For most of my life I have been into computers heavily. I've always had a fascination with how these mindless machines can preform the complicated tasks that we, living breathing multi-cellular creatures cannot. Stemming from the fear of a massive computer take-over of the world, curiosity has grown, and from that illogical fear, I have learned more and more about them. I learned how to type correctly when I was very young, using a program called, "Mario teaches typing" which used the video game character Mario to encourage the student to type, it was played the same way the real Mario game was, except to move, hit blocks, and kill enemies, you had to type the correct keys. Early games like this occupied much of my time, and I was determined to learn more and more about this thing I knew nothing about. I eventually started to question how these games worked, nearing my teenage years, my interest in games was fading and I was reading more white pages, and watching more T.V.. Somewhere along that, I went outside for a couple years, and then returned back to my little haven in front of my monitor. My dad was always a computer buff, and he fed most of my curiosity about computers. Eventually, one night at sizzler, I asked him how programs worked. He tried to explain to me the concepts of a kernel and APIs but most of it blew over my head, so when we got home that night, he gave me a book on the C programming language. I picked some of it up, but didn't quite understand what I was doing yet. It was at this point that I believe I was set apart from most kids my age. Where most kids get their introduction to programming with BASIC, I got it with C, a programming language that adults have trouble with sometimes. Eventually, the concepts in the book started to make sense, and I began to write small, but useful programs. I would show these programs to my dad, and he would marvel and praise me. In the end, he ended up introducing me to Linux, so that I could write my programs in a professional environment. Linux was a very influential thing in my life, once I started understanding Linux, I finally started understanding computers, because I would witness what my computer was doing via the terminal. Things started to click, and while other kids my age were out skateboarding and playing with their friends, I was involved in my own little world. I've been studying computers for a long time, but in all this researching and learning, I have neglected what I should have been learning. I have failed classes, and rarely get A's in anything besides easy classes like PE and art. I took a critical look at this, and with the help of my wonderful and supportive girlfriend Kristen, I have been turning this around. Being that this is my junior year, it would seem to be a little late too turn around, but who knows, I may get lucky. In the future, I want to go to college and successfully graduate, obtain my CISSP, and work in Network Security. This, coincidentally, happens to be what my father did for a living, but had nothing to do with my decision to pursue it as a career (in fact, I didn't even know that is what he did until I told him it was what I wanted to do). Computers are my life, and it will hopefully be a very big part of my adult life. In short, what sets me apart from other people and makes me who I am, is the fascination I have with these mindless machines that I once feared and now have grown to love.
Nothing happens.
