I'm writing from a portacabin in Nottingham.
The view from here? A half-eaten flapjack, several stained coffee cups, and a pile of papers I should have read. A colleague is picking his teeth with a biro.

I live in London. I like to think it's almost leafy-lovely Highgate, but really it's deepest Archway. It's not a bad place - from my balcony, I can see the trees of Hampstead Heath reflected in the Archway Tower. I have a decent job and a cat; life is good right now.

Only thing is, I keep having these "What am I doing? How did I get here?" moments, and getting urges to take a break and travel the world, or to do something entirely different (sadly, entirely undefined).

How I got here: an obvious, conventional route; A-levels, university, and straight into a job, three years ago now, ignoring the "What do I really want to do with my life?" perched on my shoulder. These days, I acknowledge the question, but still have little idea of how to go about answering it.

What I do know is that my experience of life to date has been incredibly narrow - I was born in London, went to university 50 miles from London, and then came back to work in London again, with a bunch of lovely people whose backgrounds are mostly interchangeable. I spent my holidays working to pay next term's rent - telesales, waitressing, economics research.

My feet are now very itchy indeed.

My longest and furthest trip abroad was a two-week holiday to Egypt, last year - two fabulous weeks, belly-dancing and scuba diving. I loved Cairo - it made London look tranquil! It bustles with a vengeance - not only the crowds and the traffic, but more of both, condensed and intense, and no noticeably enforced traffic regulations - in my fear, I was regularly escorted across the road (I'm talking six lanes of traffic here...) by friendly (and amused!) soldier types. The Cairiens had no visible fear of traffic - they just wade in there, amid the ladas held together with masking tape, and the shiny new air-conditioned tourist coaches, and the donkey carts with 10,000 eggs in the back, and expect the cars to swerve round them, which, to be fair, seemed to be what happened. The pyramids were worth seeing, too.

I want to be somewhere where something as mundane as crossing the road becomes new and interesting! I'm not after changing my life and finding myself (if I can say that without quotation marks) - although admittedly either of those would be a bonus - but changing my perspective and finding some new experiences, getting a wider view on the world and me and my place in it - and sharing my thoughts with the unsuspecting, Guardian-reading world.

I can't claim to be any more deserving than anyone else, but if you like me so far, please pick me!