About

You know those kids who know exactly what they want to do from childhood? Those kids who declare, "one day I'm going to work with cars!" And then go on to become a mechanic?

I was not one of those kids.

It was something that I struggled with quite a bit when I was in school. Why were we expected to know what we wanted to do in life from the age of 14? How could we judge by the age of 17 what we want to sink thousands of dollars and years into in higher education? Some know; some know exactly who they are or who they want to be. I envy those kids; I would change my ideas on an almost weekly basis. However, most of the ideas revolved around the arts, especially when I was younger. In particular, I always dreamed of being a published author.

However, those plans changed when I enrolled in a Certificate III at my local TAFE in IT. Now, I’d always been…fascinated by technology. I always wanted to know more about it, though I must admit that, as a child, I didn’t really understand it. There was just something about tech that drew my interest. In the 90s, tech was very different to how it is now. My first computer wasn’t a computer at all, but a word processor. No, that wasn’t anything to do with Microsoft Word, but rather, a device that was dedicated to that function only. Think something like MS-DOS, a command line interface with nothing else. The second computer my family had boasted only 32mb of RAM. Yes, I am that old. It was due to this fascination that I enrolled in the Cert III, though if I’m being honest – I didn’t think I’d be very good at it. My thoughts, at the time, was “at least I’ll find it interesting.”

However, I loved it. This was back in 2012, so I was a fair bit younger then. On completion of the Cert III I realised that what I really wanted, career wise, was to work with the police – QPS – in an IT capacity.

Things…didn’t exactly pan out in that sense, so I went for further study. Even now, over 10 years later, I still have that dream. The likelihood of it ever becoming a reality is very slim. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve given up on the idea of working in the IT field. At the moment, I’m unemployed – but as of January 2026, I’ve started studying once more. This time, in a specific field of IT: Cyber Security.

My life has changed a lot since I was that person who first studied the Cert III. In some ways, it's almost unrecognisable. I don't think I'll ever be able to work with QPS anymore - my health just won't permit it. But I still love tech. I still love art, and writing. Along with this website, I also run Cooper's Quill, where I explore pretty much anything that comes into my mind. There, anything goes.

I'm Louie, and I'm The Broke Tech. Join me in my tech journey where I live to explore, learn and experiment!