About Me.

Now that I'm settling into blogging a bit more I thought maybe it was time to tell you a little about myself. I was born and raised in Sheffield, which is a really lovely place to grow up, I thought it was wonderful. I was always terribly shy at school, teased a lot (mainly because they could get away with it and I would still smile I think), but I worked hard and got ok grades. I enjoyed drama and for some period in my life I wanted to act. The I realised I probably would never make it and thought where else might I make decent money? The answer seemed to be IT, so I became a geek (well, more of a geek than I already was)!

I studied Information Systems at university, which meant that I didn't have to do any of the real hard horrible programming that I loathe. Sorry, but my brain just doesn't seem to think in that way. I did a placement designing websites for a company in London which I loved every minute of. When my degree was finished I came back to work for the company and I now work on a massive database system. In September I'll have worked for them for 10 years. I hope I make it that far.

Outside of work I have many many interests, a few of which I've only discovered in the last year or so, but more about those in a separate post. The main one which I've had for many years is dancing, since I used to have lessons and do exams when I was younger. In the days when I started it was called Disco dancing, but that just brings up a retro image of legwarmers and sweatbands... if only I had been so cool back then instead of the horrible blue leotard and tights I was forced to wear. Nowadays the dance classes have much funkier names - I'm talking about you MTV Moves and Street Jazz! I've been away for a while, but 2010 is the year I make my return.

Other than dancing I like a whole heap of regular stuff like DVDs, books, and gaming. And one not so regular thing that always gets me wierd looks. Cross Stitching. Yes, I love it. My grandma was a cross stitcher and she got me into it. I've tackled a heap of small designs for cards and quilts for poorly kiddies, and I've had one particular design on the go for about 11 years now... (Don't ask). I'm determined to finish that one and also work my way up to something much bigger... I have a large Tiger, a Winnie the Pooh piece and a floral one all in my collection, along with a very very cool urban cross stitch of a Banksy (the little girl with the heart balloon) for a bit of something different. My challenge for this year is to get them all started, finished and find homes for them. It's going to be hard work, but I enjoy it, so it'll be fun too.

Phew, so that's a little intro... I like pretty simple, straightforward things. I'll be nice to anyone who is nice to me. And I live by the rule to treat others how you'd like to be treated. It seems to have worked so far.