The past couple of months have been super busy at work but there were some things that I had commited to earlier in the year that I couldn't get out of. I came to the point of not wanting to be on the board of the women network next year. Thinking about power cords and water and transporting boards and printing signs and being nice to people who drop out at the last minute seemed so so so trivial and totally a waste of time when I had so much work piled up and people breathing down my neck for answers. Made me wonder if I don't have it in me to prioritize and balance everything. But I survived and pulled through.
We had the event last week, and I felt this surge of emotions, a sense of accomplishment at the event, I felt it was all worth it. And in fact this matters more than the piled up work may be. We had high school girls, college girls, professional women and women at work work on projects, make stuff. Along the whole 'Maker movement' theme. I saw this girl wearing a tshirt with blinking LEDs for eyes of a figure in her tee. She seemed soo interested in making stuff. Good contact to have. I met this person at work who works with Start ups in the Bay Area and works to see them through. I asked him a question which got him thinking. I plan to be in touch with him. Why leave the company when you can work with start ups from within? My aim is not to make money. But to experience the novelty of doing something from scratch and watch it grow.
When a bunch of high school girls came after and asked me if we would be having more such events I had to say Yes! We watched the groups work together, the high schoolers were so enthusiastic and in fact much better programmers, and innovators. I watched my fellow colleague teach programming concepts to the younger girls, it was heart warming and cute. (What is hard coding) In the end each team showcased what they made and everyone left home with a sense of accomplishment and having learnt something. It felt good. Very very good.
Work was there. People were behind me. Emails were unread. IMs ignored. But heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment. And then I knew why I signed up for it in the first place. All the headache and the time spent seemed worth it. My little bit to have more women in technology.
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Effect of this at home was I felt like I hadn't spent an evening at home with JSK and DH. We were supposed to go camping this weekend. I tell you somebody jinxed it. Fires in the lake county made us cancel our plans. I spent a lot of good time with JSK. All she asks for is some attention. She has taken to coloring a lot since she started in her new school. I have been sitting and coloring with her a lot. She loves it when I color with her. I am not good with crafts. I am not creative. period. We did some puzzles, we cuddled.
JSK's first movie happened to be Everest! She slept halfway through which was good since people started dying. She asked me ' amma did you go there, was there lot of snow and cold and windy?!' Yeah right. They showed like 2 minutes of the Base Camp Trek. :--P they had amazing shot of the two suspension bridges enroute. Ok movie. I cried. Not sure if those that haven't read Into Thin air will really like/get the movie. Next is The Martian! Cannot wait.
The picture does zero justice to the bridges but this is from my camera and it is special to me. We took the upper bridge while going up ( because lower one was under 'repair' much to my indignation) and lower bridge while coming down.
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