About me

• Sat, Mar 22, 2025
• 21-minute read

Hello 👋, it’s a me Nezu, let me use this section to talk about me. Yes, that was a Super Marion pun, deal with it because I will do a lot of anime, video games, and pop culture references in my articles.

So as you can read on the sidebar (in a compute) or in the header (in mobile) I’m a male, introvert, and according to the 16 personalities model, I’m an INTJ, heterosexual leaning a little to asexual orientation.

Since I was little I always knew what I wanted to do with my life, some kids say they want to be a policeman, a firefighter, and those popular professions, and when they grow up they choose their real profession or are forced to do it. Well not me, I was 4 years old the first time I had contact with a computer, at that time computers were just a screen with MS-DOS (the current command line of Windows or terminal on mac-os). This was the first time I ever played a game on a PC, and lucky me it was the first successful video game in history: pong launched by Atari. Yep, Atari’s first video game was 2 sticks and a round ball made of giant pixels.

At that moment I was fascinated not by the game, but by the technology behind it, how does this work? How do you make it? Something sparked inside me and for the first time the thirst for knowledge that followed me until today was unleashed, I knew my work would be something related to it, so after this moment every time someone asked me what I wanted to be, I would answer: Computer Engineer.

Please keep in mind the computers were still at the beginning, with prohibitive prices, so it was risky. Only big companies or rich people would have computers in my country. I would search every possible moment to be on a computer to learn more, mainly from family and public municipality places. Until I reached middle school where there was a computer room with the start of the massification of Windows 95 and 98, at that time my knowledge of PCs skyrocketed, and when it was time to leave for high school I knew so much that sometimes the school asked help from me with that computers.

Yes, as you already guessed I was a nerd, but also a bookworm my other passion besides PCS, in my 5 years in there I was 5 times in a row the best reader in the school. My classes were mostly in the morning, and I would rent a book from the school library to read every day in the afternoon. Juvenile books from series like “The Five” by Enid Blyton and equivalent books from my country, I took less than 1 year to read every single one of these types of books in my school library. I started reading everything the library had to offer and would accompany my mother to the supermarket while she was shopping you would find me in the book section reading whatever caught my interest.

Hey, I was still a kid so of course I watched cartoons, my first contact with anime was at this time, I can’t remember which one was the first, but I would guess it’s between Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball, or Sailor Moon. It was religious that every day at 6 pm I would be in front of a TV to watch it. I even know some people who would stop working to watch Dragon Ball, it was almost like a religion in my country. Maybe it was Dragon Ball that sparked my interest that followed until today about anime. And we are talking about the classic Dragon Ball, when dragon ball Z started the hype was even higher, every place would sell related merch about Son Goku and his friends.

You are probably thinking someone who reads so much probably is good in language classes (especially native language), but guess what, I wasn’t I had 3 language classes: Portuguese, English, and French. My best class was always English, followed by Portuguese and then French. I still remember the number of positives I had at French: absolutely none 🤣. And I was a straight-A student until high school, if we exclude physical education, yep I fitted like a glove the nerd stereotype, it would be 100% if I was fat and wore glasses, but fortunately, I was slim and at that time had perfect eyesight.

As an only son, I had a strict schedule, wake up, go to school, return from school, have dinner at 8 pm, and bed at 9:30 pm, i was never allowed to go to the street and play like other kids (except in the summer). So of course I sucked at PE, you need muscles for that and if they don’t exists you can’t make an omelet without eggs.

In high school my grades decreased a lot, I think by a childish motive and jealousy, so I was a straight A (besides French and PE) student but my parents didn’t give any kind of rewards, and I would see a cousin with grades a lot worse than me get everything I would ever want (PC, consoles or some specific toys) and I just said screw it.

Maybe, just maybe it was not just saying screw it but also the increase of difficulty between mid-school and high school, because there is something I still haven’t told you: I can’t study, I’m not physically and psychologically able to do it. My studying consisted of being attentive on the first row in the classroom and doing homework at home. I never told this to anyone if I try to study I fall asleep in a few minutes, sometimes in seconds. At that time any problem was solved by physically beating your child by most parents in my country, there was no concept of psychological diseases or conditions, so I was afraid to tell anyone.

Last senior year, it was time for college exams, well I passed the exams, but due to my lower grades, I didn’t enter. While I’m writing this I’m trying to remember what I did during the year after that, besides going again to the math class I needed to improve my grade for the next year’s exams, and working 15 days on a hypermarket where I used the money to buy and assemble my first pc. I guess for me not to remember it was not remarkable in any way and just wasted time. Oh, I remember something for the first time in my life I studied, by persisting .. a lot, I can’t remember how many times I fell asleep.

