What does teaching mean to me?

I heard from a friend that there is a teaching position available in a university and asked me whether I am interested. My short answer is not at the moment as I have something at my current work that I want to build on. But it makes me wonder, do I still want to teach? Yes, but I guess teaching now has a different meaning to me. 

First, I no longer see teaching as just transferring knowledge. The 15 months experience of teaching in a secondary school was precious to me. Teaching involves more than transferring knowledge. It requires building relationship with students, varying contents and delivery methods to make students interested, and showing by examples. Sometimes it also means a crowd control as without a conducive environment, it is hard for students to learn. I also found out that it is not possible to please everyone. Every students are unique. To wish to satisfy all students are not realistic. 

Second, I am strong in the passion but lack in providing examples. I can only talk but cannot do. In other word, I still tend to just transfer knowledge from what I heard, not based on my own experience. There is nothing wrong with that. But not able to give examples is not effective to teach students. For example, I needed to teach Design & Technology which is like a basic engineering modules for secondary school students. There was a question such as innovation and design of which I myself could not do. Likewise, I learned a lot of statistics. But when it comes applying to my current work, I struggled a lot. So there are still many practical skills I need to pick up before I can be an effective teacher. 

Third, knowledge evolves. So being in an industry while teaching may perhaps be an easier option as there is a direct push to evolve. Teaching as an adjunct may also have less admins as compared to full time teaching positions of which teaching portion can be quite low in actual.

In summary, teaching is still at the heart of what I do. I become more passionate to learn and go through something when I know I can teach somebody else. So keep that in my heart while building up the skills to become an effective teacher. 

It is not easy to slow down

It has been 10 days since the last time I wrote for 5 min. Apparently it is very hard to slow down and just to step back and write for 5 mins.

By God’s grace, I am thankful that I have been feeling positive in the past three and half weeks. At the same time, my brain keeps shooting for ideas or demanding myself to work that it is hard to slow down. If not for my wife, I would have slept later and wake up earlier than usual. It is thanks to her that I can let go doing things that I feel important to do. 

It is also interesting on how my office mailbox continues to pile up. Somehow when I was down, I feel that I could follow my e-mail slightly better. If I don’t, it is because I am afraid. But now I am not afraid of the e-mails, but I become too busy and too obsessed with what I do that I don’t bother to check my e-mail.

The stomachache I have this evening somewhat reminds me to slow down. It is good during this period to write down what I feel and think so that when I am down next time, I have something to refer to. It is like writing an exhortation to my future self. At the same time, I could look back and reflect on what I was thinking when I felt down. Not everything was bad as well. For example, nowadays I feel too excited that I want to finish as many tasks as possible as if all must be done while the down period last time had shown that it is fine even when very few things get done. Because after all, we are not what we do, but our identity is in Christ Jesus who loves us and gave Himself for us. 

It’s been 5 months!

Last week my daughter turned 5 months old. This reminds me that time flies so fast that if I don’t capture them, the memories may be lost. So I want to recall at least the last one month. There are three things I want to remember. 

First, she learned to flip. At the beginning of last month, we were worried as she was neither able to flip nor able to lying sideways. She liked her favorite style of facing up in sleeping. So my wife and my in-laws began to train her to lie sideways. Initially she kept going back to facing up. But at sometimes she began to be able to flip facing down. But she could not move the hand that was trapped between her body and the bed. Over time, she could manage to flip her own and getting used to take out her hand that was trapped. It was amazing to see her progress. 

Second, I learned that things may change. Initially she is not that comfortable to be carried by me. But somehow in the past one week, she become more comfortable to be carried by me. At the same time, I became more confident to things such as changing her clothes in the morning. 

Third, I learned a lot in terms of being humility and not jumping into conclusion. Recently it became more frequent of her rejection of drinking milk. We become worried. So my in-law tried different methods. One of them is to let my daughter to lie on her own on the bed while we kneel from the side of the bed to give the milk. Initially I think it was too much as she was willing to drink on the usual place. I felt too highly of myself and think that was not necessary. Only after a while, I can see by God’s grace that it does not matter who is right. It is having multiple ways to get the same objective of my baby to be well fed. Similarly, today I ate with three of my colleagues and said that warm water is necessary for formula. I was surprised as I thought we should use room temperature water. But after that, I swing to the other side thinking that we need to use warm water. So again it is either 1 or 0 mindset. After checking, apparently it does not matter. All these remind me to develop flexibility. 

Recently I started to take more photos of my daughter. I guess it is now the time to learn to be thankful of God’s grace, acknowledging that things may be tough, but we can rejoice in Him and enjoy the journey in the gift of life that He has given us. 

Celebrating Progress

Thank God that in the past one and half week I have been feeling positive. There are still failures here and there. But I managed to focus on what is good enough and do things one step at a time.

