An Open Letter to The Admissions Officer

To the undergraduate admissions officer of a university I have applied to:

Please know that this is not a finely crafted personal statement or admissions essay, this is not me trying to excuse myself from the idiocies of thirteen year-old me and this is certainly not a coherent literary masterpiece, but I hope that through this and what you find on this blog, however embarrassing that may be, you get a bit of a context of my opinions, style and perhaps character. Maybe the students in my school are paranoid: many have changed their Facebook names, Twitter handles and taken their blogs offline, but I have decided against doing that, particularly in the case of this blog.

I am of the belief that opinions change with time and maturity. That is, in my opinion, exemplified in this blog. Through the years, my posts have wondered between Apple-fanboying to pondering perhaps some of the most irrelevant topics to recounting life-changing experiences. If you look through the archive back to 2010, the start of this blog, you will see thirteen year-old me ranting about Apple patent lawsuits and other perhaps embarrassing things. As the years moved on, I began to use the blog as more of a journal of some sorts, logging my worries, my ambitions and my university considerations.

This blog is a sort of time capsule. So is my Twitter and to a certain extent, my Facebook. I'm not trying to hide any of it - although I have restrictions in place, like any technically literate teenager! On the contrary: below I provide a brief narrative of some blog posts that have particular relevance to me, and perhaps even to you as well. Some are embarrassing, others, insightful, but in any case, they were all written by me at some point or another, and may serve to shed some light on the person behind the crafted application essays. There are some I have missed out on purpose to reduce clutter, but please feel free to browse! Of course, you don't have all the time in the world, and I do appreciate you reading my ramblings for this long.

From the "About" page:

"Opinions change, and I, as many other bloggers do, will freely admit that I am no exception. [...] This is not a technology blog, although it was initially started up to be so; instead, it had evolved into a personal diary of sorts, encompassing my thoughts, achievements and downfalls in one, easy to access place, so the world can laugh at my somewhat incoherent and silly musings."

Whether accepted or turned down, I thank you for considering my application, and wish your 1st years all the best for 2015!

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Perhaps the most important post was my very long and heartfelt post, written over a week, about my experiences at Stanford’s Education Program for Gifted Youths. Those three weeks were some of the influential in my life thus far.

Over my past two summers, I decided to briefly document my experiences. (2014: Part 1 and Part 2 and 2013 Part1)

I like to rant about many things things, including, but not limited to, exam boards, the UK education system and even silly phone applications.

Choosing between universities was a large challenge for me. I documented these concerns sporadically over many posts, but tried to consolidate it in “The University Dilemma” about a year ago. A-Level choices were also very challenging for me.

I documented the adventures I had during the Toyota Technology Challenge in 2012. Part 4 of a four-part series sums my “obsessive devotion” to the project well.

I wrote a three-part series one summer about my tinkering with an Arduino and Lego NXT components that I had found under my bed one day that I didn't want to throw out: Part 1, part 2 and part 3.

I also wrote a three-part series back in 2012 about an online radio station that a few of my friends had. I was the technical director, responsible for getting our voices onto the air!
Part 1, part 2 and part 3.

In October 2011, Steve Jobs passed away. Just two years after a close call myself, it really drove home how quickly things could change. I compiled a list of my favourite videos and images I could find of him and put them into a post, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”.

Of course, there are the posts and tweets I am embarrassed about. “The Dell Experience” in 2011 contains both my tweets and block-capital raging over a relatively unimportant subject. Another oddly written post, “The Ongoing Pinnacle of Human Achievement” documented my dismay at the retirement of the NASA Space Shuttle program.

…and yet some more embarrassment with some Sony and Microsoft Bashing in 2011. 

Looking back at these posts, I have some to realise that I was a bit too much of an Apple Fanboy back in the day.

A Year in Reflection - 2014

Celebrating New Year's Day

Another year has come and gone, just as I was getting used to writing ’14 on my work instead of ’13. To all those still regularly reading these posts - despite their infrequent nature - and those who happened to stumble across this post on their internet travels, I wish you a happy new year! Just as quickly as it came, 2014 is a thing of the past, and seeing as this blog has become a lot more of a space for me to throw words onto a screen, reflecting on the past year is probably not a bad idea.

2014 was an interesting year for me on many levels. There were ups and downs, moments of celebration and moments of despair, but overall, I have my health, there have been no deaths in the family and miraculously I still have friends, so I would say 2014 was a good year for me personally. I have found that looking back on the past day, week or year firstly prevents the time flying away and secondly helps you to appreciate the good times more. One day, everything just came together, making for a really good day, and I would have almost missed it if someone hadn't asked me how my day had gone.

Academically, 2014 was a success. I got the AS grades I wanted and when I think about it, I am amazed at just how much work I put into getting those grades. I have a past paper progress tracker, and the grand total of past papers I did came to 193 across maths, physics and chemistry. I probably didn't need to do that many, but I remember somehow that I just picked up a paper and did it almost instinctively, which is in one way worrying that our schooling system encourages preparation in this way, but in another way, fascinating knowing what you can do when you put your mind to it - and have a lot depending on it!