Telling others about myself always feels like this. Especially when I'm writing it down like this and I don't know who will read this in the future.
But anyway, I was born in Singapore in 1969, a non-citizen of the country I grew up in. Perhaps this was just as well, since I never felt comfortable after I was about 12, and knew I wanted to leave the country somewhat permanently before I was 16. I went to school at the same high school as Terence Chua, and finished up my pre-college education at Raffles Junior College, which I still have fond memories of.
I left Singapore in 1988, under some very trying circumstances, and moved to the US of A, where I've been happily living since. I did my undergraduate work at Cal Berkeley, as a Computer Science major, and I have very very fond memories of that time. I guess the most famous piece of Software that I wrote as an undergraduate must have been TinyMUCK, which I wrote as an intern when I was at Bellcore, and is probably still in use today. If you knew me from Cal, you either knew me as a TA, a classmate, or one of the co-founders of Cal-Animage.
I then went off to work at Pure Software, where I met lots of interesting people and made some money off the company's stock, and then spent a year in graduate school at the University of Washington's Computer Science and Engineering department. I will readily admit that I did not enjoy my time in Seattle, Washington there, and decided that I didn't really want a Ph.D. anyway, and was relieved to return to California once again to work for Pure Software.
After that company went public, I decided that it was time to move to another private company, and that was how I ended up at Mpath Interactive. Mpath then went public as HearMe, and I went over to work for Escalate as employee #5.
I once took a Myers Briggs Type Personality test. Here's what the results looked like:
Extroverted/Introverted: 60/40
Intuitive/Sensate: 70/30
Thinking/Feeling: 50/50
Judging/Perceiving: 70/30
Final Rating: ENXJ
Notice that it says that I'm 50/50 thinking/feeling. Now, on any given test, my guess is that the Extroverted/Introverted stuff could easily be a statistical error, so I'm really more likely to be XNXJ. I think I was INTJ most of my school career, but a few years of teaching, working and growing has made me an ENXJ. This is not necessarily a good thing! Here's what XNXJ people might match up with:
ENFJ: "Pedagogue". Outstanding leader of groups. Can be aggressive at helping others to be the best that they can be. 5% of the total population.
INFJ: "Author". Strong drive and enjoyment to help others. Complex personality. 1% of the total population.
ENTJ: "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 5% of the total population.
INTJ: "Scientist". Most self-confident and pragmatic of all the types. Decisions come very easily. A builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models. 1% of the total population.
The funny thing about this, of course, is that they all match me, probably! It must be the "astrological sign" effect. You know, the way every astrological prediction is written so that everybody matches the description, and you can't ever tell whether it's true or false.
Oh well, it was fun for laughs. Try taking the test yourself!
This is about as much as you should read, or you'll conclude that I really am a narcissist. But if you really want to know more, maybe you should read the following:
A Bicycle-Oriented Autobiography
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