Official Start of GSoC

It’s just after midnight (Sun/Monday AM)

• I’m building my project for GSoC and working on it since about 9pm. I really like these hours; I took a nap in the afternoon, after watching puffnfresh’s stream: he got the flowers to work and collision to work, even though there is a bug when Sonic is moving downwards, in that he seems to move up and then down. However, so far, so good. We were also ported to a Haskell station today, where the streamer immediately said “nooo! Don’t raid me!”. Pretty funny. He was working on some Codewars challenges (one particular one involving wallpaper) at the time.

In a few hours

• I have a welcome call with the mentors and organizers of Rust Reach. 5am, to be precise. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll take a brief nap or just work through until the call yet. But if I do take a nap, I have to definitely set my alarm to be up for that! I’m excited, though. Should be fun!
• I also have to go to an office for an afternoon interview, and unfortunately, with traffic, that means I’ll have to miss class today. My professor was nice enough (at midnight) to tell me the files I need to look at to be able to do the assignment. And I’ll have part of Wednesday if I have any questions or am stuck. The particular assignment is in Ada.
• After that, I have a GSoC meeting with my mentor (the other mentor is unable to make this particular meeting), and right after that, I have another meeting with a different group for Rust. So quite a busy day!
• It looks like I should be able to make my meetings, though. So I should be OK.

Update

• Our first guest for RustReach was BOATS!!! So exciting! I also attended the second session, and our guest was Arshia! She’s currently in NY, and Boats was in Barcelona. I also got to see Lee on camera. I had no idea he worked as a cartoonist before he got into tech. Neat! Ashley is really great and works really hard so that we have a great experience. I really respect that.

However

• I’m pretty happy to say that I have a lot of time to dedicate to GSoC and Rust. So after Monday, I’m pretty much just working on my projects.

Update

• I had the most AMAZING day today. Even though I had little to no sleep, I couldn’t have asked for a better day.
• I made the pull request, which was merged, so I’m going on to making changes and adding a new constructor and making sure it type-checks for GSoC
• I’m also learning Rust from the Rust Book! (the newest version!)
• I have an ADA assignment to do (that may have to wait until Thursday, as I have so much momentum for Haskell and Rust right now!)
• I had an onsite and I really liked the people, and they’re local. The people I met really made a strong impression on me. I guess I’m looking to align myself with people who have similar values. So mentorship, good quality and teamwork.
• Lastly, at the end of the day, I was reimbursed for my I/O costs via a Women Who Code travel stipend. It means a lot to me.

I was telling my mom

• So I was telling my mom tonight that I feel really supported and so grateful to be in a community of people who really want to see me succeed. I’ve never really had that in some of my endeavours. Okay, so I had people who would say they’d support me, and then they just weren’t there. It was all talk. A gentleman I spoke with today even told me that my experience working in the past was super-valid and valuable. I downplay the plethora of experience I have working. I’ve worked about 200 jobs either freelance or full-time. I’m not even joking. But I don’t put it on my resume, because I’ve changed so many resumes. Along the way I’ve picked up a lot of skills and have maturity but I often don’t think it’s relevant, so I’ve excluded it largely.
• Even in school, I went to school and worked three jobs the entire time. I worked behind the counter selling tacos at one point (haha in a school that was 5% international and 2% minority), then stuffing and filing envelopes in the Admissions office, then testing and checking equipment, and even scanning slides for professors. Oh, and in my spare time, when I wasn’t in class, I’d also check other students’ resumes and help them apply for internships. That was sort of my life. I’ve never had time to watch a movie or anything like that (I still don’t own a television), because I was just (and still am) working all the time. That’s sort of been my life in the US. Finally, it’s beginning to pay off. But it’s been just a lot of work, so I’m proud of my work ethic. An artist friend of mine who has been successful once said that he was the worst in his class, but he told himself “Maybe I’m not the most talented, but I can work the hardest.” I really relate to that. To me, work presents opportunity when the timing is right.

GSoC

• I had a great session with Gabe and Chris today, also. They are just stellar mentors; I hope I have the pleasure of having their mentorship for the rest of my life. Gabe admitted that he actually didn’t have it all figured out, which was really inspiring, considering how highly regarded he is by the community. It was just really great hearing his story and how he was able to work through everything and get to where he is today. Often, we don’t hear about those parts. I guess it isn’t as interesting to most, but for people like myself who are starting out, it makes such a difference because we are struggling and we never see the struggle in those we look up to. So we assume they never had to or never did.

So tomorrow

• I’m going to continue on CodeWorld, and get into some Rust as well. I’m really enjoying just being home and working through everything. My parents had a bout of dengue but they’re better (I know..sounds terrible..they’re really OK), but I’m really looking forward to checking up on them tomorrow, after I get some much needed rest!

Cheers!