I.
Fifth grade
Every time my teacher called on me in fifth grade, I froze. Sometimes I hadn't been paying attention. More often I was just too shy, already running through every way the wrong answer could make the whole class see me differently.
So I said the same thing every time: “Uhh.”
It came out long and flat. One day my teacher started calling me EKG, after the heart monitor that draws a flat line and holds a single tone when a patient's heart stops. No words. Just the line.
No words. Just the line.
II.
The quiet years
The nickname stuck, and so did the feeling behind it. For years I was insecure about the way I spoke. I second-guessed every sentence before I said it, and talking to people I didn't know took more out of me than it should have.
School never really clicked for me either. I wasn't the student with the best grades. I was the one who went all the way down the rabbit hole on whatever I cared about, and let everything else slide.
The hard part was that most of what I loved growing up didn't come with a clear career path or a secure future attached. I had the curiosity. I just didn't have anywhere for it to go.
III.
A spark
Then I started working with AI workflows. I found prompt engineering, kept going deeper, and something clicked that never had before.
Prompting is about choosing your words carefully: saying exactly what you mean, in the right order, with nothing left to guess. I had been doing that in my head since fifth grade, rehearsing every sentence before it left my mouth. Here, I finally had the time to get the words right.
The same habit that made me freeze in class turned out to be the skill this work needs most.
The overthinking finally had somewhere to go.
IV.
Self-taught
No one sat me down and taught me any of this. I learned it the way I've always learned the things I care about: by searching online, one question at a time.
Every time I got stuck, I looked it up, tried what I found and kept going until it worked. Web design, development, security, marketing, how to write a prompt that says exactly what I mean: all of it came from searching, testing and coming back with the next question.
I'm self-taught, and I'm proud of it. I went from not finding the words in class to teaching myself how to build for real businesses.
Self-taught, one search at a time.
V.
Building for real businesses
Building websites with AI turned that curiosity into something I could put in front of people. Since then I've built for real local businesses: a matcha and espresso bar in La Mirada, a learning center in Fullerton, a chef-driven café in Anaheim, and a classroom app for teachers, students and parents.
Along the way I learned what a website actually has to do for a business. A first-time visitor wants the menu, the prices and the hours before deciding to come in. Photos have to show what a customer will really be served. Small details, like an open-now badge or one tap for directions, decide whether someone walks through the door.
That's how I started learning marketing: one detail at a time, from people whose livelihoods depend on getting it right.
VI.
Why I kept the name
I could have left the nickname in fifth grade. I kept it, because the line means something different to me now.
Somewhere along the way it stopped being a nickname. Today, more people know me as EKG than by my real name.
An EKG doesn't only show a flat line. Most of the time it shows a heartbeat: steady, alive, moving forward. This site opens with a single line that draws my name. The line that once stood for having nothing to say is now the first thing people see of my work.
I'm still learning, and that's the part I like most. I want to keep building with AI, keep helping local businesses look as good online as they are in person, and keep getting better at the details.
EKG
The line isn't flat anymore.