Learn Australian English in this interview episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I interview Mai Medina about how to get permanent residency in Australia.

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AE 492 – Interview: How to Get Permanent Residency in Australia with Mai Medina – Part 2

G’day, guys. How’s it going? Welcome to this interview episode of Aussie English. This is part two of, obviously, a two-part series with Mai Medina from Mai’s Journey.

So, hopefully, you guys checked out the last episode that I did with Mai, that was 490 – How to get permanent residency in Australia with Mai Medina. And remember, this interview ended up going for quite a while. So, I think the interview totaled like an hour and a half of time. We were having a lot of fun when we were chatting on Skype and I thought that might be a bit too much for you guys if you have to sit there and listen to, potentially, an hour and a half of me talking. One, I can imagine my voice gets pretty annoying, and two, it’s just a lot to absorb.

So, I’ve broken it up into two parts, guys. Here is Mai Medina from Mai’s Journey on YouTube. Remember, the links will all be in the transcript, and if you would like access to these transcripts go to theAussieEnglishPodcast.com, click ‘sign up’, and for just five dollars every single month you can get access to all of the transcripts and MP3s so you can study anywhere anytime. Anyway.

I give you Mai Medina from Mai’s Journey.

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So moving on slightly. How did you get used to Australian English? What was, you were saying that you were having trouble at first when you started your University Masters here in Australia and that the teachers spoke obviously with an Australian accent, what did you do to get used to it and to overcome that language barrier?

Well I… because I didn’t have any Australian friends at uni. And at home we were all internationals of course, none of them were Australians.

But I think this is going to be… this is why it’s good, right? Because you have overcome it. And I think a lot of people listening are going to, at least if they’re in Australia or they end up in Australia and they haven’t done so yet, I think they may end up in a similar situation where it seems it’s always very difficult to penetrate the world of the native Australian speaker, right, and surround yourself with them all the time. So what did you do and what do you recommend people do if they find themselves in a similar situation?

I started dating.

Oh yeah. Ok, so you got on Tinder, huh, and started meeting Australian guys?

Yes. So I started dating and I was dating Australian guys. And then you get used to it. You go out with them, if you don’t understand a word you can say “can you say it again?” which is not the case in a classroom environment, you are not going to stop the teacher at every sentence trying to figure out why he just said. And then you just get used to it with time. Like, I don’t know, the first month was very hard. The second month not so hard. Right now I listen to lots of podcast and that also helps a lot. But back then podcasts were not a thing so I can’t say that I used that. But one of my friends, she is studying for her IELTS and she has been listening to podcasts, like English, Australian podcasts and she says, she said to me like a couple of weeks ago like “oh I can understand those girls”. And I was like “just keep listening, because you’ll get used to it” and she said “oh yeah”, I mean, yes, there are a few things that I can’t understand but you just get used to the way the pronunciation and the way you…

Well that’s it, right? It’s kind of like you’re doing a puzzle, right? And it’s not like you start the puzzle when there’s nothing on the board and then all of a sudden, it’s finished. You do little bit by little bit and slowly the picture emerges and it’s the same, I think, with English and improving your ability to understand native speakers. It’s not like you just do this one thing for this set amount of time and now you understand 100 percent of everything everyone says. Like, I still say “Pardon me” to other native speakers all the time if I miss what they say. But I definitely think you’re right, there are loads of podcasts, especially Australian English ones. You’ll find things like obviously mine, the Aussie English podcast, you’ll find Conversations is a good one. Hamish and Andy are two really funny comedians who have one. So there’s heaps on there, they’re free guys, get on there. But also did you watch Australian TV and were you doing any extracurricular activities that introduced you to Australians?

Not really, apart from dating that is the extracurricular activity. Not really, because I was studying full time and then I had to work to pay rent. So I was working at night and I was working as a cleaner. So I was cleaning a school in Toorak but then I didn’t have any interaction while I was cleaning because it was just me.

