Last decade I...

So, the so called noughties have come to an end and a whole new decade lies ahead. So what exactly did I do in the last decade?

I finished school, college and university, and then called a halt to study. I may return to the academic world some day; I muchly enjoyed my time there. But I don't see that being in the very near future. Anyway, I came out with good grades through it all, and finished up with a first class honors degree in computer science. It goes without saying that I didn't see that as innevitable at the start of the decade. All the way through, I knew I was goodish, but always doubted whether I'd hold up at the next level. Turns out I did fine.

I visited 33 countries. That's something I'd most certainly not seen myself doing ten years ago. My love of travel evolved around hte middle of the decade.

I've lived in two countries other than the UK. I'd not seen that one coming either. Alas, no regrets, and I it'd not surprise me at all if I live the next decade out of the UK.

I've developed a love of natural languages as well as computer ones, and muchly worked out how to learn and cope with them. A decade ago, I was a competent but disinterested attendee of compulsary French classes at school, and didn't expect I'd ever long to learn a language. (Recently, I've been working on an article about some of how I look at natural languages today, which I hope to publish later on in the month.)

I've remained a Christian, despite many challenges, and a few times where I had to ask God, "seriously, why the f**k did you just let THAT happen?" I still don't really understand most, if any, of the things that caused me to ask such questions. Alas, there's been a great deal more blessing than pain. I've increasingly refused to identify myself with any tighter label than "Christian", come to advocate a non-denominational viewpoint, and lean to a fairly minimalistic view of what defines being Christian. Whether somebody has a different take then me on homosexuality, use of tongues, child baptism and so forth should absolutely not prevent me being willing to share in communion with them - because those issues actually don't matter that much compared to the core truths.

My music tastes switched from electronica to rock overall, through a stage of industrial and crossover style stuff. That said, a lot of the rock I like has electronic elements or, often, symphonic elements. These days I'm most interested in progressive rock/metal, power metal and symphonic rock/metal.

I also wrote some music, some of it for Christian worship, some of it not. It started off as electronica, but along with my tastes evolved towards more crossover and sometimes all out metal. I've moved more towards production of music using existing samples, and have enjoyed writing lyrics more than anything else. Sadly, the last year or so hasn't seen much new get completed, however.

I've come to appreciate beer and coffee. That is, good beer and good, strong, black coffee. I wasn't into either a decade ago. Then, I guess I was a bit young to be into beer anyway. :-)

Indian food is still my favorite type of cuisine. I was exposed to it from a fairly young age, so a decade ago I was already fond of it. While I've discovered much other great food in the meantime, Indian remains my favorite. Most, if not all, years, I've had curry as a key part of celebrating my birthday.

Importantly, I gradually became more comfortable with who I am. I'm me, with all my quirks. And now I'm quite comfortable with the fact that this is just fine - a view I found harder to take back in the days of school, where fitting in is somehow made to matter more. If people don't want to accept me as I am, that's fine - they can go hang out with people they can accept.

Over the last decade, I've had the pleasure of meeting, talking with, travelling with, working with and being taught by many great people. I'd like to finish off by saying a huge thank you to all those who have helped make this decade one that, amongst a large bunch of crap, has actually been an overall positive one. Here's to the next one. :-)