In recent months, a purported anti-bullying program adopted by many schools around the country has come under a microscope. The anti-bullying cloak dresses up an ideological push to replace conventional family structure with one that a “progressive” model based on notions such as gender being a social creation. Labelled “Safe Schools”, it promotes a genderless culture, where a boy or man is discouraged against differentiating himself from the feminine gender. And vice versa. Instead, one is encouraged to think that one can be a man or woman. You can even oscillate between the two, from time to time. So instead of thinking one is a man or woman, this program pushed the idea that you simply identify as an individual, shunning the gender differentiation. Thus a family need not be a father and mother and children. Genderlessness is thus a building block for the “modern family”. Genderlessness rids the traditional family.

So Safe Schools has wide and far reaching ramifications – which is why on Saturday morning, Tress and I found ourselves mail dropping pamphlets produced by the Australian Christian Lobby. We dropped pamphlets into letter boxes for 2-3 hours, after which we went to the Honey Thief café for much needed refreshments.

Back home after lunch, I spent the rest of the day tidying up the garden – trim the hedges, mowed the lawn, trimmed the “misty cloud” along the driveway and other bits and pieces. As usual once you start on a task it leads to numerous other tasks and the sunny gorgeous day just invites one to stay outdoor all day.

It was nearly 6pm when I finished and I was absolutely knackered then. As I sipped on a cold one, I walked across to the oval and watched a cricket game which had been going on all day as I worked the garden. It was a quiet, serene end to a busy day and as I stood in the sun there sipping my beer, a cool breeze blew across the parkland. The sound of leather hitting wood and fielders trying to catch the ball, all made for a wonderful backdrop to a beautiful cool early summer’s day. For the umpteenth time, I was grateful to be living in this country.

On Sunday after church we had to find some place new for lunch, as Rose had gone on her yearend holiday so her joint (Madam K) was closed and would not be opened until middle Jan. We ended up in Penang Flavours on Doncaster Road.

We went grocery shopping after that and Tress then did the cooking for a change, and whipped up our lunches/dinners for the rest of the week. I did some ironing and then we both walked the little fellow on the oval and its surrounds.

The sun was again brilliant and the walk was very refreshing. We had also spoken to Kiddo on the phone just before that and so the weekend was finishing as well as it started, when Tress and I had Jason and Mel at the Food Republic again on Friday night, for a wonderful meal and free flowing conversations. Early summer can be very pleasant that way.

Tress and I were at a dinner last night. It was a year-end break-up thing for the home group we’ve been attending for the past 3 years. Well 2+ years for me effectively, as I was in Ngambri for the larger part of last year.
 
The dinner was at the Glovers’ home. The Glovers are, to me at least, an unconventional family. They’ve spent some time in Nepal as missionaries but they’ve been in secular employment for a while. Mark is an engineer and Jenika is a nurse. They have 4 kids. Last night’s dinner was cooked mainly by a guy Josh, the only son of the Glovers, had invited to live with them. That guy is J, a Nepali asylum seeker who would otherwise be in detention. He now lives with the Glovers and has been cooking their evening meals several times a week, for more than 2 months now.
 
The curries were delicious (including a mushroom curry – a first for me) and J clearly enjoyed what he did, which he did very well.
 
As I thought about the home group this past year, I realised how some of my views have been tempered. Most of the people in this group have very “progressive” views of the world, with many discussions decrying the conservatives’ views about government funding, immigration and other traditionally hot topics dividing the left from the right. Well maybe not temper my views but certainly how I could or should communicate, defend or speak about them.
 
Perhaps more importantly however, is how we deal with others such as J. I believe in this regard many – perhaps most, in a church like St Alf’s – would do the same as the Glovers.
 
What I witnessed amongst the Glovers however, is that form of life themed around ushering heaven on earth in a manner taught us by Jesus himself through a model prayer. Mark and Jenika may have inherited it from their parents – Mark himself, if not also Jenika, is I understand, an “MK” (missionary kid) – but they certainly lived the mantra and perpetuated it.
 
I saw in Josh their son, that natural instinct to identify a need and attend to it, in an almost unquestioning manner, as a natural response. The compassion and love is clearly abundant and fully acted out in a manner that will surely leave an indelible mark on the beneficiary. If that is the legacy Mark and Jenika leave for their children, it would be such a rich inheritance for them.
 