That’s a job I tend to try and get people to sort of like avoid if they can. Like it is good if, you know, you don’t need that many skills to get paid but it’s all alone or it’ll be with other people who speak say Spanish.

But I have to say that my English was good and that was the only thing that I found. So one of the sad realities is that if you are from Latin America and you are coming here to study and you are looking for a part time job, most likely you will start as cleaner.

Well, I was doing my PhD working as a waiter. I had to clean the toilets every day. I had to, like, you just have to take that piece of humble pie and just deal with the fact that you… even Australians take these shitty jobs to get through university. It’s not just you. It’s not because you’re foreign, it’s just that those jobs are open and they’re easy and you don’t need skills.

And also those are the ones that fix your timeframe, like your timeline, the time that you are available to work because I was studying during the day so I can only work at night and that was the only one. So… yeah!

That’s a good point. So can we dig into Tinder a little bit? What was your experience like dating in Australia? What should other Colombians or people from anywhere in the world who come to Australia and get on Tinder, obviously you can’t really speak to it from a male perspective but from a female perspective, what was that experience like and interacting with Australian men?

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It was different.

What does that mean Mai?

Oh… Ok so this was four years ago. So Tinder wasn’t as bad as it’s now.

Was Tinder out four years ago?

Yeah!

Wow, I am getting old! Far out!

Because I now have a boyfriend that I met on Tinder. But I haven’t used Tinder in four years. And my friend said that it’s really shitty now but before then I did Tinder and I did… what’s the other one?

There are a lot.

RSVP and Online Harmony, eHarmony?

Yeah, there are a lot of them, yeah.

So I did those three. And it was hard because first Australian guys are completely different to Colombian guys. The Colombian guy is very romantic. They are not upfront with what they really want. So they’re kind of like they’re sweet.

So that’s a bit more cat and mouse going on, where you don’t know what’s going on. Does he like me, does he not like me? Where with Australian guys, was it a different story?

Australian guys were very to the point. This is four years ago, but the ones that I met, some of them, not all of them but some of them were like “Oh you are a Latin, you are hot”, then “We want to F”, right?

We want to have sex, yeah okay.

And I was like “No I just want to date, I just want to go for a coffee or a dinner” but then they were expecting more.

Yeah. So how do you navigate that? What advice would you have for girls coming to Australia who want to date guys or who may end up dating them? How did you obviously navigate through all of these guys who were very upfront and find your current boyfriend who’s obviously done the right things, whatever the right things are?

Well my first advice is never go on dates at night, if it’s a first date. I mean the first date, don’t accept drinks because that’s just like a synonym of have sex. And if you are not up for that, don’t do it. So my recommendation is go for a coffee date at, I don’t know, 3pm or a brunch date. Something like that, that it’s not…

I think a good sign is, with that too, that if it is ever going to lead to sex on the first date, it’s going to have been after eight hours. It’s not going be, you know, it’s the kind of thing where it’s like you’ll have to have spent the whole day together getting to know the other person before anything happens, if it’s gonna happen.

And then the other thing is : don’t expect the guy to pay.

Really? Why is that?

Well with my boyfriend it was different but with different…, I mean I’m all for half and half, I don’t have a problem with that but I do know girls who are expecting the guys to pay for everything. And then because they are paying then they believe they have rights. Anyway, …

Well, it’s just mixed messages. Yeah, it is mix messages.

You have to be very upfront with: this is my half.

I think though from my point of view too. From my point of view, when I was dating a lot more, I would get almost the same way I think you would feel as a woman if someone was just like “okay come back to my house, I want sex”, you know? I would feel like, in the same sort of way, I would feel like I was being used, if you didn’t even offer to pay for the meal or anything. If you just assumed that it was my job, I’m paying for your time, for me it feels just as bad as if it were me assuming that you’re coming home now after all the stuff that I’ve done for you, by paying for the meal and, you know? So that’s a good expectation to have though when you come here and you date someone: your job is to offer, his job is to pay.

