Individual memories from 1992 to 2012
Updated 8 November 2026
This is the first preview of Moments, a growing collection for albertchessa.com. Memories follows my life year by year. Moments pauses within that chronology and looks closely at particular experiences: a dripping tap, a school friend, a toy on a roof, a shop window, a cinema visit, a goodbye. The entries are arranged by their current dates so I can find them again, while each gives its attention to a single scene or a small cluster of connected impressions.
Each of these previews is intended to become an article of its own over the coming years. I will try to reconstruct the exact evenings, afternoons and mornings: where I was, who was with me, what we watched or played, and what happened around the part that survived. Some articles may grow quickly from a photograph or conversation. Others may remain fragments for much longer. This version gives them somewhere to begin.
The remembered details come from my present notes. The prose adds adult reflection and, where explicitly signalled, plausible imaginative reconstruction. Suggested staging is provisional, not newly recovered evidence. Month labels remain working estimates; release records can help test a date but cannot verify a private experience. The closing notes preserve discrepancies and the months for which I have no event yet.
There are 72 entries below, each with a 100 word narrative, excluding its heading and reference links. Film trailers, programme records, original promotional material and gameplay archives sit beside the relevant memories. They are prompts for returning to the period, and may include later uploads or reissue trailers for the original work. A linked game version is a candidate where the exact edition remains uncertain.
1992
The dripping tap
I think I remember a dripping tap at bath time. The sound survives more clearly than the bathroom, or whoever was there with me. One drop, a pause, another drop. I cannot yet place the house or describe the bath without guessing. In a tentative reconstruction, there would be the small domestic business of getting a child washed and ready for bed. That setting remains a possibility; the tap is the fragment I actually recognise. I want to begin here because so much of early childhood returns at this scale, with an ordinary sound arriving before the room around it.
1993
Natalie and the blue uniforms
Frenchville Primary School returns through a girl called Natalie, her blonde curly hair, and the blue uniforms we wore. I have no complete classroom scene to attach to her yet. There is simply the recognition of another child, preserved with surprising clarity beside a colour. I would like to recover where we stood, whether we played together, and what her voice sounded like. Those details remain outside the memory. For now, Natalie belongs to the earliest school world I can name, before Canberra and the green uniforms of Yarralumla became the more familiar setting of my childhood in Australia afterwards.
November 1993
The toy on the pool roof
I wanted a Biker Mice from Mars toy for my birthday. My parents said I could have it if I ate my vegetables. I tried to satisfy the condition by eating them, then spitting them out and hiding the evidence. They discovered what I had done. I remember Dad throwing the toy onto the roof at a Canberra swimming pool, angry with me. The exact pool, toy and date still need checking. What remains is the sudden distance between wanting something intensely and seeing it become unreachable, with my own small deception caught inside a punishment I could not control.
Opening archive Biker Mice from Mars
January 1994
The beginning of another year
January 1994 is currently a date with very little attached to it. I have written down New Year, and that is the surviving prompt. A plausible setting would be an Australian summer, with school still ahead and the household moving through its holiday routines. I cannot claim a particular gathering, countdown, visitor or journey. This preview gives the blank a place without supplying an invented celebration. Later, a photograph or conversation may return something precise: a room, an outfit, a meal, perhaps the person beside me. Until then, the beginning of this year remains an open door in the record.
February 1994
Beginning at Yarralumla
I began at Yarralumla Primary School in February. The name now holds years of departures and returns, but this was the first beginning I have placed there. I imagine the usual practical details of arriving at a new school, although I cannot yet recover a particular first morning. The green uniform belongs to the surrounding memory, along with classrooms, an oval and the gradual discovery of other children. I want to find the teacher's name and establish which room was ours. For now, the moment is the arrival itself, the beginning of a place I would later leave and recognise.
March 1994
A sentence from Star Wars
On the school oval, I heard someone say, "I don't care what you smell." The sentence reached me through another child's voice, detached from the film it belonged to. I associate it with March 1994, although the month may be approximate. A line from Star Wars had become something children could carry into a Canberra playground and repeat for one another. I cannot remember who said it, or whether I understood the reference immediately. I can remember the phrase surviving. Returning to A New Hope now gives that small encounter its larger setting, while leaving the actual speaker frustratingly unnamed.
April 1994
Jurassic Park on the oval
Another line reached me on the oval: "When you gotta go, you gotta go." I associate this one with Jurassic Park and April 1994. Before a film became a complete experience, pieces of it could arrive through children who had already seen it, or had heard someone else repeating it. I cannot reconstruct the conversation around this sentence. There may have been laughter, but that belongs to a possible reconstruction rather than a clear recollection. The phrase itself remains. It places dinosaurs within the everyday geography of school, months before my own frightening encounter with the film on home video.
May 1994
My teacher and the grey computers
I remember hugging my teacher. Around that gesture are grey computers and dinosaurs, although I cannot yet establish whether these details belong to one afternoon or several nearby days. The computers had the substantial presence of classroom equipment in the 1990s, objects I would like to identify from photographs rather than confidently misname. Dinosaurs were already occupying my attention. The hug is simpler: an act of affection that remained when the lesson itself disappeared. I want to recover the teacher's name, the room and the reason for that moment, while allowing the surviving warmth to stand without a fabricated explanation.
