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Suddenly, I am in Tasmania
!!!
Yes, when I was a school girl in a beautiful Saigon highschool, I could never imagine that one day I would dare to cross the endless horizon and landed in this beautiful valley of Trevallyn where love and life are combined to add a special beautiful flavour to this earth.
Actually, it was not that ‘sudden’ as my moving to Tasmania has been a smooth transition between girlhood and motherhood, between the glorious summer breeze of the Mekong River and the cold wind from the Antarctica, between the noisy streets of Saigon and the peaceful valley....I could go on to tell you these fascinating dual aspects of my existence. But first let me start with a bit of history.
Once upon a time, I said good-bye to high school to enter a different world: University of Technology in Saigon where I graduated as a mechanical engineer. Like many other classmates, I accepted the mechanical life as an important part of living that we could not do without!! My first year working as a new engineer was a mixture of love and hate, of enthusiasm and confusion...but life was fascinatingly flowing on... I kissed good-bye to Saigon to arrive in Australia in an Autumn day. I guessed it was Autumn as the road to Trevallyn was dotted with falling yellow leaves and I could feel the gentle cool breeze caressing my long black hair in its kind welcoming. I could not help feeling a melancholy touch in my heart on arrival in this new environment. I silently wiped my tears of love and fear of the unknown world.
As engineering was no longer attractive to me, I turned to computing as a source of inspiration. Oh, yes, I loved it, of course not wholeheartedly though, but at least it gave me a firm direction to go on with life. After completing the Graduate Diploma in computing at the University of Tasmania, I went on and somehow I was again on stage to receive the Masters Degree in computing. Technology somehow has taken away a big part of my love for creativity and human communication. I started to feel the heavy pressure of a virtual reality... To escape, I studied with the University of South Australia and finally I received its Master of Education. Now, at least I could gain back some mental equilibrium: living in a virtual world and a real world. My itchy feet did not want me to stop in South Australia, I moved on to the West in search for a new loving sweet face: Curtin University of Technology. I came back to technology with a sweet cheeky smile, which later became the red carpet of my career path: PhD in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. In addition, on the basis of my combined qualifications, I was employed by the Faculty of Education as a lecturer in multimedia instructional design. And later on, like a shooting star, I found new territory: a new department happily wearing a new hat as IT coordinator. But somehow my destiny is like a dancing river which twists and turns before reaching the ocean, I started to fall in love with a new academic homeland: population and rural health research.
Now, sitting here in an old building overlooking the streets of Launceston, I try my best to serve the Department in a new role as an academic, but somehow, I must admit that I could not help feeling rather melancholy when the rain taps gently on the window and the fresh Summer shower comes sweetly to remind me of a far-away Saigon where images of childhood seem only just ...yesterday!!!