Yeah that’s correct. And the other thing that was very different, and it took a while to get used to, is that the fact that you are dating an Australian guy doesn’t mean that you are part of his life.

Really? What does that mean?

In Colombia you date a guy and immediately you meet his friends, you are part of his family and you are all the time with that person. That’s normal in Colombia. Here, you date a guy and normally the guy will keep things apart. He will date you, but then his friends will be his mates and that will be his priority until much… like a long time passes and you become the priority. And that is completely different in Colombia. In Colombia you’re in a relationship and it’s like your world just changes and you are just with your couple. Whereas here it’s completely different. It’s kind of like you have to earn that place in his social circle before he agrees to introduce you. Like it’s not immediately.

I guess though, that’s a good sign though too, right? Because, it’s kind of like, if he does say he wants to introduce you to his friends pretty quickly after dating you or his family, that’s a massively good sign that it’s serious and that he’s not just screwing around.

Yes he’s serious when he does that, whereas in Colombia it just really doesn’t matter.

And so how long have you been with your boyfriend now and how did the relationship compare to one in Colombia? Is it much the same at the point you’re at now?

Well we have been together for four years.

Oh wow so you really met him straight away.

I was one year single, only one year single. And now after three years we’re moving together, and yeah like he was very… like he has a really good relationship with his parents which sometimes is not the case with Australian guys. Like it’s another thing, like Australian guys, Australians in general, like the millennials or whatever, they tend to leave home quite early after they finish high school. So they live by themselves or with mates but then in Columbia it’s the opposite, they stay at home.

I think for us, Australians, we kind of… Did you ever watch the TV show “Everyone loves Raymond”? Have you seen that?

No.

So there’s two brothers, one of them has moved out, has a family. The other one’s single, lives at home, he’s 40 years old and he’s kind of the joke. That’s the joke of the whole like the tension between them, that one brother’s young, has a family. The other one stayed at home and has failed all his relationships and that’s kind of the epitome of I think for Australian guys, we don’t want to end up the guy living with the family because, at least our sexual market value, if you go out with a woman and she finds out you live with your parents after your 20 something, it’s like she’s going to be like “What’s wrong with you?”. So I guess that… And it is interesting because I had a housemate from Estonia and his relationship with his mother was very different from mine where I chat to mine all the time but it’s kind of like I text message or chat to her on Facebook or I’ll see her or I call her maybe once a week, once every two weeks and then get into it and chat to her for quite awhile. But he was on the phone every night for like an hour. Like yeah and that was… I don’t know if that’s normal for Estonians but it was a lot more like he was very connected to that relationship. So yeah it is a bit different I think.

Yeah it’s a bit different. But yeah.

That’s interesting. Crazy okay. So you got Step one : get to Australia after sorting out your visa, your IELTS, the university. Step two : find somewhere to live. Step three : get a boyfriend. Step 4 : conquer Australian English.

Step 3 was finding a job.

Yes, okay let’s talk about that. What did you do in order to find a job?

After finding a job, I got a boyfriend.

So what did you do in order to find a job here in Australia?

I was very lucky. I have always… like I’m Catholic so I believe in God and I believe God just wants me here because I only had one year. My visa was only for one year. So I needed to leave Australia by the end of December 2013 and in August I applied for a job on LinkedIn. A random job at Nielsen which is a marketing research company. And around… no no that was like July. And on August they call me and say “hey, you applied for this job, this is to be a trainer”. I was like “a what?” “A trainer”, and I was like “I don’t have any” well, I didn’t say that but I was like “I don’t have any experience training people”. It was kind of like an HR kind of role and I was like okay so I went to the interview and after one interview they called me and say “yeah sure the job is yours”.

Wow.

And I said “Look, I need to leave the country in December and I’m studying, so I only can work up to 20 hours per week. If you do give me the job, is it possible to get a sponsor?

Yeah.

They said “well, just start working and in November we will decide”. So I was like “okay”. But I didn’t have any other option I like “great”.

