I have now been sitting staring at this screen for 15 minutes waiting for an amazing first sentence to pop into my head; it hasn't. It's now that I realise I have never been a fan of creative writing, in fact I haven't ever really been much of a fan of writing, or English in general. But here I am writing a blog, in anticipation of leaving for China to teach English, for a whole year...

Despite this I am eagerly awaiting depature in three days, I feel like it has been a long journey just to get here. Almost 11 months ago I decided to send a fateful email to Project Trust, I was promptly accepted onto their selection course. Then it was off to the Isle of coll for the first time for an amazing and well organised course designed to separate the weak from the strong, well actually I have no idea how they separate people - but luckily after a week of anxious waiting I received a letter to say that I would be going to China.

Then came probably the most difficult part - raising £5600; starting in January I started to come up with loads of ideas (many of which I didnt do in the end) for fundraising events. In the end I chose to do an auction of promises, which then was cancelled and turned into a raffle draw. So really I had no idea what I was doing, but a couple of very generous donations along the way meant that I reached my target just before training in June.

Training was a blur of concentrated facts and information; how to teach, what we are doing, where we are going, actually come to think of it I cant really remember much of it anymore. Anyway I met my partner Callum and the other 19 volunteers who are all fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them in 3 days. Training ended with a rather embarrassing but memorable Ceilidh, and although I'll be the first to admit I am terrible at dancing, it was good fun.

Since then I have been hard at work to earn some money for travel in China, as well as to buy the many things im sure I wont need that my family insist I take.. Anyway the real point of this blog post was to provide people with a way of contacting me while I'm in China. I'm not certain what the internet will be like and what sites I will be able to access however hopefully you will be able to reach me via either:

Line (messenger app) - my username is hmskirby

Skype - my username is also hmskirby

and email - [email protected]

Anyway I hope to hear from you soon and good luck to everyone over the next year..