All things work together for good ...

"And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God."

      - Romans 8: 28

OK, I promsed that I would tell you about all things working together for good.

Once upon a time I was a teacher.  I was an elementary school teacher.  I loved it.  In those days there was a king in the land.  His name meant son of salmon.  He hated anyone who was smarter than he was, and, since he was pretty dumb, that covered a lot of ground.  (Since he was pretty dumb, they first made him education minister, and then king.)

He passed a law saying that teachers had to be paid less, and work more, and teach larger classes, and then caused about eleven thousand teachers to be fired. I was one of the first.

(Parenthetically, I should note that, prior to doing it, I never wanted to be a teacher.  Both my parents were teachers, and didn't particularly like it, and weren't particularly good at it.  Dad once suggested that I become a teacher so that I could put in the thirty years and then retire, which I thought was a poor recommendation for the profession.  But I became a teacher, and found that I'd been doing it for years, and that I loved it.)

I was devastated about being fired.  I went back home.  And I went to the BCTF.  They had started UTAC, the Unemployed Teachers Action Centre.  I started volunteering there, and, since I had started using the computer to teach kids, held seminars teaching unemployed teachers how to use the computer.

In those days the BC Computer Education Committee came to the BCTF and said that they had a seat available on their committee.  The BCTF, knowing nothing about computers, didn't know who to send.  But they knew they had this guy teaching about computers down in UTAC so they gave me the seat.

You will notice that it was because I got fired that I went to UTAC. And because I was fired and went to UTAC I got a seat on the BCCEC. 

While serving on the BCCEC, I was given an account on UBC's computer system, and then on SFU's.  Therefore I got on to the Internet (before it was called the Internet) when there were only about a thousand people there.

I was still trying to get back into teaching, so I looked into a Masters program for teachers using computers in education.  I had enough money to take the degree, but only if I could do it in one year.  I talked to the program head, and he said that, yes, it could be done in a year.  After the first (summer) term, I found out that, no, they didn't run any of the courses for the degree other than in the summer months.  The head said that I could take whatever computer courses I could find.  I had no pre-requisites for any technical courses, so that only people who would let me sign up for their courses were those teaching specialties.  So I ended up taking human factors engineering, and microprocessor interfacing, and artificial intelligence, and database management (which, to this day, I recommend that *anyone* who goes into *any* area of information technology should take), and other non-standard courses.  It gave me a pretty broad exposure to the field.

Because I was on the Internet, at that time, I started researching these new programs (new then anyways) called computer viruses.

Now, again, I want to point out, that if I hadn't gotten fired, I wouldn't have been at UTAC, and, therefore, if I hadn't gotten fired I wouldn't have gotten on the BCCEC, and therefore, if I hadn't gotten fired I wouldn't have gotten on the Internet as early as I did.  If I hadn't gotten fired, I would probably still be somewhat content, teaching kids in Kitimat.  I wouldn't have been desperate to take another degree, and I wouldn't have been forced to take all those weird courses.

Eventually, I was doing an awful lot of security consulting.  So I decided that I should take this test to see if I knew what I was talking about when I was talking about security.  It turned out the researching viruses was awfully good preparation for this certification, and the breadth of background I had from the Masters degree didn't hurt, either.  I got high enough marks that I was allowed to become one of their instructors.

I got sent to teach these preparation seminars all over the world.  I got to teach on six continents.

All of this took time, of course.  I got on to the BCCEC fairly quickly.  But it was another five years before I started researching viruses.  And it was another 15 years before I'd done enough security consulting to think that maybe I should take this exam.  And then it took me about another 10 years to realize that, yes, I was doing an awful lot of teaching.  In an awful lot of different places.

But eventually, because I had been fired from teaching (and specifically because I got fired), I got to teach on six continents.