June 1994
Shops in the shrubs
In Gumnut Lane, the other children and I made shops among the shrubs and sold mud pies. The green uniforms remain part of the scene. We had found places small enough to become ours, giving patches of ground the importance of businesses. The merchandise was mud, but the arrangement mattered to us. I think of Kokiri Forest now, recognising something in its greenery that this earlier place had already given me. That comparison belongs to adulthood. The childhood memory is simpler: other children close by, shops made from almost nothing, and the feeling that the shrubs contained somewhere worth visiting.
July 1994
An accident at school
I remember wetting myself at school. The precise circumstances have not returned: whether it happened in class, during play, or while I was trying to reach a toilet. I have placed it in July 1994 because that is where the fragment currently sits. It is easy to fill such a memory with assumed embarrassment or imagined reactions from other children, but I cannot reliably supply those details. The accident itself is enough to record. When I develop this further, I want to recover what happened afterwards and whether someone helped, without turning a vulnerable childhood moment into a harsher story.
July 1994
The tightened belt
Another school memory concerns my hips. I wanted them to be smaller and wore my belt very tightly. I do not yet know where that wish came from, or whether anyone had said something that stayed with me. The physical action is what survives: trying to change the outline of my body by tightening something around it. I was very young. I want to approach this memory carefully, preserving the discomfort without assigning motives to people I cannot place in the scene. A later article may recover the clothing, the setting and the thought I was having at the time.
August 1994
A flying monkey
Our school put on The Wizard of Oz, and I played a flying monkey. I associate the production with August 1994. That role gives me something unusually specific to recover: a costume, a stage, a programme, perhaps a photograph hiding in a family collection. At present, I cannot describe the wings or remember my entrance without inventing them. I know the character I became within the production. There is pleasure in finding myself inside a story at that age, participating in a world made by teachers and children, with the ordinary school temporarily rearranged around a shared piece of theatre.
Film trailer page The Wizard of Oz 1939
September 1994
The black Jurassic Park cassette
I had pestered Dad to let me watch Jurassic Park. When the black VHS cassette became something we could put into the machine, I was frightened. Even the tape seemed to contain the threat of what would appear on screen. Dad yelled at me for being scared after asking so insistently. Wanting the dinosaurs and fearing them happened together. I could repeat a line at school, ask for the film, imagine myself ready, then discover that the images were more than I could manage. The evening remains difficult, with my excitement and fear both belonging to the same small child.
October 1994
Packing beside The Dark Tower
We were preparing to leave Australia. I remember boxes and Mum having The Dark Tower board game out, its dark presence caught within the business of packing. I cannot yet identify the edition or say whether anyone was actually playing. The object survived because departures draw attention towards things: what can be taken, what must be put away, what suddenly looks different when a room is being emptied. October is the working date. I want to reconstruct the house and establish where the game stood, allowing that particular black object to guide me towards a departure still scattered across memories.
November 1994
Two Sega worlds for my birthday
For my birthday, I remember Castle of Illusion and a Jurassic Park game for Sega. Mickey Mouse and dinosaurs offered two different ways into places I could control with my hands. The console and editions still need checking. What stays with me is the pairing, two titles gathered into one birthday close to leaving Australia. Games were objects I could take into another room, perhaps another country, and use to find the same world waiting. I see that continuity more clearly now. At the time, there were simply new games, a birthday, and the enormous attraction of beginning to play.
Gameplay Castle of Illusion Master System candidate
Game footage Jurassic Park Mega Drive candidate
November 1994
Leaving Australia for Italy
We left Australia for Italy in the period I currently place around my November birthday. I cannot yet separate the birthday, the final packing and the actual travel day with confidence. The movement itself belongs firmly to the story: one familiar world giving way to another. I want to recover the airport, the route and whatever I carried with me, but those details remain unconfirmed. Looking back, I can see how often childhood was interrupted by departures. At the time, I would have understood the journey through smaller things, with the adults carrying its arrangements beyond what I could see.
December 1994
An Italian Christmas with dinosaurs
Christmas in Italy brings back Il pianeta dei dinosauri on VHS, the programme associated with Piero and Alberto Angela. I also remember Dad giving me a Power Rangers toy, which my notes describe through overlapping images of a pterosaur and the White Ranger. The exact figure needs identifying. These objects locate the season more clearly than any complete Christmas gathering. I could watch prehistoric creatures, then hold a brightly imagined creature or machine in my hands. I want to recover the room and the people around the television, while keeping the toy's uncertain identity open until a picture settles it.
Programme record Il pianeta dei dinosauri
January 1995
The grembiule
I was getting ready to begin school in Montefiore. The word that anchors the memory is grembiule, the school smock that made the new setting visibly different from the uniforms I had known in Australia. I have placed this preparation in January, following the Christmas arrival, although the enrolment date still needs checking. I cannot yet describe the first lesson or identify everyone in the classroom. The clothing comes first. It belongs to the practical work of becoming a pupil somewhere new, with another school's habits surrounding me and the familiar experience of being a child beginning again in Italy.
