UNIVERSITY WONDER-CHUMS

Every now and then I look up a few of my old university pals. After my day in Bath the other week, it seemed inevitable that I'd do that again. So...

One is a research fellow, invested in curing cancer. She's just published a paper on the catalyzed ubiquitination of histone H2A. I know two of those words, and one of them is 'of'.

I've mentioned another friend before of course - he's a senior project manager in the BBC who gets sent to the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and anywhere else that big sports coverage seems to happen.

Another old friend is now a well-known science communicator, and still another I found today, is the international commercial director for a tech company in Cambridge.

There's more.

One's an associate pastor of a famous church, and still two more are missionaries changing the world in the Middle East. Another is a pharmacist advising the government in a very poor African nation, one runs a youth organisation for the whole of the Isle of Wight, and one, to whom I was once very close, took early retirement after a lucrative few years working as a high-flying engineer.

Is it just possible that meeting me when they were in their early twenties accelerated them all to these levels of greatness?

Oh sure, I spend my days debating punctuation marks in bullet lists. Yeah, I break software builds because I don't understand how to merge branches, and yes I sit in my car at night wishing it could be Christmas, but hey, maybe my super successful friends were inspired by at least something I did?

Seems unlikely. Though you never really know what effect you have on the people around you. They, after all, influenced me too.

The research fellow once showed me how to be strong in the middle of a storm.
My BBC pal opened my eyes to how to spot rhythmic patterns in popular music, and how to combine time signatures. Meanwhile, the science writer was a great baker and encourager; I've never met anyone who could use a kitchen to do so much good to someone's spirit.

The commercial director taught me about being thorough in research, and the pastor showed me that living life was much more about enjoying it than it was about sticking to the rule-book.

The missionaries turned out to be the kindest people I have ever known, and the pharmacist too, was selfless, even in times when I didn't know how selfish I was. The youth-worker taught me how to grow up (despite being younger than me) and the retired engineer (who is even now, just 38) showed me that cleverness, intellect, brains and wisdom will always fall flat if you don't love people.

These are my wonder-chums from university. There have been a lot more since too - friends who've shaped my life in immeasurable ways over the years. We never fully get to see how we shaped theirs, but there is always a hope that we have.

And then there's the now. How will I affect the lives of people around me now? When they think of me in twenty years' time, what will they remember? What will they want to thank me for?

I might not be able to change the world as obviously as my wonder-friends, but I reckon I can at least change something somewhere for someone.

Well. It's either that or arguing about punctuation in bullet lists again.