Ahoy there...

Hey reader (I’m not optimistic enough to write ‘readers’). Welcome to my blog. For many reasons, mainly chronic lack of motivation in the absence of externally enforced deadlines, it’s taken ages to get my act together. I love writing but I have very little confidence in my own voice, and am prone to procrastinating. Putting my own writing about my own life out there is more daunting than some of the scariest and most difficult things I’ve faced thus far, occurrences I hope to detail here.

So, my bio: Ellen, 22, American and English Literature student at UEA, resident of Norwich (U.K.) but shortly relocating to Canada for 10 months as part of a Study Abroad programme. My interests are literature, politics and travel to name the first few which come to mind. I hope to blog mainly about the last two topics (my degree consumes a huge amount of my bibliophilia), along with my experiences of mental health. Canada, though, has provided the main motivation for me getting my arse into gear.

I want to document my year abroad for other people who are interested in doing the same, or more specifically want to know what it’s like living in Canada. Or maybe people just want to see pictures of a moronic student narrowly escaping bear attacks, which I’d say is a strong possibility too. Whatever you’re here for, I will try my utmost to be brutally honest – it’s going to be a lot of fun, but it’s certainly going to be very difficult too, particularly for someone who suffers from mental illness. I’m also hoping that this blog will provide a bit of structured self-reflection along with some motivation to get out and discover as much as I can about my new environment.

Whether anyone reads this stuff or not, I’m setting myself the challenge of writing at least one post a week. I’d imagine that’s a laughably small effort in the world of blogging, but it’s a challenge for one such as me, so feck off negative thoughts.

Cheers for tuning in. Double-cheers if you stick with me.

Let’s see how this goes…