I'm up a little earlier than usual today. Uncharacteristically, I woke up ahead of the alarm because I have a question to answer. Yesterday I got a rather serious nibble about a permanent, full-time job in Wellington, NZ. I've been asked to answer the question "why to I want to migrate to New Zealand" in advance of setting up a telephone interview. I'm not exactly certain, "Because it is not next to the States" is really going to cut it as an answer. Or is it? After all I had a letter to the editor published in Macleans years ago now, well before 2001 and all the subsequent incursions into personal freedoms and the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" that have happened since, that if these things happened (as they have) I would pack my bags and move to New Zealand.
Obviously Elaine has friends there. And coincidentally enough a friend of ours from here has just moved down there for a job. That much I'm certain is worth mentioning. But how far do I want to go in answering this? Should I get political? And if so, how political? It's one thing to say this sort of thing in conversation with friends and acquaintances, but quite another in the context of a job application.