All throughout my life I’ve evaluated myself against what I’ve learned, and what I’ve accomplished. Held highest in my mind is the knowledge I’ve gained, particularly through independent study. Learning is like an addiction to me, I get restless when I’m not doing something new or learning something challenging.
	This desire to constantly be moving forward is why I have a rebellious attitude towards traditional education. Elementary, Middle, and High School simply didn’t challenge me enough to hold my interest, so I disregarded them in favor of more appealing pursuits. I’m not particularly fond of my schooling experience thus far, as I do not consider it to have been particularly helpful in pushing me towards higher knowledge.
	Family, however, has always been a major influence in my life, and in my learning. Their support, despite my shifting interests and tediously perpetual desire to learn, has been inexpressibly helpful, all throughout my life.
	Support from family can only go so far, though, as I am obviously not the most important person in the world. For instance, my dad has always been an exceptionally hard worker, frequently pulling fifty, sixty hour work weeks. Because of this, he didn’t always have a lot of time to deal with my rapid questioning about whatever had taken my interest that week. I don’t mean to imply I had an absent father, I absolutely did not, but this work / life balance did coerce me into learning by myself more often than not. Figuring things out on my own became a hobby of mine, and I am still wholly devoted.
	Because my family allowed and encouraged me to try as many things as I wanted (within reason), I became known as the child whose interests constantly shifted. One day I would be dead-set on making catapults out of chopsticks, the next day I would blow my own eyebrows off with a homemade potato cannon. Instead of seething with anger, my mom would simply wipe away the burnt hairs and tell me not to aim the barrel towards my face next time. This is advice I still keep close to heart. To this day I am still known as a ‘jack of all trades’ type figure. Learning a little bit about a wide range of topics is, to me, simply more engaging than deep focus in only one or two fields.
	Without familial support I doubt I would have gotten very far. For instance, my dad would often invite me to come to work with him at Microsoft, whenever the chance arose. This experience was particularly helpful in cultivating my devout love of computers, as simply being around so many of them filled me with amazement and wonder.
	My sister was also a big help and a big encouragement. In fact, she’s the person I credit with having sparked my interest in programming. She was really into this one online video game called Neopets, for which she would create custom webpages showing off her Neopets profile. Seeking to emulate her, I asked for her help in learning HTML, the language used to create these pages. Being only seven or so years old when this happened, I wasn’t very good, but her continued interest and support led me to keep trying, and keep exploring. I’ve now been programming for roughly 10 years, expect to continue for my entire life.
	Once it was clear to my family that I was stuck on computers for life, they did everything they could to keep me going. My dad went so far as to build me my own computer from scrap parts, and loaded a program called Game Maker onto it so that I could immerse myself within the world of game development. Even my sister would help me make video games by supplying me with art assets, and providing logical support for problems too complex for me to understand. Having this support structure around me gave me the confidence to try new things, and to fail at them.