I remember the interview and the minute details surrounding it. The day before, I got an email asking for a video interview for a job that my career search specialist had applied for maybe a month before.

At the time, my dad and I were driving across Canada all the way to Vancouver Island in the span of a week. This involved gruelling 8-10 hour drives everyday to make good time and many, many fun conversations with my dad involving Ontario's politics, classical music, and our criticisms of each other's driving habits. While exhausting, it's a fond memory I carry with me of spending time with my dad in a way I hadn't previously done.

So, there I was sitting in the hotel prepping for potential interview questions. At the time I was burnt out from a fruitless several-month-long job search and I didn't think much of myself, but despite my low self-confidence I somehow landed the job and ended my trip a few days after on a very happy positive note. I thought to myself "once my foot is in the door, the sky's the limit". Not to be overly dramatic, but this was only partially correct.

Beginning in 2022, I used that mental "gravy-train" to move into my very first apartment on my own as I wanted my own private space to work in and listen to records uninterrupted by shared spaces and roommates. I got my wish, finding a beautiful, newly-renovated space in the downtown west-end of Toronto. Shortly after, I was out of a job. 

I recognize in life that my failures are just as, if not more important than my victories, and there exists a great deal of "grey area" where I can look back, recollect memories, and realize why I am the way I am today. This job was a beautiful opportunity that I am still very thankful for the experience that it gave me. I was able to learn 

, all extremely valuable tools that I still use today.

So in July of 2022, I was officially back on the market again. 

I decided to pick up a job at a local food shack so that I could keep working while maintaining a steady job search for my next web developer gig. Subsequently, I met my neighbours who run a community space and who needed a website; so I obliged at no cost. Using the tools I gained from my last job, I made 

built-in and an events page for advertising their new, exciting events.

In October, someone must have noticed my work because I got a call at 10pm one day with someone on the other line essentially saying: "I found your profile and I would like to hire you for a contract job, starting tomorrow". Funnily enough, my immediate response was "who are you and how did you get this number?", a response I am still made fun of to this day.

So there I was at my next web developer job, albeit a contract, but another great learning opportunity, this time involving 

 with other folks on the team handling the back end development. Unlike my previous job where it was a team of only three people, including myself, this time I was able to work with four people, all with varying degrees of responsibilities and equal levels of input. I had a support system that was very helpful in helping me to learn 

 on the job, as I previously had no experience in this framework. After four months of doing my damnedest to keep the job, my boss and I decided that we were not the right fit and that I needed to work with a larger team that allowed for more mentorship. I was close, but not quite there.

Understandably so, I was torn. Two jobs in and I could not seem to find my footing.  And here we are in the present; uncertain, but still trying. I'll be working on some new projects to get excited about code again. I am hopeful that I will find my footing and this moment, right here, is the start of that feeling.

Late 2021, my professional coding journey began. Doors began to open for me and at the same time, new challenges introduced themselves. How was I going to cope with the creeping imposter syndrome? Or the impending lifestyle creep of a completely new-to-me work-from-home style of working? Rocky starts.

Two Years of Code - Part Two

When something promising comes into my life, I latch onto it like a turtle to its shell. An introductory course introducing basic languages such as HTML5 and CSS3 showed me that coding was not so difficult and it, in fact, could be used for so many different use cases. You could build a funny looking animation, a CSS-only painting or an entire website from scratch. The course provided by Juno College, simply called “Introduction to Web Development”, was also my first time trying something new in a completely remote environment. This was a great thing for me at the time due to my crippling social anxiety.

Then came the Web Development bootcamp. Juno’s promise of a promising career path was appealing, if not crazily expensive. A three month course that could show me all of the up-to-date tools that I would need to attain my first actual job as a developer. I worked my butt off for those three months, learning all kinds of neat skills such as APIs, React and SaaS. I, along with a few dozen of my classmates, were feeling on top of the world. We had all built multiple projects that were previously deemed by most of us to be completely out of our skill ranges and it was invigorating to see our names attached to them.


I wish I could say so many things to myself post-bootcamp. The months following the completion of my three-month endeavour at Juno College were mentally draining beyond all measure for me. Gone were the days of accountable deadlines and code-reviews every other day. Gone were the days of getting a project done every week. Now I was only held accountable by one person: myself.

