How did it get to 2012?

Hello I'm Stephanie. I'm writing this blog mainly for myself, to record my experiences in words and photos. Will tell you a bit about myself so you know who I am!

 Firstly I am half Japanese and half English, lived in UK all my life and speak, read and write both languages. When in England no one can really place where I'm from and in Japan it's the same. Hawaiian, American? No, just stuck in between 2 cultures... I grew up wanting to be a spaceman, or woman should I say. Then an inventor, a writer, a dancer, singer, actress and a photographer. None of which is where I am now! I change my mind easily, I am impatient.... I want too much from life but don't do enough to fulfil it!
I left college wanting to be a graphic designer but due to not having any art qualifications no one would accept me. I took a year out instead and worked in a clothes shop.
Before I became a full time bum, I went to Uni to study information systems and design. The biggest thing Uni taught me was that life experience is the best experience you can have. I don't remember anything I learnt at Uni. I got into debt, had fun and met a great friend. She found me on day one thinking I was different. Like me, she obviously didn't want to conform to the norm.
I graduated from Uni and had 2 job interviews. One with a an extreme sports filming company as a cameraman/editor. The second with a Japanese bank in the city. I chose the boring option. I wonder what my life would be like now if I'd gone the other way.... I was with a bilingual agency and told them I wanted an interesting job! A bank..... Really?! I travelled Europe for 2 years promoting and training the internet banking software and improving my Japanese until the agency rang me again with an "interesting" job, involving travel. Yay! It was with an F1 team. My dad used to take me to Goodwood, Brands Hatch and Silverstone to watch V8's and bikes so I was quite excited. I started there in 2006 and decided that my goal was to eventually be part of the race team. This proved to be difficult. There were no females on the race team unless you are in hospitality or marketing and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to play with gadgets, computers and other geeky stuff! It seemed to be a "mans world" which made me even more determined to get there somehow.... 2 years later I wasn't getting any further although my inexperience was now turning into knowledge. There was talk of us relocating 2 hours away as the team were pulling out of F1 and being taken over. At this time someone I worked with gave me a newspaper cutting of an IT job at another team. I got the job and started in 2009. I worked on the help desk supporting all the companies under the umbrella company, each appraisal mentioning that I wanted to go racing! Still getting nowhere...

I missed being creative so at this point took up photography. I bought a 2nd hand Nikon D50 off the intranet and started taking photos of everything and anything I could find. Annoying everyone around me with a camera in their face. Although I don't like taking posed photos. I like the animosity of taking a photo of unawareness and capturing an interesting image of a usually boring setting. I then dropped my camera... Luckily my friend was selling his D300 so I bought that and was off again. I started working in my spare time for a fashion photographer as her assistant. She taught me a lot and it was fun learning how a photographer worked. She tried to persuade me to quit my job and go full time but I didn't have the financial backing to take a step back right then... I then decided one day I would but I needed to start saving. Save money while you can so you can do what you want, when you want. My mum always told me that. I didn't listen. Mums are always right.

In Jan 2011 I was asked if I wanted to go testing. I thought I could do this for a few years, get experienced and then eventually make it on the race team! So I shadowed my patient colleague for a month and then we were back in the office. Testing wasn't as easy as it looked. Long hours, lack of sleep, lots of responsibility and having to get off a plane and going to work. I was knackered! Back at the office I was pulled into a meeting room and asked what I was doing for the next month. They needed someone to learn the race team job should the race team guy leave. I then found myself learning the garage setup in Spain and then flying to Monaco with 4 others to set up ready for the rest of the race team to do the GP in Spain and come over. Canada.... And the. I found myself taking over and alone in Silverstone. Due to it all being so quick, I was unaware of how much I didn't know. Therefore wasn't as scared as I was a few races in when I realised what I was doing and where I was!

Looking back, I don't know how I got through it!! I know it looks like IT just rock up, plug in a network cable, turn a few things on and off and everything magically works just like your USB wireless router at home. It's a little more complicated than that! I wish it was as simple! Would make my life easier! The amount of data, software, hardware and user issues is far more than I expected! So at 30 I managed to get to where I wanted to be. I paid off my debts and saw a lot of countries! Albeit with work. I am still learning every day, there's always new things to research or finding ways to make things better as well as the usual problems! But in this environment, if there's a problem it needs to solved... yesterday...
It can be quite hard because being in IT everyone relies on you without realising. You don't get any time to yourself and 5 people can have a problem at once and all be asking for your help, each and every problem as important to them as the other. Patience and multitasking is key in this game! With any IT no one really notices IT until something goes wrong so it looks like we are never doing anything. Believe me, in the background there's a lot going on which may not be obvious!

Now I'm 31 and it's 2012... This year has already proved to be a difficult one. Testing for 4 weeks and then straight to Oz and Malaysia took its toll on me. I had lots to think about and a lot of negativity. So now I'm taking a time out before China and getting my head together ready for China and the rest of 2012!
Let's see where this journey goes!

I may not have gone where I intended to go but I think I have ended up where I needed to be (Douglas Adams)

Me on a private beach in Langkawi