Prompt: The writer Pearl Buck once said: "One faces the future with one's past." What in your life and your background has made you who you are today?
My uncle's room was hotter than the rest.
Upon entering, I realized why. Computer fans whirling and buzzing, LED lights flashing, and the large CRT monitor defined the environment around the jet black aluminum computer case. My uncle emitted rapid mouse clicks and keyboard taps, confined in his own world of concentration. He was playing Counter-Strike, an old computer game.
And then he sealed my fate: he turned to me and offered to let me play.
Ever since then, I would rush to finish dinner before my uncle and run to his computer to play video games. Upon arriving, the rapid words left my mouth: "Can I use your computer? Yes? Thanks!" The countdown started. My playing time was determined by how long it took my uncle to finish eating and return to his throne and my favorite chair of the house: his computer chair.
What was a simple love for video games became full-blown passion for computers. I remember begging him to teach me how computers worked. He let me look at the inside of his computer, an alien creature. Its organs, the boards and drives, were each connected by a flurry of different wires sometimes splitting in two before diverging into one and completing the circuit. Like a surgeon, he'd disconnect a few, swap out components, and reconnect everything in the span of a minute or so.
The foreign boards and drives became distinguishable. The alien's heart suddenly became the power supply; its brain, the processor. I, too, was able to operate-to switch hard drives and take out random access memory (RAM)-albeit at a much slower pace. Mistakes were made, and components were broken-however-my passion never wavered. In fact, the progression of technical skill drove me to further explore how the components worked.
Programming became a hobby. I learned that programs compiled into assembly language and stored variables in certain parts of the memory, each with their own address. I learned how programs were read by the computer and how to optimize the speed of such programs-such as using bilateral search and other advanced programming paradigms.
Now, I, too, have a room filled with a harmony of fans buzzing and bright green LED lights spelling out "GeForce," the brand of my video card. However, I did not create my computer on my own. It was my uncle's ardor that initially planted the seed of ambition in me, driving me to obtain the skill set and eventual longing for higher education in computer science.
My uncle's room was hotter than the rest.
Upon entering, I realized why. Computer fans whirling and buzzing, LED lights flashing, and the large CRT monitor defined the environment around the jet black aluminum computer case. My uncle emitted rapid mouse clicks and keyboard taps, confined in his own world of concentration. He was playing Counter-Strike, an old computer game.
And then he sealed my fate: he turned to me and offered to let me play.
Ever since then, I would rush to finish dinner before my uncle and run to his computer to play video games. Upon arriving, the rapid words left my mouth: "Can I use your computer? Yes? Thanks!" The countdown started. My playing time was determined by how long it took my uncle to finish eating and return to his throne and my favorite chair of the house: his computer chair.
What was a simple love for video games became full-blown passion for computers. I remember begging him to teach me how computers worked. He let me look at the inside of his computer, an alien creature. Its organs, the boards and drives, were each connected by a flurry of different wires sometimes splitting in two before diverging into one and completing the circuit. Like a surgeon, he'd disconnect a few, swap out components, and reconnect everything in the span of a minute or so.
The foreign boards and drives became distinguishable. The alien's heart suddenly became the power supply; its brain, the processor. I, too, was able to operate-to switch hard drives and take out random access memory (RAM)-albeit at a much slower pace. Mistakes were made, and components were broken-however-my passion never wavered. In fact, the progression of technical skill drove me to further explore how the components worked.
Programming became a hobby. I learned that programs compiled into assembly language and stored variables in certain parts of the memory, each with their own address. I learned how programs were read by the computer and how to optimize the speed of such programs-such as using bilateral search and other advanced programming paradigms.
Now, I, too, have a room filled with a harmony of fans buzzing and bright green LED lights spelling out "GeForce," the brand of my video card. However, I did not create my computer on my own. It was my uncle's ardor that initially planted the seed of ambition in me, driving me to obtain the skill set and eventual longing for higher education in computer science.
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