Learning Mandarin, Teaching Language and Generally Being Inspired

I can't believe how much Mandarin I can speak and understand now. It's a very weird thing for me to say, given that I had zero desire to learn Mandarin and the classes I took were only for a week, but here we are. 

2026 started with an opportunity to attend the Comprehensive Input Down Under conference which was being run at South Bank for a week. Comprehensive Input (CI) is a teaching method for language based on the premise that language is acquired by listening and reading to compelling, comprehensive inputs in the target language. It's how we all learnt our first language, so why not use it for a second, or any additional language for that matter? 

Obviously there is a difference in development levels, if you are comparing a baby or young child learning a language to a teen or adult. For the latter you can add the development of different skills, and you have a first language to map onto. But still, listening and reading - that's the way to go. 

I've been teaching using a CI method since I returned to the language classroom in 2024, but it was largely based on my own guess work (after seeing my kids acquire language) and things I'd listened to in podcasts. Not a lot of direct training in the field. A whole week of conference about that with teachers from all over Australia and presenters from around the world was an opportunity too good to miss. 

Along with all the usual conference type offerings - key note speakers, workshops and presentations, this conference also ran Language Labs. This was where two teachers (Spanish and Mandarin) would teach a class of "students" using CI methods every day for the week. We had about three to four hours of classes every day. The teachers attending the conference could sign up to be students in the class, or attend as observers in the room. 

I really wanted to get the experience of what it's like being a student, and despite being really keen to learn more Spanish, I figured the Mandarin class would give me a better understanding of how to teach an Asian script. More practical for my Japanese setting.  

When the conference rolled around in mid January, a full week before any teachers were due back in the classroom, I was a little bit second guessing my decision to attend. So hopeful that it was going to be great, but also aware of the huge time commitment. But the conference did not disappoint. Far from it. Even when we were on day three and I was expecting to start fatiguing from all the brain use, we were so motivated and excited by the learning and connections that it was amazing. 

Along with learning so much about how to teach with a CI approach, I was also lucky enough to make great connections with other teachers. An Indonesian teacher I met on the first day who came down from Agnes Waters to attend was staying with her daughter a few streets over from me, so we ended up being bus buddies. The two Japanese teachers from Genesis (where I've taught previously) and I also ended up connecting and sharing our love for Jesus. 

I can't even say how encouraged I was by this full week of fantastic professional development. So ready to head back to the classroom and put it all into practice. And I'm still going over my new Mandarin vocab in my mind, and listening to Taiwanese dramas on Netflix to see if I can pick out the words. Language learning really is so fun, and I get to teach it! 

Belated Post: Steve's 40th

I wasn't going to post about this, but I looked at the photos and realised I wanted to remember it one day. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) this blog often turns out to be the best way for us to look back and get a summary of something. Even when I'm looking for a photo to show someone, I'll often come here first, rather than trawl through the endless photos in the gallery. 

So here we go: Steve is 40. 

We didn't want a big party, but also didn't want to let it slide by unnoticed. So a casual afternoon tea on the deck and then blokes around for beers afterwards. The beers event we were hoping would be at Hiker, but they decided to host the school trivia night there so we had to change those plans. 

Food highlights were the croquembouche (which was not stressful as such, but involved and tricky, mostly because of my rather ridiculous oven) and ninja chocolate biscuits, along with the usual afternoon tea fare. 

There was bunting. 

And Sophie wore her graduation outfit for a test drive and I wore my purple arrow dress even though it still had wonky sides and the sleeves were too long. 

Everyone had a good time, and lots of people chipped in for Steve to get a Switch 2. There has been much gaming in the household since. Happy Birthday Steve!

Wicked

Throwback to the cinema release of Wicked: For Good in November 2025, when I convinced the girls it would be fun to go in costume. 

Don't they look fabulous! 

And I'm super happy to say that I borrowed the costumes from my teacher friends who had them on hand from Book Week. All I did was some adjustments (Glinda's dress originally had the huge puffy sleeves from the Wizard of Oz movie, and the black cape for Elphaba was originally under the dress).

