3 replies to this topic

[Donovan]

Hello everyone, I am starting an "About Me" series that I hope most of you will participate in. The series contains information about yourself that the forum may not know and also helps them get to know you all a little better. This is like the "Ask Me" thread but, a little more in depth about you as a person and what you enjoy doing in your spare time or just anything you want to put that people may not know about you.

With that being said, I will start mine here.

I was born in Palmer, Alaska on January 25th, 1994 and with many health issues. I was born premature and with a collapsed lung. My mother had lost two of my siblings previous to me (due to my fathers strong coke addiction), so my birth was very hard for her at the time. I was hooked up to machines for the first year or so of my life and had weak muscles in my left leg that made it hard for me to walk. The doctors told my mother that I would never walk and that I would be doomed to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. My mother never let the doctors tell her what I could or couldn't do. She did everything in her power to insure that I got any treatment I needed and she had sent me to massage therapist along with giving me soothing bathes every day to strengthen the muscles in my legs. At the age of two my mom carried me into the office of the exact doctor who told her I would never walk again, she put me down and I did the impossible. I walked all the way to the doctor and he asked my mother how she did it. She replied with, "I never told him he couldn't". To this day my mom has always supported me in my decisions and has helped me achieve a lot of my goals today.

So, enough of the sad stuff.. Let's get on to the cheerful and good things..

When I hit the age of 6 I started playing children computer games, and also had gotten into one of my favorite games at that time DOOM (ha ha). I loved that game and had gotten pretty good at it to the point I knew it like the back of my hand. .By the age of 8 I was playing more advanced games like Diablo I (Single player version) that my brother had gotten literally ADDICTED to (online). After the age of 10 I was playing newer games like Flight Simulator 2002, Motorcross, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and various other games of that nature. I first started getting into programming at the age of 13 and had started small projects like emulation servers and things like that. I had gotten extremely good at emulation servers and was pretty known for some of my work throughout various places. I recently quit work like that because of the industry and how people screw everyone over in that area.. When I was at the age of 14 I had experimented in graphics and animation with programs such as Photoshop and Macromedia Flash 8. By the time I was 15 I have basic knowledge on how to use the software and I was advancing quickly. My brother was a student at the Art Institute of Houston and I was very lucky to have the full versions of all these programs to work with along with 48 hours of video instruction.

Now I am 16 and I am fluent in Programming, Exceptionally Skilled in Graphics and Music and have fully recovered from any and all medical conditions I had when I was born. I would like to say that I couldn't have gotten this far if it wasn't for my mom, and I would not have succeeded as far as I have in the world of programming if it was not for this wonderful forum CodeCall.net.

So thanks CodeCall for everything, and most of all thank you mom :)

[lor]

Hey Donovan, your story is kind of inspirational, I've always looked up to people who achieve something that was almost impossible at one stage and I admire your mother, I too am lucky to have a great mum who has helped me with my problems.

I was born in New Zealand to a kiwi dad and a Dutch mother, I've always been proud of my cultures, especially being Dutch! I used to be a little tom-boy as a kid, I was a Daddy's girl, I played almost every sport possible - waterpolo, softball, touch rugby, soccer, cricket, golf, etc, I was in every top team for all those sports and even represented my city for softball and touch rugby. I believe that if I hadn't quit that I would probably be playing for my country for softball although NZ isn't all that great at any sport other than rugby so that probably wouldn't have been a good path to go down anyway.

My Dad worked for a particular company for about 25 years, not going to name it though, and he got asked to travel around the world for his job. He obviously accepted and we all traveled around the world but lived in the Philippines for about 2 years. Unfortunately, while we were over there he passed away very suddenly and my Dad and I had just been in a massive fight about 3 weeks prior and I hadn't talked to him at all until he died. We had to move back to NZ and since I had left things on such a bad note with him I blamed myself for everything that had happened and became really depressed. I dropped out of college just before I turned 15 and it's illegal to quit school here unless you're over 16 years of age. The government was on my back so I had to get enrolled in home schooling. I'm not the type of person who can motivate myself so that didn't work out at all for me. I was stuck at home for a few months, I had nothing to do so I went on the internet. I visited a thing called Habbo Hotel, hated the kids that went on there since they're all wannabe hackers and decided that I'd learn about hacking to prove what they were saying was wrong. I didn't like the idea of hacking, stealing or wreaking other people's information on their computers, I just liked the idea of creating something, making the computer do what I wanted it to do. I had found this huge, new passion and I thought that programming would be a great option as a career so I enrolled at a polytechnic (basically university) at the age of 15, I spoke to the head of the university and she told me she saw something in me and decided that I could study there underage.
I've completed a degree already with Diligence and am now entering my second year of Software Engineering.

I would never have gotten this far without the help from my mother, she helped me turn my life around so dramatically - I believe that if I hadn't had her help I would be hanging around with the trashy sluts that get wasted every night, probably out doing drugs, etc.

So yeah, story of my life! Haha.

[Donovan]

Thanks for participating, I read your story and it was quite fascinating. I am sorry to hear about your dad, sometimes things like this happen but, it makes us stronger as people. I am glad to see your doing so well with the university. I am 16 and will be going to college this year (For being an American that's a pretty big deal here. HA!). Anyway, thanks again for participating in this thread +rep for your support.

[Sky]

My story is quiet boring. I'm not any of you above. So here we go.

I was born in India on July 11,1992. I am a Hindu. I'm also proud of my religion and culture. I don't eat eggs and meat. I am vegetarian. I have not eaten a single piece of meat. However, I rarely eat cakes and thins that contains eggs. I do not drink (it is not legal because I am not 21) and I will not drink or smoke.I didn't face any problems in my entire life. It is not that I come from a rich family. I always enjoy my life and be honest. Well, if you think those ideals don't work in real life, I am afraid they have worked for me so far.
My father brought a computer when I was about 10 years old. I didn't have Internet access until I was about 15. I, however, used Internet at a cyber cafe. I didn't like to go to school. I skipped classes when I was in first grade. I hate to study and go to school. I stopped skipping from second grade. I always stood first or second in my class. However, when I was in 7th grade, I was sixth. In India, the exams of 10th and 12th grades are centralized for whole state. Therefore, all students from the whole state compete one another. Everyone has same exams in 10th and 12th grade. One thing I hate about that education system is that your grades only depend on your final exams. not on your homework or nothing else. Those final exams of 10th grades are extremely difficult, I swear. Every student has to take same subject, regardless of whether you like it or not. Math consisted of all kinds of Math like calculus, trigonometry, algebra,stats, ALL maths.(Calculus starts at 11th grade, all others starts from 6th grade) Same goes with science. I had extreme pressure from my teachers, my parents never really pressured me. In the exams, if you forget even a therefore sign or misuse it, you lose a point. I still managed to get 96.
When I was 16, my family moved to United States. ( I have my own Visa, Just making it clear) Now, the math and science were jokes. I graduated this June. I am going to go to Old Dominion University and major in Computer Engineering.
I thank God very much that he gave me such an innocent look that no one ever messes with me. I don't have LOTS of friend, but I certainly don't have any enemy. I never complain about teachers and therefore they like me. I am very happy with my life.
Oh, and Donovan, Congratulations mate, you are going to college at 16. If I weren't to come here, I was able to graduate at 16 too, but I stayed away from the hell of 12th grade exams and came to US before I have to take them.
I have just two more things to say.
1) I don't care about study that much, I actually never have. Education is to improve our lives, not to make ourselves bookworms.
2) I'm a HUGE fan of Naruto.

Bonus: I was unsure about posting this until I saw that beautiful "+rep" word.