I'm 26 years old and have lived my life mainly in the academic world. I went to a 4 year college and then on to a culinary school. When I graduated from culinary school, I had a job lined up right away. After about 7 weeks, I knew that I didn't want to be in the restaurant industry. I decided to follow my passion for web design and took some graphic design courses at a local college. I am looking for a job right now, but things aren't going that well because of the market. I also don't have that much experience, and many experienced people are taking entry level jobs. My only goal for getting a job is that it will help me pay the bills.

I have always had an entrepreneurial mindset and I'm in the process of thinking of ways I can use my web design and business background to set up my own online company.  I was recently inspired by Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Work Week and will eventually want to set up passive income streams. 

I like to play guitar, cook (just not professionally), work with computers, travel, listen to music, read, hang out with friends, and go on road trips. 

I didn't have the greatest time growing up, due to my shyness. I was taken advantage of many times and occasionally got picked on. Since I was so shy, I never talked to many girls and never had a girlfriend. I noticed a large amount of girls giving me non-verbal signals that they wanted to talk to me or liked me, but I never did. 

Along with my shyness, people have called me stupid. I got tested many times to determine if I had a learning disability, but the only answer I got was that I was "slower" than average kids. This made my self-esteem plummet. I scored low on my college entrance tests, but still managed to get in to my first choice. My "slowness" followed through my college years as well--I got tested some more. One semester I had tough classes and didn't get the grades I wanted. I went in to see my advisor and he made a comment to the effect that he hoped that my family has a business because he didn't think that I was going to do well working for someone else. THIS REALLY PISSED ME OFF. Not only did I want to punch him, I wanted to prove him wrong.

I recently went to a career counselor per my parent's request. I was quite angry that I had to take standardized tests again. When I sat down to go over the results with him, he said that I was in the 99th percentile in terms of college educated people and that my IQ was over 140. I was in disbelief. All my life people told me otherwise. I told him about my past experience regarding my learning ability and he proceeded to ask me some questions. He asked me if I was right or left handed and if I was right or left-eye dominant. I told him I was right handed  and left-eye dominant. Apparently, people who have the opposite hand-eye dominance have a tough time processing information and not much research has been done on this topic. I was overjoyed to get validation that I wasn't "slow."  

I don't consider myself a victim, I just look back at the facts. I will have the last laugh when I build a multi-billion dollar company.