New Beginning

These days, the pursuit of knowledge is no longer a question of isolated scientists, working alone in their laboratories to discover the secrects of alchemy. Instead it is a global venture with interaction and collaboration between people from all over world. It is now considered normal, and even desirable, for researchers to spend a part of their career in a foreign country and this can be an exciting and rewarding experience.

For me, it is a great privilege to be able to study here in BRC and working from people from all over the world. I have collegues from England, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, Thailand and soon we expecting a student from Beijing, China. I normally had my lunch with indians, japanese, chinese, taiwainese and korean student (asian, rice eating group) and chit chat about each other country and cultures.

However, it is not always easy to uproot oneself from familiar surrounding at home and sometimes the move to another country can seem daunting. Some simple things, like how to open a bank account or find out about child care, become more difficult in a foreign country. I spend my first month just trying to open an account bank whilst my husband take care of the children. In addition to that, as a moslem, finding the halal food stuff can be as daunting.

To make our journey and move easier, we can always seek helps. There's always people willing to help us settling. For me I always comfortable asking favors from malaysian family and friends as they really understand our needs. Some people said, we should not stay in our own group (countrymen) as we may not expose to other people culture. For me, why make life complicated, get helps from experienced peoples so that instead worrying about practicalities, we can relax and enjoy the experience.