So is that the usual story though? What advice would you give to people who are thinking about coming to Australia and studying and then getting a job? Would you suggest getting on LinkedIn, websites like LinkedIn and submitting CVs and trying to go for those jobs?

Okay, so I think the marketplace has changed a lot since then. My advice is just check that your career is on the list at least.

Yes for permanent residency and citizenship later on down the tracks.

Or not even for PR, just for getting a sponsor. That’s it. And it is heart breaking because many careers are not in the list. And if you do not have the experience, you don’t get to be sponsored either.

So is that something you would really suggest sort of keeping in mind before you even come to Australia, look into that and try and work out, plan ahead what kind of career am I ultimately going to try and go down that road of that will hopefully lead to me getting permanent residency or citizenship or sponsorship in Australia?

Yes so my recommendation would be: if your career is not on the list just keep in mind it’s going to be really hard to stay. If your career is on the list, just look at Plan B because the list changes all the time.

That’s the other thing I was going to ask.

The original occupation that I used to get a sponsor in the first place is no longer in the list.

Okay, it changes.

And the one that I used to get the PR is no longer in the list. So I was lucky.

So you really need to keep your finger on the pulse, right? And stay up to date with things.

One of the things that in my channel I get lots of questions about how to stay, what can I do to stay in Australia? My recommendation is go to a Visa advisor and see what are your pathways because sponsorship is one pathway but you can also get a state visa but then that means you have to go to live in Canberra or Tasmania or Perth for two years to get the visa. But it is important that people do know what are the options if they have any because it is becoming really hard. Like if someone in marketing, it’s almost impossible to find sponsorships now because it’s not in the list. And if it’s in the list, it’s only the one that gives you two years with no option to apply or extend. It is getting really hard.

So the takeaway message there is just stay up to date with the list and the different requirements for these visas and the best way to do so is talk to an immigration agent and ask them for advice. And do you need to pay for that? Are there free services that you know of?

Normally the agencies that help you with the studies, normally they will know what is up to date. But I do believe for the ones that are more like PR and all that, you need to pay like a fee for the advice for them. But it’s very important because although all the information is online, it is really tricky to know what it is. Like, I have on that Visa Advisor Australian Government website so many times looking for answers and it’s so complicated, it’s not an easy “oh yes this is ABC”, no!

Yeah, that’s it.

And it keeps changing and one thing is that the website page is not up to date sometimes because the list is still the old list. So it is confusing.

So don’t leave it up to chance, guys. If you need to know more about this and you’re just winging it, you’re just improvising, make sure that you go and see an immigration agent or maybe ask your university or ask your English School for advice on who to talk to about this and get it. Get your ducks in a row, right. Have things organised. Have a plan of attack. All right, so what happened? You got sponsorship from this job.

I got a sponsor.

Yeah, and what did that lead to? You got to stay here for another three years before you got PR?

So the visa was for four years. And after two years of working on that job and four years of working or living in Australia, no I think it’s just after two years of working on that position, you can get permanent residency. So again I asked my job, my company…

Sorry, what did you say? It broke up again. You asked your job.

So I asked my boss in my company if they will be willing to help me with the PR because although I do have one Australian boyfriend and I could have done the PR by my Australian boyfriend, I wanted to do it by myself. So I talked to the company and they said “yes, sure we will sponsor you to the PR”. But then I had to take the exam again, the English test again.

The IELTS?

Well I had the choice. I had.. you could take either the IELTS, the TOEFL or the PTE.

Okay, and which one did you choose and why?

I took the PTE, just because the IELTS… I think the IELTS is, to test English I believe the IELTS is the best of the three, because you get to interact with someone in your speaking and you get to write a proper essay in your writing. Whereas the other two are just computer based and it’s awful.

Yeah.

I do believe the PTE is way easier than the IELTS.

