About IBchem.com

IBchem.com and its sister site MYPchem.com are owned and authored by myself.

Brief bio

Born at an early age, I have had a peculiar interest in chemistry since I was about 8 or 9 years old when a student teacher in my primary school in the UK (Garston Lane, Wantage, Oxon) unearthed an old chemistry set from a dusty cupboard. A few copper sulphate crystals later and I was hooked.

Teenage years were passed in an old outhouse in Oxfordshire (pretty sad huh?), converted into a chemistry lab by my very supportive parents and I spent holidays visiting chemists in search of "spirits of salts", gardening shops in search of "chile saltpetre" fertilizer and anything else that I could persuade anyone to part with.

An innocent smile and a few trivial names were enough to stock the "lab" with a whole range of horribly toxic and dangerous elements and compounds. My quest for knowledge lead me into a series of investigations which on reflection could easily have terminated my burgeoning career, some examples of which were:

Teacher's training followed University and several jobs later I found myself 25 years old in Penketh, Warrington, UK, teaching 'A' level chemistry. An interest in the new computers - Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 - meant night school computer classes, but the incipient poverty that is 'teaching' caused the Bank manager to refuse my loan request to buy a computer. I wanted out.

Job search revealed that there was a world out there and possibly even some fiscal advantage for teaching if I were to go to the Middle East. I went to the Middle East.

Two years in Kuwait - fantastic - teaching IGCSE and 'A' level chemistry to very committed students, windsurfing with Tuna fish in the Persian Gulf and lying by the Holiday Inn pool in the sun. A long way from Fiddler's Ferry in the rain.

But without phone calls and obviously without Internet (it was 1987) Kuwait was a very isolated outpost. I returned to the UK to study a MSc in Analytical Chemistry and Instrumentation as a 'capricho', the beast still lurked within (actually quite literally - I brought back a rather dodgy case of amoeboid dysentry - they said not to eat the chicken shwarmas!).

Wanderlust temporarily satiated and still with a few bob in my pocket, I worked in Special Education for a couple of years teaching children with social problems and after two years of emotion exhaustion I decided to seek the sun once again and treat myself to a working 'holiday' in the Mediterranean. I had the idea of Cyprus in mind but somehow ended up in Mallorca teaching IGCSE and 'A' level chemistry and Maths. I also came into contact with Spanish culture.

After a year following RCD Mallorca in the estadio Lluis Sitjar I went back to the UK once again and was persuaded to take up Special Education for a second spell, this time in Southampton, but all the time hankering for the Spanish lifestyle that I had tasted oh so briefly.

I learnt more about computers and attended night school classes in GCSE and then 'A' level Spanish where I met an ex-teacher from Madrid who painted a picture of idyllic Spanish nights and dark Spanish señoritas in the capital. The job that he had described so appealingly was in the TES (teaching job newspaper) the very next day!

It was fate...and a few jobs later I am still here.

Computers, at first just a hobby, became a source of income and now I am attempting to integrate my first love with the technology I had tried so hard to take up all those years ago.

Charco
Madrid 2004