Perth Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Perth Female Conversation

Conversation

I'm from Perth in Western Australia. I've lived there pretty much all my life, just up north of Perth for a while, north of Western Australia and yeah, but pretty much Perth and I'm now just started my travels overseas to go and yes, travel the world. I lived in a small country town called Kununurra for about two years when I was younger. I was like about seven – between about seven and ten, I lived up there.

Male: How did you get this job in Amsterdam?

Just through the company that I'm working in Perth. I got a – just a job transfer: financial planning. So just portfolios and share investing, and yeah, that kind of thing.

Male: Do you have to find your own customers or do they come to you?

I don't know about over here. In Perth it was half-half. So I just do it doing already existing clients. There always seeking – but there's another division that seeks all the clients.

Male: Is it mostly, sort of, retirement investments?

Female: Yep. Mostly that sort of planning. Oh yeah, some people have businesses in trust and things like that, but, yeah, it’s mostly superannuation.

Geraldton Male Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Geraldton Male Conversation

Conversation

Well I grew up in Geraldton. It's four and a half hours drive North of Perth and there's pretty much nothing in between Perth and Geraldton. It's just all red dirt, and it’s sort of a – it's like a fishing town and also a port because there's lots of farms around Geraldton and there's lots of wheat and sheep and so they – all the wheat and sheep goes to Geraldton and is exported from the port there and it goes to other countries and stuff like that and it's also there mainly for fishing and mainly for what we call crawfish. You guys call them lobster, big for that. So we've got lots of fishing vessels that go out and they've got massive pots where they might catch forty or fifty lobster per pot and then they've got to bring those up and make sure they're all of a proper size, you know and not babies and also make sure they're not pregnant females, otherwise those ones have to get thrown back so we don't overfish the lobster and then they take that all and, uh, yeah, that's one of the main two reasons that Geraldton is there.

My dad, he was an accountant – or he was a bank manager with the bank and when we've got to Geraldton, they loved it so much he quit the bank and opened up his own accounting practice in Geraldton. So normally we'd move around lots. I moved around like a little bit as a child but – yeah, when we got to Geraldton, we loved it so much: It was right on the beach, beautiful beaches, beautiful weather and everything. So he quit and opened up his own accounting practice there. So I did my whole, like, all of my high school and some of my primary schooling there. I moved from Geraldton in nineteen, in ninety-nine, and I was in Perth for a year studying at university and then they decided – I had three younger brothers and they all – they decided okay most of the younger boys are going to be going to university just like Luke, we might as well head down to Perth to be with them. So I – yeah, I was living on campus at a college and then they came down, so second year I moved back in with them and hated it, so third year university, I moved straight back out. If I didn’t – hadn't moved out of home, if my parents had been in Perth, and I went to the university there and I'd stayed with my parents, I probably would have been fine with it, but because I got the whole year out and tasted freedom, I was like – when I went back there in second year, oh it's not good. I’m too confined here. So I moved out with a mate and then he moved over to London and my brother, the second oldest, he moved in with me. So we actually only live about a kilometer and a half up the road from my parents so we go around there to do our shopping.

Alright, I came to San Francisco. Had a week in San Francisco. Was down at L.A. for a week and then jumped on my tour. We and a whole bunch of other Aussies. It's supposed to be people from all over the country, but three quarters were Aussies. That was all right. So – and then we went from Anaheim down to San Diego, down to Tijuana across to Phoenix up to the Grand Canyon and then across to Vegas and I finished in Vegas.

Well actually they kept going but I finished in Vegas because I – they were going back up to San Francisco and then back down to L.A. but I’d already been, like, all around there and plus it was easier for me just to get a flight from Vegas down to Houston here to see Andy. From here, well I've got a flight to New York because the guy that I’m meeting in New York, he – his family’s from Philadelphia, who I'm going down to spend Thanksgiving with. So however he's getting down there, I'll be doing the same and yeah, hopefully Andy can get me this other girl’s e-mail who's from Philadelphia as well that was over in Australia studying there. I don’t know. Yeah, so hopefully that would be cool too because I might be catching up with her because she gave me her e-mail address but it didn't work in the end. So, maybe she's telling me something. She may even just be pissed when I get there. Well, hey there, if I'm in Philadelphia, I’m going to come catch up with you. She may be really be pissed. Oh well.

