What is there to know about me?

When ever I catch up with friends who I haven’t spoken to in a long time, I always ask them how things are going in the following categories:

  • Work Life
  • Love Life
  • Hobbies
  • Future Aspirations

So I will treat you as a friend who I haven’t spoken to in a very very long time.

Although I will exclude the Love Life part, because some things should not be rendered forever immortal on the internet 😅

Work Life

Potatos Galore

My first ever job was a potato peeler 😐

The best part of the job was getting free chips with curry sauce. Man I miss that curry sauce 😌

Parkour Teacher

I found out that my home town had a parkour team, and I started training with them at my local gymnastics centre. Eventually I got pretty good, and they asked me to join the team.

Then ironically we started teaching classes at my high school, where it all started for me.

Teaching + Children = Maths Job

Fast forwarding to university, I wanted adventure and decide to move to Japan. I researched that the best/easiest way was to become an English Teacher. So I started scheming!

I got a part-time job teaching maths to children, just to show that I had experience both teaching and handling children.

Gymnastics Coach

I was really into tricking during my university days, and used to go to a nearby gym every week.

My friend worked there and got in for free, so eventually I followed suite and did the same! Was a great investment.

House of Fraser Warehouse

I graduated university, and now had to get some money somehow for Japan. For some reason I thought a warehouse job would be the easiest solution 🤔

English Teacher

I was an English Teacher for about 4.5 years in Japan, and taught in almost every English Teacher role possible (except as a university teacher). I taught in elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, I taught in a corporate company and as a private tutor, in an English Cafe, a language school… I don’t even like English 😂🥲

Software Engineer

I actually studied python way back when I was in high school.

I did want to become a software engineer, but I thought it would be too difficult in Japan. Anyone living here will tell you its basically life on hard mode.

But eventually I decided to go for it. I worked 3 days a week and studied like crazy for the remaining 4.

Finally I got my first job as a software engineer and everything was coming up Millhouse 😎

(If you are not from my generation, you are probably thinking, “What’s a Milhouse? Google or ChatGPT it)

Cyber Security

I watched a TV series called Mr. Robot which got me looking into hacking again.

From that point on, I dove deep into the world of cyber security and got my first job as a security engineer.

I thought it was a step forward in my career, but realized my passion for software development and building things was stronger than my passion for hacking and breaking things.

To be continued…

Hobbies

My hobbies are always changing. There is not enough time and my interests/priorities seem to keep shifting.

So here is a list of all the hobbies I can remember ever doing!

  • Tricking
  • Parkour
  • Playing the Ocarina (of time)
  • Watching TV shows/Anime/Movies
  • VFX
  • Motion Graphics
  • 3d CG
  • Game Development
  • Video Editing
  • Skateboarding
  • Longboarding
  • Inline Roller Blading
  • Hacky Sack
  • Programming
  • CTFs
  • Bouldering
  • Guitar
  • Learning Japanese
  • Animation
  • UI & UX
  • Reading/listening to self development books
  • Reading/listening to books on how to create a startup
  • Calisthenics
  • Boxing
  • Judo
  • BJJ
  • Wrestling
  • Kick Boxing
  • Drawing
  • Backpacking & Camping

Future Aspirations

Professional

I am now attempting to master software development, by going through all frontend, backend, and devops concepts and key technologies, and eventually want to move into system design, and software/solutions architecture.

I then want to use this knowledge to bring new ideas to life!

Lastly, I want to teach the knowledge I have obtained, and I want to teach it well.

Personal

I view life as a game, and within this game there are many quests you can choose to do. Its all just about experiencing the game and having fun.

My thought on the meaning of life is “Increase positive emotions and decrease negative emotions as much as possible throughout the span of your life time”.

I don’t want to just observe life, I want to interact with it.

So to that end, I created a bucket list, and called it a quests log because I’m a geek 🤓

There is over 900 items on there, but feel free to take a look if you’re interested.

You can view it here!

Thats all folks!

If you read all this, you are a better friend than my best friend 😂

Thanks for catching up with me (and my entire life story) 👋🏻