So my first year of college, my degree was divided in equal parts by the areas of technology, maths, and management. As always first row and try to keep attentive in classes, a small problem you aren’t with 20 or 30 people in the same room, you are sometimes with up to 100 other students. Heck, I even had a class where students were seated on the stairs because there was no longer any normal place to sit. Normal in “hard” classes that join people from other years. So you have a mix of somewhat responsible students and kids that just left high school. You can imagine the noise and misbehavior in these classes, if you don’t have an authoritative teacher it’s game over. During my years in college I found mainly 3 types of teachers: the ones who don’t care as long you don’t disturb the class, the ones who will expel from the class anyone just being there for being there and the type that will just quit the class and see you at test, there is the data you need on the platform find a way to comprehend it alone. Any of these types have their cons and pros, and you adapt to them. On the first one, you will probably see people using the time of the class for other things like doing things from other classes or even watching movies as long you don’t disturb the class its fine, On the second one you know everyone who stays on class want to be there, the third type the rest of students pressures you to behave or you screw everyone.

This is mostly how all the classes went during my years there, but let’s get back to me and the subject that creates or destroys friendships: work groups. In college, there was a ridiculous ammount of work groups. In group work, there are some famous archetypes like the one who does all the work, the one who disappears but shows back to take credit, the one who has no idea what is going on, and the one who says is going to help but it’s just talk. Can you guess my type?

Well, my type is a part of my personality I still haven’t talked about, in college-related subjects we can divide it into 2, me working in groups and individual evaluations. Individually my normal way of working didn’t change a single bit, going to class and doing homework or practical work. So if I could remember what I heard great, if not screw it see you next year. But in group work you commit, you are responsible not only for yourself but for everyone in your group. And my personality doesn’t let me fail in this case, so yep I’m the “one that does all the work”, and most of the time the group leader. The funny thing is if you ask any teacher during the weeks the group works are ongoing who they think is working more or less on the group, most of my teachers would say I’m the one doing nothing. Guess I have a slacker aura. But the group works have a very powerful tool in the end called hetero-evaluation, where justice is restored, I even had more than once a teacher saying to me he was surprised by my group hetero-evaluation.

By this last paragraph, you probably guessed my college life didn’t go with very good grades, and yes you are right, once again a clear division, if it was a theoretical class with a lot of things to remember I would barely pass or not pass at all. If it was a group work or a practical class I would pass easily with flying colors. That explains how my final grade goes from C (10 on a scale from 0 to 20) to A (18 on a scale from 0 to 20). Even in the A’s, you can see my screw it mentality because unfortunately in my country the college has a suspicious, anti-student thinking where above A / 18 you need to have extra exams or tests to prove you deserve that grade, and “ain’t nobody got time for that”. My grade doesn’t define my knowledge and expertise, just the capacity in most cases to remember things that outside the exam you can easily find on the web, why the hell are we grading people on the psychical capacity of saving data in long-term memory? We should grade if, in front of that data, you know how to use it or explain depending on the subject. It makes me remember the math teachers who would tell you won’t have a calculator with you at all times in the future, guess what, we have it. With this I’m not saying math is not important, math is important let me see until around fifth or sixth grade, after that is just math that will only be used in very specific jobs. Tell me, how many times have you used Pythagoras’ theorem, trigonometry, or the quadratic formula? The chances are you never have used it. Why do we need to memorize them, instead of: here it is, show me you know how to apply it. Teach me how to manage money and taxes, instead of memorizing something that I will never use, or in the remote chance I need it I’m just a Google away from finding it.

Now let’s talk about what affected my academic life, besides my fantastic screw-it personality and my impossibility to study.

The first year, an 18-year-old kid, yes because with 18 years you are still a kid, this is not the wild high school like Americans have or the 16-year-old that can drive and kill themselves. At least we can drink at 18 🤣.

Liberty I never had, 30 km away from home, a high-end pc, and some money, some mine, some from my parents, and some from my scholarship. Recipe for disaster? Yep.

I started doing what I should have done when I was kid, hanging out with other people, drinking (responsibly!), I even tried some light drugs (I know I have a strong power of will and I could just try them without becoming addicted), don’t call the cops! These drugs are not illegal in my country! I think the funniest one was ecstasy, but I compare it to the effect of being drunk elevated a lot of times, which in my case is extra energy and becoming funny and expressive 😝.

