Introducing

I’d always wanted to live overseas for a while. I studied Japanese and French at university, which of course led to a wealth of career choices, namely none! So I was all for going to Japan for a year of teaching English after my uni days were over because I’d heard it paid really well (and I wanted to use my Japanese skills of course…). My husband, Michael, also wanted to do something similar but when I was ready, he was in the throes of his PhD and couldn’t afford to take time off to live overseas before his thesis was done. So we agreed to consider a year in Japan after he’d finished and I went out to find a job.

The job I got wasn’t exactly the flight attendant job I’d secretly dreamed of but it was in the airline industry and I got to pretend that the few people I came across with whom I could show off my language skills proved that my university degree was worth the time and money involved. For five and a half years we travelled around during our holidays, seeing places that took our fancy (and that were cheap to get to using my airline benefits!). Finally, as he came to the end of his PhD, Michael’s sights were set more on the career aspect of an overseas jaunt and decided that Japan provided little opportunity for him. He kept his eye out for postdoctoral positions (or postdocs), one to three year research contracts in universities for people who have completed their PhD thesis and want to continue in academia. One day he saw a postdoc position in France advertised on a web mailing list and decided to get some experience applying for jobs. He prepared and sent off his application and didn’t think much about it after that, until he got a reply saying that the University of Burgundy in Dijon would be happy to welcome him on board as their newest postdoc. It came as a bit of a shock because it happened so fast and he didn’t even have an interview!

After the initial shock that comes with the news that you’re going to up and leave your native country, along with all your family and friends, we decided that it was the perfect place to go and live. Both of us had studied French before so we were at least familiar with the language. It was also a good place because it had special links to my family. Well, actually, my family had special links to it. You see, my father is French and has been living in Australia since he was 21. Ok, so it’s a pretty strong link! But the link for me wasn’t a strong French link.

My mother came from New Zealand when she was in her early twenties and met my father in Sydney. I knew my sisters and I grew up in a slightly different way from other Australian families. But it wasn’t that different. We spoke English at home but heard French spoken when my parents had French friends over. Meal times were heavily influenced by the French cooking that my mother had adapted over the years but for big holidays we went to visit the family like anyone else, only the family was in France and New Zealand.

All up, my childhood was like any normal Australian childhood only I never really considered myself 100% Australian. I liked the idea that I was part French and so when I found out that we were definitely going to France, I wasn’t too phased about living in a country where they don’t even speak English. I knew about French culture from all those dinners spent with my parents’ friends and we both at least spoke a little of the language. So it couldn’t be that hard to live there, could it?