Sometimes – often – I focus too much on the principle of personal responsibility. I let that crowd out any room for compassion and love for a person who on the surface appears to have no reason to reach deep to access resources I often believe are there to help one face most challenges in life. Otherwise I tend to think there ought to be persistent through hardship, before one seeks to impose on others what some might term personal rights. Interactions with the Glovers and witnessing their engagements with their “neighbours” have helped me refocus – perhaps less on personal responsibility and simply on the person. That’s love – that’s what the Glovers do in obedience to our Lord. I need more of that. It’s a work in progress.

As the first week of the last month of the year draws to a close, I’m starting to notice I’m not the only one at work who is feeling the cumulative effect of a year’s toil. I actually told my boss a couple of days ago, that I’ve started a countdown to the Christmas break.
That was in response to a big yaw from him, followed by a “I need a holiday Ian” uttered in a laboured tone. Last week the CEO who sits just behind my boss, appeared to have bags under his eyes. I’d like to think they both too, are thinking of the 2 (full) weeks of break that’s coming up in a little over 2 weeks.
A few days ago I recalled the events of a year ago. I had taken an evening flight out of Canberra, where I had been working, to come to Melbourne. I had a second interview the next day, for the job I’m now doing. The morning of the interview, Kiddo received the results she needed to obtain her PhB from ANU.
When the interview was done, I went into the city and caught up with Tress at Spenser Station. I had a Sky Bus out from there back to Tullamarine, where I was to catch a flight back to Canberra and to work the next day. While at Spenser, I took a call from the recruiter, with the news that the interview was successful and I was offered the role.
A year into the role, I’m still plugging away. It has been a chequered year at work. While I have generally enjoyed coming in to work, the environment hasn’t been all that positive. Several colleagues I established relationships with have left – all of them being let go. The company is facing challenges principally from the US market where there has been regulatory issues. I continue to mingle with colleagues who feel insecure over their tenure, and feel they can be shown the door any day. Every other week someone is being shown the door. So in some ways the environment is toxic. At the same time however, there is hope and light shines through the other end of the tunnel. The office makeover has generated some energy and engagement by staff is up, and several senior sales and production/operations appointments have been made so hopefully things settle down to an even and constant beat.
Meanwhile I just put my head down and each day make my way through the PTV maze to get to the office, do my work and move on to the next day. I’m living. I put in my yards. I work on my tasks. I don’t look for meaning or fulfilment beyond the daily creation and attempted perfection of my tasks.
Kiddo in the meantime, is a bit over the half way mark of an intensive training session in Deakin Uni in Warnambool .That training finishes on the 21st and we’ll likely go up there to drive back with her.
It has been a year of toil for her too, I’m sure. All the teeing up of lessons with her students, the applications for a full time job, the application for the TFA program she’s now part of, and of course the planning of the wedding. It has been quiet a year.
Tress too has had a roller coaster ride. Having left Myer after more than 10 years there, the landing on Interactive was a brief one. In July she left, and after a couple of months or so of break she was back at it, in World Vision. The strongly Christian based NFP and the proximity to home are such great incentives and I’m ever so grateful for the opportunity she’s been given.
In a little over 3 weeks, we’d be ushering in the new year. I hope we continue to be able to toil away.