May 1995
The Nanny on Italian television
I remember The Nanny on television in Italy, where it was known as La tata. The title belongs to ordinary time at home, between the excursions, departures and birthdays that are easier to organise into a life story. American television had entered an Italian household and become part of its background. I cannot place the episode, but the programme itself survived the loss of that detail. There is something useful about a memory so domestic. It gives the Italian years evenings in which nothing exceptional had to happen, with a familiar show offering company while the business of childhood continued.
May 1995
The excursion and the nuns
We went on a school excursion to a performance involving a boy and a wolf. My notes move between The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Peter and the Wolf, so the production remains unidentified. I remember nuns giving us pasta and the children wearing black smocks. Those details are stronger than the plot. I want to recover the venue, the journey and whether the meal happened before or after the performance. For now, the memory consists of a school outing, a story on a stage, and food served by women whose presence has remained within that particular Italian childhood scene.
June 1995
Slime toys at Giacomo's house
At Giacomo's house, we played with slime toys in the backyard. His platinum blonde hair remains unusually clear, bright beside the less complete image of the garden. I knew him through primary school in Montefiore. For a while, the visit belonged to the simple pleasure of being another child's guest, sharing something entertaining because it could be squeezed, stretched or handled. Those textures are suggested by the toys, rather than separately recovered sensations. Giacomo himself is the anchor. I want this first version to keep him there, in his own backyard, before the surrounding details have had time to return.
July 1995
Playing at Olivio's house
Olivio was a kind child with short brown hair. I remember him as small and somewhat mousy, a description of the impression he left rather than a complete portrait. I played at his house too. The actual games have disappeared for now, leaving his manner and the fact of being welcomed into another home. I have placed this around July 1995. If I recover a photograph or speak with someone who knew us, I may find the room, the family and the afternoon again. Until then, I want his kindness to remain visible in the record, without inventing our conversation.
August 1995
The Gundam in the shop window
Walking past a small toy and video game shop in Montefiore, I saw a Gundam figure I wanted. The exact model has disappeared, but the wanting remains attached to the shop. I cannot yet say whether it stood in a window or further inside, so any reconstruction of the display must remain provisional. There was something compelling about those mechanical bodies, their shapes suggesting a much larger world beyond the object itself. August is the current date. I would like to find the shop's location and the figure, giving this brief encounter the physical setting it has almost entirely lost.
September 1995
The boat excursion
There was a boat excursion in Italy. I have placed it in September 1995, although the destination and the people travelling with me have not yet returned. This is one of the smallest surviving prompts in the collection. A plausible reconstruction might include the movement of the boat and a coastline changing as we travelled, but I cannot present those images as recovered detail. I want to identify who organised the outing and where we boarded. For now, the excursion remains a remembered event with its setting unfinished, waiting for a photograph, another person's account or some unexpectedly familiar view.
October 1995
A memory of the Befana
I wrote down October and the Befana together. That pairing needs investigation, because the traditional Befana celebration belongs to January. I may be remembering a different month, a local performance, or an encounter with the character outside her usual season. The figure herself belongs to my Italian childhood, but no complete scene has returned around this particular note. I want to recover what she looked like and whether someone I knew was playing her. Keeping the original date visible gives me something to question later, while the memory remains available without being forced into a calendar it may not fit.
November 1995
The first sad departure from Italy
Leaving Italy felt sad. I have placed this first departure in November 1995, before the December return to Australia in my notes. The exact travel day and the people present at the goodbye remain uncertain. I remember the feeling more clearly than its surroundings. Somewhere I had begun to inhabit was becoming a place I would have to remember from elsewhere. I want to identify the final house, the last visit and whoever stood nearest when we left. Those details could eventually turn this small entry into an evening or morning, with the sadness attached to actual faces and gestures.
December 1995
Returning with The Lion King
We were back in Australia, and I returned to Yarralumla Primary School. Around that homecoming, I received The Lion King on VHS, a belated birthday or Christmas gift. The occasions have become difficult to separate, but the cassette remained available for repetition. Simba's world could begin again whenever we watched it. I had come back from another country and was entering familiar places with a changed store of experiences. The film gave that period a story about growing, leaving and returning, connections I can recognise now without pretending I understood them then. At home, I had a tape to watch.
January 1996
Eyewitness on VHS
We watched Eyewitness on VHS: dogs, cats and dinosaurs. The grouping feels natural to the child I was, with ordinary animals and extinct creatures deserving the same close attention. A cassette could hold a subject still long enough to revisit it. I could encounter the programme again, recognise its images and let familiarity become part of learning. January 1996 is the place I have given these viewings, although they probably spread across several days. The exact editions remain uncertain. What survives is a small household collection in which animals entered through the television and continued beyond it in my imagination.
January 1996
Pride Rock made from pillows
I made a pillow fort and became Simba on Pride Rock. The furniture did not need to resemble the film perfectly. It needed to give me somewhere to stand, climb or imagine, with the rest supplied by the story I carried into the room. The exact arrangement has vanished. I remember the transformation and my place inside it. The Lion King had become a way of playing with things already at home. Looking back, I recognise an early habit of making a world from available materials, trusting a few chosen objects to hold something larger than their shapes would suggest.
