I've always loved cruiseferries and found them really cool, but it wasn't until late 2019 until the real obsession started when one of my internet friends invited me to a Roblox cruise, featuring a 1:1 model of Viking Line's MS Amorella, cruising through the Ålandic archipelago.

I spent the next 3 years getting involved in the 'RoMarine' community and surrounding myself with fellow ship-lovers; talking, exchanging pictures, extensively studying deck plans, searching for intercom recordings and, of course, watching VL run two ferries aground... :X

Sadly, this niche interest couldn't have started at a worse time, as due to the big bad Coronavirus I haven't been able to hop on a cruiseferry myself since 2020 - but hopefully it won't be too long until I can hop onto one of the ex-Tallink, now Stena Superfasts!

After watching a short video of Chornobyl photos in 8th grade geography, complete with the soundtrack of Michael Andrews' and Gary Jules' cover of Mad World, I developed the most random obsession with Chornobyl, radioactivity, and nuclear power accidents in general.

The next two or so years were filled with random outbursts of random Chornobyl facts, hours spent watching documentaries, and a couple gigabytes of photos. I swear at one point I knew the entire Wikipedia page from start to finish.

It was always my dream to visit the Chornobyl Zone of Alienation for my 18th birthday, but due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the plan will have to be pushed back by hopefully only a few years.

One of the most arbitrary stages of my life was my telecommunications phase. I was crazily obsessed with telephone lines, exchanges, PSTNs, dial-up and everything in between.

Age 13 saw me starting to set up a phone network in my own house, setting up Skype for Business and Asterisk, complete with inbound and outbound routes, extensions, IVR menus, a voicemail system and physical SIP phones.

A wave of inspiration hit at the start of 2022, encouraging me to buy mutliple international phone numbers which quoted and played music by Lady Gaga when called - what was I thinking?

All in all, it might've been a bit weird that I found analogue phone lines so cool, but oh well, it was fun setting up my own 56K dial-up server and proceeding to get annoyed when the internet was slow.

At the end of a very boring April in May 2020, one of my online friends from Sweden introduced me to the Eurovision Song Contest – an annual week-long festival of some of the weirdest performances seen on national TV.

I've followed ESC for the past 3 years, and along with my friends from mainland Europe, have obsessed over the contestants, performances, and Eurovision's little quirks (like RAI's absolute disaster of a competition).

With Eurovision coming to the Livepool after the UK's second place result in 2022, I got tickets to the 2023 Jury Final. Swedish flag(s) in hand, I took off for a week during my A-Levels in support of Loreen!