G’s Place

Since this is the first day of a shiny new year, I think I will publicly post my goals. Here we go:

1. Complete 6 grad school classes (and maintain my 4.0 GPA!)
2. Be available to help Brianna transition to Grad school (as much as she wants me to be there anyways)
3. Try and find tools that Kenny will actually use to get organized so he does better in school.
4. Get the Metro-West AANE support group for parents of teens with Asperger’s  off the ground
5. Get the FSU Native Alumni association off the ground
6. Get up-to-speed on SMARTS
7. Make it to the gym 3 days a week
8. Get to my next goal weight by April 1 (this date may change if I have to keep traveling…the overall goal is to maintain my weight while I travel)
9. Go to one of the seminars that train how to work with people on the spectrum
10. Write a paper and deliver it at a conference. OK I have no clue how to do that, but I want to, and I figure if I don’t write it down and really try to do it, it will never happen.

I’m going to try and remember to review these goals every three months. That way, I can see where I am with these goals, and set new goals if that is needed. Look for a follow-up post on March 1st.

I wish there was a small, lightweight, to-do list widget. Anyone know of one?

So here’s my updated list, for this weekend and the rest of the year:

1. DO the stuff for the GWLT
2. Write my work blog
3. Cookie party at work (and NO ONE is allowed to sing the cookie party theme song!! People singing the cookie party song will be kicked out and receive NO COOKIES! Brian this means YOU!!!!)
4. Go get the kids from school
5. Meet with the person that I will be co-chairing a new AANE support group with
6. Have a conference call with the Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs @ FSU about AISU
7. Help Brianna and Kenny’s get their schedules for the break set
8. Buy books for next semester
9. Cookie party at work
10. Read the CCNA book (maybe go take the test???)

I am supposed to be studying….but this is on my mind.

Two quotes from this article in The Atlantic:

quoted from Alice Rossi’s “Job Discrimination and What Women Can Do About It”:

If [women] are vital and assertive, they are rejected as “aggressive bitches out to castrate men.” If they are quiet and unassuming, they are rejected as “unlikely to amount to much.” Women who try to ease their acceptance by male colleagues in a masculine profession with sweetness-and-light talk may be kept on in the particular low-status niche they occupy, but then find that they are rejected for promotion because they lack drive and ambition.

quoted from Mary Jo Salter’s “Annie, Don’t Get Your Gun”:

To be man’s equal, must we share his wardrobe of three-piece suits and military uniforms? It may be understandable, but is certainly regrettable, that “equality” in so many cases means conformity to the male habit. To earn the right to speak our minds, must we agree that we’ve always been “highly combative,” or that we ought to let them teach us how to be? Too often we’ve been told that to be dedicated professionals, we must eagerly sacrifice all for our jobs and neglect our children (if our offices allow us time to give birth at all). Now, to be dedicated citizens—and feminists—we must accept the male notion of citizenship as including compulsory military service. We are not nearly assertive enough, I think. If we were, we would balk at the all-encompassing view that equality means identicality—and that identicality, to return to the clothing metaphor, means that both sexes wear pants, not skirts.

(emphasis mine)

Not posting because I am busy..at work and at home. SO here is a big round-up post for the week.

Getting into grad school is hard

I have been studying my words, but I need to really buckle down and start preparing. I still haven’t finished my statement of purpose….

I need to set a deadline for myself. By next Sunday, I will have that thing ready to send. This weekend I want to work on my cards so I can study at the gym.

I am falling into the diet/exercise groove.

We are going after work almost every night. This week I can go in the morning a couple of days W00T!!! Although the yard work we have been doing on the weekends is kicking my butt! I fell off the diet wagon yesterday, but after looking at my stats, I think part of the problem is I did not eat enough yesterday, then I was just starving and ate everything.

I had about 2200 calories yesterday, but the yard work alone expended over 1000. I had a candy bar when we at home depot getting more edging bricks. I told Brian I wanted an iced coffee, but we didn’t stop. He is ice man when it comes to his diet. I am fall out in the floor because I am hungry girl. Then I ate alot of bread with dinner …. I was craving carbs I guess.

I started thinking about how many calories I am supposed to be eating. I have been tracking my calories, and actually eating pretty good. No bread. No fast food. No soda. No candy. Everything homemade. But how much do I need to eat?

An article in Shape had this formula:

goal weight * activity level = calorie goal

Activity level:

No exercise = 13

1 hour 3/4 times per week = 15.

1 hour per day nearly every day = 20.

I am actually not eating enough. That is what my last trainer told me. Ineed to figure out how to eat more good stuff, and see if that helps.

High school seniors are not fun to be around. This one sorta stands on its own.

Work - lots of thoughts about culture, and how corporate entities work at squashing it.

The thoughts I have about this topic probably deserve their own post, so if I have time I will try to get to that.

A little more insight on the why-don’t-more-women-go-into-tech thing….I was talking to my mom, and she told me she thinks some of my problem is that I grew up around boys. So I know there is nothing special about being male, what makes a person special is who they are inside.

Here’s everyone, minus one brother, all grown up:

When I was growing up, I never had the experience of being treated different by my brothers because I was a girl. They expected me to play and act the same as everyone else. (This caused other issues I had to deal with, but again, that is for another day). And I never saw them as having skills or qualities that were different than mine, just because they were boys.