Tress and I wound up the week on Friday night at our go-to place – the Via Matta on Canterbury Road. As always, it was wonderful to just sit down to a simple and delicious meal, talking and catching up over a few glasses of a very nice red. Even the kid throwing up a few tables from us didn’t spoil things too much.
On Saturday we spent the day cleaning. Tress did the vacuuming and I wiped down surfaces all over the house. We also organised for some old shoes to be taken to the salvos and freed up some space on the shoe cupboards. Rose from Madam Kwong’s was going on holidays for a few weeks so we made sure we had lunch there, before it was shut down for about 5 weeks. We then went to Westfield in Doncaster – just to walk around. Later in the afternoon we washed the driveway, which had been caking up with dirt, grime and mud from the work by the plumbers and the water authority people. I had washed the cars before that as it was going to be a wet and messy driveway anyway.
That night we watched Interstellar on DVD. It is a fascinating film, with weird science but interesting philosophical questions thrown up. I liked it a lot.
On Sunday after our usual service in St Alf’s we went to Crossway. Jessie, Jesslyn’s mum, was to be baptised so we dropped in. That church is huge and bustling, with constant streams of people shuffling to and fro and people just hanging out in the large café. After spending some time with our friends there Tress and I went back to Madam K again, before going for some groceries for the week’s lunch cook.
Right through the arvo we had the cricket on and it was great to see a scintillating performance from Smith the skipper – he knocked 164, the highest ODI at the SCG, and having helped the Aussies pile a 320+ run on the board, took an unbelievable catch in the gully off a flying cut shot which was shooting through like a bullet around shoulder height. The skipper dived to his left and caught the speeding bullet one handed.
After the very disappointing start to the season against the Proteas, that winning performance was very refreshing, although it wasn’t enough to kick start a slow Monday morning, as I start my countdown to the Christmas break. 

I wish we talked more

Maybe about grandpa’s antics

Or about grandma’s guffaws

I wish we talked more

I wish I rang more

To maybe talk about politics

And count MCA’s flaw galore

I wish I rang more

I wish I visited more

Especially when you were sick

Or when you were sore

I wish I visited more

I could wish no more

To talk, visit, ring or anything at all

But I can and will remember

Because you are – forever – my father

Ten years now, since you departed

But now and always you’ll be revered

You were a special dad…

Ten years ago today, in the course of the day, my late father walked the face of earth one last time. Sometime between 29 and 30 November 2006, he passed on. For the past few days, I had been a little moody, a little unsettled. On numerous occasions, I wondered if he knew it was coming.
Ten years hence, he has a new grandson. Yu Jie is the new addition, born in 2008 (I think). Everyone else probably had their own recollection of that day. Mine was – and remains – one of immense regret. 

Regret that I had not spoken to him for a long time, when he passed on. We had moved to Australia a little over 2 years then. I hadn’t spoken to him since we left Malaysia.
I wish we talked more – I had wanted to let him know why we moved, how I felt about leaving the town, the country, of my birth. How I felt about leaving him and mum and everyone else, to come to a city where I knew so few people. Why I left a good and very well paid job. Why I left a wonderful network of friends, relatives and business and professional connections.
I wish I could tell him now, that as painful as it was to have left him and mum, I am very happy that we did leave to come and live in Melbourne. I wish I could now invite him to visit, especially when Kiddo gets married next year, and moves into the next phase of her life with Mic. 

I wish he could see now, how safe, engaged and settled we are in our new “town”, new country, new home.

I wish he could see that just as grandfather left China all those years ago and became settled with his family in Klang, I left Klang all those years ago and have become settled here in Melbourne. 

Tress and I have been able to provide Kiddo with a new platform to make her own path in life, without the baggage of what plagues Malaysia today.
I wish he could see that I am happy. I wish he could see that I am happy because I believe Kiddo is and will be happy. I wish he too would be happy.

On both mornings this past weekend, Tress and I slept in somewhat. I’ve been feeling the weight of the year’s ploughing wear on me and recently I have been saying to Tress I’ve been feeling tired.
We had a really good finish to the week nevertheless, as on Friday night Tress and I enjoyed the company of Jason and Mel again. We went to the café just off Blackburn Station, grandiosely named “Food Republic”. The food was very good but the fact that we stayed on and chatted till almost 10pm (we were there from 6.30) probably said more about the company. Jason referred to him and Mel as empty nesters a number of times and I was thinking to myself that he still has both his kids living at home so how did he come to refer to himself as that? Maybe he felt that way…
We just ploughed on with our usual weekend chores but right through I was tired.
Sunday was the first day of advent and the annual pulpit exchange saw Allan Remond from New Hope at St Alf’s pulpit. He had just returned from a 3-month long service leave and he talked about how he (and his wife) had “leaned into” others’ challenges in that time, even when he was travelling on holidays. His theme though, of not missing the big picture of what God is doing through attention to routines and norms, was a refreshing one.
The 6.02 this morning came at 6.00 and so I missed it. When I checked the timetable I realized it has been changed. It has to be 6.00 from now on. At Spenser, Tram 12 was diverted. I had to get to a different tram stop to get my ride into the office. I had to plough to plough on. 

