It must be said I've always been a bit of a geek when it comes to science. Way back when I was about 10 this was usually confined to watching Blake's Seven or Star Trek and spouting technobabble but since I was considered a bit thick at primary school and into secondary school due to being dyslexic (which I wasn't really aware of until my early 20s) that's about as far as science went for me.Then when I was 12 (I think) second term of year 7 anyway and heading towards a life in, if not the remedial class then at least not making the top stream and doing O Levels, the science teacher annoyed me by implying I was less that stellar in the thinking department once two often and I should pay more attention. Now this wasn't completely his fault, poor guy, because by this point I was so bored with secondary school it was untrue so I did have a tendency to sit at the trouble making tables and create havoc. The point he missed, and it was fairly easy to miss, was that I was actually taking everything in that was taught but I just couldn't be bothered to show it (ah, the joys of being a teenager!). I'd also started to read a few popular science books on space and astronomy so I was slightly ahead of the curve he was teaching to.
Anyway the upshot of this was that a few weeks later I sat his end of term test and actually bothered to try and got 93%. This caused three things to happen: 1) the science teacher had to swallow his earlier words and write me a good report card (which I still have and I think its hilarious); 2) Since word was out that I might actually have a brain I stopped hiding my geeky side from everyone (this only lead to some slight playground bullying for a bit); and 3) (and probably most importantly) it got me into the upper stream at school doing O levels (and hence A Levels and hence degree and etc)
But at the time my main science interest was Astronomy. Once the geek was out that's what I wanted to be, or at least in my frighteningly realistic view for a 13 year old, that's what I'd want to be if I was any good at maths, had any chance of going to university and wasn't destined for a blue collar job. Yes, I use to have that little confidence in myself (and probably still do).
So I fell in with the computer geeks at school (by accident really) and that lead on, eventually, to where I am now. Of course the whole Astronomy thing fell by the wayside as an impossible dream and just became a hobby at best.
That is until about 2 years ago when a software job came up in Durham Physics Dept. So in just over a month's time I'm off to La Palma to the William Hershel Telescope to help run an actual experiment. So I guess I'll have something to blog about for a bit...
