Ticking things off the list.

Over the past few months, I've had a mental "things that are happening before Canada" list to go through. It's been quite a nice little list, allowing me to live happily in denial of the fact that I'm leaving the country. But it's now a matter of days before I leave. Not weeks, not months, but days, and I find myself nearing the end of my list.
Exams: Check
Summer term music events: Check
Say goodbye to Exeter: Check
Birmingham: Check
Nash Choir: Check
Ireland: Check
Leipzig: Check
Vicar party: Check
Leaving party: Check
All that's left now is a farewell meal with my family, and then that's it. No more events or trips. Just Canada. Well, apart from packing, but that ordeal warrants a blog post of its own (watch this space).
And with my list of events also came a list of goodbyes. When someone you love leaves, even only temporarily, saying goodbye is always emotional, I find. When you're the one leaving, it's the same goodbye, only you have to do it a lot more times. And some goodbyes aren't that hard. The friends you probably wouldn't have seen for a year anyway, the flatmate you didn't see that much of, the people you saw in rehearsals but weren't that close to. They're easy goodbyes, requiring nothing more than a "have a good year" and a friendly hug. But then come the other goodbyes: the horrible goodbyes. First there were the new friends: the people in Exeter who were wonderful to you all year and welcomed you into the group. The next goodbye was to the county music friends, some of whom you'll miss more than others. Included in that is the girl who is practically your little sister, who is joyously cheery and special and intelligent and for whom you wish nothing but good things. Then we had the gay best friend, who lets you ramble and rant about anything, just because you can. Next came the friend who, completely out of the blue, you became ridiculously close to one choir course when you bonded over ducks, and who somehow ended up at the same uni as you, and without whose weekly catchups, Wednesday evenings will never be the same. And the most recent goodbye was the first of two people without whom this past year would not have been possible.
And while many tears have already been shed and are currently being shed, there are plenty more to come. God only knows what will happen when I have to say goodbye to the second of the aforementioned two people. Add to that my childhood best friends, my sister and my parents, and I'm looking set to have a pretty emotional 5 days ahead of me.
Because that's all it is: 5 days. And while somewhere in my mind I know fine well that excitement is brewing, it's currently proving quite difficult to find behind a lot of emotion and just a smidgen of "Oh my goodness, I'm f**king terrified."
So while I wait for the excitment to inevitably resurface, I apologise for the rambling emotional blog post and say this to you: I love you, and I'm going to miss you like crazy.

Welcome to my blog.

Come in. Have a seat. A cup of tea maybe? How about a biscuit? I'm afraid I've run out of chocolate Hobnobs, so you'll have to settle for some Custard Creams I found at the back of the cupboard.
Now, sitting comfortably? Good.
Hello :)
I'm Hannah, and blogging confuses me.
Now at this point you're probably wondering a) How confusing can blogging be? and b) If blogging confuses this poor simpleton so much, why has she started a blog?
And very good questions they are too.
Now, I'm not a complete idiot. I understand how blogs work. You type, publish, and the blog is posted for all to see. It's more the "blogosphere" that confuses me. I used to think that a blog was simply like an online journal, a place to jot down thoughts on a daily/weekly/monthly/whenever I can be arsed basis, and it didn't really mean a lot. Well, apparently there's more to it than that. The blogging community is huge, from what I can tell. My limited experience with blogs already shows great attention to design and content and theme and target audiences. People can do blog swaps and join groups to connect with similar bloggers. This whole blogging thing is huge, and worldwide (well duh, it's the world wide web) and for a 19-year-old English student with the attention span of a labrador, it's all a bit too much. And since I'm not an aspiring write/photographer/artist trying to publicise herself across the vastness of the internet, I trust you'll forgive me for taking my blog back to basics: me writing stuff about what I'm doing or thinking on my adventures.
Which brings me to your second question: Why is this girl writing a blog in the first place?
Well, it would appear that in a mere 11 days (eek!) I'm jetting off to Canada for a year. Very exciting, I know. And since I'll be spending the year studying in a new country, continent and culture, it seemed appropriate to create this little blog as a journal of sorts, so that I can record what I'm doing and seeing, and so that anyone who cares can keep track of me on my transatlantic adventures.
But I warn you now; I am not a writer. Don't get me wrong: I'm perfectly capable of stringing a sentence together, but I'm not a maticulous planner or scrutinous paragraph-former. My blog posts will not be perfectly crafted with tasteful eloquence. I will write whatever pops into my head as and when it does.
After all, if I spend too much time writing about my adventures, there won't be any to write about.