Dave and Jen For Oxfam

To make the remaining three weeks sound like a longer amount of time to fundraise, we can think of it in terms of 504 hours or 30240 minutes. To make it sound like a shorter amount of time until we hit the bikes in Ho Chi Min, we can think of it as 21 days. One we are counting off as slowly as possible and one we are striking off the calendar with a daily increase in excitement. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise in terms of which is which, but we are still surprised and shocked how quickly the last few weeks and months have gone by, and how quick the next few will follow suit. Three weeks left, and we still need your support!

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It’s a scene from a movie where the protagonist has been introduced, gone through some ordeal and come out the other side with a purpose, with intent, with direction, with… with a montage! If we had a montage there wouldn’t be much of an ordeal so it would simply show us riding, planning, riding, fundraising, riding, reading and, just to keep the theme, more riding. It would also be a somewhat cliché montage with one of those flipping calendars The best I could find in a quick search online was this one, which is really quite naff I’m afraid, so you will have to use your imagination. See where I’m going with this? Calendar? Time? Flipping? Five weeks to go? Five weeks to go!!

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Seven is an interesting number. No really it is. There are seven classes of plastics used in packaging applications. Windows 7, the upcoming Microsoft operating system is sometimes referred to as just “7″. There will be about seven people in the world who will like it. There are seven Earths in Islamic tradition. In Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise, there are seven Chaos Emeralds. Pirates talked of seven seas. Seven is the only number less than 15 which cannot be represented as the sum of the squares of three integers. Seven is the number of weeks until we got to Vietnam and Cambodia.

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As far as countdowns and numbers go, there is something nice and simple about having 8 weeks left. As far as preparations and fundraising targets go, there is something alarming and sudden about having 8 weeks left. As far as holidays go, there is something slow and distant about having 8 weeks left. As far as… okay well you get the point. 8 weeks to go.

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Nine weeks. 9 weeks. 9 wks. I typed it a few ways and all of them elicited the same excitement and trepidation. We leave for Vietnam and Cambodia in nine weeks time. At the time of writing I have managed to pick up a cold from a work trip in the previous few days and am ruled off the bike to rest up for the weekend.

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From this point on we are about the leave the comfort of double figures for the number of weeks left to go. Ten of them now rolling downhill with an increasing momentum and a threat of crushing our self imposed deadlines for fundraising efforts. Within the next ten weeks Jen and I will have raised our target amount of $11,000. If I had not of worked with Not For Profit and Non Government Organisations for some time and seen the ease of which an intent fundraiser can achieve their goals I would be going something like this:

“Arrrggghhh!!!!”

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