Australian Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Australian Female Conversation

Conversation

I’ve only got about sixty seconds on this sound recorder. It's like the basic one that comes with Windows and I don't have any other software. So you might get five files from me instead of one. Gosh, what shall I tell you? So sorry it's taken until now to get this organized for you. As you probably saw in the message I sent, real life has been a bit crazy lately. I've had assignments to do for university and you know, job applications and things like that. I'm not sure how my last assignment went because basically I was up until about midnight doing it, and I think I started getting a little bit hazy by the end of it but I had to get it submitted. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah, so, university’s been a little bit crazy and work has been a bit insane as well. We had our busiest time of the year. I actually also work for the university as well as study there. So, you know, constantly having to deal with silly students who aren’t organize and don't know anything and then I turn into one of them myself in my other secret life. Yeah, so we had our main enrollment period. And we had, we've just had graduations happen; that’ll be me next year. Yay! Can't wait. This semester I've been doing project management, which has been really quite interesting.

I’m sick of talking about uni and work, so I'll jump over to you know, the other thing that you know I'm involved in and that's the Sims. Unfortunately, I can't really play my game at the moment because I get this blue screen all the time. I mean the last time I tried playing was yesterday and even moving around the neighborhood screen gave me blue screens which was really awful, but I've been playing like a re-creation of the SIMS1 game, which has been a lot of fun. You know, playing with the Hicks and the Machugas and characters like that. I've got a whole bunch of SIMS at university at the moment but who knows when I'll get another chance to play them because all of these problems with my game.

I think I'll be buying a new video card sooner than I thought. I'm still planning on getting a new computer next year, though, which is very, very exciting. Can't wait; can't wait. Why can't next year roll around right now?

Gosh, what else has been going on? I’ve just spent most of today procrastinating on the internet. I was meant to be doing my job application for one of the graduate positions, which is due on Wednesday, but I just can't be bothered. So yeah, I think my bottom has taken on the shape of my chair, and I'm not sure if I've said anything actually useful for you but hopefully this will give you some sort of you know, insight into the Australian dialect.

I don't want to go to work tomorrow, and I really have to stop talking silly if you're going to actually get anything out of this. Yeah, it's been kind of fun doing this, although it’s really weird because I'm not used to – I mean basically if I wanted to sit in a room on my own and record stuff, I would have been a radio announcer, but I'm not that good at it as you can probably tell from the pretty lame recordings that I've just made. Yeah, so, keep well. Hope this helps and I'll catch you later. Bye.

Australian Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Australian Female Conversation

Conversation

I liked going out to the pubs. The pubs are very – they're very cool in Edinburgh. There's like a nice small town feel about it, yet it has a city mentality. So, there's a lot of good pubs there, too many to name. That's one thing that I'll say is the difference between being in a pub over there versus here is people just mingle. So like some random person that you know, you're not – you don't even know will just come up to you and start chatting to you and people tend to be more clicky and in groups here. People – it's just easier to meet randoms at a pub rather than here where it feels like people are already in big groups and they tend to stick to it. Not to say they wouldn't speak to anyone else, do you know, I don't mean it in a negative way, but just that, I don't know, crazy Scots just drunk.

Male: Is it that way in Australia also?

I'd say a little bit more than here. So yeah.

Male: What’s the drinking age in Australia?

So it's eighteen. Yeah eighteen. I think twenty-one’s a disgrace.

Male: So you’ve been drinking for a while.

Yeah, yeah… God, that's not a good thing to say. Yeah. So it's eighteen. It used to be eighteen here though, didn’t it? And then they changed it. I think that's really hard because when you have to wait till you're twenty-one, it's quite a long time. Like what are you doing for all those years? It must get a little bit boring.

