From a young age I wanted to do something creative for a living. Once it was to be a manga artist or a cartoonist, and animator, a 3D modeller or a games programmer. The idea of being able to live life creating what I want, and living off of that felt like a fantastic reality.

I first touched programming around the age of 12. At school we were introduced to 'GameMaker.' I was so excited to make my own little game at the time. We were initially taught to use the drag and drop features to make our game. It wasn't until my teenage years where I would interact with a 'real language,' like Python.

From there I spent my free time after school programming (more like spaghetti coding) long 'if-else' chains of input responses that I saw as chatbots. The code was not great, but I was hooked.

The spaghetti code solution 'spagehetted' enough to the point where I could 'trick' myself into thinking that a natural conversation was taking place. After that I took my first break away from programming. I returned to it as an interest with GameMaker again when I gave games development a go. And like with the 'chatbots,' I was hooked once again.

There was a time when I considered a life in professional programming. This consideration grew stronger when I was making these small, amateur games in my free time. I decided to follow this interest into university.

During my studies however, I learned that my professional interests had changed, and decided to take a break from programming once I graduated. After a couple of years, I then decided that the best course of action was to reintroduce it as a hobby, and slowly let my motivations become intrinsic again, just as it was before I studied. My career path has since moved in a different direction.

Some say that you should never mix your hobbies and you professional ambitions, as you will end up hating it. Overtime it becomes your job, and some feel that the fun fades away. Some will say that this transition is a neccessary sacrifice to move into the professional realm. I have a mixed view on this. I do think it can work in some situations, it depends on who you are sometimes.

I don't regret the time I spent attempting this transition, or at least not anymore. I am excited to see where fun programming takes me again. I don't think it's a conversation to be had here on an about me page, it's better fitted for a larger discussion, like a post or something.

Naturally, with time out in any field it can be quite daunting, especially when there are gaps in your knowledge where things are meant to be there. "Impostor Syndrome" comes to mind. I think with time and enough thought, it is possible to sit with this feeling and disperse it when it arises. Not to deny the knowledge gaps of course, but to accept that you don't know what you don't know, another common phrase.

I can't vouch for the professional side of the tech world, nor do I want to. To me that would be misleading. To date I haven't worked for a tech company. I can only see and speak from the perspective of my experience, which is from the graduate's perspective, and the hobbyist's.

Even then, I wasn't exactly at the top of my class during my Bachelor's, I struggled to understand what I was learning at the time.

Not the most impressively-sounding stuff. I don't intend this to be. I don't want to lie about my presentation. I present what I think I am.

So what is this site about?

It's kinda up to you.

And I don't intend to be pretentious or mysterious. I spent quite some time trying to figure out a definition for this space, and came to the conclusion that there isn't a right way to go about this. You could see this site as a place to find interesting posts and projects. You could on the other hand see this as nothing but pure nonsense.

So what do I want to share here?

I originally intended for this site to primarily feature my interest in our interactions and communications with our computers, primarily with 'Artificially Intelligent Assistants' like chatbots (reminiscent of my teenage hobby), video game NPCs, robots, virtual pets and anything that really involves making an effort to engage with the computer as an entity, what is called a 'Parasocial Interaction.' It seems fascinating that it is potentially possible to bond with something this isn't only not there, but also not entirely real.

The goal here isn't to eventually make this place 'professional-grade' or something. For a long time I have thought about making a website, but this has always been met with procrastination and overanalysis over what its focus should be. In the end I decided that putting it off in favour of progress was probably not the best option. I also intend to take my time with this. I am not particularly keen on pumping out article after article for clicks.

Eventually, this site will change overtime. New pages will appear and things will grow. In what direction? That's the fun part, what direction to choose.

So to loop back to the start of this section, it's up to you. It is up to you to make a judgement and define for yourself what this site is about based on what is put out. I can't define an expectation for this, and after writing this, I don't think I want to. I don't want to become a character.

Anyways, thank you for reading.