When we were planning our trip, it was only supposed to be a year-long thing.  July 1 to July 1.  We were both hoping that our jobs could be held for us, but in my case, that didn’t work out.  I’m glad.  We would have lost out on a world of opportunities if we’d had to rush back to the daily grind.

Just after we left the United States, we heard about one of those opportunities from a fellow traveler in Ecuador.  He (or she; wish I could remember who it was!) told Oksana about Australia’s Work and Holiday Visa program.  Basically, if you’re 30 or under, you can apply to live and work in Australia for up to a year.  I was over the age limit, but Oksana was both qualified and intrigued.  It seemed like a risky proposition at the time – spending almost 3 days worth of our travel budget on the application fee – but ultimately we decided to give it a go.  Maybe, if everything worked out just right, we’d be able to extend our trip.

Two or three days later, she received confirmation that her visa had been approved.  It stipulated that she must enter Australia by December 28^th, 2011.  Perfect!  We had a full year to decide if we were going to use it.

By the time we were in Thailand, we had met many Australians while traveling and most of them had suggestions about where to stay and how to go about finding work.  During our month of downtime in Phuket, Oksana started the job hunt, mostly using Seek, Australia’s job search site.  She sent her resume to dozens of recruiters and companies and collected an impressive set of rejection letters.  We learned that companies don’t often give interviews to applicants who can only work a maximum of 6-months in one place…

Getting her resume out there wasn’t a complete waste of time, however.  She had a least one Skype conversation with a recruiter that specialized in auto-industry work.  He confirmed what we already knew: Just after Christmas (which was when we were planning to arrive) was literally the worst time of year to be looking for a job.  Nobody’s hiring during the summer holidays.

He asked her to contact him when we arrived, though.  Maybe something would turn up.
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“I hate to write; I like to have written.”

I read that somewhere, but try as I might, I can’t seem to find a proper attribution.  Whatever.  It describes the interaction I have with my blog quite well.

In the last week, I’ve posted three entries.  Good.  That means this one can avoid being another pathetic “Sorry I haven’t posted in a while” file to Google’s cache.  However, I’m still going to write about what I write about here.  Again.

As I look back over the archives, I see that I’ve barely averaged one entry a month over the past year.  My ego’s not so swollen that I worry for my readership; what bothers me is that I’m not writing about things that I will want to read about in years to come.  One of the things I enjoy about my blog is that I can go back and read about things that happened before.  I’m reminded of the thoughts and feelings I had at the time.  Usually, that’s a good thing.  That’s the “have written” part I like.

A Midgett Blog seems to break down into just a few categories:

• Stuff that happened to me (1, 2 , 3),
• Travelogues (1, 2, 3),
• Essay-like writing (1, 2, 3),
• Movie Reviews (a short-lived experiment),
• Creative writing (of which there is really only one example ), and more recently,
• Photography

I always wonder if the things I want to write about have a place on my blog.  When I created it 3 1/2 years ago, I appended the “sporadic and rambling by design” subtitle specifically so I wouldn’t have to worry about a theme.  Sometimes I wonder if what’s posted here is a little too sporadic and rambling.

One of my writing goals is to effectively communicate what I’m thinking.  Stephen King calls this telepathy; I like that.  Often, I use many words in pursuit of this goal.  (Too many?)

I’m off-contract until mid-January so I thought I’d change things up a bit while I have the free time.  For the next little while, I’m going to shoot for shorter entries.  I’m hoping this will have the added benefit of more frequent updates.  Hmmm…  Perhaps I’ll change my subtitle to “periodic and rambling by design…”

I’ve got plenty of topical ideas jotted down.  More photos, essay-worthy musings, overdue notes on my trip to Russia, maybe even a half-hearted stab at fiction…  For those few friends and family that are among my regular readership, if there are past entries or categories that you’ve particularly enjoyed (or other suggestions), well, color me curious.