Male: So is Texas a lot different from Edinburgh?

Yeah just in the spread out, the way the city is spread out, I would say, but you know, I think the people are very nice.

Male: The weather’s better.

It depends. Yeah. I don't like the humidity. I mean, it's nice now but summer was very, very hot. That was extremely hot and then I got here in April, so the hottest months were coming just after. So yeah, the weather’s very, very different but I'm not a fan of the humidity.

Male: But you like Texas.

I love Texas.

Male: Why do you love Texas?

I don't know how – I don’t actually really love Texas. I was just being nice. Yeah. I don't hate it but I don't love it.

Male: Not your favorite place in the world?

No but it's just different. Yeah, and it takes a while to get used to things too. I'd say I like it more than I liked it when I first got here, but I think that happens anywhere you are. The more people you meet, the more you know about somewhere, you know, knowing more about places and things like that.

Male: Where else have you been?

In the world? I did a little bit of traveling in Europe. I've been to Munich, Paris, Krakow or Krakow, I don't know how you say that, Amsterdam, I've been to a few places in the United Kingdom and a little bit around Scotland and obviously I went to London a few times. But I definitely didn't see as much of Europe as I would have liked to considering I was there for three years. But it’s like having –

Male: Scotland?

Yeah, but that – yeah, which, you know, they’re very cheap flights, but that's what happens when you're doing a PhD. You’re on a scholarship and you’re working weekends because you're trying to get a PhD, so...

Male: What school were you at in Edinburgh?

I was at the University of Edinburgh, so I worked in, like, a reproductive center. It was called the Center for Reproductive Biology, and, so it was part of the University of Edinburgh but it wasn't like – the campus is very spread out there so it's not like there’s just one big major campus. It's kind of all over the city and I worked – it was connected to the hospital because we used to do a lot of stuff with human tissue and my boss was one of the clinicians at the Royal Infirmaries, which is what they call their hospitals there.

Male: And you had time to go to the pub?

Heaps! Yes. Yes. Every Friday, like, everyone from there would go down to, like, happy hour things like all your bosses and everyone.

Male: Do they do that in the States?

It’s definitely, it’s pretty social but I would say no. Well not at Baylor, anyway. I'm like, who the hell's going to be listening to this?

Australian Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Australian Female Conversation

Conversation

I'm from Australia. I travelled to the States and Europe back in ninety-six, nineteen ninety-six. And that was when I met my husband. I travelled around the States for about ten months, then over to Europe for a couple of months, came back to the States and went back home. And then I came back and I've lived in New Orleans for almost ten years now. I work in a salon in a little-- not far from the main city of New Orleans. It's-- We get pretty busy there with all the funny kind of people--with money, but it's-- I take my baby to work so I hang out with him all day. And he's nine months old. So his name is Marley, and then everyone thinks I'm saying Molly. It's pretty funny actually.

I'm gonna trying to be taking a trip back to Australia in September, October with him. And maybe go to one of the islands down there, Tahiti or Fiji or-- I don't know. Just go take him around the Pacific and-- I don't know. That's why we're renewing the passports.

Female: Did you see-- Just be going to visit like your family and--?

Family and friends. Yeah. And even my mother seen him, so all his all his godmother and aunts and uncles and friends and cousins that haven't seen him. So it's going to be interesting.

Female: Right. So they're going to be--

Yeah, because now he's a little boy and he'll probably be walking by then, anywhere he wants to. So.

Perth Male Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Perth Male Conversation

Conversation

I am from Perth in Western Australia. I have lived here all my life. Yet-- And my father is from England and my mother is from Ireland. I am one of--how many children is it now?--five. I have one elder sister and three brothers; two older, one younger. So, second from the bottom. My sister still lives in Perth whilst my three brothers have ended up on the east coast of Australia simply by virtue of circumstance; it wasn’t planned. My eldest brother is married with three kids now. My brother Paul is in finance, he's the second eldest brother. And my younger brother just completed the degree in nano technology, which I have no idea what that means, but I think he might be a perpetual student.

