You know what's odd? Now that I've moved to America, I feel more Australian than I have ever felt before. I want to get an Australian flag to put out in the front yard, I have a boxing kangaroo flag that I might one day hang up in my room, I want to get an Australian bikini, one my list of things to buy is green and yellow nail polish, I am hyper aware of all Australian holidays, etc, etc.
But really, I guess it's not all that weird. Being in a different country, surrounded by people who are mostly all the same nationality, Australian becomes a defiing feature. When you are asked to describe yourself you say, "My name is Emily, I'm 17 years old, I am tall, I have brown hair, I wear glasses and I'm an Australian."
Not only that, but you are expected to know every single thing about Australia. Which is fair, really. So you are forced to look things up. And you find things out that you never thought you would have known before. Like the fact that blue bottles are not in fact jellyfish but some weird organism thing that when seperate are called zooids. You find that you can recite the ingredients of Vegemite off by heart (yeast extract, malt extract, salt, colour, vegetable flavours and vitamins).
You are also asked to "say something" all the time. I have never known what to say until a fellow Aussie told to me to say, "G'day! 'owsitgoinawight?" And go from there.
So, cheers! Have a beaut day.
I.KNOW.EXACTLY.HOW.YOU.FEEL.
ReplyDeleteExcept people want me to say "no" all the time, because apparantly thats the thing i say the "weirdest". Have you had people argue with you whether its a "capsicum" or a "bell pepper" yet?
And because there are 3 Emilys in my year, there is tall emily/ballet emily, diabetic emily, and australian emily. guess which one i am xP
hahaha. Not any Americans, my family thinks I say "no" weird. So I dunno what that is about.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, I've been in a few arguements about what the right word is. haha.