“I know I have a strong power of will and I could just try them without becoming addicted” Remember this and how hypocritical it will be later on in this text 🤣.

And later starts now. Until college, I didn’t have a good enough PC to play games, a friend in college introduced me to some games. I started playing, and after that moment I became addicted like I did with books when I was younger i played every single time outside class almost a rhythm of 1 game per 2 days, at that time if we excluded big RPG games most of the games could be finished in around 6 to 8 hours. I can’t remember how many games I played I can only say 2 words: too much. My almost inexistent social skills degraded even further. How the hell I don’t get addicted to real drugs and get to video games? I guess like they say “Choose your own drug”. The result? I didn’t pass the year. I knew I was going to lose the scholarship so that year I worked during the summer to pay for the next year. The multiple games phase was over.

In the second year, I used a legal way to get back what I lost in the first year, if you remember right the course is night classes, so there is a day course with the same classes, with extra pay, you can sign up in up to four more classes every year as long as is not from your course. Well technically the day course is not the same as the night course, so I signed up for 13 classes that year, and I ended up passing 12. The problem is the extra classes can only be credited next year by asking for equivalence otherwise would i have done a really strange thing and gone from first year to third year 🤣.

Let’s go! Third year. I have now signed up for classes from the first, second, and third years. Ridiculous and hard to manage the schedule so it doesn’t overlay. Here comes the second addiction: Anime, in my country except on paid channels there was not much anime on TV because it’s a “children’s thing”, so I didn’t know there were so many different, a friend introduced me to Anime, and I devoured it, like in a day I would watch up to 3 animes of 12 episodes each, or at least a 24-episode anime. There was even a time I watched by alphabetic order. Every time using the 3-episode rule: watch 3 episodes to decide if I should keep watching or not. I must have watched on that year between 700 to 1000 animes, I lost track of the number.

My degree was a 3-year degree like it’s usual in my country, before the start of my fourth year there was a restructuring of my degree and it became an integrated degree plus master’s course, some classes disappeared, some were renamed, and some changed the year. I already had the first year fully cleared, and now they swapped Calculus back to the first year. Here we go again, classes from the first, second, third, and fourth years. I think I need to use what I learned in operation investigation just to be able to make a schedule without overlaps.

During this year I cleared almost all the first, second, and third classes except Calculus in the first year and Operation Investigation in the second year. By the way, I never stopped watching anime just reduced the watching time, and sometimes would play some League of Legends.

Fifth-year, first, second, fourth, and fifth-year classes. Keep in mind I´m still paying for the first year and I can never sign up for enough classes to fully clear the higher year, in this case I think I only signed up for two classes of the fifth year. Nothing out of the ordinary this year I cleared most of the classes I signed up for, but Calculus and Operational Investigation remain.

Sixth year, I started working full-time as a programmer, I’m also signed up for classes in the first, second, and fifth years. Due to work I forsake the fifth year classes and try to clear the previous two. Starting working on what I liked was a major turn-up point in my life, finally, after some hardships, screw-ups, and bad decisions I was working on what I wanted. Once again I sidetracked. My routine was simple go to work, leave work, have dinner at a coffee shop, and stay in the coffee shop until 1-2 am playing League of Legends or darts, with friends and work colleagues, the difference on class days was leaving work, going to classes, and from classes to coffee. Now this is one of the reasons you need to learn about finances in school, every money I won, I was spending on the same month. I had days with almost 0 money in my bank account, i won’t say i wasted it, I just bought everything I ever wanted and went to places i wanted. I started going to conventions and anime meets, like Comic Con. I even went to Comic Con London and started cosplaying, and trust me, cosplaying can be incredibly expensive. This was my life for 1 year. I finally cleared Operational Investigation, and the other classes except Calculus.

Next year I changed to another company where I would stay for 3 years, nothing very remarkable happened, during these 3 years. I cleared everything except Calculus and the thesis (the big individual work you need to do to finish the degree), well I did try sometime to clear the thesis but every single time something out of my control happened, like Pneumonia, and with my luck twice.