So when I go into a workplace, I take my life experience about the male gender with me. Boys are just boys. As long as I can hold my own, and perform the work, I will be fine. Unfortunately, all the boys bring their life experiences with them.
Here is my new idea of what happens: a female doesn’t agree with a guy on some project issue, and stands up for her position. Maybe forcefully. If all the guy knows about girls from his experience is that it is best to NOT get into an argument, or confrontation with a woman because it never turns out ok. Maybe his method to let the girl think she has won, and then to go off with the boys to work this issue out between the guys (who in his mind are more reasonable and easier to deal with). His hope is to get back to woman who disagrees with him with the decision “the guys” made. By that time, he hopes, she will probably have forgotten why she wanted to “fight”.

That actually sounds really familiar to me. And I didn’t even touch on how guys who have never really been around girls act like they are scared to get us mad, talk about certain topics, etc. Maybe mom is right on this one.

But, where is the solution? For me, right now, it’s just laying low. I have tons of work, plus I have my grad school preparations to keep my mind thinking forward. I know I am not contributing to my group as much as I could. I feel like I have been squashed. I don’t want to act like a man. I want to contribute, but without the so-called “dick-swinging”.* Not that the guys in my group are big dick-swingers, it’s just that I will have to swing mine (ha ok pretend that I am swinging my imaginary one) in order to get any respect or traction. This quarter I am too booked out to try and do anything about it. Maybe next quarter?

* I tried to find the meaning of this word, or etymology, but couldn’t. Mom I swear it’s not dirty. Be careful if you google it yourself!

I always wonder when I read the laments of how women for some reason refuse to flock to high-tech careers if the lamenters ever bother to talk to women who have chosen these careers.
I am having my own personal work issues now…I have always felt I had to choose between being myself (which will mean some people will see me as a bitch) and using all the good southern training I learned to be seen and not heard so that I fit in at work. I’m not going to go into details here…that is what my boyfriend is for (thanks Bri!)….but I need to figure out how to stand my ground and not get pushed aside without coming across as a bitch. Is that possible?
These articles were helpful in showing me that when it comes with dealing with women at work, men do have blind spots. They don’t realize that a different communication style is not a bad thing.

I agree with what Barbara Annis at WITI careers wrote about challenges and barriers for women (I am summarizing here..):

1. Dismissed - not taken seriously because of communication style (will listen to a man but not a woman..if even if she makes the same point first)
2. Tested - constantly having to prove credentials, instead of just getting to do the darn work!
3. Third Sex - trying to act like a guy so you will fit in. If you take it too far and be aggressive like guys are, you get labeled a bitch.
4. Excluded, Avoided - not invited to lunch or other extra activities with your group.
5. Tokenism - getting promoted just because they need a woman (I have seen this first-hand)

1-4 have happened to me in the past, and several of them are happening to me now as we speak. I also like this advice from Ms. Annis:

What does work is strategically, and by design, building relationships with the influencers in the company. What does work is speaking up and starting to address some of those blind spots yourself. What does work is making the commitment to be part of the change and not part of the status quo.

But how do you do address the blind spots without coming off as the dragon-lady? How do you address the status-quo if the guys in charge think everything is okie-dokie?
Especially in a world where if you do get to hang out with co-workers they treat you like a guy. And do things like check out all the admins as they walk past your table in the cafeteria. To the point that it interrupts conversation?

What is strange about that is that it starts EARLY. One of my son’s friends went with us on a college visit. She goes to the technical high school, and is in the welder’s program. She is with all guys, and they do the same thing to her. She wants to go into a technical career, and all I could tell her is that the boys don’t change, so she has to get used to it.

You know, even something as simple as making swag t-shirts in women’s styles would be a nice start.

Even worse are co-workers that only come to you when they need administrative help. I’m not an admin, I have a set of highly specialized, in-demand technical skills. I want to use them to help my group, but I feel as if the only input they value is my non-technical input. Which puts me in a bad place…if I can’t get my hands dirty on more advanced technical stuff, that means I will fall behind. So I am left with two choices:

1. Fight tooth and nail to keep up. That means expending huge amounts of energy figuring out how to insert myself into situations without coming off as a bitch. It means carrying around a huge shield to absorb the disappointment and isolation I feel when I am rebuffed.
2. Giving up. Get left behind. Get out of tech.

It’s way easier to take my skills and leave. I have plenty of soft skills to carry me into a different life. But that would mean leaving all my geek ways behind. No more in depth discussions on how things work, and how hard would it be to make it on my own. I would just become a normal girl again……oh wait I never was a normal girl. Being a techie was the first thing that ever did make me feel a little normal. Infinite loop.

Yes, I am in a boot camp at work. It’s intense, it’s hard, and [thankfully] it’s going to be over SOON. It makes me think….do I really want that grad degree??? sheesh.

Life is moving along…Bri is back at school. Kenny is getting ready to apply for schools. He has already done some great things this year…and he is finally taller than I am.

I start my new job today. I am not unemployed anymore, which brings a bit of relief. I will have a decent income as well as benefits….so for that I am thankful. I am going to get my masters, and that is good.

I will miss not having to get up early. I am definitely going to miss my naps! And, I am a little sad I couldn’t figure out a way to do what I really want to do.

I had awful dreams last night. Twice I woke up screaming (literally), thinking a big spider was hanging down by my face. And this morning I was having this dream that everyone in the city I live in had to get special ID cards, and report to a certain area. You had to stay there and do what they told you. I snuck Kenny out, but Brianna wanted to go. I was upset because we shouldn’t have to do everything the government says. We especially shouldn’t do it if it makes no sense.

I don’t know what that dream meant, but the first thing I read this morning is how the government is now saying New Orleans is hurricane-ready. Funny, I bet people in the 9th Ward may disagree with that statement.

People just know how to take care of yourselves. Don’t listen to everything the government says….and do don’t everything they tell you to do. They don’t tell the truth.

you may need these one day

I am still waiting for the offer letter. One more week I guess. bleh.