February 1996
The spotted dogs on tape
I remember 101 Dalmatians on VHS around February 1996. The version needs confirming, although this date points towards the animated film rather than the live action adaptation released later that year. The memory is presently a title and a format, with the circumstances of watching still beyond reach. I want to identify the cassette cover, because its artwork may return more than a plot summary ever could. A familiar film can become attached to a particular household without preserving a single complete viewing. This entry leaves room for that evening to return through the object that once made it repeatable.
Trailer archive 101 Dalmatians 1961
February 1996
The rubber band aeroplane
On the driveway, I played with an aeroplane whose propeller was powered by a wound rubber band. It offered a small, understandable connection between an action and a result. Something could be wound by hand, released and set moving. I cannot recover the model or its colour, and I do not know how well it flew. The driveway remains attached to it. A familiar strip of ground had become a place for trying a machine, with each attempt offering the possibility of another. February 1996 is the current date for this simple memory of making something move through the air.
November 1996
The Super Soaker birthday
Dad gave me a Super Soaker CPS 2000 for my birthday. I also remember a yo-yo. The water gun's model number has survived with the sort of precision usually missing from the surrounding day. I cannot yet recover where I opened it or who first played with me. Those are details to establish later. The present itself belongs to a birthday when an object could seem to offer an entirely new range of possibilities. I want to locate photographs and check the model, then reconstruct the first outing with it, keeping the actual memory separate from how advertisements presented it.
November 1996
A balloon and the spirits
Pocahontas was on VHS, and I used a balloon to play at being a shaman. I made it float as though it were a spirit. The method has faded, but the imagined transformation remains. A balloon already behaves strangely enough to suggest something alive, responding to movements that are not always visible. In my game, that quality belonged to the magical world I was constructing. I place the memory around November 1996. What interests me now is how readily a film's imagery could enter a room and attach itself to an ordinary object, giving my hands something impossible to perform.
1997
The year I currently place in Australia
My present outline puts the whole of 1997 in Australia. I have no single new event attached to that year in this memory dump, so this entry serves as a provisional anchor between the neighbouring scenes. An existing Narita Airport article places a journey in 1997, creating a discrepancy I will need to resolve. I want to compare passports, photographs and school records before deciding which date moves. For now, the year stays open rather than becoming a collection of invented afternoons. Its eventual article may begin with one object or conversation that makes the wider sequence easier to place.
Existing article Narita Airport 2 AM 1997
March 1998
Men in Black at George's house
I watched Men in Black on VHS at George Walkear's house, around March 1998. The film placed extraordinary creatures behind ordinary appearances, a premise well suited to a child already interested in what a familiar world might conceal. George's surname still needs checking, but the association between his house and the cassette has remained. A friend's home gave the film another setting outside its story. Whatever was happening on screen was also happening during a visit, on someone else's television, within the social world of knowing another child. The room has faded more than the title, but they belong together.
March 1998
Pilotwings on the Nintendo 64
At George's house, I played Pilotwings on the Nintendo 64. The memory sits beside Men in Black, although the two may come from different visits. Flying through a game made a television into a place I could explore, with movement responding to a controller held in my hands. I cannot yet name the first activity I tried. The important surviving relationship is between the game and George's home, another child's collection opening a world I could briefly enter. Revisiting Pilotwings 64 could revive its familiar sounds and landscapes, then return the smaller room that once contained all that open space.
Gameplay archive Pilotwings 64
April 1998
Preparing to move again
We were preparing to move to Italy again. April 1998 is where I currently place the preparations, before the arrival recorded in May. I cannot yet recover a particular box or final day at school from this departure. What survives is the knowledge that the familiar arrangements of life in Australia were about to change. I want to find the practical traces: school dates, photographs, travel documents and anything written close to the move. Those may recover the smaller moments inside the larger event, including what I understood, what I expected and which belongings seemed necessary to take with me.
May 1998
Returning to school in Italy
We were back in Italy, and I enrolled at school again. I have placed the return in May 1998, although this chronology will need comparing with the earlier Narita article. The school itself remains to be pinned down within the sequence of Montefiore and San Benedetto. I remember the fact of rejoining an Italian school world, with familiar language and places receiving me after another period away. I want to recover the first person who recognised me, if anyone did, and the classroom where I arrived. Those details remain questions, while the return itself gives this chapter its opening scene.
May 1998
The Mouse Hunt excursion
We went on a school excursion to see Mouse Hunt in Italy, around May 1998. Its Italian title, Un topolino sotto sfratto, belongs beside the English name I use now. A cinema visit during school time rearranged the day around something shared, with the class becoming an audience. The film's struggle between two men and an resourceful mouse offered a large story made from a small creature. My own memory is smaller still: the title, the outing and the Italian setting. I want to return to those anchors without letting the film's familiar rooms replace the actual cinema we visited.
May 1998
Harry Potter on Maja's shelf
At Auntie Maja's, I saw Harry Potter on a shelf. The book was simply an object in someone's home before it became part of the enormous cultural presence I would recognise later. I have placed this around May 1998, but the exact date and edition need checking. I cannot claim that I read it then, or even that I understood its significance. I remember seeing it. I want to identify the cover and the shelf, because the first Italian edition may help locate the encounter. Sometimes a later familiarity gives an early, almost casual sighting a surprisingly durable place afterwards.
