Realising how lucky and privileged you are...

I was in the communal kitchen making my dinner...as you do, and I was chatting to Lim-san; who I'd not seen in a while.

I like chatting to the people in our halls, it's always a great insight into a different culture and upbringing; especially as there are very few westerners here. That, and I'm always fascinated by peoples different takes on the same situation...

Anyhoo, not so long ago Lim mentioned that he had a wife, and as he is generally very adverse to cooking; linked to the lack of seeing him in the kitchen, I asked if his wife usually cooked for him at home...

'It depends, sometimes my wife cooks, sometimes my niece or nephew...'

'Oh really?' I was a bit confused... ' Do you look after your niece and nephew then?'

'Yes, I look after them, their parents passed away' says Lim; in possibly *the* most casual manner.

my brain is shouting: 'What?! - did i hear that right?'
'oh', I say, trying my best not to sound too surprised or ignorant: 'errr, if you don't mind me asking: what happened?'.

I would like to point out that Lim is about the same age as me...and that he's a guardian for two children.

he explains how, his niece's and nephew's father contracted HIV through unprotected sex with prostitutes during his time in the military. He then proceeded to pass it on to his wife when he returned. So, it eventually claimed them both and left their two children orphaned, and Lim now looks after them. The children don't have HIV as they had already been born when this happened.

Lim was saying all this in the most matter-of-fact manner; to him it was just another one of life's tribulations, and I just kept thinking god, some people are so quietly impressive...I've been living next door to this guy and going to the same university as him for the past 8 months and not known this.

In the UK we complain about such insignificant things, I think we forget how privileged we are to have access to such facilities and services; a lot of people only dream that they can have a small slither of what we have access to.

While I'm over here wasting my time with some ethereal research into the finer details of sand, shaking, and stresses in pipes, I've been noticing that all the other foreign students; particularly those from other, less entirely developed parts of Asia, have been very aware of the value of the research that they are doing, how they can take it back home, how they can adapt existing solutions to a more affordable and practical form that they can actually use in a practical sense...

I'm going to have to figure out something meaningful to do with my life, me thinks...I'll tell you if I manage to come up with something...