I did make Rachel her hat the morning of the day we were going to the movie, with lots of scrap black fabric that I somehow had lying around. She loved it. I loved her commitment to the green face paint! 

I also managed to loose my good sewing scissors that day though, so I can't look back without some sadness. We are nearly three months on and they haven't shown up yet!

Purple Arrow Dress

The full extent of the fabric I bought in Japan remains undocumented, and will probably continue to be so since I'm not a huge fan of "haul" content. Also, not sure that people care or that I'm organised enough quite frankly. I mean, here we are in late January and this is my first post about something I made in October/November last year. What a world. 

In any case, this dress is made from fabric I acquired in Japan while we were living there in 2025. I think it was from my last trip to Nippori (fabric town of Tokyo). I had been on the lookout for a version of this traditional Japanese print with the arrow like design and was pretty happy with this lovely find with its purple and gold. 

After making the (somewhat experimental) Zero Waste dress in October, I knew I wanted to replicate a similar idea with this fabric. But I also wanted in built sleeves, with cuffs, and collar with a full button front. Easy? Not really, but for some unknown reason, I'm the kind of person who thinks I should just do it anyway and it will surely work out. 

It kind of worked out. 

The biggest change was that I tried to get away with fewer pintuck/pleat things around the waist to gather it in. I compensated by making them deeper, but it didn't really work for some reason. The result was that the skirt was not as full as I would have liked it. I also severely overestimated how long the sleeves needed to be and it was just all too much fabric there to start with. And then I just turned up the fabric to make the cuffs, but they got totally lost in the pattern. 

Oh, and that collar I wanted? Nope! I managed to cut the back neckline too low for it to fit properly, so threw that out the window pretty quickly. Ahh, things that went wrong; fun times. I'm not above sharing all the things that went wrong. Stuff goes wrong all the time for me. I guess what I don't have is photos of the things that went wrong. Do I need them? Hopefully you can imagine it all and believe me. 

Anyway, changes were needed, so changes I made. I cut off the extra fabric at the sleeves and reshaped the sides of the skirt, including taking out and reinstalling the pockets. Then I pieced together any scraps I had to make cuff fabric for the sleeves that would have the pattern going the other way. Then, since I was piecing everything anyway, I kept going and had enough for a thin belt to go with it. 

Finally I went to Spotlight to get gold buttons that would match the gold in the fabric and really elevate the dress. Those buttons were the most expensive part (not counting all the time I'd spent on the dress of course). They were easily three times more expensive than the fabric. Good thing the perfectly matching belt buckle was already in my stash. 

Graduation Outfit

When we returned to Australia, Sophie immediately asked if she could cut her hair. It, like everything else about Sophie, had grown in Japan and she was getting sick of it. I'm all for kids having autonomy, but I did veto this for the moment because, being in grade 6, graduation was coming up. Having been away from school for six months, Sophie was unaware of what graduation even was, but on returning to school found it was indeed all the kids were talking about. 

Sophie was quickly inducted into "all you need to know for graduation" which mostly consisted of the girls discussing what they would be wearing. Not wanting to go shopping (a girl after my own heart, I'm so proud!), but realising that she'd literally grown out of everything possible, we spent a week brainstorming what she might want to wear. In the end, she asked me to make something and we did a bit of inspo finding on Pintrest as we looked for the style she was after. 

Initially she was after a jumpsuit, with a halter style top. I did a bit of checking to see which features were important to her, and then offered to make it but separates, rather than the jumpsuit, so it would be easier to use the "facilities". The good news on that front was that I had a pattern for the halter top in the style she wanted and the pants seemed easy enough to draft, since she wanted wide leg. 

I dug out my pattern for Liz Hayworth's Zero Waste halter top from the September instalment of the Year of Zero Waste Sewing. I also dug out the one I made and had Sophie wear it around for a day or two at home. Halters can sometimes look like they are going to work and then in reality, can annoy the heck out of you when you actually wear them. Sophie did find it comfy though, so I got to work. 

