I love programming. I find it amazing that a whole bunch of text just magically transforms into something so dynamic. My favourite programming languages are C# and Java, although I also write in VisualBasic.NET and C/C++. Check out my programs section for some of my work.

Here is an example of how bad my code can be! This code was written as a practical lab assignment for CompSci369 (Bioinformatics), so we were technically under time pressure to complete this program. Please excuse the unconventional variables names. CompSci369 Lab - RabinKarp Algorithm

I also do a lot of web coding. My preferred language of choice is PHP. Check out my websites section for some of my work. This entire site you see before you is written in PHP also. I am also very comfortable with XHTML and CSS.

I have been involved in both the New Zealand Programming Competition and the South Pacific Programming Competition. My team was called "Divide by Zer" and although we did not do particularly well in the NZPC, we came 4th in the country and 8th in Australasia for the SPPC. Take a look at the results. Note we were the first team in the country to submit a correct answer for both problem A and problem E! We would have been first in the entire competition, but I forgot to comment out my debug code and had to submit twice for problem A.

I love games, and it's been quite evident from childhood that gaming would be an important part of my life. The first games I fell in love with were Lemmings (on my primary school's computer), Hybris and Carmen Sandiego (on my old Amiga), and Sonic the Hedgehog (on my Sega Genesis). Nowadays, my favourites are Pokemon and Phoenix Wright on the DS, and DotA (Defense of the Ancients), a custom map for Warcraft III. DotA has become such an important part of my life that my three groups of friends all play DotA (school mates, CompSci friends, youth group) - like, how cool is that? Here are my favourite characters:

	Strygywr the Bloodseeker This guy was my first favourite. He's really weak early-game, but once you get his ultimate, Rupture, you can really start killing people. Works well against noobs (haha). He's a good team player, because either he disables by forcing enemies to stop running, or Thirst kicks in and he can chase from one side of the map to the other and score the kill.
	Bradwarden the Centaur Warchief A solid strength hero whose ultimate just keeps pumping up the strength. Eventually he gets so much HP that it's really hard to take him down. Combine that with his stun, his high-damaging Double-Edge and a Blink Dagger, it makes Bradwarden so much fun to use.
	Luna the Moon Rider A really, really cheap charater. Although her main attribute is agility, her intelligence plays an important role in making sure Lucent Beam and Eclipse do their job. With Aghanim's Scepter and maxed-out abilities, she deals 11 x 300 damage to enemies around her. Furthermore, her Glaive Throw lets her clear out enemy waves efficiently. Couple this with Lothar's Edge and you can sneak up on enemies and let loose Eclipse for the win. Ooooh yeah.
	Razor the Lightning Revenant Ultimate cheapness. He has ridiculously high agility, making his movement speed and attack speed super fast. Load him up with Mjollnir, Butterfly, Radiance and Buriza, and he'll sweep. There is something extremely satisfying about using Razor... you approach an enemy, trigger Frenzy and then BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM! Ownage.

One of my presents that I got for my 21st was a shirt with the screen names of all the youth group players, as well as their DotA characters and ability icons. The base of the shirt also has some item icons. I will treasure this always, but I doubt I will wear it in public.

I would often listen to my sister playing the piano when I was young, and it was because of this that I started piano lessons at the age of seven. Since then I've suffered through the examinations and I finally passed Grade 8 (by the skin of my teeth).

My favourite pieces are To Zanarkand by Nobuo Uematsu, Tong Hua by Guang Liang, and the Pokemon Theme! I also enjoy playing lots of Christian music and I really enjoy playing with a team of extremely talented musicians at church. I think I will miss this a lot when I'm down in Wellington.

I became very fascinated with astronomy at a young age. In my lifetime, I have seen various celestial objects (such as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and the four Galilean moons, and Saturn and its rings) and several astronomical phenomena (such as a meteor shower, a comet, a total and partial lunar eclipse, and a partial solar eclipse). One day, I hope to see a total solar eclipse, as well as Aurora Borealis or Aurora Australis.

In my spare time, I created this wallpaper (resolution 1024x768) depicting all nine planets (Well, there were nine planets when I created this). Feel free to download it.