June 1998
Truffle hunting with Laura and Mario
I went truffle hunting with Laura and Mario in Italy. Their names give the memory a human centre, even though the precise location and route have not returned. I have placed the outing in June 1998. I can imagine the attention involved in looking for something hidden beneath the ground, but I cannot invent a particular discovery or a dog I do not clearly remember. Those details need recovering. For now, the event remains an excursion with people whose company mattered to me, part of the Italian landscape I would eventually leave and continue to revisit through these childhood scenes.
June 1998
Godzilla on the posters
Godzilla posters were up in Italy. I remember encountering the film as an image in public, part of the landscape before it could become a complete story. June 1998 is the date beside that fragment. A poster could make anticipation feel physical, giving a coming film somewhere to stand among shops, streets and the business of an ordinary day. I cannot yet identify the particular design. That uncertainty matters because the campaign may help return the place where I saw it. For now, the creature remains connected to an Italian summer, enormous in promise and only partly visible in memory.
July 1998
Fabio and our reckless pranks
Fabio and I had slingshots and did pranks together. One memory is of pouring sugar into a car's fuel tank, an act I now recognise as reckless and potentially damaging. I cannot establish whose car it was, what happened afterwards or whether my recollection preserves the sequence accurately. Those uncertainties belong in the account. July 1998 is the working date. I want to recover the friendship and the circumstances without making the episode more adventurous through invention. Childhood includes things I regret or do not fully understand, and this collection needs room for those memories alongside its easier, happier scenes.
July 1998
Drawing lessons near the church
I took drawing lessons near the church, in or around the piazza. That relationship between making pictures and an Italian public space has remained, although the teacher and the actual drawings have not yet returned. I have placed the lessons in July 1998. I want to establish whether we worked outdoors or in a nearby room, what materials I used and whether anything from those sessions survives. The church and piazza are the anchors. Looking back, I am interested in this early setting for drawing, with the activity already forming part of how I occupied a place and paid attention.
August 1998
PSM and the beginning of Pokemania
I remember reading PSM and place the beginning of Pokemania around this Italian summer. August 1998 may be too early for some details, since the Italian release of Pokémon Red and Blue came in 1999. Early awareness and the later craze may have gathered into one remembered period. I want to find the magazine issues before moving the date with confidence. For now, the printed pages are the strongest anchor: games encountered through pictures and writing, with anticipation extending beyond what I could actually play. The precise sequence remains open, ready for a cover or advertisement to make it clearer.
Nintendo game record and video Pokémon Red
August 1998
The festival of little spirits and witches
I went with Laura and Mario to a festival I remember through folletti and streghe, little spirits and witches. Fausta played the Befana. I have placed the visit in August 1998, although the event's proper name and date still need confirming. The recollection gives me people, a character and a particular kind of celebration without yet returning the whole setting. I want to recover the village, the costumes and whether photographs exist. Unlike the uncertain October Befana note, this memory has someone identifiable inside the role, offering a practical way to trace the evening through a person who was there.
September 1998
Walker upstairs or downstairs
Walker, Texas Ranger was playing in a pizzeria in San Benedetto. I remember the restaurant having two storeys, a detail that has remained beside the television programme. September 1998 is my current estimate. I cannot yet name the pizzeria, place our table or say which level held the screen. Those details may be recoverable through photographs of local restaurants or conversations with family. The memory belongs to an ordinary meal made distinctive by architecture and television. I want to find the building before supplying the plates, voices or exact episode, letting the remembered two storeys lead me towards that evening.
October 1998
MediEvil in the rain
Dad took me to get a game for my birthday. There was rain in San Benedetto, Halloween nearby, and MediEvil waiting to come home with us. I place the purchase in October 1998, before my November birthday. The skeletal knight belonged comfortably to the season, giving the game's title and the town's weather a lasting connection. I cannot name the shop yet. The memory already has enough to begin: my father, the prospect of a new game and a rainy Italian town outside the errand. Later, the box and opening may return the journey between buying it and finally playing.
Original trailer archive MediEvil
November 1998
Birthday ice creams in Montefiore
For my birthday, I walked with friends towards Montefiore and we had ice creams. Laura and my cousin Giulia belong to the memory, although the full group and exact route still need recovering. I have placed the outing in November 1998. The pleasure survives in a simple arrangement: familiar people moving together through a place, with a small treat giving the walk a destination. I cannot yet describe the weather, flavours or conversation. Those details may return through someone else's account. I want the eventual article to recover the actual group, so the birthday becomes an afternoon with faces again.
December 1998
The big snow
I remember a big snowfall in Italy around December 1998. The place needs narrowing, and the date may shift once photographs or local weather records are compared. Snow gives a familiar setting another outline, but I cannot yet describe the particular street or view without guessing. The scale of it is what survives in my notes: big snow, enough to separate this winter from the others. I want to recover what I did that day, who was there and whether we stayed inside or went out. Until then, the snowfall remains an event whose whiteness has outlasted its surrounding details.
December 1998
The Prince of Egypt under an open sky
I remember The Prince of Egypt at an outdoor cinema in Montefiore. My notes place it beside December 1998 and the big snow, a combination that may join separate occasions. The film belongs to that period, but the open air setting could point to a later screening in warmer weather. I want to recover the venue and programme before fixing the season. What remains is the encounter between animated scale and a cinema outside, with a story unfolding beyond an ordinary room. I cannot yet supply the seats, the companions or the evening air without making the scene falsely complete.
