Personal Hygiene and Other September Amusements in Shanghai

I licked a stamp at the post office, only to find out I had to use a brush in a container of glue provided at the counter. China rookie.




Public service announcements are full of cartoons, and the rule-breakers always look super mean.




I thought these perma-handwarmers on a scooter were clever.




There are bicycle and scooter repairmen sitting at a lot of corners, just waiting for your misfortune.




I thought my backpack was big. Maybe it looks like that on me.




Dog in a backpack (for realsies).




Big puffy coats are being advertised as sweat drips down our faces. Also, on a bride?




I was so excited--a Target in Shanghai! Turns out this mall just likes circles.




This is the most peaceful study area at HULT International Business School Shanghai. (Side note: Michael was elected for HSA.)




We had our first wedding anniversary. A disastrous attempt to bargain at a fake market meant I showed up at Michael's school with a pot of flowers and a piece of chocolate vanilla cake.




Finding the tepanyaki place we were going to eat at to celebrate our anniversary was also disastrous, so we ended up at this really good Japanese restaurant.








The food was really good.




This is where Sunday services of the LDS church are held.




A nice entrepreneur we met brought us to the Shanghai 2013 Design, Art, and Fashion Festival. I didn't actually get to try the Ethiopian food, but just the prettiness of their setup made me like this place.




I watched this woman physically haggling pedestrians and was so glad I was not out there.




It never ceases to surprise/amaze me when a well-dressed woman suddenly reveals a full armpit of hair. The stereotype is that European women don't shave their armpits, but it looks to me like not shaving is far more normal here in China.




Check out this guy's fingernails. I see a lot of men with super-long fingernails.

A lot of men also will make this really loud, nasty sound and then spit a logie (sp?) onto the ground--sidewalk, street, wherever.




Somehow it's also normal for men to wear pajamas in public.

And finally, I've been too shy to get a picture, but when the weather is hot, many men walk around with their shirts up so their stomach can get some air. I keep telling Michael that I'm going to do the same just to be funny, but I don't really want to show my stomach.




There are so many impoverished-looking shacks and people, with a background of prosperity.




I'm sure glad that last sentence is on there, because I had no idea that water is the source of life.




Clever customer service at Carrefour, a favorite grocery store for many HULT students.




This poor bride seems to have collapsed on her wedding day.

Inspiring Reactions to my Listserve Email

I received over 200 emails and tweets and LinkedIn messages as a result of my Listserve email last week (not to mention the plethora of birthday messages I received on Facebook!). I've loved hearing from people, especially since the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I thought I'd share my favorite parts of some of the messages.

From Katie of http://katality.com/: 

I think getting into development and engineering is a great way for a woman to be a builder and creator in all types of businesses.

One man just wrote and said that when he talks about SQL and bash scripts, women aren't interested. I basically said, "Well, if they knew what those actually were, maybe they would be."

Maggie kindly wrote: 

I'm a bookkeeper for a restaurant group, which is not necessarily a male-dominated industry, but your note really rang true and shed light on an upsetting truth about gender roles. I could go on, but my main reason for writing back to you is because, contrary to what you may believe, I think you're a terrific writer. Your note flows in a way that effortlessly leads the reader through your story.

Emily's story: 

I went to college for a Bachelors of Fine Arts. My parents both encouraged me to take computer classes, I refused every time, because when you are 18 - 22 you know everything :) Once I finished my degree I went into crisis mode - I had no idea what to do next. Again my parents encouraged me to take coding classes at a local university that offered day long classes. I did. I learned, and I loved it. I got my first job as a receptionist at an advertising firm, I showed up everyday and one day I got the courage to tell our developer and IT manager that I knew how to code. I'll never forget those men, they changed my life by taking a chance on me. The told me to show them some work, which I did and with in months I was on their team. I've been victim to the "aren't interested" faces, I've been told by good friends that they 'zone out' when I talk about work, which hurt, but it doesn't make them bad people and it has challenged me to be more clear about my work.

