Monday 27 August 2012

0049-1: Please leave a blog after the tone

Aren't blogs very strange creatures?

I'm immediately analysing whether that first sentence of (hopefully) many to come is too self-indulgent. After all, why have I started my blog with a question that will - supposing you're reading this in the few days/weeks/months after posting - be answered by precisely no-one but myself? And I've already asked another question right there. That's two questions in five sentences. 

Blogs are meant to be clear, direct and have a specific writing style. At least, that's what I read when in the research stage of my blog preparation (by "research stage", see "typing the word blog into google stage"). A good blog must:

Have an appropriate writing style and tone
Be updated regularly
Allow comments
Be "written, not defecated" (apparently)

Good luck with that then, I say to myself sitting in front of the home computer wondering what this blog is actually going to include. You see, I have no idea what I shall be writing about. This isn't some pretentious way of introducing the next in a long line of boring stream-of-consciousness-oh-writing-is-great-oops-back-to-subject-blogs. 

The reason is that I am moving to Germany in precisely six days. While this makes for a promising premise and underlying theme, I'm writing a live blog, and so the actual themes of each post are sort of up in the air. When you read each post, the content will have been experienced by me a few hours beforehand, which is possibly exciting for you (depending on weather I can rite good) but utterly terrifying for the author.

Why Germany (I hear my friends and grandmother ask)? Well, I don't fully know why myself. My dad lived and worked there for a few years when I was younger, and so the country has always had an exciting, almost magical quality to it; a place my dad travelled to and explored, and returned from to tell the tales of his jaunt. I also live with a fascination of accents and language, a characteristic that sometimes becomes the marmite factor of my personality. So imagine my surprise when I began to realise I could study at a fabulous institution that would not only help me develop a hitherto unimaginable fluency in another language, but that would also help pay for a year-long trip to the actual country in question! 

Yes, I know, you can study languages at almost every university, but I was about 10, and my enthusiasm has only slightly waned from that point.

Starting "younee", the compulsory year abroad seemed years away. It was: two years away. But that time flew past me on a conveyor belt of novelty and other sweeping comments. However, that's another story. The time has finally come to roll up my long explorer socks, put on my explorer goggles, and embrace the terror and childish glee that have been creeping up on me in equal measure over the past three months. If anyone does read this, and decides to read on, then I hope you enjoy experiencing this year with me. If you are a prospective year-abroadist from the future (do we have hovercars yet?), then I hope this gives you the courage to take the next step and push yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone. There's plenty of room. 

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