gratitude, interrupted

my first program was written in a notebook. i had just finished reading a thick-ass textbook on qbasic and had an idea for a game. when i was “done”, the code spanned multiple pages. i did not have a computer at home but thankfully, we had a computer lab in school. i went to the computer teacher’s office to request access to the lab to run the code. he took one look at what i had written and shook his head, saying it will not run - he gave me access anyway. needless to say, after painstakingly typing everything out, it was errors galore.

the teacher admired the interest though, and ultimately setup recurring classes for me and about 5 other students. he had noticed our participation in class and took it on himself to set us up for success. he was proficient in c/c++ so once he was done taking us through the basics, we started learning c. our classes were between 7am and 8am (just before school assembly). we also had unfettered access to the computer lab to practice and play prince of persia.

sometime in 2017/18, i tried to track him down to thank him for encouraging and nurturing the spark that had come to define my life since then. unfortunately, i found out he had passed.