David Sudjiman

I’d been planning this year 2006 from 2003. My main goals were to get my Master degree and PR in Australia. 2006 had passed and it was a great year for me and my wife.

I’d been preparing since 1999 to pursue a Master degree overseas, Germany was my choice, then Singapore, US, and the last one was Australia. I did my little research then I decided to get my Master degree in Australia. The main reason was because I could continue to apply for my Permanent Residency (PR) soon as I finished my study.

We got married on December 2003, and then took our flight to Australia on February 2004. I was studying for about 2 years from February 2004 until December 2005. After finished my Master degree, I applied my PR on February 2006. It took only 3 months then I got a call that my PR was granted. We were quite lucky, we thought that we had to wait for at least 6 months.

Then we were preparing to go back to Indonesia to cure our home sick that has been a long waited from February 2004. We could not go back to Indonesia before we got our PR and I have to admit that it was quite hard for both of us.

Back to Indonesia was great and too short. We had our plan to satisfy our craving and we had our list for many Indonesian foods that we had to try. No luck, didn’t get whatever we want as we quite busy to meet families. I just gained 3 kilo.

We also visited Ponorogo, the place I grew up and met Audi, my wife. We also meet families in Ponorogo yet, as I said, the trip was too short that I have about 3-hours to meet all of my 5-7 families. In fact, we forgot to visit one of my relative and I’m still felt guilty about it. We stayed there for about 4 days.

Satay Ponorogo, yup. That’s was the best satay I’ve ever known and I’d spent my 3 days in Ponorogo with Satay and Pecel (similar like hot salad). We missed the Gule and Ayam Goreng Pemuda.

We did our trip to Ponorogo from Bandung by driving. Visiting several cities like Solo, Jogja, and Semarang and also trying several popular foods and restaurants.

Back to Australia, I had to face that I had to finish my CCNP before December 2006 as Cisco announced its curriculum change. I got my CCNP, in fact, I got my CCNA, CCDA, and CCNP on year 2006.

We also got a job, just one week after we got back to Australia. My wife got a job as a Chef in one of the biggest flight catering in Sydney and I got my first IT job as Cisco Network Data Engineer.

We closed our year 2006 with our last trip to Hunter Valley. Wine tasting was cool. We tried several types of wines and we also bought some wines as well, the one that we couldn’t get from Sydney wine market.

Year 2006 was great. Everything we want was granted, even more, and I know where these helps came from. He never cease to amaze me!

Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. — Philippians 4:13 (The Message) —