June 14 – “Do not ever settle on an idea, it’s better to follow the flow of your own destiny. Accept it. Poet Luigi Cibrario used to say: ‘bow to your destiny.’ I feel like this concept is very close to me, especially at this stage of my life, when I’m exceedingly free and independent, but also very unstable.” Alice Avallone, author of “The Sorrows of the young koala keeper. On how Australia changed my life” (also available in ebook format), reports her experiences as a marsupial babysitter at the other end of the world. Born in 1984, from Asti, Alice Avallone is a combination of freshness, optimism, creativity and energy; she defines herself as a creative thinker, a digital wizard, and a travel maker. “Simply – she says making an assessment of her experiences – I consider myself very lucky. I can do my job from anywhere in the world, and this inevitably leads me to always be surrounded by new stimuli. In a nutshell, my job is much easier than the big words in English that we are used to hearing: I create communication strategies to engage people online around a good, a service or an event. I like to tease myself and invent new jobs: travel maker, creative thinker and the koala keeper. ” The book “The Sorrows of the young koala keeper. On how Australia changed my life” was born from this surreal experience as koala keeper in the rainforest of Queensland. Her photographs are instead collected on the mobile app “The game of upside down world ” produced by Open Sevendays. On her experience in Australia, Alice said: “I prepared for this trip for almost a year. I often go to Australia because all my closest relatives live in Perth, and last year I visited for the first time this reserve near Brisbane and at the time they were looking for helpers. So, I filled out the application and handed it in; the earliest spot available was ten months away. The basic requirements are: a lot of passion for nature and animals, the understanding that the job is not about cuddling them all day, but getting your hands dirty with cleaning cages, preparing food and collecting droppings. The greatest thrill that I got was the privilege to witness these animals: when you see a newborn koala come out of the pouch and see the sunlight for the first time, that is priceless. Some photos of these moments are in the photographic collection in a mobile app.” Follow this link to learn more about Alice’s fabulous world: http://www.sevendays-in.com/shop/esploratori-contemporanei.html. Ironic and funny, Alice has an uncanny entrepreneurial spirit. But she claims that curiosity is the engine for all her projects. “For me, curiosity is natural: the continuous need to know, see, feel, and taste. For me, it is very strongly associated to the English word wanderlust, the irresistible desire to travel.” Traveling is vital for Alice: “Maybe because I’m a true Sagittarius, or simply because I had the good fortune of traveling a lot when I was younger, I could not imagine a life without my travels. It’s a real physical need.” Alice is part of the millions of Italians who left Italy in order to gain experience abroad, on the so-called “brain drain” phenomenon, Alice has her own opinion: “I believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I like the idea that the world is a great and unique game board, – says Alice – where there are people who move in search of something (work, study, love, freedom), mingle with each other and exchange spiritual and material resources, in spite of the geographical boundaries. We always make it a matter of states, continents, money, but there are rational excused to justify a natural instinct. Move, either materially or spiritually.” Alice is always ready for new trips and adventures: “Among my personal projects, one is more broad spectrum than others: http://www.wowanderlust.it Here, I collect world travelers’ stories. Another one is very small scale, based in Asti, http://www.toju.it, where I try to bring my experience with Nuok in my province. These are both storytelling projects related to places on a map, and I’m trying to carry them on as a real idea gym, to experiment with the communication possibilities of the web.”