Trailer archive The Prince of Egypt 1998
January 1999
Floodwater in Montefiore
I remember Montefiore flooding. January 1999 is where I have placed the event, although the actual location and date need checking against family recollections and local records. The note is brief, and I cannot yet claim a view from a particular window or describe damage I do not remember. Water had changed a familiar place enough for the event to remain. I want to establish whether the flooding affected our home, a road or somewhere we visited. Those distinctions will matter when the memory grows into an article, giving the event its proper boundaries rather than an invented dramatic scale.
February 1999
G Sacconi in San Benedetto
I enrolled at G. Sacconi in San Benedetto. I have placed the enrolment in February 1999, but the school's full name and the term need confirming. A new school marks a change in daily geography: where I went, who I saw and which streets belonged to the routine. The particular first day has not yet returned. I want to recover a class photograph, a school report or the name of someone who sat beside me. For now, the entry records another beginning within the Italian years, with the administrative name providing a point from which more personal details might emerge.
1999 with May pencilled in
The Matrix on VHS
I remember seeing The Matrix on VHS during the Italian years. My notes say May 1999, which may preserve the month of its cinema release rather than the later home viewing. The cassette and the film are stronger anchors than that date. I cannot yet place the television or name everyone watching. I want to recover which language version we had and how the tape reached us, without assuming it was an ordinary retail release. The film's world became available inside a domestic room, but the evening remains unfinished, waiting for an object or another person's memory to locate it.
Original theatrical trailer The Matrix
August 1999
Soul Reaver in the apartment
In an apartment in San Benedetto, I played Soul Reaver. I place it around August 1999, with the release and platform still to check. The game's ruined world belongs to a real room I can no longer completely describe. That pairing interests me: imagined places sometimes remain navigable after the homes in which we discovered them have lost their internal geography. I may recognise a passage in the game before remembering where the television stood. Returning to its opening could reconnect the two. For now, Raziel's world and that apartment share one position in the Italian years of my life.
Early trailer archive Soul Reaver
September 1999
The Phantom Menace in Ascoli
The anticipation of The Phantom Menace filled part of my Italian childhood. Around September 1999, I saw it in Ascoli with Francesco. Anakin seemed close to my own age, making a child within Star Wars feel unusually near to the child watching it. The cinema's name has faded, but Francesco and the city remain. A story I had first encountered through older films and playground quotations was producing something new while I was there to receive it. I return now to that excitement, before familiarity settled over the film, when the opening could still lead into an evening of discovery.
Release trailer The Phantom Menace
1999 or early 2000
Blair Witch in Montefiore
I remember seeing The Blair Witch Project on VHS in Montefiore. The year is currently 1999, although the local release and the source of the tape may place the viewing later. I cannot yet identify the house, the other viewers or the circumstances in which we watched. The film's rough images belonged naturally to a cassette, but that is a present observation rather than a recovered thought from the evening. I want to find the actual tape or someone who remembers it, then recover how the room felt after the film ended, without inventing a reaction I cannot reliably recall.
Trailer page The Blair Witch Project
October 1999 provisionally
The copied Rainbow Six disc
Dad got me a copied PlayStation disc that I remember as Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear. My notes put it in October 1999, but that game's PlayStation release came later, so the title, platform or year needs revisiting. The original Rainbow Six is another possibility. I want to preserve the actual gift without making the label settle the chronology prematurely. I cannot yet describe the disc's writing, the case or the first mission. A picture of either game may return the right one. For now, the moment remains Dad bringing me something to play, with its identity still an open question.
Release record Rogue Spear for PlayStation
November 1999
Bounty and the villa
My birthday memory contains the word Bounty and a villa that seemed Spanish in style. I cannot yet tell whether Bounty names a place, a sweet or something else associated with the occasion. I remember feeling small within the villa, an impression of scale that has survived more clearly than the event's arrangements. November 1999 is the working date. I want to recover who took me there, whose building it was and what we were celebrating beyond the birthday itself. The architecture may eventually become identifiable, allowing this unusual fragment to settle into an actual place and a particular gathering.
December 1999
The snow trip and the drawing
We went on an excursion to the snow. I remember snow on the bus and Matteo Zinnia taking my drawing, although his surname and the exact sequence need confirming. December 1999 is where I have placed the trip. The outing and the loss of something I had made remain pressed together. I cannot yet say what the picture showed, how it was taken or whether I got it back. Those are details I want to recover carefully. For now, the memory holds a journey into winter and an upsetting incident whose scale did nothing to prevent it staying with me.
January 2000
New Year at Lari's
We spent New Year at Lari's. The name anchors the occasion more strongly than the room, the guests or anything we ate. I have placed it at the beginning of 2000, with the exact identity behind the nickname still to confirm in the fuller account. It would be easy to supply a millennium countdown from the general imagery of that year, but I do not yet remember one. I want to recover the gathering through photographs and conversation. For now, the new century begins in this outline with a familiar person's home and an evening whose details remain beyond reach.
