Back from a break

I've been on a bit of a hiatus over the past month... So much has happened!! Here's the run-down:

(1) I finished Hackbright!!!

Our program ended about a month ago, though it still feels really fresh. I miss being with all the brilliant HB ladies & instructors every day, but carry the experience with me and am constantly using the lessons I learned there, programming and otherwise. Check out this short video of our career day -- the culmination of the program!

 

My project is still in "stealth" mode, so you won't find it on the web. Ha! Not really stealth, but I'm implementing unit testing and some APIs before deploying. It's a barter web app for businesses, and will be a valuable tool for us, friends who run their own bizs, and others, so it's gotta be solid when I launch. Wish me luck!


(2) I got married (again)!!!

What happens when you don't want a big, intense, emotionally-/financially-/life-draining "wedding"? You end up with 3 (or more) little ones! Whoops :)

Wedding #1 - June 9, 2013

A friend recently said, "It seems like you guys have gradually gotten more & more married over the past year." She's right! We had a religious ceremony + party last June for my husband's family, and a civil marriage ceremony in Oakland last December. Then this past month, my parents hosted a celebration for us back in NJ... Whew!

It still feels surreal to have had so many "weddings", since one of the reasons we hadn't wanted to do a whole big shebang was that we didn't want people making a huge fuss over us -- fusses tend to lead to stress, fights, meltdowns and such. But it turns out the people who love you most actually *want* to make a big fuss over you when you decide to spend your life together & sign a form about it. And because we had no major expectations, we left the planning to our families both times, which kept relations pretty chill. Luckily we both have awesome families, so have now had 2 awesome wedding parties; one on each coast!

Officially "married," at
Lake Merritt in Oakland
Dec 20, 2012

The most recent of the parties was on June 1st, also my dad's birthday! It ended up being a family reunion of sorts, with cousins, aunts, uncles & friends flying in from Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Seattle, Las Vegas & even Peru!! We felt so lucky, so blessed, so grateful... and we still do. We have so much love around us!

#3 - Dad's toast with the fam! June 1, 2013

There was barbecue & bluegrass, cupcakes galore, cousins & their adorable offspring, so much hugging & laughing. It took us a couple weeks just to come down from the euphoria of the weekend.

So finally I'm back in the swing of things. We've been smoking fish on our new stovetop smoker which is fantastic. I'm working on some code challenges and tutorials, going back in to Hackbright a few times a week, generally appreciating what life has to offer right now, and of course - always learning!

Bigtime Week 9

Another week is flying by and we're getting really close to Career Day (May 7)! Things are moving along pretty well with my project, though of course there's always going to be more to do on it.

For now, here's a flow chart I put together for a tech talk on MVC (Model-View-Controller) model in Flask. For those unfamiliar with the jargon, MVC is the architectural framework for the type of applications we're all building, and Flask is a web framework for implementing MVC.

Making it helped me understand all these moving parts and how they interact with each other; getting a firm grasp on these parts meant I was able to focus a lot more on writing my code and planning ahead... It feels great to have demystified one tiny little portion of web engineering for myself! Hope others might find it useful too.

On Intense Creativity & Building Things... Week 8 of Hackbright!

Curious. Driven. Thoughtful. Inquisitive. Funny. Irreverent. Brave.

I find myself repeating these words when asked about my colleagues at Hackbright Academy. Everyone is intense about something: traveling, tinkering, dancing, cooking; intensely critical, intensely ambitious, intensely focused.  We must be intense, otherwise we wouldn't thrive in this environment, where we set aside our insecurities to plunge headfirst into pursuing a dream once thought inconceivable.

Programming gives us an entirely new way to control our environments, in super-creative capacities. Suddenly, we all have new tools at our disposal. Suddenly, we can talk to machines in their languages and make them DO things we want them to -- and the ramifications of this newfound power are almost unlimited.

Arduino micro-controller, able to
communicate with lights,
cameras, motors & more! 

We've discovered that robotics isn't just for high-level scientists in research labs, and programming isn't just for tech-wizards who started in grade school. Today, affordable technologies like Raspberry Pi and Arduino, along with vast repositories of open-source software & project guides, enable anyone with a basic knowledge of programming and a knack for problem-solving to build nearly any practical computerized gadget they can imagine.

Raspberry Pi, the brains behind
the automatic pet feeder

So while I'm not about to construct an automatic cat feeder this weekend, I *am* already reading the instructions, checking out the code on github, and talking to my partner about how he can help with each step of the project. It feels amazing to know I can take control of my surroundings by building things that make life easier, more interesting and ultimately, more functional.

Leap motion controller

And in the past week, I've seen my classmates demonstrate 3D motion sensors, devise their own algorithms, instruct our teachers on new technologies, and encounter more "A-HA!" victory moments than I can count. What an amazing transformation from when we started! As intense people, we can be pretty hard on ourselves -- but it's clear to me that we've all acquired a new superpower. From "Hello, world" to "Watch out, world" in just 10 weeks!

Week 2 at Hackbright

After an action-packed weekend, I'm back at Hackbright for week 2. I'm definitely feeling more comfortable with the basics, but we're rushing right ahead into some fairly advanced (for me!) object-oriented programming, which leaves me on shaky ground.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in my class who's co-running a business and also working at a part-time job (tutoring) in addition to this course; it's probably not the best idea. If I had only one of those outside commitments, I'm sure I would be able to get a little more rest and rejuvenation over the weekends, but since I have both, they're making me a little crazy.

Today we worked on a source file for a maze-type game, which was really fun and challenging. It's exciting to be able to think of something I want to do and then work through how to make that happen -- and even more exciting when it actually does happen! Problem-solving can be exhausting though, and by 6pm I've been running out of brain juice.

This week, I resolve to go to sleep early. Gotta keep the brain juice reserves well-stocked.

Day 2 at Hackbright

It's been over 5 years since I've updated this blog, but here goes.

Today was my second day of class at Hackbright Academy.  It's a whirlwind! So many super-smart, ambitious and interesting women in one place. Already I feel like I've learned more than I thought possible in such a short time.

My brain seems to be adjusting well to the code mindset. It's been so much fun to work through the assignments and problems, and to see the various solutions that everyone comes up with. I can't help but compare it to food -- particularly recipe writing, which I have plenty of experience doing.

Both rely on a specific set of ingredients and tools, and a static code for telling the user how to combine those elements into the desired product. Good recipes, like good code, follow rules about syntax, order and logic. And just like in cooking, if you're writing code, the best way to tell if you did something wrong is by sampling the end product!