Currently alone in a hotel room in Hungary too jacked up on caffeine to sleep but too tired to do anything more productive, so I’ve decided now’s a good time to look back on my journey so far and layout some goals going forward. This is inspired partly by the recent Pixelwank Manifesto, go read that (finish mine first of course). Consider this the ManifesTOAD.

I started programming at the start of 2021, around the same time I started getting more seriously into crypto. At the time I’d been teaching English in Korea for about a year and a half and while I enjoyed it greatly, there’s very little room to progress as a foreigner and being a glorified babysitter doesn’t set you up well for a job once you go back home. So programming became my exit plan. I typically studied for 2 hours in the morning before work, then another 2 hours in the evening before passing out and repeating the process again the next day.

Flash forward to the Autumn of 2022 and after 3 years in Korea I decided it was time to call it a day. Stuff in crypto and NFTs had heated up a lot in the previous year to the point where it often felt like I was working two fulltime jobs. I was completely burned out. Towards the end of classes I’d be taking breaks to sit down at my desk while the kids wrote and I generally just felt like death 95% of the time.

So since September I’ve technically been working in crypto ‘full time’, although still enjoying a bit more time to decompress and work on my health (feeling slightly less ancient now). It was a gamble and I still miss Korea and my former students a lot, but at this point I’m confident I’m on the right path.

There are way too many people to thank and hopefully the specific heroes already know much they’ve helped this self trained idiot grow into almost, one day, a real programmer. But in general massive love to everyone in Circolors, the Buidl Guidl and EthernautDAO you’re all legends.

But looking to the future. There’s people in this space with 10+ years more experience than me so I can never afford to get complacent and will push to continue closing the gap. Expect lots of smart contract audits, lots more code being written and lots of twitter shitposts. Thanks to everyone who’s along for the ride, you’ve been more helpful than you could ever imagine.

More fun. More creativity. More art.

Better vibes.