May 1, 2013. 11:45pm.

Me: “Hey, tomorrow’s the day I can check my green card application. Not that I’m going to get through in any case.”

Roommate: “How exciting! What are the chances like? Can you check it now? It’s May 1 in the US by now!”

Me: “One in a million, literally. It doesn’t open until midday Eastern Time, and I’m not sitting up until 2:00am to get shot down. That’s just dumb. I’ll look tomorrow I guess.”

That was an actual conversation I had this year. I almost didn’t check my green card application, given the odds were stacked so far against me. If I didn’t, I think my life would look a hell of a lot different than it does today.

My name’s Adrian Crawford. You might know me, you might not. For those in the latter category, I’m a 28-year-old who did check that entry, did follow through with the mountains of paperwork, and did win in the green card lottery.

After an up-and-down year in 2012, 2013 has been a case study in “everything falling into place”. I decided in October 2012 that I was going to make a run at relocating to the US. Six months later I was notified I was in the running for a green card. Less than a month after officially being granted the visa, and less than two weeks after entering the US as a permanent resident, I interviewed for and was offered a job with a newspaper in Augusta, the capital city of Maine in the north-east of the country.

This blog is intended to do a few different things. Firstly, I wanted to write a solid resource for Aussies looking for good information or accounts of the green card process. Those posts are up top under the banner. Secondly, I want to keep my writing sharp and I figure the best way to do that is to document the first year of my life abroad. Going from stinking hot Brisbane summers to the opposite extreme (it’s a cosy -12*C here in Augusta at the time of writing, and the sun’s getting ready to set…at 4:00pm) is going to be a learning curve in and of itself. I’ve barely experienced snow, let alone gone about my daily life in it.

I’m gonna have to learn all of life’s adult lessons all over again – how to grocery shop and lift weights in pounds rather than kilos, how to organize household utility accounts, how to buy a used car in a place where the steering wheel is on the wrong damn side. Undoubtedly all these experiences are going to be the type of challenge that makes me look like a boob, which will most likely prove to be extremely entertaining for whatever audience I manage to pull.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, I’m unfortunately incredibly lazy with text messages and emails, so this can serve as a way for all my nearest and dearest to read about my stupid adventures in small-town Maine, of which I’m sure there’ll be a lot.

Leave me comments, pick on my grammar, ask me questions. Hope y’all enjoy.