and Words
Livin’ easy
Lovin’ free
Season ticket on a one way ride
Askin’ nothin’
Leave me be
Takin’ everything in my stride
Don’t need reason
Don’t need rhyme
Ain’t nothin’ I’d rather do
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
I spent the summer before my senior year in Miami. However, I didn’t sit surfside on the beach as you might expect; I spent it in a classroom. I spent the school year sharpening my skills at mathematics and programming. I didn’t know what I’d be doing with it; I simply knew that I was good at it, and I enjoyed it. In the mid 1980’s there were really only two activities for computers: games and word processing. And really, we had game consoles for the former as well. There were a handful of us who opened the inches of documents in three-ring binders that came with computers. We meticulously looked at these tomes and cryptic references to something called BASIC, and that’s how we started programming.
Truthfully, I didn’t even know about the summer program. Ms. Barba, one of my teachers, pulls me aside and mentions it to me, she encouraged me to apply. I don’t even remember the application; I honestly think that she simply wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation or perhaps placed a phone call. This is the same teacher who guilted me about cutting school too frequently years before, “Mr. Wong, you’re out of school more often than you’re in school.” However, she watched me changed course over the two years that followed. I’m eternally thankful for her faith in me.