From Malena:

I am currently a senior at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing and am SO proud to be a woman in tech. I was lucky enough to know by the time I started college that technology was my career passion, but for so long in middle school and high school I almost felt compelled to hid these interests in fear that they weren't "cool." 

Martha from Nairobi wrote:

I'm a 19 yr old Ruby/Python/Clojure hacker from Nairobi, Kenya. I consider myself really fortunate that I was exposed to it when so young, and I think more girls NEED the same exposure - I have something cooking for them! :) And not just for Sub-Saharan Africa girls, but globally.

From Tim: 

I've been trying to do something similar in my life. The hardest part for me is to not treat failure as the end of the world, but as a guidepost on the path to success.

From Syl: 

I just graduated from college less than a year ago. I studied psychology and economics because I tried the biomedical route and found out that I was terrible at chemistry. I thought I wanted to be a psychiatrist because my own had helped me work through some problems. I wanted to be a writer, in public relations, in HR, because that's where women were. 

A turn of events placed me in a sales job that i hated. I asked that they move me to marketing and . . . they did! But something is still in the back of my mind. During my terrible days as a phone salesman, I found a company looking for an entry level web developer. They were willing to train, and only preferred previous experience. I was excited at the idea of a career change. A new life, a new job, a new interests.

My boyfriend told me I wasn't focused enough. He wasn't trying to discourage me, but he reassured me that I was good at writing. I had a wonderfully exciting personality that should be at the marketing department. 

I dropped it, and these days I rarely think about it. Until I read your email. Working in Silicon Valley, the tech stuff is everywhere. Maybe tomorrow, I will have forgotten about this new-found determination. But at least for today, I'm encouraged. 

Maybe I'm not such a good, concise writer after all, because what I mean to say is, thank you.

From Skip: "Why didn't you find your path earlier? [Because] When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

From Shannon Harrington: 

I currently recruit engineers for startups and personally strive to encourage more females who are freshman in college to make that leap or jump if they are really enjoying the work in their CS classes. GO GIRL! Glad that you found your niche and I wish you the best of luck in your new job post HackBright! If you know of anyone who is looking for awesome work at exciting startup companies feel free to send them this link as these are the companies that I work most closely with: http://www.baincapitalventures.com/startupacademy/.

From Trevor: 

Seems that you were soo close to staying in the rut. Damn cool you broke the pattern and are doing good with that experience. A dad of a 7 year old girl.

From Max: 

It was heart-trying to read your story of the series of unfortunate events, and I cheered for you at the end, when everything started clicking. Good for you! Congratulations!

From Nick:

As an ex-Mormon, it made me happy that you had the courage to drop the M-bomb and mention your religious affiliation in an email to thousands of strangers. If there's any blowback, hope the ignorance is transparent, and that you can shrug it off.

From another Nick: 

I completely agree that technology is often a difficult place for Women to work, I think everyone wins when we have more of a gender balance.

From Kyle: 

I slaved through school thinking I was going to be a Professor of Comparative Literature.  It was what I always assumed I'd be.
But I stumbled into a job with a small niche software company, and I fell in love with it.  I started at the bottom, and worked my way into the development team.  I also braved several pay raise negotiations.  (They're harrowing aren't they)  It's funny how companies tend to pay you what you think you're worth, and you just have to realize what you're worth in the first place to make them see it.
I was just warmed to hear a similar story, and thought I'd say congratulations!  Where we end up in life seems to often be a process of surprises, and the end result is so often much better than what we first imagined.

[After I congratulated him for being the first man to tell me that salary negotiation is harrowing:] I wonder if most men don't actually feel that intimidation during the salary negotiation, or if they just feel silly admitting it.  My suspicion is that it's the second.  Men are supposed to be confident and self-assured, and it honestly hurts at times to admit when we're not.

But keep going with development, it's rewarding in many ways.  Especially if your company gives you the freedom to pursue lines of interest.  It's sad that women are discouraged from the work, because I know so many that would find it rewarding to themselves personally. Much like how there are men out there that I believe would be excellent in the nursing field, but feel pressure against pursuing it. 

