As good a time as any to post my first proper entry, I think! And what better place to begin than with the beginning - to summarise where I am right now and how I got here.
A black sheep through and through, I never felt I achieved the same relationship with my family that they achieved with each other; to me, they were like members of an elite club that I couldn’t gain access to.
Though fear not, I have grown closer to them now! Rather ironically, in the last few years since I’ve moved away, I feel more at home with them when I am there. Perhaps absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder? Though, that said, I often have a nagging suspicion that I’m adopted, made worse by my whole family telling me so - regularly!
I stumbled through my formative years with the distinct lack of a male role model; to say me and my dad didn’t see eye to eye would be an understatement - but that’s another tale for another day. Sadly my brother, 16 years my elder and the closest thing to a role model I had, had already moved abroad to Ireland, married an Irish gal and settled down by the time I had even begun my teenage years. I have been shaped into who I am today by circumstance, major events, family (my Ma in particular) and friends. I applaud and owe my Mum so much for shaping me into who I am today. Although we weren’t very close back then, she is the strongest person I know and has done a great job of raising all of us kids into good people!
With that in mind you will be shocked to hear that I do possess some personality flaws! Flaws such as a lack of confidence and an underlying paranoia, thrust upon me by more-than-one deceitful girlfriend. I’ve seen and known people to do some truly terrible things to friends, family and partners they are meant to care about. I’ve seen people completely take advantage of trust which is given to them. I’ve seen cases of people showing a complete disregard for the well-being of others, whether they know them or not. I once saw an elderly lady fall at the bottom of an escalator in a tube station in London, only to be stepped over and ignored by everyone who followed, showing complete indifference to this poor woman who was clearly in need of a helping hand. That image has stuck with me for years and is one of the reasons I don’t like to visit London town. Every day produces a new example of how selfish, dishonest and outright ruthless human beings can be. I do not believe my distrust to be unfounded; for me, it is easy to believe that everyone is capable of deviousness.
But, that’s it! No other bad flaws! Haha, I’m kidding. Of course there’s more but nothing major and nothing out of the ordinary. But I’m not going to sit here and list them all, am I?
The reason I mention all the above is that it’s all relevant to the bigger picture of who I am and where I am in my life right now.
The subject of girlfriends brings me nicely to my decision to move over 130 miles away! Rather simply, my then girlfriend was applying for university, a concept I had never even considered really. I therefore looked into university, with not even an inkling of what I wanted to study or where I wanted to go. I eventually decided that because I like playing computer games I would like to study to be a games designer (how wrong was I?). With the course chosen, I set about looking for parts of the country to move to! I immediately ruled out the north with the mental image of freezing cold weather and lots of farmland! I had a friend who had recently visited Bristol and declared it a ‘great night out’ and a ‘wicked city’, so I looked into the universities there. I discovered that UWE had a new state of the art Games Technology course which was only brought into being that same year. Not to mention brand new student accommodation on campus opened that same year too! The modernsist in me was delighted. New course? New accommodation? New me? New start? It all fell into place. It just so happened a friend of mine was also looking at UWE and was driving down for the open day. I was invited along and after a tour of the facilities and a lecture on my course content, I was sold. Bristol wouldn’t know what hit it!
I will continue with this and bring you the next instalment very soon – I need to get to bed!
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