The Beginning

Adventures begin the moment we leave. They begin when we leave our houses, our neighborhood, our cities, and countries. When we leave our families and our friends. We find them, to be more precise, as we walk away from where (or whom) we are comfortable and all of those ideas, places, and people that we refer to as home. Once you've left, you won't fight dragons or find treasure maps. But after taking that step, you've opened yourself up to all sorts of marvelous adventures, as minute or grand as they may turn out.

This is not to say it's impossible to have an adventure in your own city or backyard or even in your own room. So long as you find yourself staring down the unfamiliar, whatever form it takes, and running after it, an adventure is to be had anywhere. Well readers, I'm tying the laces on my running shoes. My "where," however, is slightly further than my backyard. About 4.5 thousand miles more.

This blog will document my year studying abroad in England. I'll update it as often as possible with thoughts on the experience, tips, pictures, and stories about the adventures I have. By the year's end, I hope it'll be two things: 1.) A full account of my trip for myself to look back on and my friends and family to have kept up with. 2.) A sort of guide for other students studying or planning to study abroad.

First things first, an introduction:

My name is Julia Jorgenson and I'm currently 18 years old and a sort-of freshman at university in Louisiana, where I was born and raised. When I was little I read all sorts of stories about adventures and decided I wanted to become a pirate. Discovering that piracy actually has little to do with treasure maps and more to do with theft and murder, I decided I would just write about them instead. Now, I'm studying creative writing with the goal of becoming a novelist.

My favorite authors include J.K. Rowling, Jane Austen, and Maureen Johnson-- all of whom probably had some influence on my decision to study abroad, but none more than Maureen Johnson. Her book 13 Little Blue Envelopes, which I've read too many times to count, has nested so far into my subconscious over the years, that sometimes it seems to do my thinking for me.

Last fall, I began university with the intention of only staying here for a year. I began researching programs and schools barely days after school had begun. In December, I applied to my school's bi-lateral program.* Last Tuesday, after months of waiting, I found out that I'd been accepted to the program to study at the University of Nottingham.

Now, there are six months until my adventures begin. It seems like a long time, but there's a lot to do, all of which-- so long as it's interesting-- I'll keep you up to date on.

*A later post will be dedicated entirely to explaining how this program (which most schools offer) works.