From Allison: 

As a teenager, I loved web design and taught myself HTML and even made a few of my own websites. However I was never encouraged in this direction.  Like you, I took my studies and initial work experience in the direction of working in non-profits . . . perhaps becoming a social worker . . . doing something where I can "help people." Like you, I am an introvert, and discovered that I got WAY too much anxiety thinking about meeting with new people and working with them ALL the time. Then I stumbled into my job doing quantitative data analysis. I learned SQL, and have been learning Perl, D3, and JavaScript. I now help teach our internal SQL training. I LOVE it!! This is my favorite part of my job, and I am trying to find the best path to becoming a software developer. It is definitely intimidating, because it feels like the men in the field have been learning these skills their whole lives, whereas I am just starting now (I am 26). It is so hard to know how things will fall into place or will life will take me, but I am convinced that tech is the future, and I agree that more women should learn the valuable skills to enter these fields.
You may have seen this study on the bias against women in science, but it is fascinating and depressing and a call for change: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109"

From Amanda:
As a woman who's always been interested in computers, CSS, web theory, but never considered programming, your story seems uncannily similar to mine. I am a junior at NYU and just now starting to regret my English major--I wish I could have picked up programming, too.


From another Amanda:

People just don't think to encourage girls to pursue stuff like this! So what can we do? Maybe start by doing some presentations in local schools. I know in my career  I will have lots of opportunities to do outreach, and I want to make sure the time I spend on it is effective. Do you have opportunities in your job? I know  a lot of tech companies in the bay do value community outreach. Maybe you could negotiate with your boss to have a few half days a month where you can visit a local high school and talk to some math courses about your career.

Also, as women in stem, we need to stick together, even after we find our dream job. It was courageous and rare of you (as a woman) to make a counter offer for your job. Why are we so intimidated by negotiating? (yeah, that is a blanket statement but a mostly true one)

So lets add each other to our networks of women in male dominated fields who want to make our field more accessible to other woman, and sometimes just need to know that we are not the only women who love this stuff!

From Michelle:

Being a woman in tech, I'm around men who constantly talk about

google glass
football
basketball
porn
drinking (brogrammers, sigh)
hackathon after hackathon 

it's great fun! But after the tenth conversation about all the prizes they win at hackathons, I start to wish we could have some conversations about politics. Literature. Tv shows. Angelina Jolie! 

So reading your listserve email today--even just reading the subject line,which got straight to the point--made me extremely happy. It brings me a huge sigh of relief to know that there are cool women techies in the bay area.
Have you seen this website? http://futurewomanintech.com/

From Jon:

I graduated from university in Economics last year and have recently been toying with the idea of learning more about computers. I don't know any programming whatsoever, but I am definitely interested in having specific skills rather than just the "soft" ones! 

From Sam:

I have no technology background whatsoever.  I don't even own a smart phone.  Nevertheless, I am trying to forge forward on a bit of technology.

From another Michelle:

Firstly, from a personal perspective, I'm currently trying to retrain with an aim towards a tech based career. Like you I've spent years being interested in technology, have a tendency to surround myself with technology types. I've recently left my job running a policy department for a learned society, and am trying to work out how to do this.  

And then there is a second reason; albeit it linked to the first. I am passionate about diversity - in all ways. As a properly working-class girl with an abusive family from an area in the middle of nowhere in the UK, who somehow ended up doing biochemistry at one of the best universities in the world, I'm so incredibly keen to ensure to help remove as many barriers to inclusion as possible. One of the areas in which I focus is science, engineering, and technology . . . my areas of academic interest.

From Kelly:

On the 25th, I bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco, and am going to try to make it in the start-up world (as a non-programmer for the time being). I graduated from Princeton in June. As an undergraduate, I was fascinated by computers and programming (the idea that you could make your living solving puzzles is beyond fabulous), but the few classes I took in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science were entirely male-dominated. Even the class nicknamed "emails for females" was tough as nails -- it was taught by Brian Kernighan, one of the authors of C, and was about 80% men. To make things worse, I came from a very poor public high school with minimal math and science. My classmates had world-class educations and included Intel prize winners. Any time a group project would come up, I would struggle to get a word in edge-wise, and didn't take much away. The CS degree was out of my reach, but I liked logic, so I studied philosophy.  Fast-forward a few years and I still have a burning desire to be a programmer.  I tinker with online classes and Project Euler, but I feel like there's a barrier that's very difficult to break through without the structure of a curriculum and guidance of a dedicated instructor. 

