And so it begins...

N.B.: Having never had a blog before, I'm likely to write completely irrelevant, poorly-structured drivel until I pretend I've gotten the hang of things. (I'm also highly likely to overuse the ol' parentheses, but that's not specific to this blog.)

In lieu of heading straight to uni, I decided to opt for a gap year. I didn't want a round-the-world ticket and a year spent getting pissed on beaches, however (not that that doesn't sound great), so I applied to Project Trust. I've gone on about it so much to everybody likely to read this that I'll avoid talking about PT entirely, and instead chat about Selection for a while (I did warn you about the structure. Or lack thereof). 

The group of ~30 prospective volunteers was spread across the Isle of Coll, between different residents' homes, who then fed back to Project Trust on how we dealt with a variety of tasks. During the days we came together at Project Trust's headquarters for group activities. I stayed in a small caravan in the corner of someone's sheep paddock, and spent the week wearing three pairs of socks and a woolly hat I found stashed in a drawer. I filled the rest of the time teaching lessons, giving presentations, and attending ceilidhs (pronounced "kay-lee", just to equip you non-gaelics with the means to avoid the embarrassment we faced demanding we commence the "...see-lid?".). Also, my non-gaelic friends, I strongly suggest you befriend a Scot or Irishman so you, too, can know the joy of spinning round in circles for hours at a time to jaunty music. We all ended up with bruised arms and cheeks aching from laughing.

One week and many cakes later, I received the letter telling me I'd been selected to volunteer in Guyana for a year :D It was my first choice of country (followed by Cambodia and Uganda), so I was very pleased - and relieved!

So, before I head off to the "land of many waters", I thought I'd entertain myself - and most likely alienate everybody else - by documenting my fundraising progress (I need to raise £4,950 and am currently on £270, so it's not looking too good at the minute, folks).

If I have internet access once I'm actually in Guyana (which I probably will, although sporadically), I'll use this blog.. thing... to update anyone interested (Mum, Dad, Jess... potentially Will and almost certainly not Alex) with how I'm getting on.

How do you end a blog post?