Data structures and OOP are not enough to be successful after graduation.
Hacky, scrappy, piece-meal, I’ve cycled through all of these adjectives to describe my non-traditional CS degree. It’s not that I didn’t have a quality education; on the contrary, I think my CS degree is the best possible amalgamation of knowledge I could’ve hoped for. When I was a freshman, however, there wasn’t a computer science major at my college. By the time I reached the last possible day to change my major, CS had just been approved as an official major by my college.
Throughout my 4 years, I took a slew of classes taught for the first time and…
Why quarantine has forced us to obsess over our emotions
I was chatting on the phone with one of my good friends a while back when she explained:
“I don’t know why, but I keep thinking about my ex-boyfriend. He’s coming up in my dreams, I keep wanting to reach out. And meanwhile, I feel confident in my new relationship. Should I reach out? What’s wrong with me?”
We talked it over for a while. I commented that I was also feeling a strange pull to old flames in my life, debating reaching out to them. I thought about who I was when I was around them, free to travel…
What I’ve learned from 10.5 months of having my office in my home
I’ve always dubbed the place that I live “my hovel.” The label makes me and my friends laugh. When I feel that where I live is a hermitage, it becomes a home. In my hovel, I have a bin filled with knitting and needlepoint materials, a wall plastered with my sketches and drawings, a bed where I have rested deeply at the end of long days and tousled in anxiety on the difficult ones.
In March of 2020, a new visitor arrived at my hovel for a stay: my office. At the time, I did not know how long this…
The ‘Tok was my rock
I typically live and work in Washington, DC. I have a group of friends there; we all went to college together, graduated in the same class, and wound up living in the same city shortly after we graduated. Over 11 months between our graduation in May 2019, and the start of the pandemic’s lockdown in March 2020, we all became close, bonded over our shaky starts in a new city, with big kid jobs, living independently. We all share a group chat, which has helped narrate each person’s change in residence. Me staying with my parents in Jackson, Wyoming, another…
And how it introduced me to myself
I feel like many of my friends don’t realize that I was a big theater kid for a large part of my adolescence, but they’re all definitely aware that I’m 1) highly dramatic and 2) deeply introspective. So, I decided to dedicate a post to my short-lived career as a thespian, and how it led me to develop such *charming* behavior. Really, how it taught me to know myself. Let’s start at the very beginning.
My foray onto the scene
The first play I was ever in was a production of the children’s book, Anansi The Spider, and I played the lion. The production was…
The fascinating, complex, and exclusionary sport that says a lot more about our society than you may realize
I don’t know about you, but I spent this weekend listening to the new and EPIC Miley Cyrus album, Plastic Hearts (especially the title song), while I skied, and contemplated the elitism underpinning the sport I love so dearly.
Skiing makes me happier than almost anything else I’ve ever done in my life, and learning to ski and being a part of its associated community has shaped me into the person I am today, for better or worse. I ended up talking to a “liftie,” (a young man who helps people on and off of ski lifts) and said:
“There…
Do not go gentle into that dark night
Chris, the subject of this post, is one of my dearest friends. Today is his birthday, and this story is my gift to him.
Chris and I have been as thick as thieves since the day we got to know each other, and this story is one of the earliest recallable instances of us getting up to no good. That said, it is nowhere near the last time we did something nefarious. I should note, though, that the exact timing and circumstance of our friendship’s beginning is hotly debated. …
Stories of my dad continued…
I really hate blackbirds, and I’m starting to think it’s linked to this story.
I actually specifically hate red-winged blackbirds. I used to be attacked by a barrage of them each morning on my walk towards Northwestern University. They were nesting, and they tend to be very aggressive. They often landed in my pile of curls and scratched my head, or worse, tried to peck at my students as they walked to my class. They have what I like to call “little shit energy.” Maybe that’s why my dad felt compelled to shoot one.
In November of 1998, I was…
Throughout college, I collected many of what I call “lovers,” sometimes also referred to as “suitors” of mine. And what I mean by lovers and suitors were boys that I casually interacted with on a somewhat regular basis who I liked, and who would never find out that I liked them. Most of them ended up being good friends, and most of my objectification of them was just in good fun. A little practice to pad my ego, to make it easier to accept that I was really just a little too insecure to make a move.
My dad is such an excellent human being, it makes me feel exuberant just sharing his energy with others, which is why stories of my dad have become the foundation of many of my friendships. I’ve always felt that sharing these stories with others ushers them into a fabulous little club of inside jokes, cigars, and Laphroaig. Sort of like walking into the clubhouse in Caddyshack, elevated and somewhat exclusive, yet utterly ridiculous. A club where everyone feels like an ace.
I wanted to start a series where I tell some of the more ridiculous stories I’ve heard or witnessed…
