Reading Week

In the end of August, the Moreland Primary School held a reading week, together with other schools in Victoria. Five students, including Elkana, were asked to perform.

There was also a video shows made by the school staff who asking children about books they like. (Unfortunately I could not link the video here). It is a wonderful video. It does teach children on how easy it is to make a film and it appreciates our children views on books. It was educative and entertaining video!

Weldone!

Mount Beauty Holiday

Last August, we went for a holiday in the Mount Beauty. It was awesome holiday for us and for om Ali who joined us. Its like the name, Mount Beauty is very beautiful. It is located in Tawonga South, Alpine area, about 4,5 driving to Northeast of Melbourne. We visited and spent the night at my professor's house, which is about about half an hour to the Falls Creek, one of the best winter sport resort.

We were so grateful with the generosity, courtesy, and warm welcome of the professor and his wife. We really felt at home. They brought us to a georgeous park with its serene and rainbow color lake. We did very 'merepotkan' them who provided us with not only a beautiful dinner, but also beautiful breakfast and lunch! We enjoyed the food and we learned much about table manner...

We enjoyed the visit to Falls Creek snow resort; enjoyed the "visit" of groups of kanggaroos which always having "morning and afternoon tea" at a small pond in the garden of the house; enjoyed rainbow colored birds which always having breakfast and luch in the porch of the house; and enjoyed sitting behind the fireplace.

One thing that I would never found in any other holiday is that I had very fruitful discussion about my thesis chapter. I got additional data from the professor's library too!

Farhan named the Mount Beauty area as "the land of Mountains". When we left the house for Melbourne, Elkana waved our very nice host until far away and happily said "see you next year!" Ups...!

Thousand thanks Margareth and Merle...

Taekwondo and getting confidence

In general, Taekwondo is very good to improve both Elkana and Farhan confidence at school. Since Elkana and Farhan joined taekwondo, I never heard bad stories such as Farhan falls down, Farhan is bullied by someone, Farhan gets hurt, Elkana was hit by someone, or Elkana get bullied. Another good thing is that both Elkana and Farhan never use their taekwondo to hurt someone. They totally understand that taekwondo is a self-defence sport.

Therefore we encouraged both Elkana and Farhan to join the Hall's Taekwondo club championship which was held in August 2007. We were very proud that Farhan won one gold medal and one an appreciation medal. Elkana also did very well and brought home three gold medals!

Joining a good taekwondo club is really expensive for our small family. However, we believed that getting confidence is much much more important for our young gentlemen. We cant buy confidence, can we?

elkana's emails

I am very happy to see Elkana's progress in writing emails. Looking at three emails he sent me in 2007 and 2005, I can see his improvement in his way of thinking, his English, and his ability to use internet.

Below email is written by Elkana with the help of Amir. It was sent in March 2005 when I was doing my research in Leiden, the Netherlands. In this email he did not use any English word. He also remembered very well his uncles, aunties and nieces.















The email below was sent to me in September 2005, also with the help of Amir. I was in Indonesia doing my fieldwork. In this email Elka only used few English and he still remembered his uncles and aunties in Indonesia.

This last email is written last month when elkana 8 years old. He wrote the letter himself from his email account.

Weldone Elkana!

A sweet email from Elkana