Hi,
I’m Kris and this blog is about my math journey, wandering around, looking, finding, reaching.
Comments, suggestions, corrections, questions … are all welcome as long as they are decent.
2021-12-28 22:53 CET
Who am I?
This is what I wrote about myself on Twitter (olikilo): happy, satisfied, studious, (let) do, reach, tech, different, Dominika, kids, CEO of Sue (cloud native infra & open source gurus). Here is what I wrote about myself on LinkedIn.
Where did the journey start?
When did it start? One could say in 1986 when I decided to start studying mathematics at the University of Nijmegen, now known as Radboud University, then known as the Catholic University Nijmegen.
Another starting point could be when I was 14 and started tutoring math for money, the parents of my tutoring students had to pay 10 guilders (about 4.5 euro’s) per hour which was at that time a lot, but if the student didn’t pass the next exam I paid back 5 guilders per hour, I only had to pay back ones.
Yet another starting point, more likely the starting point, was when I was around 15 years old and started to figure out alternative ways to calculate, determine solutions to what my math teacher taught us.
Where did the journey stop?
A couple of months or so into my math study I was really annoyed by the step back instead of forward, I had the impression that I didn’t learn anything new, that we only redid the basics, so in parallel I started also to study computer science (cs), which I thought also to be interesting because I started to program for money around the age of 15, nothing fancy, address and inventory management programs and alike. Unfortunately I didn’t see that (re)doing the basics was something new. After passing the first year the propaedeutic exams for both math and cs I further focused on cs, and after 5 years into my studies when my mother got terminally ill I decided to graduate in cs and give her the peace of mind that I finished my studies and got myself a job. So I didn’t finish my math degree, with one year short.
Where am I?
That’s simple, I’m a couple of years away from retirement and on my list are ‘graduating math’ and ‘starting and finishing a PhD’.
What’s next?
Doing a damn good job in my work, bringing the company to the next level of growth, together with the new major shareholder and all my admirable colleagues. And in my spare time prepare for starting and graduating math, or decide to not study it at a university but for myself as an intensive hobby. I tend towards studying it at a university, no idea why, maybe ambition, maybe to be, more, sure I’m getting somewhere.