My career search specialist assigned to me was only able to do so much. She would touch base with me every week and try to set goals such as applying for five jobs a week, or sending out intro emails to two employers of interest. I found myself dealing with a crippling sense of option paralysis coupled with feelings of self-imposed existential dream as I often do when left to my own devices. After June of 2021, I spent months applying to maybe a few dozen jobs a month aimlessly, until one day my career search specialist stumbled onto a job post and applied on my behalf.

In April of 2021, I had decided I needed a break from working in retail/customer-facing environments. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, my anxiety regarding social interactions had skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. Coincidentally, a past friend of mine had manifested themselves back into my life and told me about her experience working with code. A feeling of intrigue caught onto me and my life hasn’t been the same since.


Two Years of Code - Part One

Hey. Welcome to my new (third iteration) site. I am very proud to announce that, not only am I still alive, but doing much better than I ever thought I could at this stage in my life.

Every year has a theme and I usually don't realize what that theme is until the year after. Well, this year I'm writing in this blog to take a hard look at the failures, victories and lessons of it all.

A year ago today I was just moving into my new apartment on the west end of Downtown Toronto. At the late age of 27, it finally felt right for me to move out on my own to a place that was somewhere new and exciting, but also maybe dangerous. And no, I don't mean dangerous as in deadly, but dangerous for someone who, if I am not careful, can live to be shut-in who only talks to people over discord and playstation voice chats.

I wanted to force myself to get out of my shell a little, get to know people in the neighbourhood, and maybe become part of a community. With a little help from my friends, I was able to do just that. I got to know my neighbours, who are the loveliest people, quirks and all. I got to know business owners in surrounding neighbourhoods - somehow managing to keep their heads above water despite all the nonsense that 2020 and 2021 brought to them.

I also got to live my dreams a little bit, in the form of seeing some of my bucket-list bands and artists such as:

I got to see my best friend get married to the loveliest person. I met with several friends who have always been a part of my life regardless of the distance between us. I have been shaped and changed by their presence, each and every one of them.

That was indeed a year. The highs were incredibly high, but not without the obligatory lows that one should come to expect with an incredibly chaotic existence. This was my 2022.

2022 In Review

I came to this show mostly unfamiliar with Lingua Ignota’s discography. During my road trip from Toronto to Vancouver Island last year, I took time to listen to her newest record, “Sinner Get Ready.” Unfortunately, my dad didn’t like her singing much so I had to turn it off and her music slipped through the cracks since.

Fast forward to 2022, I saw she was touring through North America and took the plunge.

Lingua’s first set was a series of traditional hymns. She was perched on the top left balcony of the church, under which I sat so I couldn’t see her much. After the first song, she quickly took to the grand piano and performed the rest of the hymns with a powerful vocal performance.

A short intermission and then she took to the stage for her main set. What followed what a magnetic performance; a practice of physical restraint in her limited movements, but an emotionally open wound being opened and simultaneously healed. There were moments of rage, hurt, and pure violence in her voice at times. At one point she walked into the crowd, right into the middle of the church and screamed her heart out. You simply couldn’t look away.

A purely unique performance experience I will never forget.

Lingua Ignota (AKA Kristin Hayter) performed in Toronto on December 19th, 2022. The venue was Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church, a first for me personally.

Lingua Ignota @ Trinity-St. Paul's Church - Toronto, ON

Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you my fascination with Nine Inch Nails borders on obsession. I credit my entire fascination with music to my exposure to their 2008 record "The Slip". A friend from school had asked me to rip a CD of their digitally released album and bring it to him. Luckily, my gut told me to play that CD in my dad's car on the way to class and something just hooked me.

Fast forward 15 years later, I've gained a lifelong obsessed.

My fascination with the band spans a wide array of records from Trent Reznor and fellow collaborators such as Ilan Rubin with The New Regime, Saul Williams, Joshua Homme from Queens of the Stone Age and Atticus Ross' film score work, but I admittedly had very little knowledge of the band's early days. Something about the way this particular show was marketed told me that this would be a very special occasion, but I had zero knowledge of just how much context I was missing. 