I'm a photographer, so I am self-employed. Yeah, I shoot a lot of different things. Fashion is probably my primary focus, but pretty much anything really. My favorite thing to do-- Probably when I have time is to read, which I don't really have that much time for. It's dependent on what I'm shooting, but if it's a personal shoot-- so if it's a concept that I've come up with and I've crafted myself, there's quite a bit of pre-production that goes into it. I often like to make, you know, bits and pieces to include in the shoot. And I storyboard it quite in a similar way to how film would be done so that by the time the shoot actually comes around there's a limited room for error, which, of course, is always impossible to account for everything. But I do like to try and close that gap as best I can.

Picking the talent that you're working with is obviously very, very important, but they're just one piece of the overall picture. So everything does come into play in hair, makeup, styling. But it's very much a collaborative process rather than seeing just myself at the head of it. So, yeah.

Yesterday was probably one of the more tedious kind of days that I often have to get through, in which I was waiting on emails before I could go ahead with particular work. Lots of invoicing, chasing people for money. But oftentimes, you know, one is waiting on the go-ahead from other people who are then waiting on the go-ahead from other people. So by the time it trickles down to you, probably lost the better part of the day, and then still have to do all the work that you'd set aside that entire day for. So, yeah, a lot of the time it's kind of sitting and waiting and trying to do other things, but not start anything too big in case you have to drop it and then go away. But, yeah. Every now and then I'll come and just get fed up and go for a bit of a walk just to get outside of the house. But, yeah. So, not the most exciting day. Although I did make a rather delicious soup for dinner last night.

Australian-Japanese Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Australian-Japanese Female Conversation

Conversation

I was born and raised in Australia, though for six months at the age of one I had lived in Japan. Just this year, I've graduated from high school, so next year I will enter university. I plan to study something along the lines of global business, and hopefully I can attain a job which allows me to be globally aware of the business industry. I've always been interested in different cultures, particularly Japanese culture. At high school, I studied Japanese since year seven up to year twelve, and really enjoyed it. Other than Japanese, I also studied sciences. Though I'm not terribly good at it, I did find it fascinating. I went to an all girls school, so science was a very popular subject.

Okay, about my hobbies. I enjoy badminton. I was part of the badminton club in high school. I had to wake up really early for weekly practices. Every now and then we held competitions with other schools, and I found that a very good experience. I like anime, Manga creative arts, and I also like dog sitting. I really like dogs. In fact, I love all animals: cats, birds, dogs. I also have my own two rabbits. About my hometown, I live in a very small suburb called Maryland, in a very convenient spot near the train station, bus stop, and shopping center. There's also a library nearby which I borrow TV shows and movies from. For some reason they always have the newest things there. So just a little something about me, I'm a pretty antisocial and lazy person. And recently, I got a job at a juice bar and I don't necessarily find any joy doing it. Though since we graduated, all my friends have gone overseas for holiday, but I have no cash so I'm stuck here. Hopefully, in the future I can go overseas to study. That's what I plan to do in uni anyways.

Perth Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Perth Female Conversation

Conversation

So, I'm from Perth in Western Australia, which is obviously on the west coast of Australia and it's actually the most isolated city in the world. It takes close to five three-hour plane rides to get to any other city.

We have a lot of-- so, up north is lot of like oilrigs and a lot of mining. So they have like small towns, but nothing with like a city. So the next big city is, I think the closest one is like Adelaide and that's like a three-, four-hour plane ride.

Yeah. It's not a small city. It's like two-point-five million or something in Perth, but it's just very isolated. Basically, like all of Australia, all the cities is on the coast. I mean, the only other main city really is Alice Springs, and that's in the middle of Australia. But it's not even like a city, it's like small farm town. It's like-- It's not livable in the middle; it's just desert. It's actually a funny story. Our indigenous people you-- actually, they have this thing, and it's called walkabouts. They'll just go walkabouts and they’ll just walk and they'll go missing for like three days. And legally, they can't be fired from their job because it's part of their ancestral stuff. Yeah, it's crazy.

