Welcome to the sixteenth post of the Great Writing Challenge of 2012.
Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. The stipulation: it must be 250 words (or more), and positive in tone.
If you would like to suggest topics for me to write about, please email me at TheRebeccaProject [at] gmail [dot] com.

I am an Australian living abroad. That informs so much about how I see the world. I get to talk about Australia a lot with the people I meet. I love being asked. Gravitating to fellow antipodeans in the area stems the homesickness with a good ol’ yarn and an exchange of imported groceries from someone’s trip home. There’s some things you just can’t get anywhere else but home.  I’ve yet to find a place to pick up a ‘Dog’s Eye’ with ‘Dead Horse’, or some hot chips with chicken salt.

Today is Australia Day. It’s “unAustralian” not to celebrate Australia Day.  It’s a day when you attend barbies. You eat until you’re full as a goog. You drink till you’re off your face. You watch the cricket. You visit the beach. You listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown.  You get so burnt that you peel.

During this day of obligatory nationalistic fervour, I felt obliged to acknowledge the efforts of my fellow country men and women.

I hail from a nation responsible for attaching corks to hats to keep flies at bay. A place that makes sponge cake, dips it in chocolate, inserts some cream and rolls it around in dessicated coconut (lamingtons). We invented the wine cask and the esky.

 

I am an Australian living abroad, and that informs so much about how I see the world. I find that I get to talk about Australia a lot with the people I meet, and I love being asked. Gravitating to fellow antipodeans in the area stems the homesickness with a good ol’ yarn and an exchange of imported groceries from someone’s trip home. Haven’t yet found a place to pick up a ‘Dog’s Eye’ with ‘Dead Horse’, or some hot chips with chicken salt: there’s some things you just can’t get anywhere else but home.

So technically, today is still Australia Day. A day when you attend barbies, eat until you’re full as a goog, drink till you’re off your face. You watch the cricket, visit the beach/water, listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown and get so burnt that you peel. It’s “unAustralian” not to celebrate Australia Day.

So during this day of obligatory nationalistic fervour, I felt obliged to acknowledge the efforts of my fellow country men and women.

I hail from a nation responsible for attaching corks to hats to keep flies at bay; a place that makes sponge cake, dips it in chocolate, inserts some cream and rolls it around in dessicated coconut (lamingtons). We invented the wine cask and the esky, too. 

Here’s a quick list of what Australia has given the world off the top of my head:

• the black box
• Tim Tams
• Dame Edna
• Hugh Jackman
• Our diggers, the ANZACs stuck it to the enemy, as well as the British
  
• INXS
• Pavlova
• The Eureka Rebellion
• The Late Show
• AFL
• AC/DC
• The Crocodile Hunter
• The Great Barrier Reef
• Kylie Minogue
• Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
  
• Neighbors
• The Go Betweens
• The Castle
• Crowded House
• The Lawn Mower
• Summer Heights High
• The Constitutional Crisis of ’75
• Cold Chisel
• Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
• Breaker Morant
• The Mabo Decision
• Steven Bradbury winning gold
• The greatest racehorse in the world, Phar Lap.
  
• Kath & Kim
• Custaro
• Don Bradman.

You’re welcome, world.

Another bright Aussie Expat I know here (and you should really follow her on Twitter and visit her blog because she’s hilarious!) polled her friends on Facebook the other day:

Favourite Australian PM & why. Go.

My favourite is Harold Holt, for the simple fact that the leader of a free nation just walked into the ocean for a swim, and was never been seen again. True story. I think that’s AWESOME.

Even with the good and the not-so-good aspects, I am proud to be Australian.