Just a quick post to let you know that I will be participating in Ada Lovelace Day on March 24th. I will be writing a blog post about a woman in technology or science who I admire, adding my voice to thousands to celebrate the achievements of women in those fields. If you would like to do the same, go to Finding Ada and add your pledge!
As a feminist, a gamer, and someone who is planning on entering the field of Information Technology, the role of women in technology is important to me. I hope to help bring attention to the accomplishments of women in tech and to let the world know that women are just as capable as men in any field.
If you’re wondering who Ada Lovelace was, her Wikipedia page can tell you better than I could. In simple terms, she was the first computer programmer, female or male. She wrote programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a prototype of a computer that was never built.
I have a few ideas of who I’ll write about since there are several women in tech I look up to, but I haven’t settled on anyone yet. This is the first time I’ve participated in anything like this, being a newbie blogger, and I couldn’t be more excited!
I guess I should note that I identify as a feminist, and gender issues are important to me, so it’s inevitable that I will mention things in relation to gender issues on this blog every now and then. This is a personal blog, so I’ll write about things that are important to me. However, I don’t plan to discuss gender issues on a regular basis, especially when there are plenty of people who can do a far better job of that than I could.
1. My trip to New York with the boyfriend. Adam is from Syracuse, NY and most of his family still lives there, so in early February we packed up his car and drove 13 hours to visit them. It was freezing cold and there was so much snow! Being from the south, I hadn’t seen that much snow in…well, ever! I did two things for the first time on that trip: rode a snowmobile (so much fun!) and went ice skating (and spent more time on my butt than my feet). The trip is also memorable and important to me because it’s when we got our dog, Jude. We adopted him kind of on the spur of the moment, but we both wanted a puppy and we had been researching breeds for a while. Plus, it was Adam’s birthday, so we decided it would be a gift for him. Jude has turned out to be the best, sweetest little dog we could have asked for and I’m so glad we brought him home with us.
2. The entire month of October. I spent that month making sure I got the most out of it. Halloween is my favorite holiday and I wanted to go all out for it in 2009. So I recruited Adam, my sister, and her fiance as my Halloween buddies and planned all sorts of fun stuff for us to do. We went to a haunted corn maze, picked out the perfect pumpkins at a pumpkin patch, saw a midnight showing of Paranormal Activity, made Halloween cookies and caramel apples, attended a fall festival, went on a ghost tour, and listened to spooky stories around a bonfire. The best part? When it was all over, my sister told me that she and her fiance had a blast and they wanted to do it again next year. I have high hopes for October 2010 now. It’s going to be even better!
Movie I Enjoyed the Most: Inglourious Basterds. Characters like Aldo Raine and Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz are not easily forgotten, and neither are Quentin Tarantino’s dialogues. Star Trek, Up, Coraline, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are worth mentioning too.
Music Albums That Got the Most Plays from Me: It’s Blitz! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day, The Listening by Lights, The Fall by Norah Jones, Monsters of Folk by Monsters of Folk, Dragon Age: Origins Soundtrack by Inon Zur featuring Aubrey Ashburn, and Give Up the Ghost by Brandi Carlile
