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Australia has an incredibly vicious, frightening, yet desirable reputation to the rest of the world. A land of plenty, where life is laidback and the beaches glisten. Never in my life have I been concerned that I would die by anything creepy or crawly. I mean, you know they are around and you are vigilant. But, I wouldn’t hide and hibernate if I saw one. Ok, maybe I would. It wasn’t until I moved to the UK that I truly understood the image that is painted of us abroad. I began working as a supply teacher. A supply teacher you ask? What an exciting position, what do you do? Think along the lines of ‘glorified babysitter’ or ‘teacher everyone loves to hate.’ For 6 hours of each school day, the hormonal teens of the UK were blessed with this Aussie expat. Now, supply teaching is not for the faint hearted. Not only do you require a degree in education, but you require a psychology, weight-lifting and hand eye co-ordination major. I soon realised that being Australian could potentially be my golden snitch. I discovered that children were so intrigued by my accent and my story, that it was hard not to give into their curiosity. "Hey Miss, do you ride kangaroos?" "Do you like always see sharks?" "Is shrimp nice on a Barbie?" "So, you don’t live in Sydney, does that mean you are in the desert?" At first, I just laughed and said, "Of course not, don’t be silly." I quickly discovered that the more moving around I did as a supply teacher, meant that even more students were intrigued by my slang vernacular. These students were at my creative disposal and once I had realised they were putty in my hand, I let them really have it. "Want to learn some Australian guys?" Classroom erupts with excitement. Now, we all know Australian isn’t exactly a language, but 14 year olds certainly don’t. "Repeat after me." (Now, for this to be successful, you as the reader need to really give me your best Australian accent and really enunciate those vowels. Here we go.) "I went down to Macca’s in my thongs for some tucker." Laughter erupted. I had committed a cardinal sin. I completely forgot that thongs were the English equivalent of some revealing negligee. "That means, I went down to McDonald’s in my flip flops for some food." "Now, your homework will be to go home tonight and research Australia and Australian words and come back and share with your teacher everything you learnt." Bell rings. Who knew that my ‘Australianisms’ could draw a crowd.