How does one write a few paragraphs about oneself? The conventional approach is one way. Let’s try that and see where it goes…
Hello World, I am Amy. I am 40 years old
There will be stuff here about my cats, as I decided to lean into the whole crazy cat person thing. (I only have two cats though… for now. But they are my life.) I have a lot of other podcasts and links and computer game-related things to share, so I hope I can make ywing.net a reflection of who I am as a person once again, after nearly 15 years of it sitting idle.
I’m obviously quite different at age 40 than I was at 25, plus social media mostly killed the “personal website” paradigm… but a big reason I’m doing this is because I miss the early internet. In the early 2000s, I was in university, and I remember the internet feeling much less… corporate. Today it feels like our capitalist overlords make these big sites for us to use, and in exchange they get to use our data to sell us things. But back then, everything felt more… free, I guess. It was nice. People wrote their own HTML and CSS. Amazon only sold books. Google was the brand new search engine that actually gave you relevant results to your searches, and didn’t overload you with ads. (Oh how things have changed.) Netflix was a DVD borrowing service using snail mail. (I don’t know if it ever was available in Canada though.) I spent my time writing in my Livejournal and posting on old school forums. I made many internet friends, some of whom I still talk to today. Back then, the internet told me that it was ok that I was female and loved Star Wars… I wasn’t the only one! (RIP starwarschicks.com) My own worldview was expanded quite dramatically, as I met people from different countries and backgrounds. My own simple black-and-white view of the world was being challenged, so it was a rough time for me from one perspective, but it was a very important time as well. I learned new things by reading and talking to people. I adjusted my own beliefs as I detached from my parents. My best friends were my siblings: I have a brother who is a year younger than me, and a sister who is 3 years younger than me. I was extremely socially anxious, but not receiving any therapy or support – both of which were non-existent back then for people who otherwise could do life “ok” – so I tended to think it was my fault. I was good at school; I got a degree in Computer Science. I was obsessed with the clone commandos from Star Wars, and in 2006 I created a very popular website clonecommandos.net, where I poured all my hyper-fixated passion. I moved out of my parents house at 24 and got my first real job as a PHP programmer. I got my first cat, Alpha.
I’m going to “yada yada yada” most of the next part, because I really don’t want too many details on the internet. But I got a new job, my dream job. At work I met a boy – my first relationship. I was 26. We married in 2010. But 6 years after that, it was over. Our breakup was amicable so it could have been worse. He’s a good guy, but we were both so young. (Yes, I was a “late bloomer”. Also, he is 4 years younger than me so we actually matched pretty well in maturity and life stage.)
This is turning out to be WAY longer and in depth than I expected. I’m going to have to rethink this “about” page, because I didn’t really intend to write my whole life history. Oh well, I’ll leave it like this for now!