using the side of your thumb, fold and press down.

    All brushed with egg and ready to go into the oven.

I cannot get all my pics on a single post so hence the continuity.....

Pastry

1.  Roll out the pastry and using a round mould cut up round pieces.

2.  Put the filling into the centre and fold into half.  Press the dough together until they are blended or they will open up in baking and leak out.

3.  Using the side of your thumb, fold in and press firmly to get the traditional curry puff pattern.

4.  Another option is put in a little pie tin.

5.  Brush with beaten egg to give it a nice shine.

6.  Bake according to the frozen pastry recommended temperature.  Remove when curry puffs are a little brown.  Serve warm.

Hope this will satisfy fans of my curry puffs!  ENJOY!

Curry Puffs - Yummy!

 The main ingredients:  mince beef, diced potatoes, diced onions, frozen savoury pastry and curry powder

Cooked curry beef with potatoes and onions

As a busy single mother, I opted for frozen pastry as they are handy and saves me time from making the dough up, too.

Ingredients for Filling:

 350 g of minced beef

  2 medium to small potatoes - diced

  1 small onion - diced

  2 tablespoon curry powder

  1 tablespoon tomato ketchup  (optional)

  1 teaspoon sugar

  salt to own taste ( some like it more saltier than others - potatoes absorb salt, too)

  2 tablespoon cooking oil

1.  Heat the oil and fry the onions for a minute.

2.  Add in the mince beef and curry powder and  ketchup and fry until the meat is cooked.

3.  Add in the potatoes and fry for another 3 - 4 minutes.

4.  Then add in the salt and sugar a minute before you turn off the heat.

Set filling aside to cool and start rolling out the dough.

Continue with next post!

Cake decorating

I have close to nil skills in cake decorating but my daughter's school have their annual fund raising fair today and she wanted to take part in the cake decorating competition.  This is her first year at the intermediate and high school so we do not know the standards.  Although she did not win anything, I thought her idea of joining the mini marshmellows was quite creative so I told her I'd put it in my blog.  We were lucky to get the mini Easter eggs, too.  

The competition was tough and there were some good looking cakes but a lot of them were just sugar overload!  Nice to look at but probably a nightmare to parents with young children!  My girl's was okay as marshmellow has less sugar and fat!  There was a silent auction afterwards and I bet most parents just buy their own cakes!  I did not as we are not big cake eaters so it was fun to watch as there were a few bidders and the last bid for my girl's cake was only $4.50!

It was about the cost of the pre-mix cake I bought!  Yes, I cheated and could not be bothered about baking a cake from scratch!  I make muffins from scratch though! 

Memorable minute from the past

Whenever I look at this photo, it always bring back wonderful memories of my encounter with these two enterprising young girls in Vietnam.  They told us they had finished school for the day and they sell postcards to make some pocket money and at the same time improve on their English.  They were always smiling and we had a good time chatting with them as they did not really push us to buy the postcards but rather enjoyed talking to us so much so that we felt obliged to give them some business in the end.  They were a breathe of fresh air after the few times that we were surrounded by beggars in a some of the places we stopped.

Children who do without

One of the positive things I like about New Zealand is that there are no orphanages or institutions for children left on their own for personal or tragic circumstances.  All children are fostered out to families who want to take up the challenge of loving these children.  Even in schools we are always reminded of children who are living with caregivers and not their own parents.

When I visited Vietnam in the mid- 90s with my friends, we came across this little boy who was left at the monastery.  Unlike the other boys at the monastery who were entertained by our tour guide, he refused to socialize with us but we managed to take this side picture of him (see above photo) and looking at his photo again reminds me of how some children are so lucky in life while others go through life with minimum everything.........

Another Baby Miracle!

As I had mentioned in my old post, I always pray for my friends who wanted to have babies but encountered a lot of challenges along the way.  And my close friend Betty and her husband Michael are no different.  They have been trying for years and had lots of disappointed but God have finally granted them twins, a boy and a girl!  Wow!  Above is the photo of the happy parents with their bundles of joy!  CONGRATS to both of you Betty and Michael and may God shower you blessings with your journey as parents!  Finally!