samjc

The theme for this Blaugust week is “introduce yourself”, but I didn’t really want to just do a standard “About me” post. I decided instead to share some treasured possessions of mine that say a bit about me. Since each possession came with its own little story, this post has ended up being rather long!

Each item represents a different phase of my adult life, and I’ve tried to order them roughly in order, so it’s kind of a biography. But since these are treasured possessions, it’s quite a one-sided, only-the-nice-parts biography — not that I haven’t been very fortunate; I have.

GameCube controller

The most important gaming community I have ever been involved with is the UK’s Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament scene.

Being a GameCube game from 2001, the only way to play Melee with other people was to actually be in the room with them. I had attended a couple of tournaments in 2007 in my younger teen years, but wasn’t properly part of any community until I moved to Birmingham in 2010 and got in touch with Kone, a leader in the UK community who had also recently moved to the area. The tournament scene was pretty quiet at this point, but we hit it off as friends.

Around 2013, Melee had a resurgence in popularity, owing in part to its inclusion at the EVO tournament and also the release of a 9-part documentary series on the history of Melee in the US. This excitement spread to the UK and Europe, bringing in lots of new players. Kone began running tournaments again and set up a national league, and I ran a couple of tournaments of my own. This league culminated in Heir To The Throne, a major UK national organised by Kone (with the help of several others, including myself) that would go on to become the legendary international Heir series, with 2018’s Heir 5 being to-this-day Europe’s biggest ever tournament with 800+ entrants.

I was never much good at the game — I sucked, improved a bit around 2014 when I was playing most regularly, and then went back to sucking again. I’ve not played at all since Heir 5. But Kone’s tournaments were always as much about socialising and building friendships as they were about the gaming. Evening entertainment, side-events (I ran a pub quiz each year), and copious drinking were always a core part of the experience. A few of my closest friendships were forged through this game and especially Kone’s events, which is why this controller made the list.

Bass guitar

I moved to Birmingham to study a music technology course, but I never finished the programme. I honestly think the course sucked the creativity and joy out of me. I didn’t make any decent music during my time here.

When I moved to Liverpool, I reconnected with a guitar-playing school friend and we formed a band, with drummer who happened to have grown up near us, and an amazing singer and keyboardist from Japan. For 2 years after that we had a blast, writing, performing, and recording our own music collaboratively, until the singer finished his studies and returned to Japan. The photo shows me performing in Liverpool’s famous Cavern Club.

In terms of just enjoying life, these were two of the best years: playing with this band, enjoying Liverpool nightlife and gigs… and getting married.

Wedding ring

I met my wife within a week of leaving home to study in Birmingham. It was Fresher’s week, we were both waiting at a bus-stop heading to the same venue. We became good friends, and soon after more than that, bonding over our shared music taste and religious upbringing (we were both atheists by this point).

We got engaged in 2013. I purchased the engagement ring with the gains from a bitcoin I bought on a whim in 2012 (£60). It had increased in value by 1000%, and crashed soon after! Never mind it would now be worth 100,000% its original value… I proposed near the top of Mt Snowdon; obviously I’d have liked to have proposed at the top, but conditions were too dangerous to continue.

The wedding itself was frugal. We handmade the invitations and favours. Everyone chipped in. The reception was hosted in my Aunt’s garden, the cake made by a friend, the tables and chairs provided by Kone (we just put nice tablecloths and covers on his Melee tournament furniture). My parents were kind enough to buy the wine. My suit probably cost less than £150, including the shoes and tie (£1!). This ring is made of titanium and ash (as in the tree). It was inexpensive, sustainable, and in my opinion, beautiful. We didn’t go a penny into debt for our wedding, and it was one of the best days of our lives

Photograph

This was our dog, my first dog. We got him from a rescue home in 2013, where he moved with us to Nottingham (we lived here for a year between Birmingham and Liverpool). When we first got him, I was kind of in an astronomy phase, and we called him Kepler, though this was usually shortened to Kep.

It’s hard to know whether to talk about Kep in the past tense or not. He’s alive and well, but he no longer lives with us. We loved him and looked after him for 9 years. He was a troubled dog, clearly had a difficult past, and very easily frightened. We did our absolute best for him but, unfortunately, having a child was a step too far for him. Thankfully, my parents knew some lovely people looking to adopt an older dog, and we know he is in a good home (my wife Facebook stalks him).

Brad the grad

We moved to Liverpool in 2014 so I could study at the university, and my wife got a job on a neonatal intensive care ward there. Initially I had wanted to study physics. In 2013/14 I self-taught A-level maths, knowing physics involved a lot of mathematics, which was enough to get me accepted

The summer before I was to begin the course I went to the library to look for maths books that would prepare me for physics. I found one called Linear Algebra: An Introduction To Abstract Mathematics, which sounded fancy, so I took it out. I wrestled with this textbook for weeks. It was nothing like anything I’d ever read. But I was hooked, determined to understand it all. Even took it on my honeymoon. I called the university and asked to be moved on to the mathematics course.

I loved my studies and did very well (this contributed to how much I enjoyed my time in Liverpool). My sister made me this little owl as a graduation present, whom I named Brad.

I went on to do two years of postgraduate study as well, but I dropped out — the pandemic hit and I struggled with the mental health side of things. The isolation of the lockdowns together with the feeling of getting nowhere was too much to deal with at the time.

Note from a student

I trained as a teacher in Liverpool as we were coming out of the pandemic, but moved back to teach in my hometown (in fact, at my old secondary school) after qualifying. This was primarily motivated by wanting to raise our children close to/with help from my parents, as we wouldn’t have been able to afford enough childcare otherwise.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t had an easy time with teaching so far, which is I think the experience of many new teachers. I have struggled with anxiety, stress, and burnout quite a bit since starting.

However, things are looking a bit better for next year. My skills are improving, and I’m going part-time to reduce the workload pressure. And this most recent year, my reputation with the students seems to have grown a lot. This was one of the first positive notes I ever received from a student. There have been a handful more since. I still don’t know how long I’ll stick at this, but these little things do make all the difference.

If you got to the end of this rambling about some stuff, well done and thank you. I’d be thrilled if you’ve read this and want to share a bit about your life through some possessions. If you do, please let me know.