Rising from Failure

A long time ago, I got an F in software engineering. I was in my second year at Singapore Management University (an excellent institution), studying information systems management. The previous year I got a D in object oriented programming. That was about 15 years ago. After that harrowing experience, I switched schools and majors, made the Dean’s and President’s list and became a middle school science teacher. Very mediocre compared with my friends I left behind.

For the longest time since those 2 years in Singapore, I believed that my brain was just not wired for learning programming. What a lie! There were many factors that contributed to my failure but not having the brains for it was not one of them. So why did I fail? That’s for another post. These days I am teaching myself Arduino and teaching my kids Scratch. Baby steps. On my ankle is a bracelet that says Never Ever Give Up NEGU. It was given to me by a father who lost his daughter to cancer. Just because you lose one battle does not mean the war is over. If it’s something worth doing you must never give up.

Below is a basic Arduino project I did making the lights blink to the tune of Happy Birthday to You.