User:AlistairReece

Background
I am an army brat, which means my father was a soldier and I grew up in a military environment and moved regularly from place to place, I lived mainly in the UK and Germany when I was a child. Eventually we settled in the Outer Hebrides on an island called Benbecula.

I studied in Birmingham, although the college was validated by the University of Wales, and I have 2:1 degree in theology, in particular I enjoyed studying hermeneutics.

I enjoy learning languages and can speak at differing levels the following


 * Czech - quite good but awful grammar
 * French - reasonable, have forgotten loads but it is coming back as my parents live near Limoges and their friends are all French
 * German - similar to my French, but I would love to brush it up again.
 * Slavic languages - I can read Cyrillic and can work out the meaning of most things I read in several Slavic languages.
 * I have a working knowledge of American English.

Position and Roles
I am a Business Analyst for a software company that builds hosting platforms for academic publishers, focusing on the Science, Technology and Medical markets.

I work in the support and enhancement side of the company, and am responsible for gathering and documenting requirements for bugs, client functionality requests and platform enhancements.

Goals
My work goals are as follows:


 * 1) Learn as much about technical writing as possible
 * 2) Become as good a technical writer as I can be
 * 3) Progress through the technical writing department assuming more responsibility and being productive

My life goals are


 * 1) To buy at least 50 acres of land somewhere and become self-sufficient - I wrote this in 2007, I now have 1.6 acres and a vegetable garden which provides most of the daily vegetables my wife and I need.
 * 2) To finally write the novel in my head - still rattling around...
 * 3) To die old, fat and happy

Interests
I love reading, I can't imagine life without books. My favourite author is Umberto Eco, although I recently read the Harry Potter books and was pleasantly surprised.

I also enjoy music, I like bands such as the Smiths, Fleetwood Mac, Madness, Starflyer 59, Morex Optimo, as well as enjoying both classical music and opera, but I can't stand jazz and techno.

My other hobbies are cooking, which I am good at, football and photography.