From Sara:

I live in the Bay Area, and I am interested in changing careers.  I've always done jobs related to tech (I help manage a college website), but I never thought of myself as geeky enough to become a full-on programmer. After reading your email, I realized that it was kind of weird to count myself out of a programming job because I like people too much and lead a life with balanced interests.  Maybe that makes me a perfect fit for programming!

From Francine:

My name is Francine, I'm a brazilian 22 years old and - just like you - I work with IT. I like developing web, even I work with developing for PC. But reading your e-mail made me thinking about RailsGirls. It's a Ruby event for Girls learning a little about developing, but in the better way of learning - we learn doing some application in Ruby on Rails. Here, in Sao Paulo/BR, these girls work in several areas: IT, journalism, management, marketing . . . I was thrilled to see so many women developing useful applications for themselves and  empowering themselves with this tool that can change realities.

From Anne:

Glad you have found a niche in technology.  I spent about a third of my career programming (jcl, COBOL as well as SQL). 

My town does a Women in Science fair and Robotics events - you might work as a judge. 

Also, you can be a good example in your family and your church.  

From Dana:

I agree that it isn't promoted to girls enough, and we all need to know what a great option it is! I keep finding that the programmers I know are such happy, fun people. I've been thinking about programming for some time now as I try to find a new job, and I still am trying to figure out if programming could be for me. (I work in nonprofit fundraising, but I'm trying to transition to do communications -- anything with a positive social impact that's ideally a little creative. Which programming can clearly be!) 

Your email was really inspirational, and just now it made me turn to my programmer boyfriend and say "Hey, can I work with you on practicing web development again?" 

Clara let me know about her experience at Year Up, a "one-year intensive program that provides low-income young adults, ages 18-24, with a combination of hands-on skills development, college credits, and corporate internships."

Bill shared www.coderdojo.com with me, a free and open learning collaboration around the world.

Jim let me know about an analytics conference in San Francisco mid-April: http://www.emetrics.org/sanfrancisco/2013/

Mariel told me about an event being held in New York on March 19th called, "How Tech is Changing the Way Women Work." You can find more info about it here (and see the live stream):

http://www.thegreenespace.org/events/thegreenespace/2013/mar/19/wnyc-presents-how-tech-changing-way-women-work/

From Heather:

I'm trying to make my first feature film, a Sci-Fi Comedy.  It features an IT woman who saves the world via her tech savvy and intelligence. The hero is a tech woman! 

I feel portraying a woman like this in film, not as though she's an anomaly, but simply as a fact, is extremely important - as art and life mirror each other.  And as a female film director, and comedy writer - I feel there's not enough successful female directors or comedians in power.  We do see more and more successful females in comedy, but there are still so few female filmmakers on top.  Many female oriented comedies are directed by men. 

As I'm in my fundraising phase (it's an independent film) I'm hoping to reach out to women in technology and that community - as people who might be interested in my project. Perhaps you are linked into this world, or could connect me to people such as yourself who want to improve the image of women in technology? 

I want to thank everyone who has reached out. I loved reading and responding to your messages and would love to read more (my address is first and last name at gmail dot com). 

Networking as a Hackbrighter

Last week was a week of events. In San Francisco, coding is not just about coding. It is a whole culture. There are events almost every single night.

The week before last, we went to hear some women from Survey Monkey speak. The title of the event had the word "dinner" in it, but after an hour and a half of driving, we showed up to find that there were cheese and crackers. Kind of disappointing, especially for my friend who can only have gluten-free stuff. The talks were interesting, though. One woman talked about how when she travels with male members of her team, people automatically assume that he's the boss. Another woman seemed really witty, so I talked to her afterwards, and she told of how she accidentally went into an interview holding a half-drunk bottle of beer. She figured she may as well drink it, so she did, between answering questions.

