Who am I?

Hailing from a rusting european city on the Danube river named Galați, I was initially raised in a traditional decrepit ‘commie block’. After a short while, I moved to the greatest country on Earth, the United States. Growing up, my mother was a paralegal and my dad took on a lot of odd jobs as an electrician, construction worker, and beekeeper. I am proud of my uncanny upbringing and what my parents did for work; I have spent many evenings after school with my dad on ~shady job sites playing assistant. Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I now relish the fact that I know way too much about Chicago’s electrical code, how to take care of bees, and how to properly insulate a home!

I am currently a 20 year old first generation college student studying Computer Science and Economics. Although I sometimes (most of the time) hate the school I go to, the experience has inarguably enriched me beyond measure. When studying Computer Science, I am especially drawn to all things systems. My favorite programming language is Rust. (Although I am currently using a lot of Haskell on stream) and I absolutely love drilling down the layers of abstraction and understanding how everything truly works. In Economics, my areas of focus are Industrial Organization and Trade.

The defining moment that made me realize my passion for working in computing was when I made one of the best mistakes of my life: putting arch linux onto the modified thinkpad t430 I brought to my high school when I was 13. It was a ‘mistake’ because I dove into the linux world an absolute newb in every sense of the word. No programming skills and no exposure to the ins of computing (Beyond knowing how to build computers)! It was a trial by fire and I gained an impression of the awesome power that one could derive from knowing the ins and outs of a computer’s full potential.