Who Do You Think You Are? Part Three

Exercise Four - Telling my Story

Childhood
Ace tree climber
Junior reading cup
Learning to Ride
Catching crickets with my bare hands
Matchstick model of a playground

Teenage Years
Progress in Gym Cup
Learning to Kayak
Diving off a boat
Scuba diving through a wreck
Catching birds in order to release them
Befriending collie
AutoCAD and the lightbulb puzzle
Learning Tai Chi
Picking fruit for my Mum
Making a working group model of crane

Twenties
Returning to riding and learning how to tell horse to go sideways
Learning how to scuba dive
Learning to bead
Laying flooring
Moving to Cornwall
Rescuing Big Dog

Thirties
Completing kayaking course on River Fal
Making animations
Making a papier mache mask
Learning how to silk paint
Learning how to use a bead loom

I don't remember to much of my childhood really but i did loads as a teen. I competed nationally in stock judging and public speaking and did pretty well. I did a group project to design and make a building energy management system. I was part of a sound and lighting crew for several college productions. I spoke on the radio for my college. I completed work experience in engineering for an airline. I won a prize for an electrical engineering project. I am not saying I didn't gain pleasure from these things but it was the doing not the achieving and they were 'interesting' more than pleasurable. It was also during these years that I came down with glandular fever.

My second bout of glandular fever began at 19 and turned into Chronic fatigue that took up all my early twenties. Once well I moved to Cornwall and did my degree. I loved studying. Really loved it and it took over my life a little. I made some fantastic friends I still have and really, really enjoyed it but the achievement of it, the first class honours, the final awful year of slog, all empty. By the time I had finished I was tired, run down, exhausted and depressed. My twenties finished better than they started though, much better and I was beginning to get my life together again.