Community Spotlight Btenkink

In addition to being a huge fan of The Escapist and a sometime songwriter, you might be surprised to learn that in the physical world Btenkink is a 24 year old Vancouver resident working towards his Masters in Microbiology. He’s no Canadian native, though, having spent the previous 18 years of life growing up in Northern Nigeria. Writing tunes is, according to him, a great aide in the study of Secretion System Characterization, whatever that means! Besides playing games, studying science and performing music, he dabbles in a little Aquaponics system creation. We had a chance to shine the Community Spotlight on him, and here’s how he answered: What first brought you to The Escapist? What did you originally want to be when you grew up? What’s your favorite current feature on The Escapist? If you had to eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? What’s your best Escapist memory so far? What’s your favorite bad movie? Would you rather have no long term memory or no short term memory? What is your favorite color? Do you have any other songs you’d like to share with us? A shout out… I’ve done others for zoology, marine biology, biochemistry, and organic chemistry. They are all on a playlist on my youtube channel: www.youtube.com/btenkink Also, having spent 16 year in Nigeria I speak the local language Hausa fluently (one of over 400 languages spoken in that country… most useless foreign language to know outside of northern Nigeria). Every now and again I’ll do a song in Hausa. The last one I wrote was about the coming of the rainy season: “Ruwan Sama” is Hausa for “rain”, literally translated it’s “water from heaven”. For me music as well as gaming will always serve as a balance to the stresses of needing to earn a paycheck. I have a ton of respect for people like Gavin Dunne who can do music full-time or Susan Arendt who can spin a career from gaming, however once the de-stressor becomes the stressor for me this is when life becomes un-livable. To that end I hope to game and make music till I die, thus enjoying its power to balance and enrich an otherwise hectic Western lifestyle. If you would like to nominate someone for an upcoming Community Spotlight, feel free to let me, Nasrin, know through a PM or by posting in the official thread or user group! When nominating, please tell us why this user deserves to be in the next Community Spotlight and provide links if possible.