Hello World

How does one start a blog post? Let's go with "Hi all".

I am currently breaking my own cardinal rule, which is "only write when you have something to say", but I felt that it would be odd to send people a link to a site with nothing written on it, so I decided to write a post. I'll sum a few things up.

I'm Alison and I'm writing this blog about my upcoming gap year experience. On Wednesday a group of fellow students and I will head off to spend eight months doing a program with the nonprofit Thinking Beyond Borders. It is a fantastic trip involving several different countries, the four core nations being Ecuador, China, India, and South Africa. In each location, we will live in homestays, do a community service project, and learn about development issues faced by the community we are living in. You can learn more information at the link above.

I have done some traveling with my family, but never anything like this (I've never even been to South America, Asia, or Africa), so needless to say I am both nervous and excited.

My goals with this blog are to both create a record of my trip and to keep in touch with my friends and family back home. I'm hoping that the process of writing will make me feel connected to the people I miss and also be something for me to reread after the trip is over. Posts will likely be a mixture of daily life description (pictures of where I am and what I am doing, etc) as well any interesting thoughts I have (seeing so many different cultures should inspire at least a few).

When you hear from me next, I will probably be posting from Costa Rica, where the other kids in the program and I will be having our orientation (oh yeah...).

Farewell till then,
Alison