I bought a flight

Today I bought my flight to Mumbai (aka Bombay). I met Jenny, the other placement volunteer who is going to Pune with me, yesterday. We went to STA Travel and reserved a BA flight direct there for only £344! We fly out on 6 July, and return on 2 October. The tickets are really flexible, so I can change my return date for only £35. Jenny has to come back in time for term to start again, cause she's not finished with her Engineering degree yet, so that's why we picked that return date. I'll probably change it later to say longer :-).

I'm going to India!

Last Monday (May 4) I got a phone call saying that I had been accepted for an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) placement! I applied back in March and I was getting a bit nervous because at the interview they told me I should hear back by April 26; they said they were delayed because some of the placements we under-subscribed.

The first thing I did when I got the placement was buy an Eyewitness Guidebook for India. Those are my favorite guides, and I'm looking forward to exploring India as much as anything. I want to try to travel on weekends, and maybe at the end of the placement too cause that will be after the monsoon season.

Anyway, I'm going to work for Shelter Associates. The project is on mapping and analyzing slums in Pune, India using satellite images:
a link to my placement
I've done a lot of data analysis, and worked a bit with satellite images, so hopefully it won't be too hard to get used to the work. I'm not sure if it will be as mathematical as what I'm used to, but still a very interesting application of what I've learned in my 9 years at university.

I never though I would write a Blog, but recently I've started enjoying reading some of my friends' Blogs, so I though I would try it. This adventure in India seemed like the perfect opportunity!

I've decided it's going to be an adventure for 2 main reasons:

1. It's in India: I don't think much explaination is needed there. I've mostly lived in North America and Europe, so this should be a bit different.
   
2. It's an office job: After being a student for 9 years, some of you with office jobs might claim I've never worked an honest day in my life! I'm not sure if that's true, but it will certainly be a different life working from 9 to 5. We'll see how it goes.
   

I'll try to make weekly-ish updates, although it may be less often before I actually get there. Again, we'll see how this goes too...