Snow trip

In total, I moved house seven times, all within walking distance of Swinburne College. Instead of learning to face my problems, I was merely running away from them! This was affecting me seriously and I could not settle down and concentrate on my studies. The first year I did reasonably well, getting two credits, four passes and repeating only two subjects. The second year I passed my repeats but dropped a few more second year subjects. I had to repeat more and more subjects as my study problem snow balled. I knew that I was not going to complete the diploma in time. Therefore, I asked for a one-way air ticket when it was time for me to go home for holidays at the end of 1968.

Every three years the host government encouraged scholarship students to go home for holidays so that they didn’t lost touch with home. In Kuching, I went to talk with my training officer, Clement Tay. When he heard that I was not going back to study any more, he wanted me to pay the government 20,000 dollars for breach of contract! I was supposed to finish my studies in the allocated time and come home to work for Sesco in Pujut as the generation/maintenance engineer. The Pujut power station was in its final stage of construction so I had better hurry up and finish my studies or else!
Given no other choice, I spent my short holidays with Rose in Kuching and also a week with Cecilia at Jalan Perakong in Seria. She was pregnant and expecting twins. In January 1969 I bought a one way ticket and returned to Melbourne to study. From then on, I was really on a two year paid holiday in Australia! I had no idea what I was going to do. I did not have sufficient motivation to complete the diploma. Thermodynamics, calculus, Fortran 4 and imaginary numbers seem to be beyond the scope of my limited academic abilities. I enrolled to continue the diploma study; but from then on, I hardly attended lectures any more. I bought an old Vespa scooter and went to work full time at HMV on Burwood road as a store keeper! Soon I traded that for a brand new Honda 350. It was like getting wings!