Let’s forward to 2020, a year a world will forever remember, but it’s not important to me, at least not at this time of the story. In 2020 a public company that I worked with opened a job in the same area, i decided to apply and go to the last phase of interviewing. There was a prerequisite for this job, having a degree. Do you remember Calculus? Yep because of calculus I still didn’t have my degree although I had taken more classes than needed to have the degree each year is 60 credits so you need 180 credits for a degree by that time I had 175 from the degree plus 75 credits from the masters. I was selected but with an ultimatum, I had to finish Calculus. Do you still remember my mentality of single vs group? Well, it was indeed something that only depended on me, but someone had risked his neck and reputation, to give me this chance, waiting for me to finish my degree until February of 2021. I guess I was able to enter my work group mentality and finally clear it, and with an A (18 on a scale of 0 to 20), the highest grade I ever had was an F (3 on a scale of 0 to 20). I think the trace of my personality of not wanting to leave people downplayed a giant part in this, if someone is taking a bullet for you, you have to try your best. The ironic thing, my knowledge right now about Calculus is close to 0, after clearing it my brain just deleted it.

2021, the start of new work in a public company, a place where your work will directly affect and help the lives of dozens of thousands of people, and for me, that’s very rewarding. It was an atypical start in a new work with the lockdown, remote work, and everyone with masks. It would take months to know the full team because the office was always half empty. November 2021, do you know the saying “never two without three”? Hello there Mr pneumonia, this time didn’t affect my life too much because I was already mostly working at home due to the Covid lockdown, I returned to my work near Christmas, and that’s when my country’s government did the most idiot, and irresponsible thing ever, “hey because it’s Christmas we will allow family Christmas party, just be careful”, so basically they swapped the blame if something happened to the people. 24th December, Christmas Eve, family party, an aunt with literally all Covid symptoms came to the party saying it was just the flu and without testing. Result: Christmas day I was infected and bedridden together with another aunt, or in my case sofa ridden, we took my living room as our quarantine zone, and even with the vaccine I was close to going to the hospital. Understandably I had my lungs weak from the nearly cured pneumonia and now Covid, RIP longs.

This would affect my 2022, I would always be tired and my lungs flooded, and with permanent marks, after that Christmas there is not the word Flu in my vocabulary, there is a respiratory infection or pneumonia. Antibiotics became the norm for me during winter.

Still, remember how much I love anime? Well, 2023 marked my first trip to Japan. I won’t talk about it here, I will make a separate article on the blog about the trip.

2024 and 2025, the only remarkable thing that happened in 2024 was starting to go to the gym 4 times a week, and in 2025 I made my second trip to Japan. And we are back to today (March 2025)

Now my interests, obviously anime, japan, and writing/reading. But there is something above interests, almost everyone has an idol or someone that they follow religiously it may be a singer, an actor, a painter, well any kind of artist, family, or someone else. In my case, it intersects with my love of anime and Japan, a Vocaloid (what is a Vocaloid? click here to know), Megurine Luka, there all kind of Vocaloids, like any Vocaloid you can make her sing whatever you want, but Luka’s voice is more suited to adult themes, like struggling or the hardships of life. My favorite song is Double Lariat (click here to watch live concert) where she talks about how hard is to be a new Vocaloid and the difficulty of gaining a spot in the Vocaloid world, can’t this be generalized to the real world? How hard is it for someone to leave their mark in the world? As a fan I buy a lot of her merch (small figures, keychains, pins, etc), I know she is not real (well just the voice is real), but her design is beautiful and although she is fictional she has a personality I absolutely love.

So I have now described my professional, my idol, and my personal life, the only thing I haven’t talked about is relationships. In the second paragraph I wrote “Heterosexual leaning a little to asexual orientation”, I think it deserves a little explanation. First of all, I was never in a relationship, sure I had some friends with benefits or colorful friends, but never a girlfriend, and that’s where the “a little asexual orientation” part starts, due to my hobbies I’m forced to search for a soul mate in the niche of people who like anime, japan, nerds and geeks, and there are so few women not already committed on this community that I’m close to quitting to searching. Why not search “normal women”? Well for 99% of “normal women”, anime and memorabilia is a red flag. Also don’t forget that I have close to 0 zero social skills since I’m introverted, but be wary that if I start trusting you can’t make me stop talking 🤣.

We are reaching the final, do I regret or would I do anything different if I had a chance? No, everything led to where I am today. Let’s start with my first year of college, I failed the first year which led me to share a class with someone who would give me my first job in the area, and the same person would introduce me to some of my best friends. With the experience of my first job, I would get my second job, entering the conventions and cosplay world, and making another bunch of great friends. And finally, through the connections of my second job, I would get my third job and be forced in a good way to finish my degree. Forrest Gump once said “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get” and I couldn’t agree more.