Tag: reflection
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19 things for 2019
Several years in a row, my friend Fiona has set a numbered list of goals or intentions for the new year, linking the number of goals with the year. Nineteen things for 2019, this year. After our coffee-shop reflection the other day, I finished a list of my own. This blog doesn’t quite feel the…
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2018: In summary
My friend Fiona and I are sitting at the very back table at my favourite Perth coffee shop, Satchmo, on this last day of 2018, preparing to set our goals and intentions for the new year. She’s written out a long, thoughtful list of prompts in her journal; I’ve suddenly decided I need to spend…
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2018: What I read
Most of the people who read this blog find it through my Instagram account, where I regularly post notices of new blog posts, and where I also post update and small reviews of the books I read. And I’ve blogged a couple of times here about the ambitious reading goal I set for this year,…
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On being less capable
Having recently made the decision to leave Timor-Leste early next year, I’ve found myself prematurely reflective and nostalgic about the time I’ve had here, and what I’ve taken from it. Something I’m beginning to understand, which I mentioned in this post, is that Timor-Leste is teaching me to expect less of myself. To shed the…
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Boredom brings clarity
Last Friday afternoon I was bored for the first time in weeks. A slow, sticky afternoon working from home after a long morning workshop at the university near my house. Hot black coffee in thick-lipped mug by my side and searching for my laptop charger and am I hungry or not quite yet microwaved food…
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A letter to myself in six months’ time
Dear Sophie, six months from now, The year I lived in Melbourne, I wrote on my blog a post called ‘Dear Sophie, six months from now‘, in which I reflected on a change I saw coming — my move to Timor-Leste — and promised to again contemplate my life six months down the track. Half…
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The perfect malae
Last night, at a party, I was telling an incredulous friend an anecdote about a foreigner I’d worked with in Dili who, despite two-plus years of living here and the relatively simplicity of the language, couldn’t speak a word of Tetun. “And that’s not even the worst bit,” I said, caught up in my own…
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June, an update
Mid-way through the year! A watershed month. I’m thrilled to announce a dear friend finally, finally got through to me about my stress and busy-ness and made me realise how horribly over-committed I was and how desperately in need I was of boundaries and boredom. I teetered perilously close to a burnout bottom-out and I’m glad…
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Toppling over
As I reflect on a year in Timor-Leste, I’ve been re-reading some of my old blog posts and remembering what my life was like when I’d just arrived. In my first few weeks here, I needed a reminder that it was very normal to not know how to do things yet. I felt flustered and overwhelmed…
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Thoughts on a year in Timor-Leste
One year ago I moved to Timor-Leste. Keen eyes will notice I’m actually writing this fourteen-ish months after I departed Australia for Dili, which is an uncharacteristic delay for a person obsessed with celebrating every anniversary. Truth is, I had no thoughts on the one-year day when it happened. It was just a normal day. Which,…
Sophie Rai Liur 