Growing Up Geek: Kevin Wong

Welcome to Growing Up Geek , an ongoing feature where we have a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing as much as be the nerds that we’re. Today, we’ve our personal Contributing Editor, Kevin Wong .

Okay, so let’s get the pink pencil elephant out of the room first. Yes, that could be a Superman t-shirt and yes, i assumed i’ll fly — with some help from my pops, for sure. Back then I wasn’t aware that physics had laws, and to be honest, all i assumed holding me flat was my love for robots. What I did know was that Transformers were are awesome, and that ice cream was a super supplement for vegetables.

Do your parents still have a whole choice of blue, yellow and green transparent marble-like tokens, along side cases and cases of Pokémon cards? Wow, mine too! I’ve lost countless hours of my life to my obsession with Pokémon, and i am hardly ashamed to confess it. My (still functioning) Game Boy was with me at every gym city battle, every new skill learned, and naturally, at every stage of evolution. Some of the happiest days of my life was once I received my purple translucent Game Boy Color and that i could see Pikachu in a yellowish-green tint on my screen. Minor victories bring major joy.

i feel the one moment that defined my geekiness and solidified my future in computer science was in the course of the Christmas of 1998. My parents reached from under the tree and handed my brother a slightly large box, while I sat around the room at the other side, pensive and engaged. Little did i do know that my parents pulled a switcheroo on me and denied my brother, proudly proclaiming: “Oops, this one’s for Kevin!” Ecstatic that my older brother of six years just got served by my parents, I grabbed hold of the gift, ripped it open and discovered Pandora’s Box of possibilities for me — a LEGO Mindstorms kit.

My childhood obsessions stick with me, as vivid as ever, even today — Japan’s full-scale Gundam statue is practically my role model! Growing up alongside the net really unfolded the chances of learning and leisure. Excited about games of my adolescence like Warcraft, Duke Nukem, and Doom still give me inexplicable highs. But in place of focusing all of my efforts on toy robot models, or attempting to collect countless wild critters on my handhelds, I stuff a viewfinder or some Java code in front of my face. I spend most of my time now with a camera at my side, and perfect nights for me are editing exposure tones of hundreds of photos or having an hour long date with a code compiler. The geekiness didn’t depart, it just evolved right into a more productive form — and without the usage of rare candies, i’d add!

Day by day in Kevin’s life is made interesting by the subsequent: spam emails, new lunch specials at old restaurants, conversations he overhears on the post office, people who sit next to him at the train when ten other seats are open, and free samples of chicken on the mall. Follow him on Twitter (@ kevinmwong ) to listen to more. A lot more.