I’ve heard it’s a double-edged blade though because I have a student who did the PTE and I think he did incredibly well in everything except for speaking and it ended up being he got like 10 percent and he rang them up and was like “What the hell?”. And they said “oh the files that you spoke and sent through just came through but it was broken up and the microphone that you used or whatever wasn’t good and that’s why you got marked down”, so…

Yeah. I mean I think it’s easier because the machine is evaluating you. Like a human is not listening to you, it’s the machine. Because the machine is evaluating you, if you can speak English then you have very good chances of passing because they have to be more flexible because it’s a machine, right? Whereas if it’s a person, well, no. The person, it will be her opinion and her opinion only. And she will be listening to you for real, whereas the other one is a machine. But the problem with the PTE, and this is why I really recommend you, if someone is going to take the PTE, just buy the two exams for free, no, the two extra exams that you can buy from the website and for practice, because PTE is not about speaking English, PTE is about memory.

So what are the pros and cons? How much does each cost the PTE and the tough one, the IELTS?

If I remember correctly, all of them are quite the same. I think one is fifty dollars more expensive than the other one but they’re around 300/350 dollars. Yeah, I remember there was one more expensive but I can’t remember which one.

I think it might be the IELTS because I think my girlfriend did that maybe six months ago and it was 500 bucks.

Oh wow. Yeah no. The PTE is not that expensive. But the other thing is the PTE goes over two days. So one for the… No sorry. The IELTS goes over two days : one for the interview, one for the actual exam whereas the PTE and the TOEFL is just one day, you just go there, you just sit down in front of the computer and just pray to God that you are going to remember. Because one of the worst… I hated the PTE although it’s the easiest one, I hated it because the speaking part, like 90 percent of the questions of the speaking part were like “this is a sentence, remember all the sentence, and then, say it back”.

So you can’t miss a word or you get penalized completely. It’s like it’s all or nothing.

Exactly, that was my lowest score speaking. And I consider myself like a good English speaker but in that exam by the time the guy had finished saying whatever he was saying, I had completely forgotten how did it started.

I guess that’s a good point for IELTS where if someone’s listening to you or speaking with you, it’s kind of like they can fill in the gaps with their intuition or whatever, if you miss a word they still understand exactly what you’ve said and it’s like “okay, yeah you communicated successfully”. You might get marked down but you don’t get a zero.

Exactly. Where with the PTE that was the worst. But on the flip side the writing part is not an essay, because for the IELTS you need to have like a structure, you need an introduction, two paragraphs or one paragraph of content and a conclusion. Like it’s very structured and you need to follow that structure, otherwise you won’t pass, whereas with PTE they said “write an essay, but no more than 200 words”. How you are gonna write an essay 200 words?

That’s half a page.

It’s just a paragraph, and that’s it and I got the highest score in writing because it’s not an essay. So yeah, I hated the speaking and I got a really bad result in the speaking, but I still passed.

That’s pretty funny because you would tend to have the opposite in IELTS, right, where the writing is always the worst one for most people and speaking or listening tend to be the best.

So I recommend the PTE if you are very good at speaking and your writing is not that strong because the writing part is really easy.

Okay so you had to do that, you had to do those exams again and get a mark to get your sponsorship or to get PR?

The PR. You can not apply for PR if you don’t have that English level which has changed. So I was very lucky, so everything changed after I applied. Because now to get the PR, you have to be sponsor… I mean you have… it can only be done… oh no that’s for… I mean I think the levels of English have increased now for the PR.

Yes, I think there’s six and a half to seven band on the IELTS or something like that. Or maybe 6 and above. I guess the key is stay up to date with the requirements, no matter what you’re doing if it’s sponsorship or, you know PR, or citizenship, whatever it is, just make sure you find out what the requirements are, before you get into it too deeply. But what was it like when you were sponsored? Was that easy once that was done and you’d found someone who you worked for who is willing to sponsor you? What was the process like? And then what happened with PR? Is it easy once you get the ball rolling?

Yes, so if your career is on the list and the company said yes, it is very easy.

Nice.

