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During the final year of my Bachelor’s degree, I realised that I had a very few things on my CV. It wasn’t because I was lazy or too caught up with my studies, but more because of legal issues and boundaries that were imposed on me as an international student in the UK.

You probably don’t know this, but as an international student you are not allowed to work more than twenty hours per week during term time. With student visas being valid for two years, you have to use the summer – that most national students spend on placements before starting the third year – to return to your home country and apply for another visa. There’s another rule that says you can only apply for an extension from within the UK if your course starts within twenty-eight days of the expiry date of your current visa, which often means that you have to make the application from your home country. Once, I had to return home simply because my current visa would expire thirty days before my new course started. Annoying? Very!

Therefore, during the final year of my BA, I realised that I needed to get some more content on my CV – and fast.

I’ve always loved videogames, and learned most of my digital and language skills through them. So, I decided to start a blog about my passion. I posted screenshots and interviews with developers; I covered events like MCM, Eurogamer and PLAY Expo; and slowly but surely, I built-up a stable audience of two thousand unique visitors per month. The blog even led to an invitation from Microsoft to go to Los Angeles and report on the Rise of The Tomb Raider reveal at E3. 

Later that same year, I produced an animated film that became nominated for a Royal Television Society Award. I also approached PLAY Expo with an offer to host the largest Tomb Raider 20th Anniversary Celebrations of the year at their event in Manchester. This led to me landing the role of Special Events Coordinator at PLAY Expo. The role was not only exciting and rewarding, but also allowed me to be part of an incredible celebration with the heroes of my childhood. The event featured in both national and international press, and RetroGamer Magazine even ran a special feature for Tomb Raider 20th Anniversary where it dubbed me, “Lara’s Biggest Fan”. It’s odd to think now that all these incredible things were only made possible because I decided to start blogging 3-4 years ago, but it’s true!

I believe that a successful life and career are based on having a purpose: we are all different and unique, and each of us brings something creative into this world. The problem is finding what that is so you can then embrace it and share it with others. I view my blog as the digital platform where I discover and reveal my “uniqueness”.

Certainly, there are times when I get a complete creative-block and can’t come up with anything new and exciting for weeks; but overall, I think my blog has had (and continues to have) a huge and very positive impact on my life and career.

Blogging will allow you to stand out and let your personality shine. It can be particularly helpful for quiet, introverted people to make themselves heard. If you’re that shy person, then use your creativity and content to market yourself!

Did I also mention that running a blog is a fantastic thing to mention at job interviews? Many companies have blogs of one kind or another. Check if your potential employer has a Twitter account: Twitter is also an online (micro)blogging platform!

Your blog is your chance, ability, and strategy to reach people. Blogging can also make you easy to find as you build your online reputation, while you continue creating content on this journey of self-discovery and growth.

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Unfortunately, it was way too windy and I didn’t get to fly as much. However, we spent a good few hours chatting and catching up and I managed to take some photos with my DSLR and lensball!

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tomb-of-ash:

Tomb Raider Fan Meetup page is now up and running!

Click here to confirm your RSVP. See you in October! 

Reminder that our first annual Tomb Raider fan meetup is happening this October! Invite your friends and RSVP here 

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We visited 55 Ashbourne Road, Mr Grundy’s pub and other Tomb Raider landmarks. A quick video recap coming soon.

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When we set up Tomb of Ash a few years ago, we strove to make it a different, unique and exceptional website; a website that would deliver original content and not rely on official news posts.

Last year we created a number of incredible projects, such as providing our English and Russian speaking audiences with up-to-date media and news from E3 and other events.

You can read about our projects from last year in the End of Year report 2015. Truly, 2015 was very productive for us and we knew that it would be hard to top that year. 

From the beginning of 2016 we started producing unique projects, such as our Baba Yaga video, that was nominated for the Royal Television Society Award. Our ultimate pride however is our efforts to create the largest 20th Anniversary Celebrations for the fans, which we did with PLAY Expo.

We also tried to re-unite our divided community with our upcoming 20th Anniversary Video Project and we thank everyone who joined us on that journey.

Lastly, from mid-October until the end of November we had a number of Super Tomb Raider weeks, during which we would post exclusive Tomb Raider related content DAILY.

Core Design, Natalie Cook, Tomb Raider fans  and 2/3 of Tomb of Ash team at PLAY Expo. Photo by the Big Issue North

Below is the full list of our accomplishments this year.

