I ready Jon’s year in review and found it very interesting. You can’t always see the overall shape of a year without summarising it like that. So here is my 2006 review.

What amazes me most about 2006 is that on January 1, I had not the faintest clue that by the end of the year, I would have left a job I loved and moved to England to study at the University of Cambridge. A year is a long time.

Early in January, I put in my application to Cambridge. Then I tried not to think about it. There were good things about getting an offer and there were good things about not getting an offer. Although it doesn’t seem like it at the time, flip flopping between two equally attractive options is a good position to be in. It’s better than two bad options, right?

It has been a year of milestones. I went to my first cricket match, Australian Open match and Aussie Rules football game. I was made a job manager at work and was absorbed by big projects. My team won the company trivia night. I was in the middle of it all. It made me happy.

The long-awaited Commonwealth Games came, and I left for a holiday in England and France. I remember seeing Damjan at the bus station when he came to pick me up. A year is a long time but sometimes, six months is a short time. It was like we hadn’t been apart.

I also remember falling asleep in my dessert at the French restaurant. I thought I was immune to jet lag.

Just before I left Australia, I found out Cambridge had offered me a place. The offer meant nothing without a scholarship. I took the opportunity to visit Cambridge anyway and while I was there, I kept thinking, ‘Do I really want to be here? Is it the right time?’ I felt bad that I was uncertain.

I came home to a life-changing experience. Work offered to put me on a long-term job based in Shepparton in regional Victoria. I, a suburban girl who lived with her parents, would be living with a workmate hours from home.

Shepparton taught me about the problems drought and salinity cause Australian farmers. I learned what it was like to build an environmental management system for a big, complex organisation. I learned to work closely and successfully with another person. Jamie covered for my blindspots and I organised his thoughts. I learned to cook (better). I learned not to be scared of the gym. I learned to keep in touch with my family. I was practicing for Cambridge, wasn’t I? But I didn’t know I would need this until I got a scholarship in May.

I stopped dancing hiphop. I didn’t miss it. I do now. My latin dancing improved, though. Vera and I had more than half a year of private lessons with Irina. I am no longer ashamed of my Cha Cha technique.

I worked and studied like a demon in the lead up to September. Somehow, I finished my graduate certificate in conflict resolution before I left.

Damjan came back for his summer break and we flew to England together. It was surreal, that moment I said goodbye to mum and dad. I was homesick and lonely, that first night in the Cambridge hostel. Dinner was a banana (luxury!) and a tub of yogurt.

The next day, though, I instantly had 100 friends. I went on camp with the people who had the same scholarship as me. People from around the world converged on the Peak District with the express purpose of being interesting and friendly. It was kind of overwhelming. But I was thankful for it, oh so thankful, when, in the following hectic days of setting up my life in Cambridge, I kept running into people I knew. I already belonged.

I met my new family. There are five of us in this college house: Di, Alex, Dino, Intan and me. Most of the time, the kitchen sink is pretty clear of any washing. They also looked after me when my computer crashed. I’d say this is a damn fine household.

I met 35 engineers interested in sustainable development. Some want to continue their work with developing nations. Others will work at changing industry from the inside. I’m not sure what I want to do yet. It might be clearer on Monday. I will be talking to a visiting lecturer who has challenged some of my basic assumptions about the world.

From my point in the world, the problem of sustainability is getting simpler and the solutions are getting harder.

In July last year, I wrote about six revelations I had about myself. Just now, I went back to my list. Those revelations have already been absorbed into my fundamental view of myself. It seems strange that I had lived without them.

Finally, just for fun, let’s see where I am on the timeline I wrote more than two years ago.

Ha. Two years is a long time.

I’ve decided to rationalise my social circles. There are many ways to meet people as a new student at Cambridge. A few days ago, I decided to concentrate on my interactions with the people from my house, my course and my scholarship group.

The casualties of the cull include people from the dance club, Australian and New Zealand Society, Commonwealth society and my college.

To my friends back in Australia, I’m sorry for the sparseness of my communication. You have not been culled. Hopefully, when my eBay-bought laptop arrives next week, I will return to my chatty self.

I’m in Melbourne most of this week and bits of next week. I’m doing my final subject in my conflict resolution studies. This is the subject I agonised over a few weeks ago, if you remember.

Guess what?

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the past two months.

Two months ago, I thought I had a pretty good idea of who I was, the things that made me Joan. Why did I think this? Because I do so much self-reflection.

But there’s a limit to how much you can learn through self-reflection. The things I’ve learned recently are things that other people have had to tell me about me.

Has that ever happened to you? People say, “You know, you’re really X, Y, Z.”

And you think, “…”

And then, “…”

And then, “Yeah. I guess so. Yeah! Wow! Really? You mean, not everyone’s like that?” I needed other people, people who look like me on the outside but are very different on the inside, to identify the intrinsically-Joan characteristics that I never thought to articulate.

I can count six revelations that other people have thrust upon me in the past two months. Six revelations. I think you’re lucky if you get one revelation a year.

It’s kind of like thinking you’ve mapped out the whole world and then discovering new continents. I understood the reality that even when your world is mapped out, you should expect the landmasses to shift in the future. But this is different, this bit about discovering more to map in the world as it stands today.

Imagine what I’ll learn when I have to live in another country for a year!

I’m not going to talk about what I’ve learned because it’s not meaningful or interesting to anyone but me. I just thought I should warn you, if you don’t know it yet, that even if you are the most self-aware of people, there are probably still things you can learn about yourself — especially if you’re still young.