Annalise Blum, who received a NetAid Global Action Award for her work to stop the crisis in Darfur, talks about doing tsunami relief in Thailand, teaching English in Guatemala and helping make a documentary in Cuba…all in one year. 

To tell the truth, my initial reason for taking a year off before college was that I was burned out.  After four stressful years of high school, I wasn't exactly excited about going straight to college.  Now, after a year of fascinating experiences and adventures, I have realized just how glad I am that I decided to take a gap year.

I got a chance to do things I might never have had time for. I was a senior in high school when the Tsunami hit, and more than anything I wanted to go to South Asia and help with the disaster relief. So the first thing I did on my gap year was head to Thailand, where I volunteered as the English program coordinator for North Andaman Tsunami Relief.  Whether I was meeting uprooted families or floating down a pristine Thai river, I thought to my self, "I could be in class right now, or even taking a test – I'm so glad I'm here!" 

In the spring I lived in Xela, Guatemala, and took Spanish classes while I volunteered as an English teacher in a public girls' school.  Trying to manage 55 fourth graders could be a frustrating experience, but I learned a lot from my kids and came to appreciate all of the great teachers I'd had growing up. Then, I was off to Cuba to work on an oral history project about the impressive literacy campaign of 1961 (in one year, volunteer teachers decreased the illiteracy rate from 20 percent to less than 4 percent!).

In the past year, I've learned so much about myself, my interests, other cultures and the world. It's the kind of learning that couldn't have taken place in a classroom – it came from every experience I had and every person I met.

But the best way for me to explain what it was like to experience it all is to share some of my journal entries from the gap year. Like when I did the tight-rope walk across a crumbling bridge in Thailand, or went to the wild Buddhist Vegetarian festival and saw men climbing ladders made of knives. Or in Guatemala, when I was welcomed into the home of one of my humblest students, and ran out of breath playing soccer at high altitudes. Or Cuba, where I attended one of Fidel Castro's famous speeches, and was thrown out of a public taxi.

Check them out. Maybe you'll be inspired to take a gap year too.