We thank every single one of our readers for their help and support. We really can’t thank you all enough for helping us weather the negativity of the last year. We are still not certain about our future as an “official fansite” outlet but we definitely won’t be quitting, even if we do go “rogue”, as we feel we owe that to our readers and friends who have stuck with us through uncertain times. We also would like to thank every single contributor to our website, be you anonymous or not. Your submissions are greatly appreciated by us and Tomb Raider fans worldwide. Lastly, thank you to those of our readers who’s generous donations allowed us to upgrade some of our photo equipment.

~Ash, Terenete, April and Tatiana 

EVENTS

• PLAY Expo – we were co-organisers, coordinators and stage directors for the Tomb Raider celebrations at the expo
• 20 Years of Tomb Raider at the QUAD 
  
• MCM Comic Con Manchester
  
• Chester Comic Con
  
• Reboot Infogamer
  
• Gamescom
• insomnia 59
• Tomb Raider LIVE in Concert

ARTICLES

• A Guide To The Real Locations In Tomb Raider 3
  
• Exploring Aldwych – The Real Location In Tomb Raider 3
  

• Easter Eggs In The Angel Of Darkness

INTERVIEWS

As usual, a number of exclusive interviews were conducted throughout the year

• Judith Gibbins
• Natalie Cook
• Jill de Jong
• Nathan McCree
• Murti Schofield
• Richard Morton
• A number of ex-Core Design team members were interviewed in our PLAY Expo video recap

VIDEOS

We were super busy with creating visual content, such as our Baba Yaga project (below). However, we felt it was important to cover all of the major “TR20″ events this year so we released a number of recap videos for those who could not attend.

PLAY Expo recap

• Tomb Raider 20th Anniversary Panel at PLAY Expo
• Nathan McCree at PLAY Expo
• Lara’s Diary – Baba Yaga
• Core Design Panel at the QUAD, Derby
• Murti Schofield – Writing Games (Chester Comic Con 2016)

IMAGES

We released NUMEROUS  unseen screenshots and renders, notably from

• Tomb Raider the 10th Anniversary Edition
  

• Tomb Raider the Angel of Darkness
  

• Classic Tomb Raider Series

We also released some fan-art, such as

• 3D renders
  
• LED Art

OTHER TOMB RAIDER 20 CONTENT

• 20th Anniversary Project
• Croft Confessions
• PLAY Expo Guestbook
• Natalie Cook – Raider (single)

PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS

Our website and our projects made it into online and print-based media!

• Retro Gamer titled Ash Kaprielov, the creator of Tomb Ash, as “Lara’s Biggest Fan” and wrote a feature about him in their huge TR20 article.
• The Big Issue North
• Liverpool Screen School
• The Arcade 
• Cherrylight (Russia)

Awards

We were overwhelmed to learn that our Baba Yaga video is nominated for a Royal Television Society award. The Royal Television Society is a British educational charity for the discussion and analysis of television in all its forms. It is the oldest television society in the world! We thank everyone who helped us with this project, including those who translated it to multiple languages <3

Sometimes we are just too productive… We wrote our End of Year report a couple of weeks ago but a number of cool things happened since then. Here’s an updated version for you to catch up with everything we did this year. We wish you all the best in 2017 and stay tuned, because we still have plenty of tricks up our sleeves. Something incredible is coming

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Check out the latest addition to Liverpool’s gaming culture!

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Tomb Raider 20th Anniversary Celebrations in Lara’s hometown!

Two Q&A sessions with Core Design and local videogame developers.

Alex Davis – Core Design Developer for The Angel of Darkness
Judith Gibbins – Voice of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider II & III
Peter Barnard – Core Design Cinematic Artist, Tomb Raider I – IV
Gavin Rummery – Programmer for Tomb Raider I, II &The Angel of Darkness / Head of Core Design
Heather Gibson – Core Design Level Designer, Tomb Raider I & II
Leavon Archer – Derby Game Artist
Iain Simons – Game City/National Videogame Arcade

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If you visit
Piccadilly gardens after 10 AM, you are guaranteed a plethora of Pokémon
because nearly every Pokéstop in the area is constantly enhanced with a Lure
module, thus attracting extra Pokémon. On top of the high concentration of
Pokéstops, this makes it even easier to catch many Pokémon in a relatively
short period of time.

The place is super
popular with every Pokémon Go player in the area, so you stand a good chance of
being able to make some new friends.

Obviously, not every
person there is a Pokémon Go enthusiast, but you are guaranteed to hear
familiar music and sound effects, and see people swiping their phones. Just be
sure to check they aren’t swiping to the left/right; those are Tinder users –
another app where you need to swipe to catch monsters [© AJ]! 

Go on then – go out
and catch them all!

Special Thanks:

Jennifer Milward 

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