Sorry about "where the hell"

I would like to begin by apologizing for the horrible title of my blog (worst word ever). It happened after much frustration and deliberation. I hoped that it would be some sort of clever pun using my easily pun-able name. I thought about "Failsafe Travel B(Log)," but it lacked a certain something. Katherine suggested "Epic Fail," which I turned into "Epic (of) Fail," but that didn't translate in a web address. As the suggestions went downhill fast ("Rockin'Robin'sBlog, "Robbin'MeBlind," "RobinFail'sDownUnder," "KiwiFruit" (like the fruit of my journey), and something about a bat mobile) my frustrated response was the title and web address you see before you. Sincerest apologies.

The idea of blogging has always made my skin crawl. I hate the fact that I just had to use the word "blogging" and I hate the idea of putting my writing out there for the public eye. The latter issue is really more about the sort-of presumptuous nature of assuming others care what you say, more than it is about any fears that the public who aren't my parents will seek out my writing. But I decided that a blog (shudder) is, in fact, less presumptuous than mass emails, since it the ball is now in YOUR court, my friend. Rather than forcing an email from me into your inboxes, I will let you read my words only as you see fit. My discomfort with this also has a bit to do with the fact that I still don't know basic grammar rules like where to put punctuation near parenthesis or quotes and what commas are, so if those errors are pet-peeveous to you, you may not want to read on.

The idea is that I will update this during my time in New Zealand whenever I have time at a computer. I have absolutely no idea if I will actually do this. Having never kept a blog (gross), it might prove difficult to maintain, but I'll try. For those of you who somehow arrived here without knowing this already, this is intended to be my record of a one year or nine month (or any other amount of time) trip to New Zealand to work on farms and see beautiful things with my friend Maggie, a fellow recipient of an anthropology degree that we haven't yet figured out how to use.

We leave for New Zealand on Wednesday, at which point we leap forward in time and miss the all of Thursday, September 17th to arrive in Auckland on Friday morning. I am trying to ignore my fear that Thursday, September 17th was supposed to be the best day of my life, but I decided to skip out. Fingers crossed that that fear remains irrational.

So this is my introduction. How does one end a blog (still hate it) post? Is it like an email? Do I write my name? You all know my name. Do I say, "sincerely?" Probably not. Bye? Not right either. I'll just stop now.

REF