Six years later.

It's true what they say I suppose. The internet never forgets.

Unlike myself. I forgot this blog existed. Facebook reminded me, as it has been doing depressingly frequently recently, of a post I wrote six years ago, linking to this page.

It wasn't as bad as I thought. My sixteen (nearly seventeen, he would have you know) year old self wasn't actually an awful writer when he wanted to be (yes, yes, I know, kinda biased there). He just said a lot of things that a teenager would say.

Apparently, my love of video games and science and self-identification as a "nerd" (oh sweet Jesus) were the only defining features I could think of to describe myself back then. Perhaps I was trying to be modest, but I have the suspicion that that was what I genuinely thought, as if that separated me from any other stereotypical sixteen year old male.

Now? I would extend that, just a little. I would say what kind of games I enjoy most. Those with interesting stories and diverse characters. Those that use the medium in new and inventive ways to get a narrative across. Not that I'm against slaying a few dragons here and there, but my horizons have broadened somewhat.

My love of science? Of course that hasn't changed. But now I feel that an appreciation of the scientific method is required by any thinking adult to form an informed opinion about the world around them, rather than something that makes them special, or trendy.

On that note, my scientific flavour of choice has changed, but only slightly. While I was very much intending to study physics at university six years ago, I actually went and got a mathematics degree. It's through studying maths that I've gained a larger appreciation for how the laws of physics as we know them were discovered and formulated and I've now re-joined the fold to do a theoretical physics PhD. I suppose then, in the grand scheme of things, my ambitions haven't changed much. I don't feel this is a bad thing.

That "Three years time" benchmark I mentioned in a previous post has come and long since gone. I have since lived in student housing, as my father once did. I never recorded myself dancing around in shitty clothes with my flatmates.  That doesn't mean I didn't do it.

I'm much more political than I was back then, as is perhaps to be expected. I mean, with Brexit and the upcoming shitstorm of a presidential election I feel the entire world has become more political. But I'm more confident in my views now, more passionate in what I believe and what think is important, namely equality and social justice. And yes, of course, Feminism, a dirty word I wouldn't have used at sixteen. Now I know better.

All in all, I'm still me I suppose. But I like to think I'm a better person than I was back then, and that I will be a still better person in six years time. It's almost as if I've... grown up or something.

Nah. That'll never happen, right?

Until next time.