Of course they do it… my company did it via Fragomen which is a visa institution helping thing. They are very expensive but they are very good, like they get things rolling very quickly. Normally you get that, normally companies have an agency that helps them with that. I have heard of companies that they just said “yes, we are gonna sign the paper and the recommendation, it’s up to you to do everything” and that is very hard because you have to complete many papers, forms, you have to take a medical examination to get your PR. But in my case, it was really easy, I just sent my papers and that was it, like I took the exam, took the blood test and that was it, like I was done.

So did you pay anything for your sponsorship or for PR or was that paid for by your company?

So in my case, it was paid by the company.

Lucky. What could be expected though, if the company is not willing to pay for it but they are willing to accept it, what’s the kind of amount of money that you would expect to pay right now?

So for the PR, they can do whatever. So they can say “we cover all the costs”.

Who, the company or the government?

No, all of it, it’s the company.

Okay gotcha.

So, the company can say “I will pay everything” or they can say “50/50”, or they can say “you pay everything”, that is for PR. For the other visa, for the first visa, for the sponsorship to stay in Australia, they have to cover everything. It’s illegal for them to ask you to pay.

Really? Okay

Yes.

Gotcha.

But for PR, it’s up to them. In my case,… Normally what they do is, if they cover, I don’t know, whatever they cover, if they cover 100 percent or 50 percent, normally they will ask you to sign like a contract saying that you will not leave the company until X amount of years or otherwise you will have to pay them back. Once you are PR, you are not attached to the company. When you are sponsored, so 457 that doesn’t longer exist, but in that when you are sponsored, you are attached to the company.

Yeah, well they’ve invested in you and they just want to know that you’re not going to get the sponsorship and then leave.

That’s correct. So for example, in the first one, you are attached, so if you stop working there, you will need to find another sponsor right away, otherwise your visa will no longer be valid. Whereas with PR, as soon as you get the permanent residency, you are free to do whatever you want.

So even if you lost your job tomorrow, you’ve still got that there as long as you obviously can support yourself. Sorry?

I’m no longer there.

Ah cool! So you did change work obviously but the ball still was rolling with PR.

So I got my PR last April, so April 2017, sorry not last April. And I’ll leave my company in December, sorry January.

Brilliant! Far out! And so what was the process to go from PR and getting that to getting citizenship and I guess before you get to that, what made you decide to do it yourself as opposed to with your boyfriend?

I just didn’t want to depend on him. If there was no other option, I’m sure he would have said “oh sure let’s do it”. But I just didn’t want to, not because he would say “Oh thanks to me, you have PR”, no but more like for internal realisation and myself.

You did it all yourself. You didn’t ride on the coattails of anyone else. And what happens too if you got PR with your boyfriend and you guys broke up, are there any issues there?

No, because if you want to apply for a PR with a partner visa, you have to show and demonstrate evidence that you are in a long relationship. You have to present pictures and wedding invitations and tickets and everything because of course it’s very easy visa to fake kind of.

Otherwise yeah exactly.

The government tries to make sure that you are actually a couple. But once you get your PR, again you are free to do whatever, and if you are not together, that’s fine.

And so what’s the process then from PR to citizenship? Does PR lead to citizenship ultimately or you still have to go out of your way to get it and what made you decide to do that?

So PR it’s like indefinitely, like you kind of stay in Australia forever kind of thing. I think there is a limit of… like you can stay in Australia but you can not leave Australia for more than five years.

Yeah. I think at least when my supervisor was doing PR, he couldn’t leave Australia for a quarter of the year at a time I think. Like while he was trying to get citizenship or aim for it, for four years he couldn’t have been out of the country for more than one of those four years total.

Yes, something like that. So in theory you don’t need to apply for citizenship. I was very lucky. So when I applied for citizenship, you only needed to be PR for one year. From July this year, so in 2018 July 1st, that will change to four years. You have to be a PR for 4 years before applying to the citizenship. So I applied in April and I’m still waiting of course, the process takes up to 15 months.

Yep.

And it’s really easy, like if you have the PR requirements then you just submit a form with a picture of you and the driver’s license.

