Introduction

"Calm and phlegmatic, with a clear eye...he gave the idea of of being perfectly well balanced, as exactly regulated as a Leroy chronometer"

From Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days

Hello, you. Yes, you. Don't turn over the page. My name is Francesca, and, if you've got the time and I've got the courage, you and me just might go on a journey together.

I'm afraid I'm not very interesting. I'm eighteen, small and unprepossessing, and suffering from the highly anti-social personality disorder of thinking I'm funny. Unfortunately, I'm not oppressed by a dictatorial regime, although sometimes with the amount of homework I get it feels like it, nor a lesbian, although my dad occasionally says my haircut looks a bit butch, nor indeed a fictional character, which is a shame, because they seem to have all the fun. But nonetheless I'm in a bit of a pickle.

You see, just before Christmas time I went through what hundreds of kids up and down the country who in all modesty thought they were kind of clever went through. I got rejected from Oxford. Oh, dear, I hear you say. Diddums. They've got a drought on down in Africa, don't you know. Move on.

                                            The big bad nasty rejection letter. Boo, hiss...

Well, yes, that would be the sane point of view. Trouble is, this is somewhere I've wanted to go since I was fourteen. And I'm a stubborn little son of a bitch when I put my mind to it.  I took part in a protest when I was in primary school against our favourite climing trees being chopped down (we chanted slogans at our teacher). So, after the weeping, and the self-pity, and the deciding I was the stupidest person in the world ever,  I was left saying: really? Are you sure?

I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the soul-sapping drudgery that is A-levels and university entrance anyway, and wondering whether it was the right thing to go straight to university. But it was the easier way, so I shook the doubts off. I told myself I'd take a gap year after uni, but in my heart of hearts was scared I would chicken out.

So here's the plan: I take a gap year. I reapply to Oxford, to a different, less bitchy college, and work to get some money. And in the nine or so months remaining to me, I do all the stuff I've wanted to do for ages, like visit Moscow, work in Berlin, go on the trans-Siberian railway. And maybe I'll pop in on my folks in South Africa for a couple of months while I'm at it.

I know it's crazy. I've got an offer from Durham, which I would probably be throwing away if I reapplied. I could always do postgrad, or just stick two fingers up at the snooty bastards in their draughty little colleges and have done with it. Trouble is, I've only got one life, and I believe in living it to the full. And wondering "what if" and regretting in my old age scares me more than losing out on Durham. Besides, the world's probably gonna end in December 2012 anyway.

So, there you have it. The wager's been laid. And maybe I'll lose it and go to neither Durham nor Oxford. Maybe I'll chicken out and settle and go to Durham, which will make this blog kind of awkward. Or maybe I'll get run over by a bus tomorrow.

Either way, should be an interesting year. Care to join me?