It's been a while since I last logged onto this website. Having just cleared through around 400 past posts I've decided that most of the people I knew that used this website at one point have moved on, although for boredoms sake I may stick around on here for a while longer, just to see if I still like using this website.

I guess I'd better answer where I've been all this time. Well, my last post was in 2005 and that is when I had finished my National Diploma. After a huge cock-up on the college's behalf (a lecturer forgot to mark my coursework and failed me by default) meant that I had received my grades after the universities had started admitting students, resulting in me having to stay at college to take my HND.

So, two years of my HND and I was starting to become pretty good, reaching high marks in many of my classes. In my second (and final year) I fell off a wall after a gig, shattering both heels. Three weeks and two surgeries later I was out of hospital and in a wheelchair for three months. As the college was unable to let me take my exams and finish my coursework during the summer they decided to fail me by default and allow me to retake as my first attempt the following year, at full price. This is something I obviously disagreed with so I decided to ditch college altogether and go to university to take Computer Science. After weighing up my options between a couple of universities, good, bad and local I decided to stay local and go to the University of the West of England, Bristol. It's a dump, but it's my dump now...

Some may view my previous four years in academia as a waste, but as of now I am flying through CS, averaging about 70-80% in all my subjects. In many ways college has taught me the fundamentals of Software Engineering, and being able to apply that to the more theoretical aspects of Computer Science have allowed me to excel at practical work, leaving me lots of time to build up my theoretical knowledge. Now I'm half-way through my course, so hooray for me! Within this time I have held several jobs, ranging from being a sales assistant at a leading sports store (no, not sports world, another one...), a Search Engine Optimisation Consultant for a leading real estate company (pays extremely well), and a Junior Developer (Java, some PHP and a splash of Haskell). For one of my software business ventures (more a concept of one) I achieved a merit prize and a shiny certificate (and a nice cash prize), and on top of that based on my content writing I have been nominated for an award from a leading online website. I won't mention which one, but it's a

As far as the future is concerned, I have a summer internship lined up at Sega (the home of a certain famous blue hedgehog), I have contributed to several Open Source projects and will continue to do so as my programming and tech-writing skills improve, and I may be offered the opportunity to study for a year at Virginia Commonwealth University (an opportunity I will most definitely turn down). On top of that my year of physiotherapy has been overly successful, with my feet feeling stiff but capable of walking, running, and my usual antics.

The past few years have been a real eye-opener for me. In many aspects I have grown-up, finding myself happy and with a genuine purpose. My accident turned out to be a real eye-opener for me, allowing me to view life in a completely different manner. Some say that those that have suffered hardships throughout their life gain the strength to achieve happiness. As a result, I can safely say that today, even though I have three deadlines at university and mountains of Christmas shopping to finish, I am happy.