The 30 [Week] challenge. Week 1: Introduction and 15 facts.

It's meant to be the 30-day challenge, but I thought I'd modify it somewhat and enjoy a leisurely challenge with my wifey. Over the next 30 weeks, we will be updating our blogs with different topics and telling you things about different aspects of our lives. This blog contains my aspects and thoughts, my wifey's contains hers.

So I present to you Week 1: Introducing myself and 15 interesting facts.

I am Dan. I'm 25 at present and I am living in America. I graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in June 2011 with a Bachelor's in Games Design and was fortunate enough to be granted a scholarship for my Masters, which I will be starting in September 2012. My wifey and I are as involved with church here as we can be at the moment, after doing the same back home in England last year and as we're looking forward to doing again when we move back later this year. I have drawn for as long as I remember - my mother telling me that the only way she could get me to come to the table to eat was to put a pen and paper beside my plate. It's what I have always enjoyed doing and it's what I dream of doing for a living. I'm not sure how much of what I could tell you about myself here would qualify as facts about myself, so without further ado; here are my top 15:

1. I am a Christian. Not the religious, hymn-singing, hypocritical, unbeliever-hating, more-lofty-than-thou Christian. At least I hope I don't come across that way. I'm a live-it-out, singing at the top of my lungs, broken, fallen, struggling, people-loving man who is doing his best to honour his Lord and Saviour. I struggle as much as the next Christian and I fail to live up to this calling just as frequently. It's not that I'm a hypocrite and tell people that they should live like me when I'm not living right; it's that I have a set of morals and principals that are unaffected by politics, that are above change, that are earless to governments and I strive to change the way I live in order to bring my life in line with them, fully knowing that they are easily overlooked and sometimes hard to live by.

2. My best friend is my wifey, Melissa. We've been married for 20 months, one week and two days at present. Third best decision I've made in my life. The first being to follow Christ, the second being to ask Melissa to marry me. She's incredible. I would need to learn a whole vocabulary's worth of words to even get close to describing how much she means to me. She's my Honeybee, my Queen, my Fluffyhead Pumpkinsnuggle. I love her.

3. I was born in Southport, England. A small town that's been around for about 220 years.

4. I went to a fairly big primary school (elementary school) called Churchtown Primary School and for most of my junior years, I was in the Yellow House. It was pretty much a point system based on what tables we sat on, and I just happened to find myself in the Yellow group for three or four years.

5. I am named after two friends of my parents. Daniel and Guy. I don't know much about either - even less about Guy. Daniel is the son of the family doctor and was a soldier.

6. I have four siblings. One older sister and three younger brothers.

7. The states I have been to at present are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Pennsylvania. Although some of those I counted because I had a layover there...

8. I had an eyebrow piercing for three months before it grew out. I got it caught on my T-shirt once while I was getting dressed in a hurry and can't quite describe the shock of that feeling.

9. When I was little I started to choke on a boiled sweet. This was remedied by my dad picking me up by my feet and shaking me up and down.

10. My best male friend is a man named Tim. We've grown up together and we've never had a falling out. Some people say you're not good friends if you've never fallen out, but I can say after 21 years of growing up along side each other that that's poop. He was my best man at my wedding and I love him a whole lot.

11. I am fairly good at picking things up by watching them being done and I remember things better when I write them down. A bit of a Jack-of-all-trades.

12. I have blue eyes. They've been described as sea-blue, shining blue, sky-blue and bright blue, among other things.

13. I love fishing; especially over here in the States. Fishing in England is now very expensive indeed and I got fed up with the amount I had to spend to even fish on a water, let alone buy everything I needed for a day on the side of a pond or lake or whatever. Here, I buy my license, buy my rod/reel combo and a few lures and then I'm good to fish any public water I can get to! I love it.

14. I have never been hunting and it's something that I want to do so much. My to do list with hunting is as follows (still counted as this fourteenth point):

- Bow hunt deer.

- Black powder hunt deer.

- Modern gun hunt deer.

- Bow fish (probably Alligator Gar).

- Bow hunt frogs.

- Blowgun/blowpipe hunt squirrel.

- Rifle hunt squirrel.

- Noodle.

- Hand-catch frogs.

I think that's about it. It's not that I'm cruel and like killing things for sport. Everything I hunt I will prepare and eat. It confuses me how people hunt for sport and it confuses me how people like eating meat but don't want to think of it as having being killed at some point.

15. I'm right-handed, but I chop wood left-handed.

That was easier than I thought. And very enjoyable.

I hope there's something interesting there for you to read. It was good fun thinking of them and writing them down. Next week won't be as big a post, but still fun.

Thanks for reading. I really appreciate it.

Peace.