A letter to JJ (saturday night)

Hi, JJ:

I am really sorry to hear the news that you have been robbed, again we share the same neighbourhood, how I wish it can be a safer place.

i hope you have already canceld all your card (banks) (licencenses) etc. If your key is lost, suggesting changing lock. (Cost me $100 to get the lock changed a new set of keys for everyone).and think is there anything in the bag can identify who you are and WHERE YOU LIVE.

thank you for understanding why i am paranoid about the dark, it's like being dumped and heart broken, those things you can only understand fully if you exprience one yourself. welcome to the club to millions other vitcims of street robbery.

NOT KNOWING IS A BLISS (BLESSING). Wei Xin Zhu Yi - if you don't see/feel it, then it is not there. so not knowing is a bless indeed, i was like you, feeling comfortable at night, walking out late, not afraid of anything until this year. i think the time before is lucky. not knowing danger is a good thing.

here is just something i want to share with you - after i have been robbed, my mind goes through several stages - well, i started to suspect everyone on the bus (I never do that before), i think everyone can possibly be an attacker esp those people wear baggy clothes. (Eminme style). so everytime when i board a bus, I would feel very happy, if all the people look normal, (i.e. not baggy clothes people). if there are people look like gangster, i would feel unhappy, and wish they can get off the bus soon, at least not on the same stop. I start to look at the back of the bus very often (3 times during the trip, just to see who's on the bus).

whenever i get off bus, i do a quick scan, who's with me. i walk extremly fast when it's dark (6-7pm) after i get off the bus, i scan left and right, and choose a path which is most infrequently walked. and arrive home in 1 min or 2 from the bus stop. walk non-stop. Look around helps, cause when the robber see your eyes, they know you are noticing them, they would be more careful.

it takes me quite a while to 'mentally recover'. i don't think a week is giong to be enough for you to recover mentally. no one can, i am afraid to say that your perception of night is foreverly changed. the lost in the bag cannot possibly compare to what it does to our heart (brain), it makes us scare and fear unecessarily, this mental damage is hard to repair. such damange is far greater than lost of wallet or mobile phones. people spent years trying to forget bad experience, tell me how much that worth? if i were having a choice, i would prefer loose 1000 dollars in gamble rather than being robbed "near to empty" bag at 12 midnight. The former, the money can be earned back in a month or two, the Latter which still haunt me some nights. it normally can only be improved via physical improvement such as Moving to a safer surbub (GORDEN or ROSE BAY), or driving a car (which eleminates most possiblity attack on the road) but some still say, attacker might wait in front of your car garage, (hide in the dark), as soon as you get off the car, and attack. (but it's rather rare). tha'ts why i like canberra, its crime rate is much lower than sydney, average has the highest income and highest income.

many crimes are poverty induced, unfortuately. back to the topic. I would suggest you to do is trying to get home early. If it's not necessary to stay at uni, don't. I know you like to study at library, ME TOO, i wish to study at library late and then go home 11. But at the moment, it doesn't make me feel safe, now i belive it doesn't make you feel any safer too. SO GO HOME EARLY, whenever. Cause with the POWER OF SUNSHINE, it makes us calm and stand strong. (what a theory, but it does work, while travelling in sunshine and get off the bus see kids playing in the neighbourhood makes you feel safe and calm)

best regards, wish you feel better soon. i'll travel with you on monday night, see you then.
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yours sincerely,
b o h a n c h e n