Wrap Up

It's been a while since I wrote in this blog. Many things happen. It is sad that I didn't write my life in Sweden. But I will try to wrap up everything here. Okay, my last writing was about comparison between Ronneby and Bolzano. It was my first impression when I arrived and lived for several weeks in Ronneby. The next story is about my life in Ronneby after those period.

Ronneby was a small town in south-east part of Sweden. One of the most impressive finding when I was in Ronneby is the environment. Yes, it is a small town, not many people life here, no malls and so on. But what I mean by environment here is the living environment. There are still many trees, I saw rabbits many times and the most impressive one is I saw deers in the student housing.

My student housing was fun for most of the time. Yes, there are some times that I don't like the housing. One of it is when I come back from supermarket after buying groceries. The steep road to get to the housing was quite troublesome if you carry many stuffs. And you can imagine when you have to do it during winter when the temperature can drop to -20 centigrade. It is also not so near to the town nor the train station. Which takes some time if I went to shop or to go to out of Ronneby (Karlskrona most of the time). The positive side about the housing is that it is very close to the campus. Getting there can take 7 minutes if I walked slowly and enjoying the scenery along the way and 2 minutes if I took shortcut down the hill through the trees.

Unlike my previous housing in Bolzano, the housing in Ronneby was very warm. Thanks to 24 hours non-stop heating that did not cost extra charge. Ow I forgot to tell one of the unpleasant impression that happened during my last days in that housing. They did not give my deposit money back until now. I heard that the housing company went bankrupt. But still, not giving the deposit money is not a good impression for me.

I finished my study at BTH little bit late than I expected. I expected to finish my study in June 2009 but it last until September 2009. The reason is my master thesis took so long to finish. I even have to work on it during summer. But finally thank God it was over. I felt soo relieved. The result was like I expected. Although somehow until now I still think that I can get the same result with less effort. But nevermind, que sera, sera.

October was my last month in Ronneby and Sweden. It was marked by marathon of farewells, confusion of degree certificates applications and another confusions of what I am going to do next. Many friends that spent time together during my staying period in Ronneby said goodbye. It was sad. But life must go on. Meeting and separating are two things that happen in live. Applying for degree was not so easy task neither. I have to found out what the first and second university wanted and also, ofcourse, what the consortium wanted, BTH was quite helpful and it takes only 2 weeks for the process and I got my transcipt and degree certificates. For FUB it takes months. I received the diploma supplement on December and the certificate on January. Even during November and December I still have to send to them several documents that they need. But thank God I got all of them now.

And ofcourse, the most “romantic” part I did during that October was the planning of what I am going to do after I graduated. It was like the same thing happened when I graduated from my bachelor degree. When I think about this matter, it's not just about where I am going to make money for living. Its more spiritual to me. I put present tense in the last sentence on purpose. I do still think about it until now. I thought about this even before I take the scholarship. But at that time several close persons of mine convinced me to take the scholarship and postponed the thinking of this matter later. I thought about it several times during my first year in Bolzano. And I thought it seriously since my last semester at BTH. In general the results was I did not want to take PhD, at least not for now unless I have no other options. So based on the result it is set to find a job. Where? This is when the spiritual factor comes in. The place where I am going to work will influence my spiritual life. Especially I am planning to have family in the future. Therefore, their spiritual life will be also my responsibility. Knowing this fact, thinking about this matter was more heavy than what I did few years back.

Like most of the Indonesians, I want to come back and live in Indonesia one day. At least until now. This willingness that most of the time I found less or absent when I talked to other non-european friends. I have experienced lived in Indonesia and foreign countries. Based on my findings, nowhere is perfect. There are always pros and cons when we compare living in one country and another. Or when we compare living in Indonesia and abroad. Its just up to us which one that will make us happy.

I have seen a family lived in small house in Indonesia and the father has to work extra hard day and night, way much harder than any europeans that I know of, just to keep his family fed and get shelter. Their home is sheltered with zinc alloy which during summer the temperature inside the house could rise up to 50-60 centigrade and no air conditioners. Only one small old fan that sometimes breaks. Even during rainy season, still you can feel the heat. Which part of that picture that tells happiness? I will leave this question for you. But they said they live happy. I also have seen a family live in one of the city in europe. In small apartment with only one room in it (bathroom doesn't count), have children and afford a good life. Although only small portion of their earnings goes to saving and they are far away separated from their big family in Indonesia. They said they are also happy.

Many reasons to be happy as well as many reasons to be unhappy. We just have to come up with our own formula of happiness that combines those reasons in order to make decision on what do we want to do nest or where do we want to live. During my process of creating this formula I learn one thing. Try not to put people's opinion reason/factor in it. It only cost you more CPU cycle of your brain to work way much harder and no significant advantage in the result. We cannot satisfy all people. No matter how good our formula or decisions that we make there are always people that put bad comments on it. This is our life. Just do it according what we want based on our knowledge and preferences.