April 2000
The Vagrant Story demo
I remember a Vagrant Story demo in Ascoli, around April 2000. A short piece of a game could become an experience in its own right, carrying the promise of something larger beyond the point where the demonstration stopped. The disc and setting remain uncertain. I want to revisit the original footage because its images may return more than the title alone. Ascoli belongs firmly to the association, placing another imagined world within the last part of my time in Italy. The unfinished quality seems appropriate now, with a whole game ahead and another departure approaching outside the screen's small frame.
Original trailer archive Vagrant Story
May 2000
Leaving Laura and Mario behind
We returned to Australia, leaving Laura and Mario behind. I remember being sad, and May 2000 is where I currently place the departure. The final visit, goodbye and route remain to be recovered. Their names give the feeling a clear direction: people I cared about were staying while I was going somewhere else. I want to reconstruct the last ordinary time we spent together before it became a departure memory. Perhaps photographs or their own accounts will help. For now, the sadness belongs to the separation itself, with another move dividing the people and places that made up my childhood.
May 2000
Back at Yarralumla and hearing about Anaconda
Back at Yarralumla Primary School, a friend told me about a film called Anaconda on VHS. I have placed the conversation around May 2000, following the return from Italy. I cannot yet name the friend or say whether I watched the film soon afterwards. The title reached me through somebody at school, much as film quotations had arrived on the oval years earlier. I want to recover where we stood and what made the description memorable. For now, it is another small beginning inside a return, with a familiar school providing the setting for something I had not yet seen.
December 2001
Fellowship at Woden
I saw The Fellowship of the Ring at the cinema in Woden. I place the screening in December 2001, with the session and companions still to recover. Middle-earth arrived on a large screen before repeated viewings made its images familiar. The Shire, the road and the gathering darkness belonged to a film I was meeting for the first time. I cannot reproduce that first encounter by watching again. I can return to Woden in writing, giving the screening its place within my life and allowing the ordinary details around it to emerge alongside a story that continued to matter afterwards.
Trailer The Fellowship of the Ring
Around 2001
Ocarina on the Nintendo 64
I played Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64 around 2001. Its forest now reminds me of Gumnut Lane, where children in green uniforms made shops among the shrubs. The game gave an existing feeling another landscape, connecting places separated by years and by the difference between play outside and play on a screen. I cannot yet choose the particular session that should become an article. There are sounds, paths and enclosed spaces to revisit first. What survives is the relationship between the invented forest and an earlier piece of Canberra, with both places remaining available through the same association.
1998 promotional video archive Ocarina of Time
Around 2001
Enya on CD
I listened to Enya and had May It Be on CD. The memory sits close to The Fellowship of the Ring, though the single may belong to 2002. Music gave the film a way to continue when its images were absent. A disc could be played at home, carrying a connection to the cinema into another kind of attention. I cannot yet place the player or the first listening. I am interested in how the song became attached to this period, with a title and a voice preserving something that the surrounding days have not yet given back in words.
Official lyric video May It Be
Around 2001
Bakshi on VHS
Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings was on VHS. I watched it around the period I associate with Fellowship and Enya, although the order remains uncertain. Middle-earth reached me through different objects and different visual worlds, each entering the household by its own route. A cassette could sit beside newer things without losing its capacity to become the evening's whole attention. I want to identify the cover before deciding where this viewing belongs. For now, the animated film remains part of that gathering interest, another encounter with Tolkien carried through a television into the same years of my life.
Trailer archive The Lord of the Rings 1978
December 2002
The Two Towers at Woden
I returned to the cinema in Woden for The Two Towers, around December 2002. The place gives this memory continuity with Fellowship. A year had passed outside the story, while the film offered a way to continue within it. I cannot yet recover the session or the people beside me. I can recognise the attraction of returning for a second part, bringing characters and expectations into a room where their futures were still about to unfold. Later viewings have made the film familiar. This entry keeps a place for the earlier evening, when it was becoming something I could see.
Original theatrical trailer The Two Towers
2003
X2 in Townsville
I saw X2 at the cinema in Townsville in 2003. The city and the title remain attached, even though the theatre and the session have faded. A film year can become compressed in retrospect, several visits merging into a general impression of going to the movies. Giving X2 its own entry lets that particular outing remain separate. I can revisit the trailer without pretending it returns the whole day. Somewhere around those familiar images was the journey to the cinema, the person beside me and the town outside. They belong to this memory too, even while their details remain unfinished.
December 2003
The Return of the King in Townsville
I saw The Return of the King at a Townsville cinema, around December 2003. The trilogy that began for me in Woden was ending in another city. My own life had moved between the films, carrying their story through changing surroundings. I cannot yet recover the session or who accompanied me. The difference between those locations already gives the final screening a place in the larger record. I want to return to the actual evening, before years of watching made its images familiar, and recover what it meant to leave that particular cinema after the story had reached its end.
Trailer The Return of the King
Summer 2003 to 2004
The Last Samurai in Townsville
I remember seeing The Last Samurai at a Townsville cinema and grouped it with my 2003 films. Its Australian theatrical release was in January 2004, so this screening probably belongs to that summer rather than the calendar year I first wrote down. The memory itself remains attached to Townsville. I cannot yet identify the theatre, session or people with me. I want to recover those details before making the evening more complete. This is a useful place for the preview to pause, with a remembered experience still intact while its date changes, showing how the larger reconstruction can become clearer.