Obviously, when I first got here you're kind of-- you're just kind of shocked because it's like, obviously, like, opposite-side driving on the road and then even like the people are different. Southern hospitality is a big thing, like strangers are so nice to other strangers. And like-- It's not like that in Australia. It's kind of like-- Everyone is just-- Not everyone is rude to everyone, but just like if you're a stranger-- you're just like, if you start talking to them they're just like, "Why are you talking to me?"

I went-- I was about thirteen and we went on a big American holiday. And like, all of my friends were so jealous because like everyone is obsessed with America in Australia. It's like that's where like you want to be, where you want to live. And so we-- my sister Hannah, my mum and dad, we travelled around America. Was that a month? Yeah. But we never would've thought about going to Texas at the time.

So, I guess, living on the coast, that played a really big part of growing up. Like very weekend we’d just go to the beach. Even when it's winter, we'd still just walk down the beach just like to watch the waves. Like it's just something that you do. And so we had like surf club, and so it's basically like life-saving training kind of stuff. So a lot of kids did that. I did it briefly, but then I stopped. And then even when other kids carried on, everyone would come down to the beach on Sunday. And then we'd all just hang out, go to someone's house, just get fish and chips, like it was just like what you did every weekend.

Obviously, there are a lot of deadly animals. I mean, but-- It's not like you have to watch out everywhere you go. So, I mean you don't leave your shoes out in front of your house because-- Or, like if you do I’d-- we'd check for spiders. Like stuff would crawl into there. And like in school, we had like these school racks. Because everything was like-- the school is all outdoors. So like it wasn't like an enclosed like this. It was like you walked outside to and from different classrooms and stuff. So we had like bag racks. And you couldn't—You’d have to zip your bag up because a lot of girls actually would find snakes in the bag, that would crawl into the bag. Yeah, a lot of small ones like red backs. All of the spiders are deadly. But yeah, you get some big huntsman’s and they're all hairy and gross.

None that I know of have gotten, like, severely injured. My dad was actually a snake catcher for a while. Yeah, so I lived in Port Headland, and it's one of the small mining towns up north. And so this, my dad worked with BHP at the time. And he has a couple of environmental degrees and they were all just like, yeah, you know, snake catcher. So, I mean, he had some cool stories about some of his work, you know, workmates, whatever, would get bitten and stuff like that and so. He would, obviously, he would be trained to handle them. But like he would-- you bring them home in like a sack and he'd like bring them home and let them go.

Tasmania Male Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Tasmania Male Conversation

Conversation

Okay. So, a bit about myself. I was born and grew up in Tasmania, which is an island off the south of Australia, still part of Australia. But I would live there for the first-- I lived in Launceston for the first eighteen years of my life. Then did university in Hobart, which is still in Tasmania, for another four years. And since them I've moved to Cambra, and I've been living there ever since, working in Cambra as a civil engineer.

Tasmania-- In terms of accent, I don't think there's too much difference between the states of Australia. As in, you know, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales -- I think the accent is pretty consistent throughout. Although that is only coming from an Australian. I have heard other people say that the accents differ slightly on where you come from.

About myself: I'm an engineer, I work in construction. I enjoy my job because I work outside and I get to solve a lot of problems. And I kind of work in a team format rather than just working by myself behind a desk all day.

I've been on italki, learning Spanish for only two or three weeks now. And I am doing that because I'm actually going to South America in about one month's time. We'll be traveling to Argentina first, and hopefully practicing as much Spanish as I can while I'm in Argentina. I'm thinking about going to a language school over there for a couple of months just to learn and be able to get to a good conversation level so I can talk with the locals. And then after that I plan to travel more around South America, obviously a lot of the Spanish-speaking countries. Perhaps Central America, perhaps even the USA. But I'm looking forward to it. After working for a long time it will be good to have a break and good to have some fun.