Here's a picture of some of us at that event (if you look closely, you'll notice I'm holding a plant, which I got to take home with me):





















Then, on Tuesday of last week, I attended a Technovation event at Airbnb--more about that later. I do have to mention here that I perhaps a little too exuberantly met Angie Chang from Women 2.0.

Wednesday, we met our mentors--I was sooooo glad to be paired with the one I had hoped for (Julia Grace), and she's already affecting me positively--I've done pushups every morning since meeting her, because that was her reason for having good-looking arms. ;)

Thursday, we went to Twiliocon, a huge tech conference, where I started handing out David's Hackbright cards like crazy and ran into some people I almost consider my work family even though we've never officially worked together. I skipped the crazy, all-night party to go to a panel moderated by a Bloomberg correspondent named John Erlichman called "Tech Industry to Disrupt Status Quo of Women at Work?"--there they had real food (not pizza or crackers! Samosas!), and Michael and I were able to hear from these women:

• Kelly Steckelberg, CFO & COO, Zoosk
• Jamie Wong, CEO, Vayable
• Kimberly Bryant, Founder, BlackGirlsCode
•  Sepi Nasiri, VP, Women 2.0 
• Saroj Yadav, Sr. Software Engineer, Zendesk

There were great discussions and points. I was also able to talk to a recruiter there, and meet many women who wanted to talk about a comment I had made. I handed out even more cards.

Luckily for me, David was willing to bring more Hackbright cards on Friday, because on Saturday, I went to an all-day event called "Confident Coding" at Microsoft. I heard of so many resources new to me that I may never be able to close my zillions of tabs, and in return, I gave people cards and told them about how great Hackbright is. I also debated going to two different hackathons (this one especially because I'm passionate about transportation and because their website is so cool), but in the end, I wanted to learn during the weekend rather than sitting around wishing I could contribute.

Yes, learning coding for hours and hours and spending all day with people is tiring. But there is strength in numbers--these events refreshed me more than I thought they would. We'll see what the next weeks bring. I have so much more to say and so little time to even study . . .

If you want to know more about everyday goings-on at Hackbright, check out my Twitter feed, because that's where I am able to post on the fly. :)

I Want to Be a Dictator

Two things have got me looking for a reliable (and free) dictation device:

1. The fact that I'm digitizing all my old writing and schoolwork.
2. The fact that I've had chronic wrist problems for years.

Though Vlingo is aimed more at fulfilling short commands and messages, I tried it out, only to have amusing results when trying to dictate a story I wrote during elementary school.

Vlingo's version of my story:

I'm still wearing number 19 page I call myself a fine because it hide my family me you making that turn but I do it because my mother had 26 baby ps you get out best number one they'll bring camera to building number three so bored that I'm talking texting you probably have heard of my van will

The artistic presentation of my story:

Look at that wonderful handwriting. What in the world happened?

The text of my story:

I'm Silbur #19 pig. I call myself a swine because it hides my family name. You may think that's rude but I do it because my mother had 26 baby pigs and she went through the alphabet #1 Ailbur . . . #2 Bilbur . . . #3 Cilbur . . . etc. I'm a small pink pet pig. You probably have heard of my brother Wilbur. (the nice thing about it is I get good leftovers)

I woke up with a startle. I heard a racket. I was so scared I squealed and ran as fast as I could. I ran into something and it toppled over on me. I felt needles from the tree stab me. I squealed again and I peeked out from beneath the Christmas tree. I saw two black boots. I was trembling and bleeding. Then I heard a jolly voice say, “Are you alright Silbur?” The next second I saw a round, pink, jolly face looking at me from under a beard. He grabbed me and cuddled me. I couldn't tell what he was doing. The next morning I found some camoflauged band-aids on me. I was picked up and I squealed 'cause I had a sore rump. “You woke me you vexatious thing!” “Presents! Merry Christmas.”

