Introduction and motivation
I'm Karlijn and I was born in Wilhelminaoord in 1997. I’m in the third year of my study to become an English teacher and I chose for the Minor abroad. I love to travel anywhere, but in this case I plan to go to Australia because it’s on the other side of the world. I’ve heard beautiful stories about the people there and the country itself and I’ve always wanted to see it for myself.
It’s also very important to me that I grow as a person, challenge myself mentally and physically and I reckon Australia is the perfect place to do exactly that. There are so many backpackers there and I feel like I’ll meet so many new and interesting people, that I could write a whole book about them. I’ll start my journey in Sydney, work for a while and travel up the east-coast from there on. This is the first time that I’ll be away from home this far and that I’ll be on my own, so I believe that this’ll be a learning experience that I won’t have anywhere else.
I’d like to know what it’s like to live in a different country and to have to start over completely. Learn how to make a home of a place that I’ve never been before, without any familiar faces, with just the language in common. Learn how to take care of myself and to fill my days the way I want to, without someone telling me what to do. I wonder how I’ll manage that and what life’ll throw at me once I’m there. After all, life’s what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.
Method of approach
I want to make the most of my time in Australia and see everything I can, so my plan is to stay from February until August, almost six months. I’ve searched for farm-jobs, but they’re difficult to find and you can’t always trust the farmers, and I hear that it’s not easy to get a job in the city that you only plan to keep doing for a few months. This is the reason that I’ve decided to wait with looking for a job until I’ve settled and met some people. They will know where and how to find a job, they’ll know if the employer is reliable, if I’ll get paid for the job that I’m doing, etc.
After working for a month I’ll get a car to travel with, find people who want to come with me, and see the Great Ocean Road first. From there on I’ll start travelling upwards. Halfway through the east-coast I’ll find another job, make some more money to replace everything I’ve spent while travelling up, live there for a while, and move upwards again. I’ve heard that most of the aboriginals on the east-coast are found in and around Cairns, so I plan to try and get some cultural and historical insight when I’m there.
There are some beautiful cities and islands that I want to see while travelling north, so I plan to visit all of those, before arriving in Cairns. In Cairns I’ll look for another job, just so I can see what differences there are to working in other states and places. Along the way I count on meeting some (younger) Australians that’ll help me understand more of the whys and hows of the life in Australia. I don’t think I’ll meet enough Ozzies to learn the accent, especially because that also changes with every state, but I can try to pick up some of the sayings.
I will not get my RSA, because that’s expensive and hard to get in New-South Wales. It would’ve been less of a problem in any other state, but since I’ll probably not get a job in hospitality anyways (they won’t hire for less than 4 months) I don’t think it’s worth going through the trouble.
CV
KARLIJN EUMMELEN
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international drivers license
EDUCATION
2008-2015 High School RSG Tromp Meesters, Steenwijk
2015-now Higher Education NHL Leeuwarden, English Teacher
LANGUAGE SKILLS
Dutch Native language
English C2 level - CEFR
German Novice
French Novice
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
*
OTHER
Communication skills
Flexible
Team player
Stress resistant
People person
End product
I plan to call it: ‘A Student’s Ultimate Ozzy Itinerary’. Which might need some work, but that’s a start. The target of my end product will be students who might want to go to Australia and who are curious as to what they can expect and what it might look like.
I just bought a new camera for my trip to Australia, so I plan to film as much as possible, take photos wherever I can and put them together in my blog. I’ll try to talk about the culture as well as the history in my blog, and I’ll show the highlights of my journey.
It should be clear in my blog that my writing has somewhat improved, just as it should become clear in my film that my speaking has improved as well. I do not expect to keep my British accent during my time in Australia, but we’ll see with what accent I will return. I will try to write a blog about the Aboriginal culture as well, see how that turns out and if I can learn something from these people as well.
At the end of my journey I will create a film with all the footage that I’ve collected during my stay in Australia. This film will show the beautiful features of the east- and south-coast and more. As a result of this, my end product will be this film as a visual itinerary.
Goals
Over the course of 6 months I will have worked more than one job, for a total of at least 192 hours. I can prove this with a word from my employer(s) or to show my income. I’ll look for jobs by searching for ads or asking friends for advice.
At the end of my stay in Australia I want to have a blog filled with a month worth of itinerary or tips for staying in Australia. I’ll later turn this, combined with all other experiences that I didn’t necessarily write about in my blog, into an official itinerary for my end product.
In Cairns I’ll try to connect with aboriginals, or descendants thereof. I’ll probably get more insight in what their history was like, how they lived back then and how they live now. I’ve got at least a weeks time to do this, and write in my blog about it.
At the end of those 6 months I will have improved my language skills so that I can pass my CPE’s. I do this by meeting native English-speakers (whether that’s from Great-Britain, Oceania, America or somewhere else) and communicating with them as much as possible.
