Creating a Scenario of the Future

I will begin my story from today, one of the best parts of my live journey. My being here, my second fruitful chance in Australia to study in one of the most renown research centre for microsimulation, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM), University of Canberra (UC). It is an essential part of my “chasing the better future” episode.

At my condition now, I’m on my most critical phase but most enjoyable one. I am now spoilt by a great condition of experiencing a very rich stage of one side of my life. What I mean rich is by having lucrative time to learn what I dreamt of and to reap amazing value of being very close to my family day by day. Those two are a real luxury for me. Most of the times, on my weekday in Jakarta, a chance to study could only done simultaneously with my working journey, a direct learning in the battlefield. I hardly ever had a chance to set a proper time to fully concentrate on study. On the other side, time for my family was very limited, even just for having breakfast or dinner with my family. Commuting was one of the consequences of working in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, a densely populated city with an unsupportive infrastructure. Every day, I commuted as early as 5.30 am to my office and arrive home from my office at earliest on 7 pm (which is very rarely happened).

Living in Canberra is the absolute opposite condition to that. Canberra is a well planned and specifically-developed city for the capital of Australia. Here, times are just priceless, we could go easily to anywhere within minutes, we can easily plan several activities in a day. Here a real balance for study and family is freely provided. There are no reasons for a wasted time on the streets, so the challenge here is to make the most out of that luxury chance.

I’ve just done my first year journey in the UC and thanks God all are well. I did well on my research with a very supportive supervisors and research centre. This March 2011 is a month of blessing. There are several happiness resulted from my hard work, I just presented my initial PhD seminar together with the presentation of my preliminary stage of research model. Other happiness came as a result of studying in Canberra. For an Indonesian public officer like me, having experience to discuss directly with the Minister in the department I worked for is a rare chance. But here, again because of Canberra, 2 weeks ago we can get a close chance to discuss the Indonesian ministry of finance reform, directly with the Indonesian Minister of Finance. Thanks UC, Thanks Canberra, I will surely make the most out of my remaining study period.

Salam,

Bimo Wijayanto

(UC International Ambassador, 1^st year PhD Student in Tax Microsimulation Modelling)