Dates and references to revisit
These notes belong to the working manuscript. They keep public release information separate from the dates of my own experiences. None of the sources below establishes what happened during a private visit, school day or family occasion.
The Australian and Italian moves. This outline places an Italian stay from late 1994 to late 1995, 1997 wholly in Australia, and another move in May 1998. My existing Narita article instead describes a 1995 visit and a larger 1997 move lasting until 2000. The current preview follows the new notes while leaving that disagreement visible. Travel documents, dated photographs and school records should decide the sequence.
Jurassic Park and the 1994 birthday. The rough note joins September, release and birthday language, while the Sega birthday and departure appear in November. I have kept the frightening VHS viewing in September provisionally and the birthday games in November. No precise Australian VHS release date or viewing date has been established here.
The dinosaur programme and the Christmas toy. Il pianeta dei dinosauri is documented as a 1993 RAI production by Piero and Alberto Angela, making a later VHS viewing plausible. The Christmas toy is still unidentified: pterosaur and White Ranger may refer to separate figures or details now combined in memory.
1993 programme catalogue record
The 1995 wolf production and Befana. The school performance could have been The Boy Who Cried Wolf or Peter and the Wolf; the title remains open. The traditional Befana observance falls on 6 January. The October 1995 note could be misdated or refer to a local performance outside that season. It has not been automatically moved.
Italian tourism authority on the Befana
The 1996 Dalmatians tape. February 1996 points towards the 1961 animated film. The title alone does not establish the edition, so the linked animated trailer is a candidate reference. Check the cassette cover before treating that identification as settled.
Animated film record and trailer
Pokémon and the Italian summer. Nintendo dates the Italian Game Boy releases of Pokémon Red and Blue to 5 October 1999. An August 1998 memory might concern earlier awareness through magazines or imports, or it may combine that summer with the later craze. No specific magazine issue has been established.
Nintendo Italy Red release record | Nintendo Italy Blue release record
Further chronology checks
The winter of 1998 and the outdoor cinema. The Prince of Egypt is a 1998 film, but the remembered outdoor screening and the big snowfall may be separate events. A later summer showing is a possibility, not an established correction. The local programme and weather records remain to be found.
The Matrix and Blair Witch tapes. The Matrix reached Italian cinemas in May 1999. The note may attach that cinema month to a later VHS viewing, or describe an unofficial tape. The Blair Witch viewing may also belong to late 1999 or early 2000. The exact Italian VHS editions and their source have not been identified, so neither viewing has been assigned a definite replacement date.
Matrix release listings | Matrix Italian release record
Rainbow Six and the PlayStation date. The Centre for Computing History dates its PlayStation copy of Rogue Spear to May 2001. That conflicts with the October 1999 note. The original Rainbow Six, a different platform, or a later year could explain it. The disc needs identifying before the gift is redated.
Museum catalogue for Rogue Spear | Independent PlayStation release listing
Enya and the physical CD. May It Be belongs to the 2001 Fellowship soundtrack, while Warner Music identifies the CD single as a 2002 release. If the remembered object was that single, the purchase or listening memory should move into 2002. The soundtrack CD would be a different possibility.
Warner Music on the 2002 CD single | Official Charts entry
The Last Samurai and Townsville. The Last Samurai is a 2003 film, but its Australian theatrical release was in January 2004. The Townsville screening is therefore provisionally placed in the summer of 2003 to 2004. This changes the likely viewing year while preserving the remembered city and film.
Australian January 2004 box office record | International release listing
Names places and editions. Confirm the spelling of Frenchville, Gumnut Lane, George Walkear, Olivio, Matteo Zinnia and Lari. Identify the G. Sacconi school and the exact Montefiore locations. Establish the school teacher, the Sega console and cartridges, the Gundam model, the pizzeria, and what Bounty refers to. These remain personal research questions, not corrections supplied by an external source.
Open dates and future articles
1995. February, March and April were left blank in the original notes. They remain available for new fragments rather than receiving invented events.
1996. March and the rest of the year before November remain largely unfilled. The gap has been preserved.
1997. The broad Australia note remains a working anchor. Resolve the disagreement with the Narita article before building a more precise sequence.
1999. March, April, June and July were listed without specific events. The wider Phantom Menace anticipation is preserved in the cinema entry; it has not been divided into made up monthly incidents.
2000. February and March remain open between New Year at Lari's and the Vagrant Story demo. Later months may become clearer once the return to Australia is dated.
2001 to 2003. The games, music and cinema memories are starting points. Their dates can separate as the particular purchases, viewings and listening sessions become clearer.
Developing each article
I will begin with the part I can actually recognise, then look for the nearest reliable anchor: a photograph, a cassette or game case, a school record, a local cinema listing, or someone who was there. Each article can gather its people, place and sequence around that fragment. Where an exact evening cannot be recovered, I can still describe what remains and say where the account becomes uncertain.
The dates in this preview give the collection a provisional order. As the articles develop, some will move, some will divide into separate occasions, and others will join scenes I currently remember apart. This first version preserves the starting material, ready for that slower work.
