Journal AriaStar's Journal: Let me backtrack and introduce myself
I am Aria, 25, live in Mountain View, California, home to companies such as Google, and since it will probably be asked, I am single. But there is a difference between single and available. It's possible to be one without the other.
I am an analytical engineer, basically a fancy way to say I decide what's spam and phishing and program my company's software to recognize certain aspects of it, such as certain URLs, phone numbers, etc., to prevent it from going to out clients' inboxes. Sometimes I assign values to keywords into the Beyesian. It's boring as all hell, but it pays a nice full-time salary for part-time hours.
I didn't go to college. Before finishing high school, I had started my first company, a small business making movie gown reproductions, which later turned into custom designing. This is something I'll still do on the side soemtimes. At 22, I became a fathers' rights advocate after seeing what my then-fiancé had to go through to be allowed to spend literally just two hours per month with his daughter. I quickly rose to be on the board of directors of an international fathers' rights organization. Being a woman doesn't mean I automatically believe mothers are better parents. Not at all.
The following year I co-founded another company with said-then-fiancé, bonding transactions to increase trust in the online trading community, blah blah. When we broke up, I let him take the company. All he's done with it since then is to finish the trademark I started, but otherwise, he knows little about the company, so it's all but dead.
Technology has always intersted me. I like knowing how things work and making them work. Until last summer, I never had the chance to learn anything. Until last summer, the only thing I knew at all was that HTML stands for hyper text markup language. But what that meant was a mystery. Of all things, I started to learn HTML due to LiveJournal. It made sense there, so when I picked up some books, it was like second nature to learn so much more.
As far as languages and such go, I am still in the process of learning some that seem basic to others. I've just started online courses in Java and Perl (Python isn't offered) through Foothill College. I both feel slightly embarassed that I don't know more than I do, while at the same time proud to be doing what I do for a living at my age, coming from knowing nothing at all a year ago to being a well-respected engineer at a large company. I've got the motivation, the drive to succeed. My goal is to be a programmer.
Let's see. Aside from tech stuff, I write poetry, and dance ballroom on Friday nights, and especially enjoy tango, rhumba, swing, and Viennese waltzing, and used to take ballet. I was a flutist for 14 years, and used to sing.
I absolutely adore Battlestar Galactica, the new series (though the original is great fun too), and it's the reason I went with a video iPod, so I could put BSG on it. Robot Chicken is fantastic, as is South Park and The Daily Show. A dear friend introduced me to a band called A Silver Mount Zion, and that music is wonderful. I think I'm hooked on Tool's song Vicarious right now.
As I am putting of studying I need to be doing right now, I'm going to get back to that as I am not sure anyone will even read this, so why waste my time? :)
Oh, and this is me.
I am an analytical engineer, basically a fancy way to say I decide what's spam and phishing and program my company's software to recognize certain aspects of it, such as certain URLs, phone numbers, etc., to prevent it from going to out clients' inboxes. Sometimes I assign values to keywords into the Beyesian. It's boring as all hell, but it pays a nice full-time salary for part-time hours.
I didn't go to college. Before finishing high school, I had started my first company, a small business making movie gown reproductions, which later turned into custom designing. This is something I'll still do on the side soemtimes. At 22, I became a fathers' rights advocate after seeing what my then-fiancé had to go through to be allowed to spend literally just two hours per month with his daughter. I quickly rose to be on the board of directors of an international fathers' rights organization. Being a woman doesn't mean I automatically believe mothers are better parents. Not at all.
The following year I co-founded another company with said-then-fiancé, bonding transactions to increase trust in the online trading community, blah blah. When we broke up, I let him take the company. All he's done with it since then is to finish the trademark I started, but otherwise, he knows little about the company, so it's all but dead.
Technology has always intersted me. I like knowing how things work and making them work. Until last summer, I never had the chance to learn anything. Until last summer, the only thing I knew at all was that HTML stands for hyper text markup language. But what that meant was a mystery. Of all things, I started to learn HTML due to LiveJournal. It made sense there, so when I picked up some books, it was like second nature to learn so much more.
As far as languages and such go, I am still in the process of learning some that seem basic to others. I've just started online courses in Java and Perl (Python isn't offered) through Foothill College. I both feel slightly embarassed that I don't know more than I do, while at the same time proud to be doing what I do for a living at my age, coming from knowing nothing at all a year ago to being a well-respected engineer at a large company. I've got the motivation, the drive to succeed. My goal is to be a programmer.
Let's see. Aside from tech stuff, I write poetry, and dance ballroom on Friday nights, and especially enjoy tango, rhumba, swing, and Viennese waltzing, and used to take ballet. I was a flutist for 14 years, and used to sing.
I absolutely adore Battlestar Galactica, the new series (though the original is great fun too), and it's the reason I went with a video iPod, so I could put BSG on it. Robot Chicken is fantastic, as is South Park and The Daily Show. A dear friend introduced me to a band called A Silver Mount Zion, and that music is wonderful. I think I'm hooked on Tool's song Vicarious right now.
As I am putting of studying I need to be doing right now, I'm going to get back to that as I am not sure anyone will even read this, so why waste my time?
