Name: Melissa
Age: 21
DOB: 21st April 1986 at 10.10pm
DOD: Wednesday, September 20, 2084
Location: East Kilbride, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Relationship Status: Long term relationship since Jan 2002
Pets?: One little Jack Russell cross, Abbi
Occupation: Retail Supervisor, trainee manageress
Hobbies: Web design, reading, hanging out with my friends, watching tv and listening to music
Dreams:

• to be successful in my application to do a management course within my company [done]
• complete my management training course,
• stop smoking,
• save more than £1000 for a rainy day,
• buy a Nintendo Wii [done],
• to own my own shop one day
• and to have 2 children at some point.

Autobiography

Why is writing about yourself always the hardest part? I suppose I should start with the basics. My name is Melissa, but please call me Mel. I’m twenty two years old and I live with my mum & 2 brothers in Glasgow, Scotland. Actually no, one brother now lives in Benbecula, which is on one of the Scottish Islands.
I did live on my own for six months but I lost my dream job and had to move back in with my mum. I’m still paying arrears in bills thanks to my wonderful bastards of ex-bosses and I can’t move back out again until I clear them and save a couple of hundred pounds. So I’m stuck here for the next year then!

I’ve been online since I was about 12 and you can read about my web history at the end of the page.

If I didn’t smoke I’d probably save the money quicker, but everybody has to have their vices, right? I didn’t drink at all until recently but I’ve started enjoying the odd afternoon in the pub playing pool over the past couple of weeks. I think it was turning 20 that scared me into an odd Jack & coke! I do occasionally smoke hash/weed/pot/whatever you want to call it and I have tried other stuff too - but it just wasn’t for me! I have more fun with a straight head thank you very much.

I have a wonderful boyfriend who will go by the letter C. Just because he doesn’t feel easy with me talking about my life online, never mind his. Which is a fair point - this my site, not his. We’ve been together since January 2003 and it’s been the most fantastic years of my life. Although we’re loved up, we’re also very passionate people. So because of that, nights of passion come hand in hand with idiotic arguments. But hey, we always make up passionately as well!
In 2004 we went away for the weekend to Dublin and it was just the most fun, we nearly broke up standing in Dublin Docks because we were lost (thanks Mrs Tourist Information Desk!) and stressed out from catching the 6am flight! We soon made up for it in the hotel room though.

If you said to me 6 months ago that I’d wear some sort of makeup every day and buy trendy clothes I’d laugh in your face. I lived in band shirts, baggy jeans and trainers with some black eyeliner. Now it’s trendy fitted jeans, pretty tops and heels. Although I’m still rubbish at walking in anything over an inch or wedged!

I don’t have many hobbies, but my one love is music. I can’t get enough! Although I cannot play an instrument or sing a note I love listening to music, wither it’s on my iPod, the radio, online or on TV I listen to all sorts. My fave bands are Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Franz Ferdinand, Placebo, Stabbing Westward and loads more. You can see more of my favorite bands and musical tastes over at my last.fm page.

One of my other loves is trashy magazines. I can’t help it - I don’t even get a buzz out of reading things like Heat or Star, but I still buy them more than I should. The best mag on the market at the moment though is Grazia - I love it for the hard-hitting stories and the fashion and the toned down celebrity gossip. If anyone fancies shelling out £52 for the years subscription for me, feel free!

Generally I do read proper stuff too - books, y’know. Mostly chick lit though - I absolutely adore books like Water Melon, Love Is A Four Letter Word and Talking To Addison. I also love Microserfs and Miss Wyoming, well all Douglas Coupland’s books I suppose. But I am one of these freaks who reads the back of cereal boxes and shampoo bottles just for something to read. You can see what I’ve been reading recently in the reading library.

I work in a lovely little Spar in the southside of Glasgow. Through my company, which isn’t Spar by the way - it’s a company which runs shops under the Spar name - I’m taking part in a management training program which is due to end in November 2008. It has a 100% success rate of candidates becoming managers within the company. I’m obsessed with it slightly, working on it most nights. I’m also extremely proud of being probably the youngest person to do it, and to be doing so well.

Web History

I’ve been kicking about the internet since about 1999 and have lots of websites under my belt. I started off with geocities pages filled with sparkling text and cartoon dolls - oh how things change!

Over the years I’ve owned six domain names - sparkling-stars.co.uk, glowenshi.com, bruised-heart.com, chemical-69.org, voguearmy.com and hellodarling.org. I loved having my domains but at the moment I’ve got no money to buy a new one and can’t think of a good name for one - I like emerge, but only as a subdomain!

I’ve also had hundreds of hosted sites, with the most recent being emerge.avenue28.org. I gave up because I lost everything from that site due to server problems and not having it backed up on my new laptop.

For the past four years or so I have been taking on board every new technique that I come across, especially in the CSS area of web design. I’ve jumped ship from Paint Shop Pro to Photoshop and read books and websites on web design all the time, especially websites like A List Apart.

I’m also especially interested in web site standards. I feel that if you are going to do something you might as well do it right. That’s why I take such time and consideration working on the accessibility of my website. I wouldn’t ignore the needs of those with a disability IRL, so why do it online?

Random Facts

• I get called Melski by two people - my boyfriend and my online friend, Jen(ski).
• I really love my job far too much, in fact you can usually bet I think about it at least once on my day off.
• I last saw my dad 3 years ago, for all of 15 minutes, and I don’t miss him one bit
• I get tired when I go on top…
• On that note, I think about sex far too often
• I really, really like my music. Seriously, I listen to music all the time.
• My favorite shop is Primark because I can get cheap fashionable clothes
• I don’t wear makeup, aside from eyeliner and mascara
• I should only wear my glasses when I’m on the computer but I wear them all the time. I like how they look
• I really, really want to be a retail manager when I’m older
• I can’t wait to pass my driving test, but at the same time driving scares the hell out of me