I had been living in Australia for the better part of a year, which seemed — on the front end of the trip — to be more time than I would want, but after enduring the 20-hour plane ride, it turned out to be the minimum
I had chosen Australia as my place of study on a lark. Seated in my academic adviser’s office, surrounded by glossy magazines with crisp images of the Great Wall, Stonehenge and the Colosseum splashed across the covers, I murmured, “What do you think about Australia?” He leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping at his face, as he mentally escaped to a memory Australia had once handed him. A smile played upon his lips before he said, “Well, if you can’t have fun in Australia, you’re not capable.”

That was the word that I needed to hear. Fun. I had spent the last three years in a ruthless pre-med program, struggling to keep pace with foreign exchange students who possessed more intellect in their earlobe than I did in my frontal lobe. Things crystallized inside of that shabby office, and the loftier concepts of history, art and foreign language felt suddenly shortsighted as compared to the more elemental idea of fun.

Moving somewhere for the pursuit of fun proved complicated for someone who had fallen out of practice with it. What does one pack for a year of fun? How much money do I need to have for fun? What level of SPF is fun? Is living without antiperspirant fun?

It hadn’t taken long for the Aussies and other study abroad students I had made acquaintances with to realize that I was a struggling student of fun. My existence within my new university became startlingly similar to the one I had been living in the United States. I could be counted on to attend class and provide notes to those who had slept through it. I would stay sober and drive the revelers home at the end of the night.In home display Let’s just say that everyone knew whose door to knock on when they needed an extra international phone card or some aspirin. They knocked on a different door when the situation demanded condoms or cigarettes.