If anyone has Dragon Naturally Speaking for Macs (or another dictation software) and they feel like giving it to me to try out, they are welcome to do so. (And that doesn't go for overly-generous boyfriends.) If anyone else feels like typing text from photos I've taken, let me know. Hee, it'd be like having my own indexers. Or maybe I could get some kind of philanthropic contract with reCAPTCHA.

Mr. Groundhog

Celebrate Groundhog Day by reading this fabulous story written by yours truly at age six or seven.

Happy Hobby Cards

I recently had the chance to meet a man named Allan Linde. He had clear blue eyes, endearing dimples, and it was obvious he loves people. See, here he is:




Doesn't he just look like the nicest guy? I ended up asking about how he had met his second wife and he told me how much he wanted to help singles find happiness the way he had. The next day, he showed me these awesome cards he'd come up with to help singles start up conversations or just to get people to smile (he has some great stories about doing so). He has thousands of these clever cards and he'd love to get the word out about them, so I promised I'd spread the word.

(I'm sorry that I kept them to myself in my bag for so long before taking pictures.)







Allan promised me that these cards would start a conversation and/or a friendship, and so far, he's been right!














Some unique invitations:










And especially for the woman who requested a card to turn down that overly-persistent guy:




Aren't these cute? Stop over at happyhobbycards.com and leave a note of encouragement for Allan! Or call him at (360) 671-1690.

Some Inspiration from Steve Jobs

"Sometimes, life's gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith." -Steve Jobs

Hamster Art

When I was (how old was I? I don't remember) some undetermined age, I decided I wanted to get a pet hamster like I'd had when I was younger. My grandma said she'd let me pick one for my birthday. At the pet store, I asked, "Is it a boy or a girl?" The store employee picked up the hamster, took a look at its parts, and said, "It will be a boy."

Will be? How strange. And how strange that we didn't really ask for an explanation.

That hamster was easy to name. He became Wilby.

A few weeks later, rushing out the door to piano lessons, I glanced into Wilby's cage. To my surprise, there were things that looked like maggots in the corner of the cage. My first thought was that I had just cleaned the cage and it couldn't have possibly bred maggots that quickly. Then I realized the wiggly pink things were hamster babies.

Wilby was called Wilbyetta after that.

I don't even remember what we did with the babies, but Wilbyetta produced quite the second brood later. Watching those babies grow was fascinating. I learned about separating parents and babies and did so by building elaborate walls for the many-leveled cage I owned. I loved watching their shading develop, and I even recognized personalities. Most memorable was the tiny one I named Boo. He would always get so scared when I opened the cage that he would cower in a corner, holding his paws in shaking fists. (Boo ended up belonging to my next-door neighbor, who loved him until the day he died of cancer. Really. Cancer.)

After the second brood, though, two things happened: there were more babies than we knew what to do with, and an obnoxious and seemingly strategic comment about the smell of hamsters given by a classmate one morning made me a little hesitant about my hamster hobby.

My family joked about giving the babies to someone with a snake. I think my mom was finally the kind one who asked the elementary school teachers if any of them would like to have a class pet.

All of this background information is so you can look at only a tiny sampling of the thank-you notes I received from the elementary school kids. Before I finally toss them, I had to share some of them with you so you can appreciate the cute things kids say and their awesome artistic skills.





(Than cuw=thank you, get it?)




(What an evil-looking, but tired hamster!)




(I just really liked this one.)




(So the teacher told the kids about the horrible ending the hamster might have faced. But isn't that a just-having-eaten lump on that snake? And why is there a dog but no hamster in sight?)



(Nice drawing! And you've gotta love the "hole" instead of "whole.")

Childhood Birdhouse Painting

I've always been proud of this dinky painting I did on a birdhouse for an activity day project. I guess for an 11-year-old it was pretty good, right?

Trophies

In case I ever have any desire to prove that I had these trophies, here it is:



(For practicing the piano, winning the district spelling bee, and learning a concerto.)

Look-alikes?

According to some cute girls in the neighborhood, I look exactly like this girl in a movie they love:











I can actually see my sister Amy in her, but it seems easiest to get a view of that by watching the video (yes, it's cheesy). Her part starts at about 20 seconds:




What do you think?