The Aussie Connection

I don't know how much I've talked about my time living in Australia.  It was after I graduated from college, not quite sure what to do with my Women's Studies and Communications Arts (Radio, TV, Film) double major.  Australia popped into my psyche as a young child when I saw the cartoon Dot and the Kangaroo.  My family frequented an odd video store called The Video Joint, where you would tell the guy behind a counter the number of the movie you wanted, and he pulled a brown video box from behind him with your title.  More than once did my little brain remember the number incorrectly, and I went home with a porno by accident.  That's where I found Dot, and many other quirky, random movies (Pinocchio in Outer Space, anyone?).  Perhaps that video store led me to my film major.  Anyway, from there I always had a place in my heart for Oz, which expanded in high school when I started watching more Australian films.  The Year My Voice Broke also introduced me to one of major film crushes, Noah Taylor.  I still think he's amazing and wish he were in more films, at least those available here in the U.S.

So after college, I lived in my college town of Madison for the next seven months.  I quickly realized that staying in my college town was very similar to staying in college, and I was done with college.  So why not move to Australia?  I mean, what else did I have to do?  There's a big, long story of the visa application process and the waiting and the timing that's actually quite lovely and may someday make its way into an adult book I write, but for now I will just say that I got my working holiday visa (something they do not grant to Americans any longer, I'm told) and moved there. 

Aside: two more reasons I'm thinking about Australia a lot right now are that I just watched Animal Kingdom, for my Oscar rush, and I pulled out a bunch of my old journals to photograph for a Power Point I'm making to present at a high school next week.  One of the journals is of my time in Australia, and it's compelling stuff.  At least to me.

Long story way too short, I know that Australia and I will meet again in some major capacity.  My dream is that my books will become successful in Oz (first they'd actually have to be published there), and my family can move there for a year, traveling and promoting my books.  It's been thirteen years since I've lived in Australia, and ever so often, I feel a strong pull to go back.  I wonder what and when will take me there.