It’s almost like “time served”, is it? You’re just sort of like “oh yeah, she’s been a PR for this long, yeah, give her citizenship”. And what’s the point? Was that just for you, you wanted an Australian passport or is there a benefit to it?

Yes. So, I think the biggest one for me is to get the Australian passport because being a Colombian, my Colombian passport still is not accepted in a lot of countries, so I do need a visa to get into lots of countries. Whereas the Australian passport is more trustworthy and countries are more willing to accept Australian passports without a visa. So that’s my first motivation. The other thing is that you can start voting and it will become mandatory of course for you.

Make sure you do, you’ll get fined 20 bucks if you don’t vote once you’re a citizen.

Yes exactly, which is not the case in other countries but yeah, it’s also another benefit. And the other thing that when you become Australian you can apply for benefits for school, high school, oh sorry, higher degrees like a PhD or Master.

You can get on the dole, you can get, you know, a retirement fund and all of that sort of stuff, you get the pension.

Yeah and also if you’re a girl and you have babies, if you are an Australian, you can get the benefit of the maternity leave, which is not the case with the others, if you are just a resident.

That’s crazy. So I guess you had come full circle, like you’ve left Columbia, you’ve come to Australia, you got educated here, you ended up finding a job and getting sponsored here which gave you the benefits of being able to work and stay here. Then PR, which meant you could obviously not be attached to the job and you could leave that job and do whatever you want, stay here for as long as you like, as long as you didn’t leave the country for too much of that period, right? Each year you had to stay here for three quarters of your time and now you’re getting citizenship, which will give you full citizen rights to Australia. Wow! That’s a pretty good story, I guess we should wrap up it’s been like almost an hour and a half.

I know, it’s been way too long!

That’s all good. I’m sure that the listeners will love it, there’s a lot of information there. So, where can people find out more about you, Mai? I know you’ve got an amazing video that I sort of found you through, or at least saw you for the first time. We’d been chatting online for Instagram and a few other things, but where can people find out more about you and what you do?

Yeah, so I do have a YouTube channel. It’s mostly about my life in Australia, so I do have some educational videos about how the health care system works, the transportation, how I got my PR, how I applied for the citizenship, how to get the driver license. Some of the videos are educational videos, but also some of them are more like my life, my favourites of the month, type of relaxer, my YouTube channel is YouTube… Well you can just go to YouTube and look “Mai’s Journey” or also on Instagram Mai Medina and that’s me.

Yeah, I’ll get the links to it and I’ll put them in the transcript. But it’s definitely good. Check out the YouTube channel guys, especially if you’re Spanish speakers because I think I noticed you had Spanish captions for some of these videos, so if they are learning English, the videos are in English, at least the ones that I saw were in English and you had captions in, I think, Spanish and English as well or just Spanish?

Just captions in Spanish. Yeah, just because my mom doesn’t speak English, so I do the captions for her.

Oh, that’s amazing.

But more than welcome everyone to watch those. Because funny enough, my audience in my YouTube channel is not Latin American people.

Exactly. I was wondering like, they would be other people in Australia, right, having difficulties with these things?

No, like 90 percent of my audience is people from India.

Oh wow! Okay.

So yes, and I get really like lots of questions from people from India on how to come to Australia. So, that’s why I keep it in English because I think I can reach a wider audience instead of just the Spanish.

I think you’re definitely right. Well Mai, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. It’s been a great Friday night.

No worries. Hopefully, I’ll get you back on the podcast in the future.

Yes.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for having me.

See you guys!

****

Alright, guys, so that was it. Big thank you to Mai Medina. That was an amazing interview. I had a lot of fun doing this with her. Hopefully, I can get her on in the future and chat more about her experiences Down Under in Australia and what she’s gotten up to now, as it’s been a few months since we recorded this, and I’m sure a lot has happened. Anyway.

I hope you enjoy this episode, guys, and I hope to chat to you very soon. All the best. See ya.