Competitive Swimmer

Before university, before teaching, before any of the professional story, there was swimming — nine years of competition from childhood through high school. At peak training the daily schedule ran: 4:00 AM wake and breakfast; bike to the club; 2 hours of swimming; bike to school; full school day; bike back to the club; 1 hour of gym; 2 more hours of swimming; bike home; home by 8:30 PM. Saturdays included, for years — training alongside people who went on to compete at the Olympics.

The point of the story isn't to impress; it's the most honest explanation of a working style. That schedule, maintained across childhood and adolescence, built more than fitness — it installed a complete operating system: organized, structured, proactive, someone who doesn't leave for tomorrow what can be done today. Those weren't values adopted later; they were installed early, through repetition and physical consequence, and carried into everything after quitting competitive swimming before university.

Outside structured commitments, the university years went into building a social life and being present for people — showing up for friends, family, and whoever needs something done; reliability as a personal trait, not just a professional one. The people closest would describe a good friend — funny, happy, trustworthy, reliable, honest — and would also name the biggest blind spot: being demanding to a fault with oneself, holding personal performance to a standard that can become personal. It's not perfectionism for its own sake; it's caring too much — the same quality that makes for reliability makes things hard when they fall short.

There was no single moment of conversion into tech; the path assembled itself — a natural aptitude for math and problem-solving from an engineering household, a first university year that made programming click, four years of teaching that proved complexity could be communicated to anyone, a co-ownership role that revealed a pull toward analyzing, building, and solving real problems, and a growing restlessness with pure teaching. The throughline: not someone satisfied operating inside a fixed lane, but someone who wants the full picture — the technical problem, the human need behind it, and the clearest path between the two.