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 😐
My girl friend at the time had parents who owned a fish and chip shop, and the potato peeler guy got injured, so I filled in for him.
Luckily I didn't have to manually peel potatoes. I just threw them into a machine that took off all the skin.
Then threw the peeled potatoes into a chipper that, yes you guess it, cut them into chips.
The best part of the job was getting free chips with curry sauce. Man I miss that curry sauce 😌
Parkour Teacher
During high school, me and my friend Guy started doing parkour at school. It picked up and before I knew it, there were dozens of students in the year below us joining in.
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.
Unfortunately this wasn't exactly a paid job, but I did free gym sessions!
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.
I also volunteered at my university for a Japanese gaming and anime convention. just so I could put that on my resume too. I thought showing formal interest in Japanese culture might help.
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 my plane ticket to Japan and the first couple of months I would be living there.
I ended up looking for warehouse jobs due to the ease of work and the night shifts available that allowed me to get a little bit more money out of each hour. I'm also a night owl, so it kind of fit with my sleeping pattern.
English Teacher
I went a little overboard when job searching for this. I literally made a database that could hold the job title, its details, contacts, and the status of where each application was at.
A bit of a waste of time, as I was able to secure the 2nd job that I interviewed for! Not complaining though 😂
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 didn't particularly want to build anything. I was just curious how it worked. This kind of mind frame continued for several years, where I would learn new programming languages or frameworks, but never really build anything, and inevitably forget it all and have nothing to show for it.
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 Milhouse 😎
(If you are not from my generation, you are probably thinking, "What's a Milhouse? Google or ChatGPT it)
Cyber Security
I have always been fascinated with hacking. It was so cool to me. But I had no idea you could legally get paid to use those type of skills! 🤯
I watched a TV series called Mr. Robot which got me looking into hacking again. I came across a podcast called "Dark Net Diaries" and in one of the episodes, 2 penetration testers tell their story of breaking in to a company, and trying to hack the system. And it was all legal. The company actually paid them to do this. I couldn't believe it.
From that point on, I dove deep into the world of cyber security and created a big detailed plan to get my into the industry.
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 want to learn deeply about red teaming and emulating real threat actors.
I then want to use this knowledge in my job to actually make a difference and increase organization's defenses against those pesky little black hats.
Lastly, I want to teach the knowledge I have obtained, and I went to do 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 🤓
Theres over 900 items on here, 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) 👋🏻