Hullo There

This is my new blog, and I'm about to explain why I've made a new blog to you.

For the past 15 months or so, I've kept a blog called Bluepig, where I've carried a little blue pig on my travels with me, taking photos of it in various locations. And that's going to carry on; I like doing the project when I'm away from home and I want to see just how far it can go. However, it's a picture blog more than anything else really, that's what it's there for and that's what I like about it.

For the next 10 months or so I'm going to be studying abroad. I'm taking part in my University's exchange student program, and will be spending the second year of my degree in upstate NY. The blog's URL 'chemic abroad' is a reference to my hometown and me leaving it - if you know me you'll get it. Rather than dilute the concepts behind the bluepig blog, I've just gone ahead and made a second blog for me to share my experiences on, the Bløg!
I don't honestly know an awful lot about the place I'm going to. Much like when I worked at a summer camp for the first time in 2008, I'm deliberately not researching the place or the surrounding area too much. The experience is going to be wholly new, for better or for worse. Probably the latter based off past experiences, but isn't the whole point of doing such a thing as spending an entire year abroad studying to experience new things? There's no enjoyment of naive exploration if you can second-guess your way around a place, no spontaneous and magnetic connections with the people you meet on arrival if you've already made friends beforehand, no joy of the unexpected if you're simply going through the motions.

This post wasn't planned, and it's taken a swift detour into rant territory, so I'm stopping here. New blog. Enjoy.

Oh, and it's called Bløg because I like the way it sounds (think bleurg). Nothing clever.