Hi, I'm Skate & here is how I got here.

Hi, I'm Skate & here is how I got here.

I'm Skate Byrne, this is my first article, I'm happy to be here, & I am a passionate LIFELONG LEARNER

...nice to meet you!!

To me, being a life-long learnermeans that I have dedicated my whole life to learning with purpose & happiness. Learning comes to me as naturally as breathing and I only discovered this huge passion I have at 25 years old (I'm only 28 now!!). Sadly, when I was a child I was bullied and friendless, which was very traumatic & led to a lot of issues - including a deep hatred for myself.

The way I dealt with those traumatizing years was to change myself to mimic what was "popular" and well-liked. In turn, I lost who I was and fell into a terrifying depression and I forgot what happiness was.

~~

DURING THIS TIME,

the only kind of relief I had from my sense of doom was when I was alone on the computer. At 10yrs-old all I knew was, there was a website where you could pretend you were somewhere else, a magical universe called NEOPETS.COM

I searched every single corner of that website to ensure I wasn't missing anything. While my peers found satisfaction in battling their pets, I ended up in the GUILDS message board. They were communities built around a theme & completed tasks based on their place in the hierarchy. The first or most talented members were the highest,

ALL I HEARD WAS FRIENDS

SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENED NEXT:

I forgot about all of that when I saw others' custom layouts & on discovery of endless tutorials on myfreewebz.com, dropped everything to make layouts.

I was so excited to get Jasc PSP 8 that until I actually got it I spent my days drawing in notebooks the layout ideas I had and at night I dreamt of that red apple on the front. When I finally got it (and waited hours for it to install) I already had all the brushes, fonts, & tutorials gathered I could find. Right away I threw myself into developing/designing & I haven't come up for air since.

FROM 10-25 YRS I...

  • figured out how to go to the source code, take the code of the template or part I liked, then carefully sized/placed the graphics to match the originals which enabled me to take anything I liked and make it my own! MUAHAHAHA >:D [says barely 11 yr old me]
  • felt the world was my oyster once I figured out the above & how to google
  • switched to html on myspace where I..

    1. Learned how to make "moving glitter" graphics & aim icons

    2. Continued to figure out how to create what I wanted to online Little did I know, my expansive online universe where I ruled was actually only an atom of what is out there!!!

/∆\ UP UNTIL MY EARLY-MID 20's I NEVER TOLD ANYONE ABOUT MY HOBBY. I ACTUALLY HAD NO IDEA I HAD A HOBBY, MUCH LESS A USEFUL ONE.

now enters Skate at 25yrs old and.... SHE CRIED, real tears!!, OUT OF HAPPINESS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE!!

In that moment I felt like I had met my soulmate. After years of feeling I had no place coupled with an overwhelming fear that in order to just survive I would have to settle in a life-long career that I hated. My version of hell was lacking passion for the job I was supposed to gain my livelihood through daily. I felt in my bones there was more for my life & discovering my passion for technology/innovation in general lit a fire in my soul.

I went from dreading my existance to thriving & having the amazing blessing of doing what I would do for free AND GETTING PAID FOR IT.

At the moment I'm working on getting into open source projects & currently have dreams of becoming an autonomous vehicle engineer for Tesla but that's apt to change. I have no idea what my life has planned for me but what I do know is that as long as I do what I love, happiness will follow.

(I'd love it if you introduced yourselves to me to!! Thank you for your time!)