The past one week acts as if the last four months were already something that is easy to forget. This is because recently there is often something I am excited with in each day. So the feeling is much different. It is as if I feel very energetic and then do a lot of things and then feel tired. It is different from the feeling of not knowing what to do and with big cloud pressing on my mind.

This shows that nothing is impossible with God. I often said when I am depressed that why God does not immediately help. The answer is that God makes everything beautiful in His time. When it is His time, He can do it, He can make drastic change. But when it is not the time, things may not change regardless of our efforts and it is fine. Just like the story of a kid trying to move the big rock. The rock may not move but the muscles have changed to be stronger.

So, let’s celebrate the progress. Celebrate God’s goodness. Capture this excited feeling so that next time when I am down, I don’t act as if there is no hope. So that I am committed to believing that there is hope in God, we can recover, it is just a matter of when.

Secondly, let’s celebrate the progress by slowing down instead of keep looking for a more ambitious target.

For example on data analytics, I have given up on it after my conference when I was so ashamed on how weak my skills were. Now that I am more excited, I am prone to make unrealistic target. For example, yesterday I attended a presentation from intern who used tensor flow. Then I wanted to learn about tensor flow. My best friend in office gave me the link. Then I already want to be able to understand it within a week. Something that is very ambitious. Well maybe that’s my method to make me more motivated. But avoid making promises to people. It is better to work in silence. Test out my commitment and excitement first. Work on something, prototype it, test it, before sharing with others or making a commitment to do it.

Remember, progress in feeling may not translate in progress of skills and performance. I have experienced before where I am very positive but at the end little difference in terms of my work output or technical skills. So, let’s focus on small improvement, focus on work, have enough rest, do not spend all the efforts as if no other things to do in the future.

Remember to practice what I have learned before instead of abandoning them and try learning something new. And since I often make mistakes based on my feeling, slow down and pray, ask which one God wants me to do, in each step, ask Him what is good enough, and ask Him to help me from the pride temptation and to focus and rejoice in Him in each step.

Being positive to myself

Today one of my best friends shared his regret of not taking PhD after his master. I then told him what is stopping him from taking PhD now. I argued that unlike now, it was common to take PhD after a considerable amount of years in the industry. He then replied that it is difficult in terms of financially and also in terms of the perseverance to complete. I continued to argue that it is possible to look for chances such as research officer and part-time PhD. Or to stay in our company and do PhD as a part of university collaboration. 

He then reminded me that the reason he listened to my pushy statements is so that I can see how I often become positive to others. As in I try to find the positive of everything and to encourage. So he asked me what is stopping me from being positive to myself. 

That was really apt. This evening I complained to him that I felt of not being able to implement what I learn. So I am reluctant to learn new things. He then asked me what is stopping me from implementing the statistical knowledge I learned during my PhD. I made an excuse by saying that I could not do the programming required to implement and I could not find people who are willing to do that or work together with me without me needing to pay him or to reward him with something. 

So the question, why not I argue with myself. For example, I can say it is not yet but I could do it with high chance if I persevere and practice often. Just like the machine learning case. I already felt that I could not do it or implement it. But just I said to him there is a chance no matter how low it is, there is also a chance for me to finally be able to code comfortably. 

In the midst of that, I will also need to encourage myself with positivity. For example, I now feel tired after doing one by one and just want to take a rest. So why not take the chance to be positive. For example, I can be grateful that it is a sign to remind me to take a break. Or it is too make sure that I do not overcommit in other things. 

So, let’s learn to be positive with myself and continue to acknowledge that only in Jesus that I can rely on and surrender all. 

Fixing my eyes on Jesus

By God’s grace, these past few days I feel happier. At the same time, I can start seeing on how difficult it is to fix on Jesus. There are many reasons to celebrate. For example, it has been quite long since I can feel happier and more focused. And is there any sudden change on my effort? No. This shows on how ultimately God is in control and not purely on our efforts. Yes, there is God’s grace in terms of my small efforts which show that our responsibility is to do our part and not focusing on the results.

However, I can start seeing how greedy I am. For the first two days of this week, I left my laptop in office as I acknowledge how limited my time is at home and even if there is work to do, I can do it using home laptop, more limited, but good enough. Yesterday and today I bring my laptop home. Last night I slept 1.5 hours later than my wife. In other word, I start to get addicted to working. To make things worse, my working may also involve tendency to help others or other people responsibility instead of working on my responsibility first.

For example, the two highest priority for today is left undone. So let’s focus on Jesus, not on my feeling good, but to do what I am called to or what He has entrusted me with. And celebrate His goodness instead of counting what is lacking. Remember that I could live in the past four months without much achievements, some days I could get zero things done. So do not think that I need to finish all or even finish a lot. Do what I can, be thankful and pray continually.