Time flies and my third semester at Berkeley finished on Dec 17, 2010. It was a busy and tough semester for me. I took three courses as last year but the workload was much heavier, especially when I have to pick up a new language—Latin. Luckily the professor is very nice and does not give us too much pressure. It is a two-semester course and I have to continue in the next semester. My other two courses, one on “Theology and Ethics,” another on “Faith in Human Rights,” are interesting and inspiring, but with many readings and assignments. Since I tried to cover all the required readings every week and handed in all my assignments on time, I had to study almost seven days a week. Anyway, I get it done and I learnt a lot during the process. The professors of these two courses said I did well. I am especially happy when the professor of the Theology class told me at the very end of the class that I did well on a difficult topic in my final paper. My paper topic is “Jon Sobrino’s Notion of Discipleship – Examining his Understanding of Jesus, God and Human Person.” I also received good comments for my weekly papers. From this, I learnt that one must work hard in order to get reward and cannot depend on luck. I understand better the saying “path may be difficult but will be rewarding” after experiencing this semester.
For my human rights class, the Noble Peace Prize issue and the prosecution of Zhao Lian-hai, the victim of the baby milk issue, inspired me to write a paper on “Human rights in China—Examining the Human Rights Values in the Chinese Confucian Tradition.” Both of these papers allow me to reflect further about doing theology and ethics in my own social context. I really thank God to give me the chance to go through this process and give me enough strength and energy to complete my work. I also thank God to give me encouragement and support through my family, teachers and friends, including yours.
This year, I am still living in the student dormitory on campus. Apart from Americans, some students are international students or visiting scholars, from Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Brazil, and Poland. I get acquaintance with some of them and became good friends.
There are also a few students from HK living on various dorms in the campus, mostly from other Christian denominations. We have gatherings from time to time to eat and chat. I learnt more about the protestant churches. It's a relaxing time with fun and we can use Cantonese to chat. We toured around San Francisco and Oakland in the past week when the semester finished.
In the next semester, I will start preparing my comprehensive examination proposal, a step before taking the exam and writing the dissertation. I will not take too many courses. I will just take Latin and a reading course (one to one independent study on special topic to help me preparing the proposal). I may stay here during summer to continue preparing the exam and may go back to HK a bit later. I hope I can get the exam proposal passed by the end of next semester so that I can spend next year working on the three to four examinations. My examinations will include Catholic moral theology with focus on social ethics, Asian contextual theology, Chinese Social Thought with focus on Confucian ethics.
In July, I went to Trent, Italy to attend a conference on theological ethics. It was an eye-opening experience for me and I learnt a lot through listening to various paper presentation on ethics.
In November, I went to Rome to attend the meeting of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. I presented a report on Caritas in Veritate (Pope Benedict’s most recent social teaching document) from the Asian perspective. I have spent several days working on the report and luckily It was well received. There is a new chairperson, Archbishop Turkson, a bishop from Ghana. He is very nice and tried to give everyone a chance to speak during the meeting. I also met a former student of the seminary and is my friend now who is in Rome and had a long chat with her. She is studying her STL (Licentiate of Sacred Theology) in the Gregorian University. Both of us are trying to work hard to meet all the challenges of our studies.
With all the challenges and study workload, I try to keep my life balance and healthy. I have spiritual direction with a Franciscan sister every three to four weeks. She is a great companion in my faith journey and gives me lots of encouragement and support. I attend mass every Tuesday in either the Jesuit school or Franciscan school. I also eat more fruits and vegetables and try to do some stretching exercises every day so as to lessen my shoulder and neck pain.
I understand that those of you who are reading this post must be working very hard and very busy too. Let’s pray for each other. I wish you have a blessed new year!
