What happens to the people who shaped you — after the bell rings? catchiNG Up is a reflective podcast where educator Peter Ng reconnects with former students, colleagues, and friends to explore who they were, who they're becoming, and what they've learned along the way. Because learning doesn't stop when the bell rings. Want to be featured? linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast
catchiNG up: Beyond the Classroom
Claim This Podcastby Peter Ng
5.0(4 reviews)
19 episodes
Updated Daily
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Podcast Overview
What happens to the people who shaped you — after the bell rings? catchiNG Up is a reflective podcast where educator Peter Ng reconnects with former students, colleagues, and friends to explore who they were, who they're becoming, and what they've learned along the way. Because learning doesn't stop when the bell rings. Want to be featured? linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast
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Publishing Since
3/7/2026
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Recent Episodes
July 23, 2026
Episode 18 - Lifting Through the Setbacks
<p>This week on catchiNG Up, I'm reconnecting with Zach Nelson — someone I first crossed paths with back at Nike, where our timelines almost overlapped. Zach's now a store manager at a medical dispensary, and we spend this episode tracing the road that got him there.</p><p>We open by swapping Nike stories — Zach started at the St. Augustine store back in April 2010 while he was still in his second semester at Flagler College, and I share my own experience working the massive Orlando I-Drive location, including my brief career as an in-store "hype man." We compare notes on just how intense Nike's brand culture could get depending on which store you worked, and why the Orlando flagships operated on a completely different level than smaller outlet locations.</p><p>From there, we dig into Zach's path from retail into dispensary management, what that industry actually looks like day to day, and how a recent promotion has let him start seriously attacking old debt. We also talk candidly about the toll of a demanding pre-IB course load in high school, why he made the call to step back into regular honors classes, and how that decision — which felt like a setback at the time — ended up being the right one.</p><p>The back half of the conversation turns to Zach's return to powerlifting after years of setbacks from back injuries. He opens up about what it's taken to get back in the gym, the competition he's training for now, and what it means to chase PRs again after feeling like so much time was lost. It's a real look at what patience and rebuilding actually look like.</p><p>We close things out with our signature growth question — and Zach's answer, that growth is simply being able to look back and honestly say "I'm better than I was," is exactly why this episode is called what it is. Growth isn't always linear, and Zach's story is proof that setbacks aren't the end of the road — they're just part of it.</p><p>🎧 New episodes every Wednesday. Clips every Friday.<br>📲 Follow us on Instagram: @The_catchinguppodcast<br>🔗 Linktree: linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast</p><p>#catchiNGUp #GrowthIsntLinear #Powerlifting</p><p></p>
July 15, 2026
Episode 17 - The Girl Behind the Screen
<p>Some students you never forget — even the ones you first met through a computer screen. In this episode, Peter reconnects with Jandayra "J" Gonzalez, a former student from the strangest chapter of teaching either of them can remember: hybrid learning during COVID, when a class of masked faces and Big Blue Button tiles somehow turned into one of the closest groups Peter ever taught.</p><p>J and Peter look back on what it was actually like building a real connection through a screen — the guesswork of imagining what your classmates looked like under their masks, the "social wild west" of a group chat full of kids who just wanted someone to talk to, and the surreal moment they finally recognized each other in person for the first time.</p><p>From there, the conversation moves into where J's life has gone since: working her way through Seven Brew as a barista, learning to drive for the first time as a young adult, moving to a brand-new town where she knew no one, and slowly finding her footing as a Writing and Rhetoric student at UCF.</p><p>The two also dig into J's quiet, ongoing relationship with creative writing — from a secret poetry account she deleted in high school to the writing she's only now getting comfortable sharing again.</p><p>As always, we close with our two signature segments: something we each learned today (this one involves tooth enamel and a Mitski song played 203 times), and the advice J would give her past self if she could sit down with her — a reminder that most of what feels catastrophic in the moment usually isn't "the ruin of England."</p><p>A conversation about screens turning into real relationships, chosen versus given community, and figuring out who you are once no one's watching anymore.</p><p>🎧 New episodes every Wednesday, clips every Friday.<br>📱 Follow us on Instagram @catchingupthepodcast for behind-the-scenes content.<br>Growth isn't always linear — and neither is figuring out who you're becoming.</p><p></p>
July 8, 2026
Episode 16 — Andres Valcarcel: Engineering Dropout to Serial Entrepreneur, Ironman Grit & the Nostalgia Economy
<p>This week, Peter reconnects with Andres Valcarcel — a UCF classmate he shared math classes with 13 years ago — for a conversation that spans career pivots, entrepreneurship, endurance sports, and the search for meaning outside of a screen.Andres started at UCF chasing an engineering degree and walked away with one in finance instead. A connection from high school led him into the live event ticket brokerage business, where he learned to manage his own book of business, relationships, and inventory from the ground up. That early hustle became the foundation for what he's built since: he's now a co-founder of two companies, including a collectibles business spanning action figures, trading cards, and comic books, and Take Flight, a sports performance company gearing up to launch its own beverage line.Peter and Andres dig into the wild growth of the collectibles market — from a $10 billion industry six years ago to $75 billion today — and what that boom says about our collective craving for nostalgia and joy in an age of constant screen time and app fatigue.The conversation also turns to cycling and endurance sports, which Andres picked up during COVID as a way to process uncertainty and eventually built into completing a full Ironman. He opens up about the mental and even spiritual side of endurance racing, including a hallucination during the marathon leg where he saw a vision of his eight-year-old self cheering him on — and the advice that moment left him with: cheer harder for yourself, especially for the small wins.Along the way: e-bikes and responsibility, the last generation to remember life before constant connectivity, and why growth is rarely a straight line.If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who could use a reminder that growth isn't always linear.Follow us on Instagram @catchingupthepodcast for clips every Friday, and catch new episodes every Wednesday.catchiNG Up: Beyond the Classroom — where conversations continue beyond the classroom.</p>
19 total episodes available
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Frequently asked questions
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- What is catchiNG up: Beyond the Classroom?
- How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates daily.
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This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
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Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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