1 Anno Canberrae

It's one year in Canberra (2 days ago, more precisely)

So much has happened since June 3rd 2010. I think a year in Canberra has offered me many opportunities to learn so many aspects of life, not only in academic stuff, but more importantly real life lessons.

I've met so many people from different backgrounds and I cherish each of them, even the one who did some harm to me. I think, each person life has brought to me, taught me essential clues that I should learn to proceed my journey.

I lost some good connections. The distance between me and some people were widened for better. It's a difficult lesson to understand that, sometimes, things are better left abandoned. I guess, it's a part of knowing when to let go, when to fight for maintaining the relationship, and when to change the relationship. Knowing that sometimes things and relationships take on their nature courses, and there's completely nothing wrong with that.

Nevertheless, I also have been trying to maintain good relations and to connect and interact more genuinely, less selfishly, with many once-strangers: a lovely perfectionist lady in Islamabad, a skeptic yet hopeful Vietnamese girl, a sarcastic yet encouraging academic adviser, a patience atheist-biologist, an arrogant yet gentle musical theologists, an enthusiast Chinese faith-seeker, a coffee-addict Egyptian girl, an ex journalist who is obsessed in Indonesia, a friendly yet muscly Pakistan, a helpful Bhutanese guy, and an Afghan boy who couldn't stop laughing. These are the people that Canberra has kindly introduced me and I hope the list will keep on going. Interacting with people and listening to their stories are, for me, the way to celebrate life that I am forever grateful for.

For these people, the lessons they've been teaching me, for many other reasons, and for people and lessons to come:

to Canberra, I say thank you
to God, I say thank you

and to these once-strangers, I say thank you, friends :))