About Aquanica.NET

The birth of Aquanica.NET can be dated back to 2003, when the domain was gifted by a handful of then-young, budding web-designers from a young web-designing community. This would mean I was about 14 years old at the time. It only lasted for a year, however, since I was unable to pay for it on my own. Prior to and after the creation of Aquanica.NET in 2003, I was offered free web-space from other web-designer domains and became quite nomadic as each domain would shut down for various reasons.

In 2010, after finding that aquanica.net was no longer parked by some random marketing company, I decided to repurchase the domain again. I decided to do this for various reasons, which included the desire to have a web-space of my own, as well as for business reasons. My blog, Voukah, was preserved and moved onto this domain. It is still currently active.

Why so grey?

I guess you can say I can be easily stimulated. I like grey shades and subtle colours, and have never been a fan of garish. Could it be a sign of melancholy? I guess it depends on the day of the week!

About Franky

me

Writing a personal profile in first-person is awkward.

I suppose I’ll start with the basics. I’m currently a registered pharmacist stationed in a community pharmacy in Ontario, Canada, with a Bachelors of Science in Pharmacy (BScPhm) from the University of Toronto. My core interests in pharmacy include compounding, psychiatric and herbal pharmacy, and I hope to ultimately pursue a career in the aforementioned fields. I also have interests in quality improvement in health care and research.

I have also been a part of some groups, such as IHI and CAPSI (to name a few from the top of my head). I am also currently under commission for CBRNEcc and Cyclica Therapeutics.

I’m also a bit of a gamer that had quite a fix of playing various games, like MMOs and whatnot. Yes, this does include League of Legends. People remembered me in high school as the guy that obsessed over Final Fantasy games.

I like listening to mostly ambience, deep house, classical, jazz/blues and downtempo. I’m a long-time fan of the SomaFM radios (particularly Groove Salad and Beat Blender), and I’m a big fan of Boards of Canada.

I used to play trumpet and french horn, but I’ve put music on a bit of a hiatus throughout pharmacy school. Maybe I’ll pick those up again some day.

In terms of web-designing, I started when I was about 12 years old. I have always had a weird obsession with computers since we got our first home computer when I was 6. Rather than going outside to play or go out with friends, I always liked “fixing computers” (which is literally composed of me waiting for Windows to finally croak with some weird error and me figuring out what was wrong with it) and reading about them. Family would always look to me when there was a computer problem for whatever reason, and I ended up being more-or-less an impromptu computer technician throughout elementary and middle school. I still have that little quirk in me every now and then, but I later discovered in high school that I liked chemistry that much more than a bunch of wires and motherboards.

Throughout it all, however, I decided to keep pursuing web-designing. It had a relatively low time-commitment requirement (since I already learned the language anyways), and I found that it was quite useful in many school projects in high school and university. On top of that, it seemed like the only means in which I was able to “express” myself. In other words, it was the only way I was able to channel any form of mental energy I had in my brain in a healthy and non-self-destructive way. It was also an excuse for me to write in a blog with mindless babble and things that bothered me. Helped me from throwing tantrums, to say the least.

Web-designing had other perks too, I guess. I was able to get involved in a bunch of groups and whatnot without having to be over-the-top sociable and having to speak like a airhead in a group of other people talking about wanting to make their school club more awesome so they can apply to med or pharm school. I’m also one hell of an introvert. I just joined clubs because I wanted to design something, to be quite honest. A part of it wanted to “advertise” and build up my portfolio. The other faint part of me found it really fun to do. I guess it’s the esoteric nature of web designing that appealed to me the most.

susp Above all, you wonder, why the in the world did I pick pharmacy over being a web-designer?

I guess it depends on what you think is the lesser of the two poisons. Would I rather sit in front of a computer, programming for the rest of my life and creating designs for people that already have an idea what they want their design to look, or would I rather get yelled at by 100 patients per day about their drug insurance and check over 300 prescriptions per day? Neither of them sound all that thrilling. But when you bring out what’s the most important part of your job: creating beautiful, captivating designs or saving someone’s life with the smallest changes, I was fixated on saving lives. Web designing, when done professionally, seems more flamboyant than a life-saver that people call their “glorified pill counter”. I guess I needed something to fulfill my masochism more.

My personal life? That’s none of your business, my dear fellow.

Social Media Junk

Yep. I’m around. The only places I allow the public to view are my LinkedIn and last.fm accounts.