After driving six hours to Cleveland the day before, I woke up around 9am the day of the show to be one of the first in line for what I can only describe as one of the messiest venues I've ever been to: Blossom Music Centre. With only a single tight road leading inside and a strict "NO LINE-UPS BEFORE 5PM" rule. I, along with most of the fans on the band's official Discord channel, were confused as to when we should all show up to the venue to get a good spot in the floor area.

A fellow fan of the band that I had sold a ticket to offered to drive me there around noon just to get a sense of how things were gonna be. We ended up in a parking lot about a five minute drive from the entrance to Blossom. There were about twenty other intentionally-dressed Nine Inch Nails fans there waiting with us. 

For the next four to five hours, we all just hung out. All the new faces would normally scare the crap out of me, but I knew we were all there for the same reason and that gave me comfort. I got out of my shell and talked to as many as I could. One of them said that he slept in that parking lot overnight and that this would have been his 80th or so show seeing the band. Myself and a few others all found out we had tattoos dedicated to the band so we all took a picture for the hell of it.

Fast forward a few hours later, I manage to snag myself a spot front-and-centre. The excitement I feel is beyond anything I have ver felt before. Everyone in the crowd is speculating what kinds of surprises we are in for.

Cue to the first opener: Nitzer Ebb. Like I mentioned earlier, I knew very little of the influences that helped Nine Inch Nails formulate in the first place so this was an eye-opening experience for me to say the least. Nitzer Ebb, a two-man act fronted by Douglas McCarthy on vocals and Bon Harris on synthesizers. The synthesizers and vocals both sounded larger-than-life, bringing together a sound that was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was hard not to dance.

Ministry was the next act. I could not describe in words just how loud they were. Despite my ear plugs, the crunching bass and screeching guitars blasted through my ear drums. Al Jourgensen on vocals stared daggers into the crowd whilst (somehow) soaring above the instruments. I cannot recommend enough that any heavy metal fans out there see this band given the chance.

Finally, Nine Inch Nails took the stage. Their set started with the electrifying opener, "Somewhat Damaged". The crowd was on fire as we all screamed in unison: "WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?" Their set continued the frenetic drumbeats of "March of the Pigs," followed by the singalong highlight "Piggy".

They blazed through some of their greatest hits before fog overtook the stage and Trent Reznor took to his keyboard to play the iconic melodies of "The Frail". This song normally is proceeded by "The Wretched", however, instead we all started hearing the familiar sounds of an eraser; a prelude to a track not heard in years.

The fog on the stage was so dense that you could almost not see a single instrument. It was so overwhelming that the backstage crew managed to sneak in a second drumset belonging to none other than Chris Vrenna, an previous member of Nine Inch Nails from the late 1990s. Vrenna introduced himself by playing the opening drumbeat to the song "Eraser."

The song's hypnotic rhythms were almost overshadowed by the incoming introductions of several other band members: including Danny Lohner, Richard Patrick, and Charlie Clouser. The crowd's reaction was simply indescribable. We were seeing people who were all formative members of Nine Inch Nails onstage together for the first time in decades, alongside the current members of the band. 

All nine members of the band blazed through a 6-song set of classics such as "Sin", "Wish", and "Gave Up", while also including a first-ever cover rendition of "Her Man, Nice Shot" a cover of a song by Filter fronted by Richard Patrick. As the band finished with "Head Like A Hole", I couldn't help but simply stand there sweat-drenched and in awe of what I just witnessed. I was definitely not the only person feeling this way, as I had just witnessed history.

I left with a smile that just wouldn't leave my face for the next month.

Eraser (+Clouser, Lohner, Patrick, Vrenna)

Gave Up (+Clouser, Lohner, Patrick, Vrenna)

Hey Man Nice Shot (Filter Cover) (+Clouser, Lohner, Patrick, Vrenna)

Head Like a Hole (+Clouser, Lohner, Patrick, Vrenna)

A reunion for the ages: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Alessandro Cortini, Robin Finck, Ilan Rubin, Charlie Clouser, Chris Vrenna, Richard Patrick and Danny Lohner; all on the same stage together for the first time.

Blog

Two Years of Code - Part One

Two Years of Code - Part Two

2022 In Review

Lingua Ignota @ Trinity-St. Paul's Church - Toronto, ON

Nine Inch Nails @ Blossom Music Centre - Cleveland, OH