What is there to know about me? Well lets start from the beginning shall we? I was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland at the end of a very snowy 1978, growing up in the then undeveloped town of Carryduff. Back then I thought of myself as somebody who lived in the countryside, which wasn't surprising given the amount of green around. However as I grew older Carryduff became more suburban as the housing developers seized on their chance to expand Belfast. For the moment though my corner remains more or less untouched.
Primary school was a ten minute walk from home. After 7 years there I passed my 11 plus and moved onto the biggest grammar school in the province; Methodist College Belfast. It allowed me great academic success because of my intellectual capability. However ideologically I have to confess I don't approve of the system. In particular I feel that the eleven plus is a complete waste of formative years, I learnt nothing from the many hours I sat in the cateen hall scribbling away and the hours spent afterwards marking it. It is my own belief that the system of selection should be altered.
My GCSEs came and went, replaced by A-Levels. I scored 4 As in Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry and entered Durham University. There I studied Physics, purely because it seemed a good subject for one who was rather uncertain of what he actually wanted to do in life. However I think now that perhaps I would have preferred computer science as a direct vocation. After getting a 2ii (narrowly missing out on a 2i and a PhD) I went to QUB to take a conversion course in Computer Science - something which my uncle had done as well actually. I gained a MSc, narrowly missing a distinction and found myself becoming a contract Research Associate at Cambridge. Sadly that job came to an end in September 2003, so it was back to unemployment for me. Temporarily I stayed on in Cambridge and found a part time job doing Web Content editing, which was to be honest refreshingly easy work. Eventually though I had to bite the bullet and decide to leave. So it was back to Northern Ireland once again for me.
Right now I am testing for an IT company in Northern Ireland that outsourced jobs from the US.