Tazmania Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Tazmania Female Conversation

Conversation

I was born in Queenstown, Tasmania, basically a ghost town these days. Growing up I had pet kangaroos. Most of these joeys were saved from the pouches of the mother after they had been killed by being hit by a car. We also had a pet sheep called Marion, a wombat, a possum, and some horses. I now have two daughters. Chloe is twenty-three and lives in London and Bronte’s sixteen, who is up here with us in the U.S. finishing her schooling. We came to L.A. eighteen months ago due to my husband’s work. He works for the airline Qantas. We travel a lot and have been to many Asian countries including Japan, Indonesia, Thailand. We also have been to Fiji, England, Italy, Greece, and France as well as other European countries. We went to Mexico for two weeks last year and have another trip planned for April this year. Last night, we went out to a bar in Hermosa with a couple of friends. We drank margaritas and wine and ended up being a pretty big night.

Western Australia Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Western Australia Female Conversation

Conversation

I am from the western coast of Australia. Scarborough my town was that I was brought up in. And when I was at work, I met my boyfriend who lived three hours south in a town called Dunsborough. And we decided to hop in a car together and drive to the East Coast and move over there. So now I live in Noosa, which is on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. It’s really beautiful. It’s always hot. Even in winter it’s pretty warm. The ocean’s a lovely temperature of about twenty-six degrees in summer. So, all year round I can surf and I don’t have to wear a wet suit, which I love. I, yeah, basically surf almost every day when there’s waves, which is a lot of the time. And then I’m a full-time graphic designer. I’m a student and I work at a brewery as well, where they make beer. So, I really like drinking beer as well.

It’s a, I don’t know, really… it’s a really lovely place to live. The lifestyle’s really simple, and people really don’t leave here when they live here, so I don’t know, most people that have lived here have lived here for their whole lives. And it was… It started blossoming in the seventies around that hippie era in Australia. And so, a lot of the people that live here that are around my age, which is twenty-two, they all have these really funky parents that all they did when they were younger was smoke weed and party and surf. Which also means that the work ethic hasn’t really been taught in this town, so it’s a very slow but upcoming town. And all the people that have moved here, me and my boyfriend, from Western Australia, where it’s a lot more competitive, we’ve got all these jobs because not many people have had that work ethic drilled into them. My boyfriend, he’s a live broadcaster, and he works for the World Surf League, so he gets to travel all around the world, live broadcasting the surfing.

What else? In my spare time, I like to study. So, I’m studying Spanish at the moment, and I’m really excited about it because I’m thinking about moving over there next year. Either there or somewhere in South America. So, I don’t know, it’s fun having a plan, and a little bit of an… something exciting to look forward to. My parents still live in the West Coast, and at the moment they’re up here visiting. So we’re gonna go out for dinner tonight. What else can I talk about?

I’m… Yeah, I’m twenty-two. I’ve been working in hospitality for the last four years. Just learning how to make coffee. Coffee is a pretty big thing over here as well. It’s really… Coffee… Being a barista here is extremely competitive. Everybody… If you’re a barista, you’re really good at making coffee. You have to measure a shot of coffee, you have to… you gotta do latte art. I think our coffee’s kind of different to what you guys do in the States.

Western Outback Female Reading

Reading

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Western Outback Female Conversation

Conversation

That’s pretty simple. I was born and raised in Western Australia. My parents are actually English. I’m the first Australian in the family. Yeah. Not a lot to say with that one really. That’s it. I have traveled recently to Italy and to Spain and France as well. As you can tell, I’m not the best at speaking about myself. I tend to be more of a listener than anything. Alright, so in Western Australia, I live in the Wheat Belt area, which is pretty isolated. There’s five hundred people in my town. I’m surrounded by farms. At the moment, everything is still green ‘cause we’re headed into spring. And there’s flowers everywhere, but usually it looks like a golden desert here with all the wheat crops. And endless blue sky. It’s a beautiful part of the world, but not to everyone’s taste, I guess. It’s about, oh, two hundred kilometers southeast of Perth. When I drive to Perth, I see more kangaroos than cows usually.