About
Posted by David on Jun 13 2006
I’m a physics graduate from The University of Sheffield, currently working as a Software Developer (Management Information reporting) but planning on training to be a teacher in the future. I also tutor physics and maths in evenings and weekends. I have a lot of interests… a lot. They are many and varied, to my own detriment in a lot of ways and I’m starting to learn about prioritising goals for my own good. One of the interests towards the top of my list is writing fiction and if I could choose any career without worrying about success and failure I would be a novelist. I’m influenced heavily by Jo Rowling (of the Harry Potter series) and Stephen King (though more for The Dark Tower Series than for his horror books), as well as a little by J.R.R Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings). Another big interest of mine is music; I play the piano (14 years) and guitar (2 years) and write music for fun. Part of me likes the idea of performing, but I get far too nervous about the whole thing to be a great performer… perhaps if I had more practise, but it would take plenty of it because right now performing causes me to make a lot of mistakes. For the moment I enjoy playing instruments for myself immensely and Beethoven is like a drug to me. One of my interests that’s been growing lately is the environment. As I’ve got back into hiking and had thoughts about future plans to explore different parts of the world (now with Justine, which is very exciting!) my appreciation for the natural world has only grown. If there is any cause that can make me feel strong emotion it is what we are doing to our planet and my strong desire that it must stop as soon as possible. An Inconvenient Truth makes me feel like crying, which is admittedly not all that hard to do, but for a documentary it certainly isn’t easy.
I love both sci-fi and fantasy and those are my chosen genres in writing as well, though I don’t limit myself to them. I love the fact that with those two genres you have the ultimate freedom in writing. You can set a story in any world, any universe, at any time in history, with any culture and with any level of technology. I also love to read and watch the genres. The Lord of the Rings, Dark Tower, Chronicles of Narnia, Twilight and Harry Potter Series are amongst my favourite books. In sci-fi TV series I watch a lot of things, but my favourites (and the highest quality in my opinion) are Babylon 5 and Firefly. These rival any non-science fiction series in quality, at least to those who are unbiased. I like Babylon 5 because it’s structured like an epic novel and Firefly because it’s character based, which is rare in sci-fi.
I’m a Christian, and a firmly left-wing Christian. For all my conservative opinions about moral issues such as abortion and euthanasia, fundamentally I believe Jesus’ message is one of equality and hope. The early church under Jesus was a communist group where everyone was equal to everyone else, and people were looked after regardless of how much money they had. Similarly my political views reflect this, and although I don’t believe communism can work on any kind of large scale, I do believe we have a duty to provide shelter, food, healthcare and all the basics to everyone in our society. Their status as a “slacker” should make no difference to this, just as Jesus treated prostitutes and criminals just as well as he did others. Can you imagine Jesus saying they don’t deserve to be given those basics? Because I certainly can’t.
Now all that information is out of the way, I’ll talk about the answer to the fundamental question of Who am I? For a long time I defined myself by my intelligence; in Harry Potter terms I was a Ravenclaw and very proud of it. As I get older I’ve started to learn that for all my difficulties talking to people in the past (I used to be useless at small talk and I’m still not good at it), talking to people and understanding them is very important to me. I love people, I love making a difference in their lives and I love inspiring them to make the world better. So my two primary careers of interest have become teaching and environmental work, and if I can do both then that would be great. Back to Harry Potter, as all good trains of thought go: As time goes on I’m becoming more and more of a Hufflepuff, more and more interested in focusing on people and on loyalty, honesty, and caring. This change has happened in large part due to the wonderful and lovely people I’ve met through the Harry Potter fandom and I’m very proud of that. It’s a big part of who I am now and I’m thankful for it.
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