Initial Conditions

More shameless Koala-based plagiarism. The idea is for you to just describe what you were doing or hope to be doing at the given time.

5yrs ago – I was in second year in my Maths degree and had started drinking (in moderation!) after I somehow managed to avoid drinking in my first year. I was getting just about scraping through the exams and struggling to settle into any particular church, and going through one of the longest crushes I’ve ever had. It was still good times though!

10yrs ago – I was in fourth year at school in Belfast and living in Newtownards, which was by no means a vintage year. I had not yet discovered my love of  Maths, and I was kind of disillusioned at life (perhaps this is where my famous cynicism started to kick in). My dad’s ministry in Newtownards was nearing an end, and I was kind of looking forward to the new start in life that comes with moving which sadly turned out to be a false dawn. I had very few friends in school because of some of the things I had done (which I am deeply ashamed of), so I didn’t really have much of a life at all. My favourite subject at school was French, and I deliberately failed my English Literature mock exam so I didn’t have to sit the GCSE (which I never wanted to do in the first place).

15yrs ago -I was in P6 where the teacher often made fun of me for various reasons. I didn’t really have any ambitions at this point, as I was completely focussed on the present time. I remember that I really enjoyed the raft of 11+ practice tests (it wasn’t scrapped in NI) because I always got good marks in them (except for the English bits- I think I got an A solely because of Maths and Science!).

20yrs ago – I was still living in Eire, and you know things are tragic when you thought going to Strabane was exciting. Nevertheless, I had started school and was, curiously, in the same class as my (2-years older!) brother, but perhaps that’s not unusual in the country (by the way my brother’s not thick, he wasn’t kept back two years, I think this was because of staffing issues or something).

In the future

5 years from now – I’ll be 29, and by then I would have to have something resembling a job (and will hence have gotten over my chronic confidence issues) and I will finally have passed my flippin’ driving test and got my PhD! Where will I be? No idea! Hopefully still in Scotland.

10 years from now -We’ll all be laughing at Back to the Future’s description of the year 2015. I might or might not have a family (with a wife who understands Formula 1, preferably), and I might, finally, have finished reading Catch 22.

15 years from now – I’ll have turned into my Dad, probably, telling terrible jokes and having a receding hairline.

20 years from now – Your guess is as good as mine.