It was announced to us that since these profiles are property of the Gap Year, and the gap year is over, we will be returning access to the creators and moving back to our original BEBO profiles. Very sad news. I had planned to keep this one updated with videos, photos, and blogs as I continued my journey around europe and completed my own Gap Year adventure.

So what all this means is the six of us will no longer have access to our Gap Year profiles after the 7th of December! *tear*. The profiles will remain up but we will not be able to respond to comments or mail or anything else for that matter anymore from these profiles. I do believe any messages will be forward to us somehow, not 100% sure on that though.

If you would like to stay in touch with me though I will be returning to my old profile at www.bebo.com/gapyear_canadian eventually. (right now that profile is a mess since I haven't used it in months but I will clean it up)

Its been great. This profile has served me well. I was hoping to keep it but all good things must come to an end as they say.

Keep it touch on my other profile!

-Andre

This morning had a global chat with several Gap Year involved individuals!

For anyone who doesn't know, I've stayed in the UK to visit and travel with Dave the Rave Brett for awhile. Which I should blog about at some point. I've had an AMAZING time in the UK. Probably one of the biggest highlights of my journey.

So we had Dave across from me at the breakfast table (a bit strange because I would hear him talk and then about 1.3 seconds later I'd hear what he just said over skype again).

Then we had the beautiful Amy O'Connor live from her room in Australia,

We also had the hillarious and outrageous Lewis Whaitiri live from his home town in New Zealand.

And lastly a surprise addition to the conversation was the editorially talented Robbie, one of the editors for the Gap Year who had some of the final say in the episodes before they'd be put on Bebo. Robbie was life from L.A. in North America.

Gotta love technology. We had 3 very distant corners of the globe covered and we were all talking away together in a 'conference call'.

Too surreal. Audio only though. Looking forward to the day video can be included in group conversations as well.

P.S. check out this link and do the ANDRE QUIZ
http://www.bebo.com/QuizResult.jsp?R...

Last week you saw me working my butt off on the RAF physical conditioning courses to the point where I had to throw in the towel at some point and give up on one of the challenges. It's not like me to give up but I had hit a point where I just couldn't go any further.

Those two days with RAF were the hardest of my Gap Year and it all makes sense as to why now. The first day of RAF was the first stage of coming down with the mumps when symptoms first surfaced that evening. I was physically and mentally exhausted and my body just wasn't giving me the umph it should have and this confused me because at the time I didn't realize the mumps was settling in for a week visit in my body.

On day two of the RAF (when we carried out the mission) I had to struggle the whole day not to collapse out of exhaustion. My body wanted to quit but I just kept at it because as you saw the day before in the RAF video, I get a little hard on myself when I give up and a lot of people were counting on me to finish it the activity. That morning was also the first morning I noticed swelling or the "hampster" face symptom but to a much lesser extent. I had no idea what was wrong though. I associated the swelling around my jaw with getting smacked around by the poles of the 75kg stretcher I had to help carry the day before and the terrible fever and ill feelings all over with over exerting myself on the physical courses. I had no idea it was the mumps until days later.

Once RAF was concluded I spent the weekend in Brighton sleeping 16 hours a day and getting my YES MAN challenge video done whenever I was awake (if you watch the challenge video... it's the first time you can see how badly my face was swelling up). I was in a fever for 3 days, my face was a balloon and I didn't eat the entire time (eating caused quite a bit of pain in my salvitory glands where the mumps virus enflames).

So I went the entire weekend wondering what the heck happened at RAF to cause this much post-agony. Fever for 3 days, inability to eat, and a swollen face. The timing of the mumps left me completely confused but I knew if I just got through the weekend and got my challenge video done everything would be sorted once I got back to London.

Along came Monday and my fever was gone, but as you all saw in the video today the swelling in my face hadn't. I tried to mask it by growing out facial hair and wearing my beaning (so all it looked like was that I gained a bit of weight) but I still wasn't able to eat and this was concerning me. As soon as the HQ staff and PDs saw the condition I was in they whipped into action and arranged me a visit to the Doctors. Bi-lateral swelling, hamster face appearance, fever, loss of appetite... it was all pointing to one thing

An hour later everything made sense as to why I just had the worst weekend ever. I likely had the mumps. It never was confirmed but the symptoms all pointed it's way. There wasn't much else it could have been anyway besides some other random viral infection. It's highly likely I picked it up in Goa India, or Bangkok Thailand. I'm going to go with Goa.

After meeting everyone Monday, which was amazing, I had to go to bed early because I was still exhausted. I managed to eat for the first time in days too so it was time to recover. I felt really bad because I had spent 6 months looking forward to this week only to be stuck in bed while my gap year friends were drinking and bonding. I felt I was letting them down and letting myself down.

I was determined to get better so I could join in the fun. The next day with a little bit more food in me i had a really enjoyable day. I was able to socialize with the others a bit more than the day before, I could eat food easily enough, and my energy was returning. I thought things were looking up, I finally knew what was wrong, it was just a matter of days before I would be better. I thought 'ok, nothing else can go wrong, I know whats wrong s