Six days into my 365 day writing challenge and already I’ve cheated a bit. I mentioned my technological failings in the first post, and I was by no means exaggerating. It’s taken far longer than I had hoped to get this site set up, and whilst I haven’t been cheating with the actual writing – I have posted something every day on the WordPress blog linked to the site – I have in the sense that it’s still not ‘live.’ Which is why I’ve decided today is the day, and hang the design issues. If I wait any longer for ‘tech support’ (which feels strangely reminiscent of Vanilla Sky) to respond to my email I may never get the damn thing up and running, so please accept my apologies for the slightly-too-small font on The Writing page and don’t let it put you off reading – I will endeavour to fix this as soon as I possibly can.

On the subject of technological failings, I am reminded of the preface to this month’s Psychologies magazine (the only magazine I will allow myself to regularly purchase, and a throwback to my educational background), in which the editor, Clare Longrigg, says the following: “In today’s digital office, we often find ourselves puzzling over how to do this or that bit of uploading or formatting. Most of us wait for the technician to make time in his or her busy schedule. There are some, however, who get stuck in and, no matter how long it takes, figure out how to do it. They then become the go-to person who teaches everyone else.”

Mindful of this lesson, I refrained from asking anyone for help today as I battled to figure out the frustrating intricacies of the website building software, and I’m pleased to say that even though I didn’t find a solution for the font size issue in The Writing section, I did come quite a considerable way in developing my understanding of how websites work. It’s a small step but one that I’m proud of, because all too often I do just ask for help without trying to work out problems myself, and that, as Clare Longrigg quite rightly says, is the lazy person’s solution. To be a real go-getter you must push yourself to go and get; if others do it for you how will you ever learn and grow?

I couldn’t think of a better image to represent the title of this blog than this one – the group shot of everyone on the Raleigh International expedition I volunteered on in January 2011. I was the Communications Officer on the expedition, and was fortunate to visit several of the community-based projects that the groups were working on. It was a fantastic three months and I met some truly inspirational people (my boyfriend among them!) I’d recommend the experience to anyone who is stuck in a rut and thinking that there must be ‘more’ to life – there is!