 Today I'm going to spend some time in the harbour because I'm writing a novel and it's set in Wollongong Harbour. So that's quite important. It's like going there and just thinking about the things that brought me a lot of comfort when I first arrived in Australia, the water, the lighthouse and of course the people and all those different voices speaking different language having a good time together on the beach. And it reminds you, yeah, Wollongong is such a multicultural city. It's a new way of looking at the world. It's exciting. I grew up at the foot of an active volcano, Mount Mayone. That is in the Philippines. And I'm the eldest in a family of four children. My parents nurtured and asked the love for stories, for books. Perhaps that's why I became a writer. We didn't have much money to go around, but they made sure we had books. I came to Wollongong in 1991 to do my doctorate at the University of Wollongong because I received an Australian study grant. And when I first arrived I realized that in a way the landscape of Wollongong mirrors my original home. Wollongong is also a regional coastal city sitting between the Scarpment and the Pacific. The study grant that I received from Australia and the fact that I was already working for ten years as an academic in the Philippines facilitated my coming to Australia. Everyone was helpful. And eventually I did my three years here and when I was finishing my degree there was a teaching position open in creative writing. I applied for it, I got it. First year I could not write. I had a writer's block. I found the winter too cold. And when you're cold physically, you're lonely, it was just so hard. The way I dealt with that is to run. Every day I ran to the lighthouse. So that helped me survive. But there were moments when I just sit in my empty flat crying. So I have great sympathy for people who leave home to a strange territory. It takes a lot. Some people come to Australia, hang on to their permanent residences and then keep their citizenship from the original country. My belief is that Australia has been good to me. I believe that you have to give it some loyalty. It is also the feeling of belonging. I'm an Australian. But that doesn't make me any less of a Filipino. One has to remember this. The heart has enough space to accommodate the two languages, the two sensibilities and the idea of being transnational. Being a transnational is like being a river flowing between two banks. You get nurtured by the two banks but the water has its own life forms and you are able to create new stories. I went to the Iloara fly tree top walk. It's a fascinating place. You're literally walking on top of trees. It's incredible here in the tree tops. I ran into one of my students from 25 years ago in the Philippines at the University of Santo Tomas and she recognized me. Incredible, isn't it? I'd like to believe that my greatest contribution is not so much as writer but as a teacher of creative writing. As a teacher of creative writing, I nurture sensibilities of Australian students and help them tell their own stories. I have been successful in my writing and performance in Australia. I think career-wise, I have been quite blessed and I got that in Australia. I'm very grateful for that. But of course, I'd like to believe that Australia is getting something back from me and from all its migrants. We all contribute to the community.