We all come here for our jobs, for testing services and working with ReadyAPI, but that's likely just a small part of who we are and what we do. Who are you, when you aren't testing?
To start, I love to write and actually have a few short stories published in some indie anthologies on Amazon, all for charity. I'm working on a novel in my spare time, and I love to write. Tell us a bit about yourself :)
I guess I'll start with the basics
I'm 22, so only have about a year under my belt as a tester, with one sister (21 years old, now an optometrist), and one little brother (9 years old). I've been a Londoner all my life (born in North, grew up in Central, and now live in East). I am driven by the thought of helping people - originally I wanted to be a Doctor before I realised coding is my true calling. And with that... onto the interesting stuff
I am a massive foodie, huge East Asian persuation (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai) but I also love Caribbean, Italian, and Mexican cuisine. But to be honest sometimes you can be a simple man and just want a nice steak more than anything else. Also Venison is delicious.
I adore the theatre, haven't performed in several years, but I still love going to watch plays like Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Les Misérables, Blood Brothers, Macbeth, Woyzeck, and a little bit of a spoiler for the next thing I'm gonna talk about The Lion King, Wicked, and Aladdin.
As you might have guessed I am a massive Disney nerd, my favourites come from the renaissance: Tarzan, The Hunchback of Notre Damme, Mulan, The Lion King, and Hercules. I don't think there is a single disney movie that I haven't seen post Snow White (assuming animation). I also love singing along at least semi in tune :smileytongue:
Other than Disney I enjoy watching a whole bunch of different series like Stranger Things, Dr. Who (doctors 9-11 - we don't talk about 12, haven't seen 13), The 100, and Black Mirror. And movies like How to Train your Dragon, The Prince of Egypt, Anastasia, The Impossible, Kubo and the Two Strings, Star Wars, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (although those last two are also Disney).
Gaming has always been my escapism of choice, indies like The Darkest Dungeon and The Binding of Isaac are great but my all time favourite is Borderlands 2. I am a massive minmaxer so I love a lot of Nintendo games like Fire Emblem and Pokémon, and strategy games like Sid Meiyer's Civilization. Outside of video games, I have been a part of a few DnD 3.5 and Call of Cthulu campaigns which were super fun. And I was the President of the Games and Video Games society at Queen Mary, leading it to its most successful year of over 200 members!
I realise this post is already pretty long so I'll quickfire the other things in which I like to dabble in: Origami, Guitar, Violin, Cooking, Baking, Basketball, Amateur Story Editor, Photography, Learning about the English Language, Creative Writing, Drawing, and Pub Quizzes (or general knowledge quizzes in general). I've been doing these a lot less since I started working - still figuring out my worklife balance ahaha.
The final thing I will say about myself is that I love to travel, I've been on residentials all over the South of England, Whales, and Liverpool. I've been back to my family homes in Bangladesh, on a two week school trip to China (Beijing and Haerbin - definitely recommend the latter) and to several African/Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Morocco). These all represented great opportunities to practice photography!
So that's my not so short "summary" of me, hope you all enjoyed the little insight into the things that I like,
Mo
Hi all,
I love this topic! It’s a pleasure to see that testing brings together people from all walks of life!
As for me, in my spare time, I do portrait painting. I love painting my friends and gifting them their portraits :)
groovyguy, thanks for this great opportunity to share something about who we are. I'm looking forward to other replies!
By the way, that’s a good question for our Contributor Interviews that TanyaYatskovska makes for our Community blog. You can watch the fresh one with Carson Underwood here – I found it really useful.
cunderw, following up on your interview, “who are you when you are not testing”? :)
Hi All,
Great topic, Matthew! Actually, Carson is making BBQ at SmartBear Connect this year :) Will you join us?
I can confirm this - Olga draw a great portrait of myself :)
As for me, in my spare time, I do portrait painting. I love painting my friends and gifting them their portraits :)
As for me, I like running. Recently, I've run my first 21K.
I dream of owning my own blog, but I cannot choose what my first article should be about ...
OK... not a SoapUI guy... but GOTTA reply to this topic...
So... outside of testing.... let's do the demographics:
45 year old, married, father of two daughters, ages 18 and 15. The wife is a musician and pre-school teacher. The 18 year old starts university this fall with a major in digital art (animation and illustration) and the 15 year old is taking culinary training as part of her high-school classes.
Next, the hobbies:
I LOVE computer gaming, specifically PC gaming. I play World of Warcraft pretty regularly and Lord of the Rings Online. When I'm not gaming, I like reading fantasy and sci-fi novels, my favorite being Lord of the Rings (I've, literally, read the trilogy 37 times.... and counting) and Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. When I'm not gaming, I LOVE movies and interesting TV shows.... it's a hobby of mine to watch a film/show and spend time doing cultural analysis of apparent philosophies or commentary evident... yeah, total geek. Stranger Things and Doctor Who are the top of my list there.
Quick edit: Forgot to mention that I DM two Dungeons and Dragons games and play a half-orc monk in a third.... so, that's a thing. :)
Finally, life challenges:
My wife is a Stage IV cancer patient with metastatic breast cancer. She had an initial diagnosis as Stage II in 2012, went into remission, and it came back in late 2016 early 2017 as Stage IV.. so those hobbies and such I describe above? Those all take second place to spending as MUCH time caring for my wife and family these days as I possibly can. She's doing well, the cancer is controlled at this moment, but life is precious, you know?
So... that's me. :)
When I'm not testing I am usually either camping / floating, writing and recording music, or making BBQ :)
What a great topic!
I love PC games both online and single player. Currently, I'm playing Guild Wars 2. I also play the acoustic guitar a little and run my cat's Instagram page :cathappy:
And, I'm gonna second tristaanogre on LOTR! I've read it about 5 times myself I think.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King anyone? :catvery-happy:
There was a book edited by Robert Silverberg a few years back called "Legends" in which authors were invited to write short novella's featuring their most famous "universes" as an introduction for people to get to know the universe without investing in a full book. George R. R. Martin put a bit in there as did Terry Pratchett... and, sonya_m... Stephen King had a Dark Tower novella in there... and I REALLY liked what I read... going to have to pick up those books and dive in sometime.
tristaanogre I think you might like the Dark Tower book series. You've mentioned Stranger Things which has a lot of Stephen King vibe to it also.
The books (there's 8 of them) get really dark and weird sometimes (that horror/Western/dark fantasy mix tho), but, oh well, I guess this is expected from Mr. King.
And, yes, the universe he managed to create is outstanding, quite an immersive experience.
There is something I love more than testing is trading stocks!
