I grew up thinking I'd follow my father's footsteps in certain ways and become the engineering type. The world had other plans. I took great interest in the sciences from very early on, particulary space and cosmology—I absolutely love Timothy Ferris's writing.
You all know the story—from there I took a great interest in computers, became involved in this wonderful new World Wide Web thing, starting making web sites, learning HTML, designing them (I even took part in one of the "great" StarCraft fan sites: Shafe's StarCraft Source), getting sick of them. Linux caught my eye and I went for it. The meager design skills I had picked up with web sites led me to become involved in Gnome's Usability project.
Before I knew it I became self-educated in usability. Web site design was a good stepping stone, and I had had lots of experience with that. The world of Design intrigued me. I read and read and I participated in usability discussions with Gnome and all of a sudden the two collided with this little side interest I had in Jabber. *wham* (Sorry, I had to)
I made the user interface for a Jabber client, Dave Smith started the code for it, and it's history from there.
Returning to the concept of the engineering background, from the time I became interested in web sites it was already assumed that I'd be getting into Computer Science. I mean, why not? Well, to begin with, math just wasn't my thing. I didn't want to just program—this fascination with usability and design had taken its hold on me. At the same time I started learning bits and pieces of psychology. I took an AP Psychology class with one Dr Keough. I was in love (not with Dr Keough; with understanding how people work and designing for that). I was looking for Human-Computer Interaction.
And so here I am, a student of Cognitive Science and Human-Computer Interaction. I can figure out how people will be dealing with computers and make the computers do all of the hard work for the people—not the other way around. That is where I fit in.