Pressing play
In my writing titled “pressing pause”, I talked about taking some time off for myself. It’s been good to be able to take time for myself, my family and take into consideration what I want to do in my life.
While during my time off I’ve been pretty quiet, I have also been really busy. I thought I’d do one of those “What I’ve Been Up To” posts and list some of the things I did during my time off just in the Fall of 2014:
- Spent loads of time with my family.
- Caught up with close friends.
- Finally achieved reaching level 99 of Bubble Bobble.
- Read some inspiring and motivating books.
- Cleaned up the “project piles” around my house.
- Attended the 2014 Girl Develop It Leadership Summit in NYC.
- Spoke at 2014 Frontporch.io in Dallas, TX.
- Spoke at 2014 BlendConf in Charlotte, NC.
- “Lightweight Django” book launch hosted by Caktus Consulting Group and Girl Develop It RDU.
I have also been helping lead the effort in launching the Girl Develop It website re-design. While my role did include some developer work, I mostly help steer the project towards the finish line and keep it on track. We successfully launched February 16, 2015 and pull requests are always welcome!
In January 2015, I started working as the interim Director of Project and Community Engagement at CodeMontage, a web platform dedicated to helping coders improve their impact on the world. I’ve had the pleasure and honor of working with Vanessa Hurst and Courteney Ervin to help connect non-profits and their open source projects with new contributors. It’s been a truly rewarding experience to work on such an important goal and with such an amazing group of women!
Throughout all of this time, I’ve spoken with several employers and colleagues about working with them. After figuring out and prioritizing my career goals, I am thrilled to announce that I am starting a new chapter in my resumé. But I’ll leave that for another writing.