Poetry??

Yes, poetry.

So, being a blogger during my three months at Hackbright didn't work out for me so much as working my butt off building an app that detects signs of human trafficking in sex ads did. There's more to come on that project, on my experience at Hackbright in general, and on my soon-to-be-adventures in finding a job that is well suited to my interests.

But for now, I'm leaving this here, mostly because I don't know where else to put it, and also because this whole crazy-wonderful Hackbright experience has me feeling especially thankful for the wonderful people in my life, both past and present, who have supported me, inspired me, and enriched my life in ways I can't really describe.

This poem has been rattling around in my brain (read: hard drive) for a while, and in an effort to start actually sharing the things I creatively produce, here it is.

Happy holidays, all.



Untitled

You let me in to your windswept interiors.
We built fires and doctored the world with the sounds of our dancing.
We scoured the stratified earth where we overlapped, and found stones that we fashioned into shrines for the demi-gods of our skeletons.
There were mollusks and coral and fish teeth
And stars and craters and sandstone

And we were surprised when, time after time, the pieces shrugged into magnetic fruition.

Flecks of rhubarb and Alaskan Fireweed
Alongside guitar strings and pixels and flattened pennies.
We even strapped on roller skates and took the whole tapestry for a spin.
And it blinked and twirled like a great constellation.

Sometimes it was heavy on our backs,
And other times it was the only thing between us and the biting cough of winter.
But most nights, it was a great, ever-expanding canopy
or a sail
or a wing
or a net.

When we were far apart, the whole thing became an antenna
We would each hold an ear to the far corners of the tapestry,
And emit amperes of signal to each other
All the while warming the world between us.

By the time we whittled our desires into entirely different shapes,
You had already built me a coat of clicks and whispers
And of rhubarb and roller skates and stars.

So in some unknown desert, under some unknown sky,
when I flip up my collar to keep out the cold,
I’ll still be able to hear the faint signal of your reply
The way that wind is silent
until it has a tree to breathe through
or a door to slam
or a sail to catch.

BLOG REVIVAL!!!

After many years of school, work, and completely changing as a human being, I'm reviving this blog from 5 years ago to record my current adventures into the worlds of computer science and computational linguistics.


Please disregard the previous creative writing posts, unless you have a beer in hand and want to drink it in the shower while crying, like I just did.


Anyway, I am in my late 20s, I have an AA in English and a BA in Linguistics, and have halted my intended path through academia to attend Hackbright, a software engineering program for women in San Francisco.


Right now, I'm looking for a career that will play into my academic interests while also allowing me the freedom to live wherever there are climbable mountains, canyons, boulders, or whatever other rock face-types I'm forgetting. Because, you know, I haven't lived in my car as a full-time climber bum yet (kitty in tow), and since my main goal in life is to embarrass my parents, this seems like a good option for me. Hello, new career, where my office is a car outside a coffee shop, stealing internets!


If you're not bored to tears yet, read on!


My interests include linguistics (computational, anthropological, archival), natural language processing, machine learning, and the like, and I want to work in industry for a while (you know, where there are living wages and maybe even free time) to refine my knowledge of programming before maybe possibly someday applying to grad school. Isn't this post-grad uncertainty thing GREAT?!


At any rate, to my audience of zero, on this blog I'll be linking interesting articles/videos/media on computer science, cats, rock climbing, and ladies-in-tech stuffs while also chronicling the more mundane aspects of my journey (like the joys of finding rental housing in the San Francisco area). So this will be basically a school-diary. Hi, me! Hi.


To begin, here is a totes fab article on what I'm getting myself into called Programming Sucks: Why a Job in Coding is Absolute Hell. It's the programmer's version of Taylor Mali's rant on "What Teachers Make", except less optimistic and filled with snowflakes, hellscapes, and cat urine. Strangely, this actually appeals to me.


And if you're not excited enough by now, please watch me make an ass of myself with a ukulele on YouTube and find joy in knowing that at least that's not you.

So thank you for making it this far. Internet hugs to all!!!


Also, for those of you Hackbright applicants who may be reading this, if you have any questions about the application process, or what Hackbright is like, or if I ever get a job and how you might too, etc., please find me on Facebook, and we can private message about it.


Cheers!