I’ve been going flat out for the past 3 weeks since I last blogged about it. I’ve started at TAFE doing classes in Design, Machining and Patternmaking. It’s fantastic. The quality of the teachers that I have at TAFE are very high (surprising as it is in Bogansville), but I don’t like how slow things are going. I have a slight advantage then most of my peers because I come in some practice and training from the things I’ve done at NIDA and doing costumes and dressmaking for Revue.

One of the things that has surprised me at TAFE is that my fellow students (and yes, I am well aware that I do attend Macquarie Fields) are unambitious. Many of them are like ‘yeah whatever’ They think the work is too hard and are completely unmotivated. Having attended a selective girls high school and uni, it’s a bit weird. Everyone was natually competitive and those who weren’t didn’t turn up to uni.

But I’m loving what I’m doing. My classes are slightly tedious because of their slow speed, but I love the things that I do – despite having to sew the same seam over and over again. I’m learning a lot about names and what things are called. I particularly like patternmaking. It’s engineering! This class the teacher doesn’t move slowly so it keeps me alive and excited.

Design is a bit of a wank, always has been and always will be. It’s a bit more in depth because it’s also teaching the fibres and fabrics module which is interesting to learn about the differences. I’ve had a feel for it after working in a fabric store, but to really understand it – it’s a real treat.

It’s weird that there are no grades. Just ‘Competent’ and ‘Not Competent’. It’s like gah, I’m used to having to compete to get good grades. Just a simple pass or fail (though admittedly is great because then I don’t have to worried about mark averages and such) is slightly weird coming from the academically competitive places I was spawned from.

On the side, I took a week off TNTT to do Corset Making at NIDA. Anette, the teacher is fantastic. I’ve learnt so much in terms of technics and different tools in making my corset. She’s been really good in helping me see things a bit differently in terms of fabric for my corset and teaching me how to decorate it the way that I want. I have loads to do before I can finish up this Sunday, but I have managed to put all the boning in my corset as well as put the eyelets in. I need to embroider the front the way I want before I can put the material in. It’s going to be gorgeous! It’s pink of course =D I’m using a pink shantung that’s shot with a light green and this pink brocade that salvaged from an old shirt I bought in an op shop in Katoomba. It’s going to have brown trims, I’ve bought brown binding and brown braid to decorate it.

I’ve been obsessed with this show called “Project Runway”. I watched the entire first season in my (next to nil) free time and was completely enchanted with it. It’s a reality TV show like Idol but for fashion designers. Just watching what the designers can produce is amazing and the challenges that they go through. It was a bit like watching my Costume Making course at NIDA but with added difficulty and on fast foward. My eyes just pop out at all the things that they do.

But from watching it, what I got was the determination to study everything in relation to fashion/costume. I want to learn millinery, glovemaking possibly even jewellery to a lesser extent. Though I absolutely despise drawing, I think learning design is important because then I will be able to articulate my ideas more clearly. I’m thinking about taking a year off after TAFE to work as a Patternmaker. Not just because of money issues, but because that experience will make me stronger production wise which I feel is incredibly important. I think the ability to actually create your fashion ideas and the ability to judge whether or not they are even feasible to make important.

Going to TAFE and all my classes as well as still going to work hasn’t been a picnic. I’m so tired much of the time and the pace is so fast. But I’m happy. I’m glad to do all the things that I do. I keep running out of time, but I know that I can do all this, that I can acheive all this!

On top of this I’ve started helping out at the Bankstown Theatrical Society, and Ness and Angus have offered me Costume positions in their productions. I’m also now Costume Head for Law Revue! So this year just keeps getting more hectic, but better and better. Part of me is more settled now that I’ve really chosen this as my life.

Sometimes though, I just need some time out. To come home early from work and just relax. It’s terrifying sometimes that I can’t do that. I still have to sort out my gear and lessons from the day, assignments, costuming for shows… And TNTT has even hit properly yet as we’ve taken a couple of weeks off for Chinese New Year.

I think it’s funny that I don’t have an ambition like ‘Become a haute coutre fashion designer’. For me, my current ambition is to learn as much as I can and I have no idea what I’m going to do at the end of it. In a way I’m starting to like that uncertainty – because then I can do whatever I want at the point in my studies that I deem suitable. Which is completely unlike being an Actuary.

*grins*

With love, mia

NB This post is my opinon and based on what I know (which is admittedly little) about Catholic/Christian faiths and from what I’ve seen in people I’ve met. Feel free to start a flame war.

I ranted last year in this post about practising and non-practising Christians.

