Success
This week I have been trying to follow this set of goal setting exercises, one of which was to write down a list of 100 of my successes in my life. It was a pretty fun(ny) thing to do, and seeing as it’s my 23rd birthday today, it was cool to reflect on some of the cool things I’ve done in my short life.
I have felt guilty for a long time that even having a blog is kind of bragging, and it’s impossible to write about oneself on the internet without some element of pretentiousness. Normally I try to limit my posts to one brag-per-post, but this is 100 pretty shameless brags… it’s my birthday so IDGAF.
100 successes
- Learned to walk
- Learned to talk
- Learned not to shit myself
- Made a friend
- Learned to swim
- Got a really good 11+ score
- Got really good GCSEs
- Didn't fail my A Levels
- Won the school debating cup
- Ran the 1500m in house sports day and came last by over 90 seconds
- Had an argument so vehement with our head of year that one of my classmates described witnessing it as one of his favourite memories of his entire school career
- Didn't go to physics lessons for a whole two weeks after the teacher said to me "if you don't want to be here, don't come"
- Got an offer from Cambridge University
- Got a bursary from a top offshore law firm
- Went to Lancaster University
- Briefly ran a puzzle page for the university student newspaper
- Skied down the mountain which was the setting for a James Bond film
- Was part of a photo of myself and two friends, standing at the peak of a mountain, topless in sub zero temperatures doing the Usain Bolt pose
- Was on Lancaster Uni Men's 1sts fencing team, and captained them for a few matches
- Represented Lancaster Uni at chess, and won every game I played for them
- Represented Lancaster Uni at dota, and got rekt nearly every game
- Beat York fencing team in Roses, with the sabre team winning 45-6
- Was awarded a full rose (highest sporting award) from uni, even though I 100% didn't deserve it
- Competed in the Junior Commonwealth Fencing Championships
- Competed in the Senior Commonwealth Fencing Championships
- Came second in Public School's Fencing Championships, twice
- Became Guernsey junior chess champion
- Competed in Dubai u14 chess international
- Had brunch in the Burj al Arab
- Competed in British u14 and u16 chess championships
- Beaten multiple candidate masters
- Played a grandmaster and got cheated out of a win by the arbiter (admittedly the GM was blindfolded and playing 5 other people)
- Won a game of amateur competitive dota, as captain of my team of school friends
- Got invited to a party with the "cool" kids, ditched it early to watch the finals of Dreamhack Winter 2012
- Went to Dreamhack London, my first big LAN
- Logged ~2500 hours of dota
- Got a sub 30min Super Meat Boy any% speedrun (<20 mins coming soon)
- Got a sub 3:20 Refunct any% speedrun (<3 mins coming soon)
- Was briefly in a ska band, that had one practice session and then disbanded
- Went on an orchestral tour to Canada
- Came stone cold last in a marching band competition
- Played Last Post and Reveille for a remembrance service in the nearest church to a pub in Great Britain
- Somehow got the youth choir I was in to perform my arrangement of "Sons of Skyrim", in fluent Dovah-Zul (dragon-voice).
- Saw Brand New Live
- Saw the Foo Fighters live, where Dave Grohl talked about Kurt Cobain and Nirvana while playing acoustic guitar solo for 15 minutes
- Came 2nd in an online poker tournament for $26k
- Cashed my first live tournament in Bucharest
- Learned to drive
- Learned to ride a bike (in that order)
- Got a real job
- Quit my real job to play poker
- Joined a mastermind group
- Traveled abroad to meet "internet friends" in real life
- Moved out of my parents' metaphorical basement
- Moved to Mexico
- Learned how to order a beer in 5 languages
- Learned how to swear in 10 languages
- Visited 21 countries (not including some I may have forgotten)
- Spent an hour in a sensory deprivation float tank
- Lost 30lbs in 70 days, and and could not recommend it less
- Benched 90kg
- Squatted 175kg
- Deadlifted 180kg
- Ran the entire school cross country without walking, somehow
- Kicked depression in the dick
- Met some incredibly inspiring people during group therapy
- Survived a week in an adult psychiatric ward, at 17
- Attempted the uni fencing team 45 shot challenge (15 shots each) - twice
- Drunk 750ml of tequila to myself, straight, in ~two hours
- Played a jazz concert with one of my best friends while so drunk we could barely talk
- Drunkenly sung Jerusalem as loud as possible while coming into St Peter Port Harbour on my friend's boat
- Tried a "Dragon's Breath" - a shot comprised of absinthe and ghost pepper extract
- Made out with a girl
- Made out with someone else's girlfriend
- Made out with my friend's sister - oops
- Got a girlfriend of my own (and made out with her)
- Got a handjob, on a balcony, in Greece, on a school trip
- Lost my viriginity
- Had sex with another girl who was actually pretty hot
- Had sex with another girl who was actually pretty hot, who I'd only met that day, while under the impression that she was a lesbian
- Had sex with a girl with 36GG breasts
- Had sex with two different girls on the same day
- Had sex with my friend's sister - OOPS
- Fell in love
- Got a serious girlfriend
- Split up with my serious girlfriend
- Tried pole dancing
- Drove a RIB
- Once tweeted something so apparently hilarious, that Fedor Holz liked it
- Organised a school Winter Ball, which turned out to be a messy, messy occasion
- Somehow ended up at a hen party where I didn't know anyone, and it was announced that I was "the evening entertainment"
- Wrote some really awful but bizarrely functional code
- Watched my best friend's middle-aged mother drunkenly perform the Gangnam Style dance
- Befriended a published mathematician, with her own named theorem
- Drove down some beautiful Scottish b-roads at 100mph on a roadtrip with my best friend
- Wore a pink dress in a nightclub, and got a lot of compliments on it
- Started a .com website with my name as the url
- Walked through the high street with 50 of my classmates, all dressed as pirates, singing an African war chant
- Gave my little brother invaluable advice on girls, drinking, and getting out of line
- Accidentally bought my mum a dildo and created one of the best stories ever