From an ASUS to 42 Madrid

Hello! If you’ve arrived here it’s likely for two reasons:

1. You were browsing bored and ended up lost in this corner of the internet.
2. You were curious to know who I am and what I do.

Either way, welcome! This blog is going to be a space where I tell you about my path in computing: anecdotes, reflections, lessons learned, things that worry me, tips that work for me… and the occasional weird story I feel like sharing.

Who am I?

My name is Juan Bautista, although around here you can call me Volmer. I won’t bore you with my whole life, just what interests us: how I got bitten by the computer bug.

It all started back in 2008, with a small ASUS I inherited from my sister. I was 8 years old and, suddenly, the internet became my new playground. For someone coming from getting lost in fantasy books, discovering that infinite amount of information was a total shock. (And watch out, it was another era: those 5-second videos to fry our brains didn’t exist yet).

Some time later my sister gifted me a pretty decent HP. That’s where I discovered Skyrim —what a game, right?— and also that inside me there was a potential geek that sooner or later had to come out.

My first digital adventures

A key place was the library in my village in Galicia. The librarian, who had more patience than a saint (and perhaps too much trust in a 12-year-old kid), taught me a bunch of things that sparked my curiosity:

• Making small scripts in Windows to play pranks in class.
• Playing with networking and connectivity stuff that seemed like pure magic to me.
• And the most surreal thing: trying out a homemade antenna to bring internet to my village, where it didn’t reach remotely. It worked… although if the wind moved the antenna a centimeter, I had to climb onto the roof several times a day to reposition it.

The antenna cost me €100, and boy did I squeeze the most out of it.

Also, to make a few euros, I sold things at flea markets. In one of them I met a computer scientist who was liquidating all his university books. I bought them all. Yes, all of them. Most I didn’t even open (HTML and CSS didn’t interest me much back then hehe), but there was one that blew my mind: it told the history of computing, and talked about viruses. Speaking of viruses, the one that infected me: curiosity for this world.

In another post I’ll tell you a great anecdote about the first computer virus in history.

And then?

Over the years I decided to formalize that curiosity by studying a Vocational Training course in Computing. But I left it halfway: my life was chaos, I had no discipline or direction, and I ended up dropping out.

Then I spent quite some time working in hospitality. It wasn’t something negative: I learned a lot, especially that I wanted to return to studying. And there I was, at 23, with nothing in my hands and starting again from scratch.

That was when I discovered 42 Madrid, part of the international 42 Network: a tuition-free school, open 24/7, without teachers and based on learning at your own pace, practically and in community. And there, friends, began my true adventure as a computer scientist.

A curious methodology and an even more curious place… so much so that sometimes it almost looks like a tech cult (but the good kind 😅). I’ll tell you more about this in future posts, because there’s a lot to say.

What can you expect from this blog?

Well, a bit of everything:

• My experience at 42 Madrid.
• Opinions and personal reflections.
• Tips I would have loved to have earlier.
• Stories and curious facts about computing.

If you feel like reading someone who is learning, stumbling, and getting back up again in this world, this is your place.

Thanks for accompanying me in this first post.

See you in the next one, Juan “Volmer” ✍️