Wearable draft fit check: looks good!

I was pretty confident with the style, but still wanted to check the size on her, so I measured her up and made a wearable-draft out of some lovely light cotton I'd gotten at a second hand fabric market. It came together beautifully and the fit was great. For the pants, I did a couple of trials with an old green bedsheet until I was happy with how it came together. I used the pattern I had for her PJ shorts as a base and did some tweaking. I don't seem to have any photos of that drafting process. 

Time for the real deal! 

We bought fabric from Spotlight: a gorgeous linen in a coral pink colour. Everything about sewing this was beautiful. I was making it at around the same time as my Experimental Dress, which was much more hacked together and "making it up as I go" vibes. By contrast, sewing Sophie's outfit was smooth and professional. Thanks to the drafting, everything lined up. I'd already gone through most of the construction sequence at least once, if not twice, so I knew what order to sew things in. The seams were finished with the swishes methods I could manage (French seams of beauty!) Magically, I didn't sew any parts backwards, despite the "right side" and "wrong side" of the fabric being indistinguishable. 

Her only negative feedback was that I could have made the pockets bigger. 

I sewed it pretty early in the term. I think I didn't want to accidentally leave it too late and then have an enormous panic while I was in the midst of reports. Also, I was just enjoying getting to make something so beautiful for my daughter. Since I made it early enough, it was ready for Steve's 40th, which meant she could take it for a test run, though under some very strict instructions about being careful with food and no rolling around on the grass. 

Sophie looks like an absolute rock star in this outfit. She is so comfortable, everything fits where it should and the fabric is soft. I don't think I even noticed the time it took to sew. And, she did get her hair cut. I did it the morning of graduation day. Graduation was a success, and she's planning on wearing it for Christmas. I'm glad, because as I look back at the photos, I think she's grown in the six weeks since I first made it for her... 

Sashiko Progress

At the start of the year I prepped a bunch of fabrics to sew with sashiko stitching on them. The intent for these was that one day there would be enough to be a set of classroom white board cleaners. I had patterns drawn on a bunch of red and blue ones to stitch at church in Japan, which I did. 

Rachel even asked to do one while she sat in church next to me one morning. Can you tell which is hers? 

We did however, find that going to church was quite a mission in Japan. For a number of reasons, so for the latter half of our stay, we did home church as a family. This was actually great for us, but not so great for the sashiko progress. 

Since coming back I've finished off the ones I had drawn patterns for. I've got 20 finished now, which is almost a class set! 

The remaining fabrics are a lot of blue, which I'm worried slightly about how to trace patterns on to, since it's on the darker side. But I'll give it a go none the less. There are definitely patterns that I want to try again - mostly with better thread colour choices (not like the purple set), so they should be pretty easy to follow even if the lines are hard to see. 

The other thing I did work on in Japan was this cross stitch. 

Bad night time photo of the finished work, unframed 
"Touching the Autumn Sky"

I packed it because it had was the project that would take the smallest amount of space and yet give the largest amount of sewing time. It was a thing I had started over ten years ago, after Sophie was born, or maybe was 1? I don't know. I've never been taught cross stitch properly, and when I started I made lots of mistakes. But the friend who gave it to me had really good intentions. I figured if I was ever going to get it done, it was in Japan or not at all. 

I did get most of it done in Japan (progress shot here), but doing so also gave me a huge shoulder injury from excessive stitching. Also, even though I've finished it and it looks beautiful, it's also kinda useless. Cross stitch is definitely not my thing. Time to give away all of the other ones I've got in a box (not bought, just gifted over the years). I'm ready to face the reality that I'll never willingly stitch those and they are better off going to someone who will. 

Walks around Saitama

There is not much to say in this post. These are just some photos I took as I waked around North Urawa, where I was living for seven weeks doing a teacher training course in July. Hope you enjoy the pictures of Japanese summertime suburbia.