Arabic class continues well. I am finding this class is suiting me quite well: vocabulary seems to be a heavy emphasis, which is what I need, and the level it is pitched at seems more to my capabilities. I found Level 2 at the other place seemed to be too big a leap for me from Levels 1A and 1B: this course seems to be at my level, so I do not feel as out of my depth as I did previously. I did say "new" [ja-deed] instead of "good" [jay-id] Tuesday night, which did cause a bit of confusion when as I was responding to the teacher saying something had rules and was therefore easy to follow -- which caused a fair bit of laughter. That is one of the things I most love about language classes: they are fun. People make mistakes, and people do laugh: not at them in a cruel sense [at least I hope never to encounter that!], but because you can understand -- and sometimes the errors can be rather amusing.
We also have a great class, and a great teacher, so laughter is never far away. Two new people came to the class Tuesday, after being away for the first two weeks, and it was great to talk to them and get to know a bit about them.
Today we had a work course at the Bowden Centre in the wonderful Mt Annan Botanic Gardens. While the whole day was interesting, the afternoon session on communication I found particularly so. Practical involvement was required, though many said "No" which is fine: it ranged from reading radio advertisements to theatre sports to us talking about ourselves. In terms of theatre sports, I will say I tried to indicate sex by various actions: I will leave it to your imagination to work out how I may have done this -- suffice it to say there was a bit of laughter.
But the session where we had to talk about ourselves I found particularly fascinating. We came up with a series of unique questions for everyone one-by-one, and they talked about themselves so we could practice communication. Listening to people talk about themselves, and everything ranging from their family to their hobbies to where they came from to their fears to their most outrageous action was simply wonderful: especially as we are a company in three locations so there are many people I would generally not meet from day-to-day. And each person had something truly fascinating, or truly moving, to share. It was wondrous.
This is something I love do, and something I value in the blogs on the Wibsite as well as many other blogs -- people sharing their joys and triumphs, their failures and fears; people giving us an insight into their lives; people being brave enough to blog about personal issues, or issues that hit home to them. I do love to read theology and church history and much other academic "stuff", but when it comes to blogs, I feel truly drawn to those that give an insight into someone's life. As children of God we are all unique, and our paths through life are unique: and we are all special -- in God's eyes and in the eyes of all. There will never be another me in the world [probably for the best!]: and there will not be another you. Each person we meet should be treated with dignity and respect, for they are an image, an icon, of Christ -- we are made in His Image. And getting to know someone, if only through a monitor screen or via a five minute talk at a Botanic Gardens on a sunny autumn Sydney day, is truly one of life's blessings for me.
Thanks and praise be to God. |
Exploring Orthodoxy 
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