see you later!

The plan was simple. I fly into Adelaide in January 2009; get a Master of Science degree from an American ivy league university; write an extension of my coffee blog (http://klatchiancoffee.multiply.com) while I was Down Under with bits of culture, art, and food strewn in for good measure; fly back home; and resume my happy, frenetic, bachelorette life.

It turned out as planned in the beginning. Study Adelaide picked up this blog in the first quarter of 2009 and posted it in its website. I got a series of hits, far more than I’ve ever gotten in any of the blogs I have put up. The coffee scene was great, people were warm and friendly, and I was starting to enjoy the laid back life. I have also gotten used to cars driving on the opposite side of the road, listening to buskers, and walking along Torrens River.

Then came the quantitative courses. The university was serious when they said that the program is highly quantitative. I was solving problems from 5am to 1am the following day, writing 20-page papers in between, and struggling with my espresso-maker. Something had to give. First I descended to drinking instant Nescafe three-in-ones (the skinny cappuccinos weren’t bad actually). Then I noticed that autumn passed me by and I haven’t even had time to read Graham Greene under orange-coloured trees. Finally I gave up blogging.

They say that when a door closes, a window opens.

Last year, a flurry of windows opened up to me. I met so many wonderful people who took time to help me out, sit down and have coffee, run to Central Market and get gelatos when the going got tough, helped me move apartments, take unplanned trips in-between terms, hop from one restaurant to another to discover the best Italian/ Chinese/Thai/Japanese restaurant in Adelaide, forcibly take me out from my apartment to get a breath of fresh air, walk along the beach, gaze at sunsets, catch late night films, work with great group-mates in school projects, play point-to-the-country with the resident Singaporean whiz kid in the university, and see my favourite Filipino boxer in one of his best matches. I got a job assisting a professor and working in the school yearbook was one of the most interesting things I have done for a long time.

Family members, friends, and colleagues back home kept up with me on skype and yahoo messenger, cheering me in the middle of Adelaide's winter and when numbers were becoming indistinct from hieroglyphics.

Towards the end of the year, I met one of the sweetest blokes in this side of town who can easily whip up a fabulous breakfast at 6am and who flew all the way to Manila to join me in welcoming 2010.

I did get that MS degree as planned. But I reckon, even minus the award-winning blog, I got infinitely much more than what was in that piece of parchment.

If there’s one thing in Adelaide that I particularly love, it is that people do not say goodbye. They say, “cheers mate, see you later!”

And see you later I shall.


(Victor Harbour/Granite Island, April 2010)