Idealist; one guided by ideals;

Before I left New Zealand, I had family members and friends wishing me well on my “OE”. For those unacquainted with the term, “OE” stands for “Overseas Experience,” and is a term peculiar to NZ I think, because its never used in Australia. I guess it is interchangeable with the term “Gap Year”. Both though, are ill-equipped to describe my current travel intentions.

“Overseas Experience” has connotations of singularity and finality – i.e. “once he’s gotten his OE out of his system he’ll return to get a good job, buy a nice house and settle into a life of mediocrity.” The term seems to imply that a person can only ever have one OE, and once they return home their passport is confiscated, details registered with Interpol and a Control Order put out on them.

Overseas experience – or OE – is a popular phenomenon in New Zealand, with thousands of young Kiwis each year going overseas for travel and/or work. OE is a great way of learning about new cultures, languages and work practices … Most people who go on OE return to New Zealand at some point, and you can put the travel and work experiences gained overseas to good use in your future career.
want.co.nz

The defense rests.

But the term “Gap Year” is no better. It has the added disadvantage of time restrictions. “Gap Year” says to me: “enjoy yourself now, you little delinquent, because the clock is ticking, and that HECS debt has to be paid off some time.” Gap Year is worse, because it means that not only will I have just one Overseas Experience, but it has a Use-By Date of just 12 months!

Well I have a confession to make … I might not come back!

Now before you start jumping to conclusions and notifying the Visa Police (formally a division of the Fashion Police) that this little Kiwi intends to fly the coop, understand this: I probably will come back. I might not. But I probably will. I just need to travel a bit. I need to have (for want of a better term) an “Overseas Experience.”

… But therein lies the rub! I have recently come to the conclusion that it is harder now to have an “Overseas Experience” than it was in the days of yore and yesteryear.

In this world of hyper-mega-instantaneous-communication and clickety-click-connectivity; in this ultra-globalised world of social-networking and instant-messaging; in this virtualised reality of Google Earth proportions where I can theoretically be anywhere and everywhere at once, is it actually still necessary to be overseas while on an OE? Or can I have my OE from the comfort of my living room?

And if this is the case, is the reverse true as well: is it possible that even though my body is in Europe, I still “call Australia home”? What if I’m just pretending to invite new experiences and cultures into my reality?

In my opinion, there are some very clear indicators of whether or not your OE is genuine. I have assembled a short list (which is a work in progress and needs submissions from everyone) that will determine whether you’ve embarked on an O.E. or a P.O.E. (Pretend OE).

It is not an Overseas Experience when:

• you reach into the fridge for the Vegemite instead of the bizzarro-world pate from Sweden;
• you prefer to stream FBI on your computer than listen to German Euro-Pop;
• you get up-to-the-minute updates on all your friends via Facebook;
• you spend more time talking to your parents than you would if you were in the same country;
• you speak English to everyone, despite being perfectly capable of speaking German;
• you draw Home-Town analogies to everywhere you go, for example:
  • “Kreuzberg is just Newtown on steroids,”
  • “London is just like Bondi, but with less British people,” or even
  • “Croatia is just like Blacktown…” (racial!).

If you fit into 3 or more of these categories, chances are, you’re a P.O.s.E.r.

(P.O.s.E.r.; a derogatory term for someone who embarks upon a P.O.E.; [P.O.E.; a Pretend O.E.; (O.E.; an Overseas Experience} ] )

So am I a P.O.s.E.r.? … I’ll leave that up to you!