I turned 39 today, so I guess I am a 39 year old woman now. That’s one of the many things I am.

I am a partner, a cat lover, a friend, a reader, an engineer and a steward of engineering teams.

I am someone with an urge to write and share what I write. And I am someone who struggles with writing and is terrified of sharing the output.

I am persistent and I am hopeful. I keep trying. Slowly, I get better.

Written in response to the prompt “In no more than 100 words, explain who you are.”

I read Leadership and Self-Deception thanks to a suggestion from Dani, my coach.

It’s a quick read, written in the “business parable” style, where a point is made through a story – in this case, an engaging but somewhat cheesy story. In Leadership and Self-Deception, the main character spends a couple of days at his new job learning about, you guessed it, leadership and self-deception.

I sit up in bed a moment after my alarm goes off. This is a tiny habit I’ve been cultivating for a week now: sit up and get out of bed when the alarm rings. It is starting to stick.

Dancing with Fire (John Amodeo) was recommended to me by the kind Eric Couillard. The core message of the book is that we should not confuse the buddhist idea of non-attachment with disconnecting ourselves from relationships and other people.

Management for Cannibals (Asher) came highly recommended by a trusted colleague. I was excited to read it and did so during a short flight from San Jose to Portland.

It was a quick read, and occasionally almost elicited a chuckle. However, on the whole the book feels very weak – there is just not that much actual content in it. I am giving it 2 out of 5 stars and do not recommend it.

Han Solo popped up in my Amazon recommendations. It caught my eye me because it’s written by Marjorie Liu, whose Monstress I absolutely loved.

The first volume of the new Black Panther reboot is my first completed book of 2017.

I am not a huge fan of Marvel super-hero comics, but I’m always curious about comic books by interesting authors. A graphic novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates certainly qualifies as intriguing. I was not disappointed.

2016 was the first year that I took the Good Reads reading challenge.

I’m suspicious of New Year resolutions. They tend to be overly optimistic and, thus, unrealistic. And unrealistic resolutions lead to disappointment and self-blame.

At the same time, I’m a fan of goal-setting. So in early 2016 I thought, well, what if I take the challenge, but with a modest, easily-achievable goal? And so I signed up for the Good Reads challenge, with a goal of 25 books for the year.

Turns out that was a very modest goal, indeed.

Maybe?

I’ve blogged on and off since 2003. That’s about thirteen years. Sometimes the posts flow easily, and sometimes not so much.

The first thing I had to learn when leaving Google was how to find a job.

Back in 2005, when I was about to graduate from college, I didn’t get the chance to develop any job-searching skills. Instead, my first full-time job found me. Someone referred me to Google, a recruiter contacted me, interviews were organized, and I got a job offer.

I was terrified at the time. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have a purely technical career (I’ve always had a strong interest in organizational behavior and management of development). I didn’t think I would fit in the computer-geek paradise that Google marketed itself as (I didn’t code in my free time, I didn’t contribute to open source, I wasn’t a “real hacker”). But I didn’t have anything else lined up, and I thought it would be madness to reject a perfectly fine job offer without having an alternative. So I accepted.

As a consequence, when I quit Google I had to learn to find a job. This is how I went about it.