On Saturday, I participated in the Catholic Asian Youth Festival at Kingsgrove and we had a couple of Testimonials before everything kicked off. One of the speakers, a girl named Lillian, said that she went to uni, had Catholic friends but they are ‘non-practising’.

This statement is completely illogical. Being a Catholic entails you to not only believe in God, but to believe in the Catholic church and follow it guidance to the spiritual enlightenment of God. That includes attending church, participating in the sacraments and generally being everything a Christian entails.

You are either a Catholic, or you’re not. And in the sense for those that are ‘non-practising’ – they are no longer Catholics. They have either downgraded to generic Christian or have become agnostics.

I had a catechist teacher, back when I was in Nghia Si (the adolescent class at TNTT) and something he said lingers on in my memory. (The following is paraphased and translated rather loosely and of course probably altered in my mind in the last 10 years).

“99% of the population of France are considered Catholics. But 99% of those people are going to hell. They don’t attend church or participate in the Catholic faith.”

I have friends who call themselves ‘the new generation of Catholics’ who for the whole, lead completely secular lives and then do the whole nod and bow thing at Church on Sunday. Can they really be considered the new generation of Catholics? It is my opinion that they can not. I do not believe that being a new gen Catholic means doing your own thing in your own time and setting the time out for God on the weekend.

I would like to hold my Evangelistic Christian friends as an example. They dedicate their whole lives to God. Of course being human and imperfect, they sometimes don’t succeed. However in the forefront of their minds is about looking towards God. And many of them proceed to give a hell of a lot more to their church community then the people I see at my parish today.

The struggle of the Catholic Church today is to make it seem relevant to the youth. It has many good ideas, but sometimes a few that are hard to swallow (like issues on Abortion and Euthanasia). One of the fundamental flaws of the Church in my opinion is making religious education almost only available within the confines of the Catholic Schools. Most other churches rely on Evangelism and propagating bible study groups.

Of course another problem is that the Catholic Church is not merely a bible-based church. It takes a lot more to be considered Catholic than it does to be considered Christian. Many people do not understand (and even I who have been through much catechism) the myriad of rituals during mass. If you don’t go to a Catholic school or attend Sunday School, no one explains anything to you. How can a person be considered a Catholic when they do not even understand what it is that they do?

I have been accused of thinking too much when I tried to explain to someone my opinions. But isn’t that what faith is about? Looking at what you believe, why you do the things that you do? One of my greatest sadnesses involve TNTT. It is a rare person that will give up their Sunday to help teach our kids. They are afraid of the ‘work’ and ‘committment’ involved. They can’t ‘deal’ with kids.

I completely understand that yes, looking after children is a lot of work and that some people aren’t suited to it. But I think it’s saying something about society in general (maybe this generation or of the Vietnamese community) that fewer and fewer people are willing to give up their time to help people. There are fewer Huynh Truong, fewer catechist teachers, fewer parents who are willing to give up their time and help us at camps and (a huge problem for the Catholic church) fewer nuns and priests (they usually get shipped off to make up numbers in English parishes) to help spiritually guide us.

Quite a few of my HT friends don’t think that we can have a catechism course for HT by ourselves because ‘we don’t know enough’. That we can’t teach the adolescent catechist class because ‘more experience people have shied away from it’. That attitude annoys me so much. If we continue to think that, then we will never get anywhere. We will be trapped in that vicious cycle that will make us stay perpetually in that position.

A lot about faith is about discussion. About discussing what you feel and what you BELIEVE. And like any other lesson where you are less experienced, if you are willing you can still teach because of the effort and time you are willing to expend to learn. Where do Evangelical groups get their numerous bible study group leaders from? From people who are willing to TRY and SHARE their faith and no where else.

I agree there is knowledge that you must know before you can properly teach, but like in any Codes and Ciphers lesson or Knots lessons I’ve taught, you prepare as much as you can and save the questions for later to get back to them when you have time to seek the answer from someone else who you feel is more knowledgable than you in that respect.

What I also think that is vastly idiotic is the idea of ‘teaching faith’. You can not TEACH someone faith, but you can only question their faith and lead them down the right track. Anything else is up to them. I can not make you believe that the sky is green. But if I give you studies and evidentary proof, you would be convinced. It’s the same sort of idea. I can not make someone believe that Jesus exists and is watching you. But if I show them the bible and ask them ‘Do you believe in the truth of the Gospel?’ the rest is up to them.

Sorry for having such a long rant – but this topic is something that is very close to my heart.

With love and faith, mia

Sometimes when I’m driving on the M5, I think about how easy it would be to drive into a wall and end your life.