Staying home today for this​

Several colleagues from the Sales team have been chasing a new business in Sri Lanka. So when Tress, Kiddo and I were at the Sri Lankan restaurant on Mahoney Road on Friday night I was thinking we’ve been engaged in Sri Lankan stuff of late. 
The dinner with Kiddo and Tress was very good but my mind was on an appointment we had the next morning. 

There has been a problem with the plumbing at home for a while now and the effect has started to become more audible – gurgling noises appear constantly and it had got to a stage where we needed to get the plumber in. 

We’ve heard the “drain man” ad on the radio for a while now so we teed them up for Saturday morning. The drain man showed up, did his thing and gave us the bad news. The plumbing needs urgent – and expensive – work. That plumbed my mood somewhat but I decided to park the issue on a to-do list and instead of worrying about it, make a plan to stomach the pain and mentally, financially (amongst others) prepare for it.

With the drain man’s quote sitting ominously on the kitchen bench, we went to an auction behind our house (which saw a humble home fetching well over a million), and lunch thereafter. 

After lunch we got home and I spent the rest of the arvo mowing, tidying the outside of the house as well as gave the cars a wash. Tress gave the house a very good vacuuming and at the end of all that as I sat having a couple of beers Uncle Seng rang to ask about Kiddo’s wedding dates and then asked if we’d like to join them and Uncle Jin/A Hooi for dinner.

We spent the evening with them, first in a restaurant in Box Hill and then in Uncle Seng’s home. It has been a while since we spent time with them this way so it was very nice. We did however, have to be witnesses to some ageing tension – Auntie Anne and Uncle Seng both looked tense and they confided later, that there were menopausal issues to deal with. I think that made the family get together even more meaningful somehow and I was again very grateful for such family presence here in Melbourne.

Sunday we did our usual thing except Kiddo was hanging around the home too – prepping for her Deakin TFA training which starts later this week. She’s been discussing with us her thoughts about driving there so that she has access to a car for the 5-6 weeks she’ll be there. She’s still a relatively novice driver so Tress and I have decided we’ll go with her, with one of us driving another car in tow. Tress and I will then make the drive back to Melbourne once she’s settled in Warnambool. 

It feels like our roles as doting parents are ending soon, as we begin to hand over the reins of looking after her. I had talked to Mic the day before too, to check out his views of Kiddo driving to Warnambool. That’s part of the handing over process I guess. 

There has been a whole lot of noise around the world these past couple of days. I guess those noises have been loudest in America, the epicentre of a “revolt” against entrenched politics and the practitioners of its dark art. An outsider, derided by and riled many, rode against the mirage that is modern day media into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Alas the don of the trumped up populist era… now awaits January 20 to take his oath before CJ Roberts, the big kahuna of SCOTUS and drop “elect” to become President Donald Trump. 

Stock markets around the world initially took a nosedive when news began to emerge that Trump may win. When it was confirmed that he won however, the markets reversed their losses the next day and life resumed normalcy. 

When all has been said and done, ordinary folks continue to go about their tasks and routines no matter what happens in distant America. Even or Americans, life goes on.

 I remember when Howard lost the election and Rudd became PM, there was a sense of foreboding amongst conservatives used to over a decade of the familiar. Politics have changed much since, with the current PM being the fifth since Howard left, not 10 years ago.

 Yet in many ways, ordinary folks continued with their tasks and routines no matter what happened in Canberra. 

I guess for most Americans, their tasks and routines remain unchanged. Or maybe if Obamacare does get repealed there will be changes to how people pay for their healthcare. 

Or if the great wall of the Rio Grande does get built life may change for many families. Maybe nannies, cooks, gardeners, fruit pickers, harvesters and other types of work Mexicans cross the border illegally to do will face short supply. Maybe other subversive activities will cease.

 I guess most Aussies will know too little to appreciate how and if life will change in that part of the world. We simply cringed at the things he said before he ascended to the throne and wondered how Americans were able to choose such a man to such a lofty position. 

But chose him they did and that is something everyone – especially Americans – must now accept. Aussies of all stripes accepted it when after a decade, a character like Rudd stepped in to replace Howard, even though many did not vote for Rudd’s mob.