Hello there, I’m a sixteen year old who as you’ve hopefully guessed is called Callum. I’ve been feeling the need to express myself more and more lately, and with many failed and embarrassing attempts at doing this through different methods (Oh god the poetry) and this seems to be the most comfortable forms of expression I’ve come across.
I come from a good background and thankfully I’ve never had to go hungry, feel true pain and I always have someone there for me which is more than a lot of people have so if I ever come across as grumpy I try to remember this. From a young age I’ve had an interest in video games and History (Thanks to my older brother and the great Horrible History series) these two interests are probably two of the largest influences on my life so far with many a night spent huddled in front of a computer screen playing the great ‘Dwarf Fortress’ and many hours searching through history on wikipedia during free periods in school.
Academic
When it comes to school, I’ve had interesting experiences especially during my earlier life. I grew up with a moderate speech impediment, this led to problems in early primary school and some minor bullying (Sure didn’t feel like that back then) until I eventually transferred to another school with a specialised speech unit. This was probably my happiest memory of education until my current school, during these three years I became a very extroverted person and managed to beat my speech impediment down to a subtle lisp (Similar to the one shown by one of my heroes in this ) After the three years in that unit (It was mostly separate from the rest of the school, I transferred into the main school system where I was introduced to the joy of age appropriate maths and the more normalized system of class.
These were still enjoyable years and I made many friends who I unfortunately fell out of contact with after the big scary ‘transfer test’ which decided if you would be allowed to go to a grammar academy and also which class you would be placed in if you went to the comprehensive. I didn’t do the harder test for the grammar school, I ended up with an average grade and transferred to the ‘B-band’ of the next school.
That’s when school turned into what most teenagers know it to be, six hours of staring at a clock broken up by zoo-like behaviour on break periods. Didn’t really get into many problems except when I pushed a guy for tripping me and he punched me later in the day in a ‘Drive-by’ fashion in the truest of thug life styles. This was probably when school was at it’s worst, however this was when I met most of my closest friends at the moment and there were some hilarious memories such as a guy breaking down in tears when I called him a ‘Young person’. (Interesting chap)
After this, I went through another transfer test and did well enough to get into the grammar school. Pretty great school, though does have it’s annoying elitist elements which sometimes makes me nearly burst out in laughter during assembly times or other school events, but overall it’s a pretty safe place to be and the teaching is top quality. Two years of work towards my GCSE examinations which wasn’t great (God damn it French) and ended up with decent grades (Apart from in French) and enough to get me back into the school for A-level examinations in Politics, History, Law and Geography. Politics being a great new subject and History which I’m enjoying as per usual.
What I do in my free time
This is the question in interviews which I always take an awkward long pause during, not being sure if they want to hear “I play videogames, read and browse the Internet while listening to music” or if I should lie my bloomers off. Generally I decide this by the age of the person asking this question.
So, I wont go into detail about Dwarf Fortress again (I probably will in the near future though.) but I also spend time playing the hellish amazing game known as “League of legends” which most video game enthusiast have probably heard of and formed their own opinions on. My favourite genre isn’t really something I’m sure of (Is Dwarf fortress a genre?) but I spend a lot of time trawling through RPGs, Interesting indie games and rogue-likes such as IVAN and Tales of May’Eyal.
When it comes to books, I read a variety of things with my favourite series being the ‘Conquerer’ and ‘Emperor’ series by Conn Iggulden as well as ‘Ender’s saga’ and ‘Ender’s shadow’ series, but unfortunately I have to buy them second-hand due to the author’s use of the money to fund anti-gay organisations which I personally can’t agree with for any reason.
When it comes to music, I have a variety of tastes. My favourite,which I mentioned earlier,being Mr. George Watsky who I recently saw perform live which was a dream come true. As well as artists like Billy Talent, Serj Tankian and the band he was a member of ‘System of a down’.
My beliefs and political views
I was born into a moderately Christian family and attended Sunday school and other such activities, however by the time I reached around the age of 10 I stopped believing and personally don’t feel as if I’m missing much in my life by removing this ‘Spiritual’ part of my character. I have nothing against organised religion as long as it doesn’t try to assert itself among those who do not welcome it and if it isn’t used as an excuse to oppress or inflict violence upon others.
When it comes to political views, I’m quite left-wing (How far, I’m still not really sure) leaning towards democratic socialism, in an ideal world I would like to see a communist system work however when it comes to practicality I doubt that will ever happen and if it does, would it really be worth the possible hundreds of years worth of suffering to do so?
When it comes to local politics (Northern Ireland) I’m in the center, close to parties such as Alliance party and NI21 because of their seeming genuine care for the protection of civil rights and moving Northern Ireland forwards, however I have my reservations about NI21 due to it’s fragile nature and I’m not sure if it’ll even reach the next elections never mind win a reasonable amount of seats in Stormont.
TL;DR? – If you didn’t want to read that (Don’t blame you) then there’s not really much point of summarizing it.
Unimportant thoughts of Callum Craig 
