Yes that is me. It’s one of the only of the only decent pictures I have of my father holding me (and my defense against his accusation – which he leveled at me until the day he passed – that the stress of my birth turned his hair white prematurely). It was taken, I believe, around four weeks after I was born as Dad was deep in Communist China and didn’t even know I existed until fourteen days after I arrived when he left mainland China for Canton and Hong Kong. Plus, I was really, really tiny.

When I was a kid; learning was a horrible experience. Actually, wait, let me put this into context; I am the eternal student, I love acquiring knowledge, enhancing my abilities and seeing where Wikipedia takes me during a random bout of surfing but make no mistake this stuff never came easily. I was bullied constantly through school even being beaten and threatened with knives just for being different, liked by my teachers or for my lack of any kind of noticable accent.

My mother hypothesised that my prematurity wasn’t just a catalyst for my visual impairment – being born four months early at twenty-four weeks led to my spending the first three months of life in an incubator in Addenbrookes and too much oxygen. But she believes – and I’m inclined to agree, that it had also resulted in slight brain damage, possibly mild autism or Aspherger’s, the kind which is impossible to test for and yet it’s clear that something isn’t quite right. 

Either way my brain isn’t wired right; you can, for example, tell me how to install WordPress until you’re blue in the face but unless you actually show me, I just don’t get it. It also took me a hell of a lot longer to read and write; I was still doing pesky hardwiring practice cards at aged eight I hated it passionately. Reading took much less time and as for maths … well I’ve never grasped it.

All through my primary education no one quite knew what to make of me, I was the only disabled child in a mainstream school and while that did mean I got funding for basic equipment no one was quite sure whether I was a genius or headed for a life of unfulfilment. My mother frequently tries to justify that sending me to a normal school was the right thing to do. She’s always questioned it (parenting, from what I’ve observed, seems to be one big lose-lose situation) and I constantly tell her that if she hadn’t I definately wouldn’t be the semi-confident person I am today. Okay, I still have days when the world scares the crap out of me but I’ve met people with similar disabilities to whom the idea of going around the world, alone, or even to London is impossible. I broke out my shell because I had no choice and even now if I ever want to turn tail and run from something that scares me it’s usually the knowledge that someone is expecting me to go for work which makes me conquer my fear and just do it. 

I was gently warned as I learnt with other ‘special’ kids that I would end up in special education classes at secondary school if I couldn’t get maths, which terrified me as numbers make no sense. My brain is hardwired for words and yet my actual knowledge of grammar is pretty bad, I know what a noun is, what a verb does but don’t think in those terms when talking or writing. I know it all instinctivelly through usage – sentences just sound right – but it makes learning foreign languages like Japanese, French and even German nightmarish. I was soon writing stories, moving on to proper fiction by ten and continue to this day, not that I get much time thanks to freelancing as I find it very difficult to switch from ‘work’ to ‘creative’.

So yes, reading and writing took a while but once I cottoned on to books I started devouring them for breakfast. I still love to read, even if my eyes don’t, and seldom go anywhere without a book, newspaper or some form of printed material to keep me occupied. I especially loved ancient cultures – and that’s down to my inner Pagan and it was almost if a lot of it was innate. From Egyptian and Greek to Hindu and even the smattering of Celtic mythology, this naturally expanded to an interested in religion, history, art, culture and sociology (and culminated in a glorious two years doing an A level in Classical Civilisations). 

I was always able to express myself better by writing that I can by talking; it gives me a chance to be a lot more ordered, more concise, about the ideas I want to put forward and yet writing itself took a heck of a long time. I’m left handed and yet this is only because of my eyesight. Because I’m blind in my right eye, I’ve always naturally defered to my left as my dominent hand (although some things I still do with my right, like using scissors). My wrist frequently got in the way and even when I was learning to write Hebrew (which is written from right to left) it was still a nightmare is it’s almost as if I hold my arm in the wrong position and so get cramp very easily. While I’m always carrying around some kind of notebook and a selection of pens (my favourite being a high quality fountain pen given to me a couple of years ago to mark the release of Eragon on Xbox 360), I still prefer to type.

I have a habit of buying blank notebooks (I bought two gorgeous ones from Barnes and Noble while I was in the US) but seldom write in them as my handwriting quickly goes (depending on the pen) from neat to scratty and it really is easier to type. I’ve tried keeping diaries over the years but it never last’s long and so I was quite surprised when I first started blogging back in October 2005 how addictive with weblogging lark became especially as I was able to talk about me, my work and life with a degree of dispassionate observation. Indeed when it came to picking a title, in my case Through the Eyes of a journalist, my choice was not only ironic but also inspired by a comment made during my time at Harlow College when my tutor picked up a feature I’d written on a protest at a local council meeting which had really captured the feel of the event, as written by someone who had actually been there rather than the ‘for the facts’ version turned in by the other students, not bad for the visually impaired journalist of the class.

The thing is (and this is where the ‘why I blog’ but comes in), I honestly feel like a better journalist for blogging, but also I figure that my view on the world, a bleary and strange as it is, is pretty unique. I enjoy being able to ask questions and work out the answers, comment on events which have effected or affected me or those I know, whether it’s games, anime, technology or just personally. With this new template nearly completely tinkered with, I aim to keep blogging for a long time yet, here at my new home on the interweb.