How 20sb Got Me to OZ!

Here’s a guest post from member Bobbi Jo. Want to guest post for TwentyTwenty? Email your pitch to blogs@20sb.net!

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So.

I had just started a blog. Again. I think this one was my penultimate (hopefully, probably) attempt at lifestyle blogging. Having recently relocated to London to, I don’t know, “find myself,” I was spending a lot of time kicking around museums, eating at different restaurants (while trying not to gain eleventy gazillion pounds) and wondering when, if ever, the sun would come out.

It never did, and I happened to be in the UK during a freak winter in which it actually snowed. Which means everything stopped running and people stayed inside as if the snow was acid falling from the sky. This, as it turns out, happened to be a good thing for me. Being stuck inside, I was swimming in time to write, figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and surf around. Since I’m from the East Coast of the States, I was up at ungodly hours of the night as well, catching up with friends from home during their waking hours. I figured that maybe in my sleep-deprived delirium I could hit upon some 2am inspiration.

Enter: 20SB.
I’d admired the network for a while but kind of always felt like a new kid. I shied away from the message boards and updating my status. I sheepishly added people as friends, crossing my fingers that they’d accept and doing a little happy-dance-chair-wiggle when they did. I chose pretty carefully when and how I engaged because 20SB is full of some crazy awesome people and I’m all about putting my best (or relatively decent) foot forward.

But, I saw a post on the message boards one day that I couldn’t very well sit back and let the opportunity presented pass me by.

(Sidenote: Jenna, you rock and THANK YOU!)

Basically, it was the trip of a lifetime.

Go to Australia. Have fun. Write and tweet. Hop through prairies with kangaroos and tell the world your story. Well, maybe not the kangaroo part (even though I did end up doing that). Regardless, I immediately started daydreaming up the scenarios I’d find myself in (being hand-fed grapes by hot lifeguards on Bondi Beach may or may not have been one of them) and knew I’d have to enter.

I sent a message to Jenna expressing my interest, and the process was pretty straightforward from there:

I spent a lot of time worrying about making the video just right, which was an ordeal that dragged out over a few weeks of me not even having the courage to record anything at the risk of embarrassing myself.

But finally, another contestant put her video up and it spurred me to  action. I figured my best bet was to just be myself and keep the attempts at forced humor and special effects to a minimum. If people liked me they liked me, and 20SB had been so welcoming already to a blogger that had no idea what she was doing (and when she dared to show her face) that I was safely assured that the group wouldn’t throw its virtual tomatoes at me.

So I entered and…I won! The whole thing happened really quickly. I posted the link on the 20SB forum as well as a few other places. The response was great and in the end I was glad (and I think people appreciated) that I was just myself. Even if they could tell I was nervous.

About a week after I heard that I won I was on my way to Australia. I meant to only spend three months here, but plans change and I’m about a week shy of being here for a full year.
I’ve made some awesome connections through 20SB – beautiful people with beautiful ideas and amazing execution. But I couldn’t have realized any of the dreams I didn’t know I had (writing for a living, learning how to take a proper photograph) if it wasn’t for some late-night zombie message board surfing and 20SB!

Bobbi is a big dreamer who’s working on her follow-through. She’s always craving a good laugh and bacon. Always. Find Bobbi: Twitter | Blog | 20sb

Tagged as: 20SB, guest, guest posts