Tai Chi, IT and writing
When faculty and staff seek help developing a program or Web site at the IU School of Education in Bloomington, they may find themselves later becoming the next villain in a novel.
At least if you have the pleasure of working with Ross Durrer, a part-time master's student in the School of Library and Information Science and full-time employee in the School of Education as a systems analyst/programmer. Besides creating custom Web applications or specialized grade entry programs, Durrer is a certified T'ai Chi Ch'uan instructor and a budding novelist.
"In 2005 I was jobless for a couple of weeks and had the time to sit down and just start writing," said Durrer, who had tried a short stint with the Secret Service in Indianapolis before returning to his old job for the University Information Technology Services. "I always enjoyed writing and just went for it."
By day, Durrer is a systems analyst/programmer specializing in project management and system design. This means he works with IU faculty and staff to develop programs, test how easy Web sites are to navigate, design computing interfaces and develop prototypes for systems. He has spent his entire career at IU, originally earning his undergraduate degree in criminal justice. It's also where he began learning T'ai Chi Ch'uan.
In his spring semester of 1998, while taking classes full-time at IU, Durrer began taking T'ai Chi Ch'uan lessons. Four years later, he was a certified instructor and today teaches classes both privately and publicly for the IU T'ai Chi Ch'uan Club. He also competes in tournaments and is traveling soon to Columbus, Ohio, for a competition at the Arnold Classic. And if that wasn't enough to keep him busy, he now also writes fiction.
His first book, A Cold Reception, was recently published through AuthorHouse Publishing and is available on Amazon.com. The book is about a contract killer from Virginia working in Europe. To write the book, Durrer drew on his experience as a reserve deputy marshal in Ellettsville, Ind., a job he held part-time while going to school and working for Indiana University Information Technology Services.
"But the main character uses guns instead of martial arts," said Durrer. "I thought it would be too difficult to verbalize the movements in martial arts."
Writing the book -- a process that took about two years from start to publication -- only whetted Durrer's appetite as a writer. He is working on two more books, and he has 13 book ideas bouncing around his brain.
"I hope to get my next book published by a big company like Random House," said Durrer. "But in the meantime, AuthorHouse is cheap and easy. It's great to see my story finally in print."
