The story so far...
Keith leaves school and surprises all by going to
work for a computer company instead of applying to study something sensible at
University.
After seven years of
working in IT (plus another five before that), Keith gets bored and decides to
study music technology at the Gateway School of Recording in
Kingston.
Two years of study and a year
and a half of sound engineering and working for a record label later, Keith runs
out of money and moves to Bath to work in multimedia and web site
programming.
Three years later, and now
working part-time, Keith decides it is time to move to Lancaster and starts
thinking about going to University to study something sensible (well, kind
of).
And here we are.
:-)
As you probably know, Heike has
been studying for a degree in Child, Young Person and Family Studies plus Fine
Art at St Martin's College in Lancaster for a year now and I have been planning
to move up there to join her. We hope to find a place to rent and move in by the
start of the new academic year (late September/early
October).
I plan to continue work for
Ingenta on a part-time basis from home. Thanks to the wonders of modern
technology (assuming we can get it to work correctly, that is) I should be able
to do everything I would normally do in the office remotely across a broadband
internet connection from my laptop (apart from chatting, making cups of tea etc,
which will be carried out in the traditional manner) and will be visiting Bath
on a monthly basis to 'touch base' with my office dwelling colleagues (chat,
make cups of tea, and so on).
For those
of you that have never been there, Lancaster is a lovely place in the North West
of England about an hour North of Liverpool or Manchester. Good points are
proximity to the Lake District, excellent parks, pubs, and fish and chips. Bad
points are proximity to Blackpool, lack of cafés, coffee shops, and the
weather (it always rains, but hey, this is the UK!
;-)
The other part of my future plans
is to apply to the University of York to study philosophy in 2004/2005. Why
philosophy and why York? Well, I've always been very much interested in
thinking, problem solving and the mind, and would love to apply some of the
skills I've learned to the wider questions of life, the universe and everything.
In particular, questions of consciousness, knowledge and ethics interest me, as
do the philosophers Heidegger (who had some interesting things to say about the
nature of being and time) and Wittgenstein (on the meaning and limits of
language). Ultimately, I'd like to go into research and teaching, but whatever
happens I'm sure the experience will be
worthwhile.
York just happens to have a
great University and is also an excellent place to live. Not unlike Bath in many
respects, York is a fair sized town with a beautiful cathedral, Roman remains
and a lot of northern charm. Moving there later next year would mean Heike and I
spending another year apart, but we had never planned to stay in Lancaster
indefinitely and it would be a good place to spend some time, especially while
philosophising about the meaning of it
all.
All in all, the next few years
look set to be quite interesting. I'll keep you posted as to how it all turns
out...
Posted on Monday - September 01, 2003 at 12:02 AM
