Who Am I?
Well, what can I say?
A brief History first I think!
I was born in 1981 (making me 25 when I wrote this) in the sleepy town of Dartford England. Those from the UK will most likely know Dartford for its two tunnels and bridge that provides the crossing at the River Thames for the M25 on the east side of London. It does have other things, a park (something the Council is currently trying to destroy), a Heath (the long lost home of the Dartford Warbler) and a few shops (mostly charity ones). Famous people include Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones - I met his parents), Pete Tong (Radio One DJ) and Sidney Keyes the war poet.
My first schooling was at Wentworth Primary and then Wentworth Junior (now combined into one school). Of my time there I can mostly remember the last two years - in which I started to play the guitar, made tons of things out of card (stellated dodecahedrons mostly) and got bombarded with a lot of maths, english and science. (Things that don't seem to be taught these days)
The only other item of interest of my time there was my 2nd teacher, Ms Logen who had come all the way from Illinois (it may have been Wisconsin) on a teacher exchange program. The reason for this memory?
- Introduction to NASA food
- Smelly Pencils (scratch and sniff)
- Understanding of dyslexia, which no one had recognised I had until that point!
Secondary School and University
My secondary schooling was undertaken at Dartford Grammar School. At the time the school was a boys only school but by the time I reached the 5th form a limited number of girls were being taken on for the 6th form (A' Levels).
I expect most of my teachers would say I was an average student - which is what I was, except I suggest in two areas: Technology and French (the former I excelled in, the later I was rubbish at). Science, the subject of my parents (Physics from my mother and Chemistry from my father) was also an area in which I did well (well ok not so much in biology!) I ended up leaving the school with 9 GCSEs and 5 A' levels (4 really most people still think General Studies its a worthless A' level)
At the same time of doing these qualifications I started to get interested in lighting and sound. Spending many lunch times fixing the school's aging lighting system and the new sound system (which i thought were the bees knees at the time).
Trying to cut a boring story short - I ended up at the University of Warwick in 1999 (Yes - Warwick university is in Coventry, do not get confused with what was Coventry Polytechnic and now Coventry University. In fact Warwick Uni straddles the border between Coventry and Warwickshire.) I did my 4 year Masters in Engineering and between 2003 and 2008 I undertook a PhD also in Engineering.
I got married to Ee Hui Oon in 2006 and as I write this we have just celebrated our 3rd anniversary. We met in 2003 while she was undertaking her masters in Law. Originally from Malaysia she has stayed here against all odds but we haven't ruled out going to stay in Malaysia at some point in our lifetime.