What is your name?
My name is Ian Chenoweth
Where do you live?
I'm currently based in Valparaiso, Indiana, U.S. for university, however I am originally from Peoria, Illinois.
What would you like to share about your Job?
Currently I'm a university student studying Political Science and French. I will be in Washington D.C. this Spring for an internship while taking a few classes there as well. I also do some work as a Research Assistant for the school's political science department studying bias incidents in northwest Indiana and their reporting in local newspapers.
Any pets?
I currently only have one pet, a cat named Biscuit. He was rescued by a family member on their farm after his mom and siblings did not make it (they were all "wild" barn cats). My great-grandmother bottle-fed him when he was smaller than the size of her hand and took care of him until she moved and her new location could not accommodate pets. My family took him in after that. Now he is a great big cuddly ex-barn kitty :)
When did you start watching/playing LOL?
I started playing League in 2016 with friends from high school. They actually started a few months before me, but I stubbornly refused to join them and learn the game because I thought it would be a passing fad and they would quit as soon as I had learned. I eventually gave in and started learning the game. I had only played for a little bit by the time the 2016 world championships rolled around. One day, when my friends and I happened to be hanging out in Discord, we realized that the 2016 world finals were on. We all tuned in and watched it together. We knew absolutely nothing about the players or how to play the game "correctly," we just knew SKT were the favourites to win so we were rooting for Samsung Galaxy as the underdogs. Watching that with friends is one of my favourite gaming memories to date, and it catalysed my interest in League of Legends. After that, I started watching the LCS and was an Immortals fan in 2017. When the league franchised in 2018 and Immortals left the league, I followed a lot of the players to Team Liquid, and have been a TL fan ever since.
What do you think about the LOL community?
To me, the League community is something that brings a lot of people together. My friends bonded for years playing League together, and since most of them have stopped playing frequently it has allowed me to meet a variety of new friends to play games with. When I went to college in 2019, I tried out for and was able to play for my school's first ever League team. I was Gold 4, however since the school is small and the program was brand new that was still plenty good enough to get on the team. I became really good friends with a lot of people on the team and it gave me a place to belong on campus right from the get-go. Building the program up with my peers also gave me something to strive towards, so that people could continue to enjoy playing League at the school together even after I was gone. Even though there are a lot of issues with League and some parts of the community, at its core it is and always has been a video game meant to be played and enjoyed with friends. None of the people I play with have ever seriously pursued being high-elo or going pro, so the atmosphere and games are almost always light-hearted and fun. To me the League community represents a world-wide group of individuals who share a common desire to play games and enjoy themselves. I think it is amazing to have at least one thing in common with millions of people around the world.
What are your other passions? How do you like spending your time?
Apart from League, I spend most of my time either reading fantasy books or doing various tasks for our university's student government. Currently I'm trying to work my way through The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a book series I've been reading since high school, however schoolwork has shortened my available pleasure reading time. I also stream from time to time as a hobby, however it is difficult to keep a consistent schedule while also going to school. It is one of the things that I most enjoy doing, however, so hopefully in the future I can carve out some more time for it at least semi-consistently. I am an avid coffee fanatic and one of my favourite things to do is to read a book at a small local coffee shop. There is a place in my hometown that used to be an old two-story house on the main street that was transformed into a coffee shop; it's extremely difficult for me to keep myself away. I also play other video games in my free time. I tend to bounce between games semi-regularly. In the past I've played games like MTG Arena, TFT, Europa Universalis 4, Hearts of Iron 4, and Minecraft for a few months at a time before moving on to my next game fixation. League has always been there as something I enjoy playing with my friends, though.
Thank you for sharing your story with me Ian - even though you are a TL fan. Lots of Love LeicesterLadyPerkz xxx