I’ve never done an “introduction”-style post on here. The closest is perhaps the possessions post from two Blaugusts ago. Well, it’s introductions week for this year’s Blaugust, and one of the prompts is “Ten facts”, so here are some facts about me. I’ve slept with the same yellow-orange blanket for over 20 years. This sounds weirder than it is, I think? It’s not a “blankey” or anything, I don’t obsessively sleep with with it every single night without fail — it’s just a blanket that has served me well and I use it most nights. It used to have red threads around the outside, so it looked like a giant version one of those duster cloths, but they all disintegrated in the wash at some point (because, just to be super clear, I do wash this blanket). I originally went to university to study music technology. It was a decent course, a mix of creative music production and technical electronics and signal processing. Ultimately I couldn’t see myself going into this industry though, and most of my peers got more out of it because they could actually afford music gear. I decided instead to look into studying physics, which eventually led to pursuing mathematics. I have a low-stakes bucket list, currently with only one entry. And that’s to eat a vindaloo from an Indian takeaway (for non-brit readers, this is traditionally the hottest dish a British curry house offers). I’m aware I could do this literally any evening, and thus have completed my bucket list, and that’s what’s so nice about it. My first and only dog was called Kepler, after the astronomer, of course. We think he was a border collie-whippet cross, and he was a nervous soul from a rescue home. He’s still knocking around, but we had to re-home him (to a very good home) because he didn’t cope with the introduction of children. I’m sort-of collapsy. Little bit of a darker one — I think some form of civilizational collapse is not too unlikely in the relatively near future. I’m not saying we’ll go extinct, but various structures and resources we depend on may begin to fail under the weight of intensifying ecological crises, potentially leading to unrest and conflict. I don’t really talk about this much; people look at you weird. I hate committing to long TV shows, but I don’t have quite the same issue with long books or games. Something about committing to the fixed episode length over an extended period really puts me off, whereas a game or book I can pick up and put down for any length of time. I can deal with one or two seasons, but struggle with more than that for some reason. Also, I’m bad at spontaneously watching movies. I prefer to have a few hours notice before watching a film, and the side effects of this is I don’t watch that many films even though I like them. All in all, this and the previous point means “You haven’t seen X??” is a common expression of incredulity directed at me. I’m one of those “no burpers”. “No burp”, recently described medically as “retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction (R-CPD)”, is exactly what it sounds like. I can’t burp, which can be very uncomfortable, and makes me prone to hiccups, bloating, gassiness, and a weird gurgling noise as air tries to escape. Carbonated drinks are a complete no-go. It seems to be a learned thing; I used to get anxiety around vomiting and burping. Now I wish I could — I haven’t vomited for 14 years; I just end up dry heaving. Treatments do exist, but they’re not yet covered by the NHS. If this sounds like you, head over to the Reddit no burp community and see if treatment is available near you. I was raised very religious, but I’m not any more. Going through the loss of belief and having go face my own mortality was… a lot. I had a lot of fear and anger at first. But I’m at peace with it now, and appreciate that it made me who I am in some positive ways. I also miss the community a church provides. I have very few real-life friends near me now. I’m 1/4 Maltese. And since it’s on my father’s side, Malta’s patrilineal citizenship laws mean I may have a path to Maltese citizenship, thus regaining my status as an EU citizen, which my family could then also gain. My surname was originally a very common Maltese name, but I changed it (just out of preference). If you’re doing Blaugust and do a similar post, ping me an email so I don’t miss it! Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed. To leave a comment, please visit the original post. If you'd like to get in touch, even if just to say hi, please write to sayhi@thetangent.space. I'll be genuinely delighted to hear from you.