Oh The Places You’ll Go…

Walking into my boss’s office the very first day of full-time work, the only thing going through my head was “Oh God, I am 2 hours late on my first day thanks to snow… “. Up until that point, getting to Omaha had already been a struggle, and my efforts to try and start my first day of work in the real world on a good note had to wait yet another 2 hours. The next 4 months proved to be some of the toughest of my life. Today, however, I realized that it has all been a blessing in disguise.

I have come a long way since that first day, and today is the perfect day to show that comparison. On my first day, I had thoughts like the ones above, and my outlook towards my job was not exactly the optimistic, positive attitude I used to have every day in Atlanta. A few more weeks in, after getting swamped with nothing but support tickets, the frustrations only seemed to increase. Up until June, these days seemed to outnumber the good days. Fastforward 10 months to today. Today, my day was as follows: Come into work at 8, check email, finalize a presentation that myself, the rest of my team, and my boss would be making to our Associate Vice President (AVP), attend a Google Clean Code Video lunch session, meet with our AVP, and rounded out the day with some more emails and leave around 5, and share the news about a great meeting (more details about that in the next paragraph) for a few minutes after work. Now, of course I won’t be meeting with my AVP every day, but for a woman that is headed for the leadership track, this is about as good as it gets. However, I wouldn’t be doing justice if I didn’t go into more details about the AVP meeting- because that is really what made the day quite spectacular.

The meeting started off with some acknowledgments from my boss about the presentation I had prepared in its entirety. My team-lead and I split the slides that we were to present, which were interspersed by questions and discussion with our AVP. Although it was a formal presentation, after just a few minutes, it felt comfortable and I felt like I belonged there – certainly not the feeling I had back in January. Everything went very smoothly, and the entire presentation was filled with compliments from everybody in the room. However, the highlight of this meeting was not what happened during the meeting, but what happened in the few minutes after it. Not only did I get a chance to speak one-on-one with my AVP, but she invited me set up a lunch meeting with her to casually discuss more about women in leadership positions in technology AND an idea that we should attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference next year. She rounded out the conversation by commenting on my first-ever suit-and-skirt professional power-dress combination, topping off a perfect day.

Although I struggled a lot through the first few months of the job, today showed just how far I really came. Within 10 months, I now get to manage 2 people, sit in regularly on meetings with senior management, and my ideas for enterprise-level strategies get heard. So, would I have loved to work at Microsoft, Expedia, or any of those other companies which are in big cities? Absolutely. But, I am positive that those opportunities would be much harder to come by than at UP… and the skill-set that it has let me build in such a short amount of time still leaves me in amazement.

So, here is a little tidbit of information: For all of the times that you might have questioned why you made a decision, don’t think on it too much. There is ALWAYS a reason for everything… sometimes it just takes a while for the reason to become clear. Whether this is 10 hours or 10 months, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you embrace the environment around you and learn everything you can while you are there and stay positive. This mindset and attitude is a recipe for success and happiness.

For the longest time, I was wondering why it was written in my fate that I had landed in Omaha. A complete city girl in a smaller town… why? But, 10 months away from the city has given me the time to reflect. So, at first, being in Omaha did not seem like it would be the most glorious experience. But today, I truly feel like I am the luckiest girl in the world, and as a result of the hardships, I feel like I can have an even greater appreciation for all of my great days. Thank you, Omaha, for being my blessing in disguise. :)

One of my favorite things in life is to learn. About what? Well, anything really! I know it’s cliche, but learning really is all around you- here’s a few examples.

Working on a Middleware team, I am forced to see things not only from a developer’s perspective, but also from a manager or VP’s perspective. We have to make high-level decisions based on what developers will code & architects will design, but there also needs to be some standardization too. Imagine trying to get all of these pieces working together – it’s quite the challenge if I must say so myself! However, each day, I am learning how to shift and adjust these pieces so they all fit nicely in an ever-changing puzzle.

For the longest time in Omaha, I had just one-on-one lunches with various people. Although these lunches were fun and the people are all awesome, I recently started finally feeling part of a group of people. All of us in this group now eat lunch together every day, and each day, I take away 1 new piece of information about technology that I never knew before. It could be as simple as a new eclipse shortcut or something as complex as code involving the Linux kernel! Either way, I come away from lunch with a smile on my face and always pondering something new.

This same group of people also meets outside of work, and even in these fun get-togethers, there is learning going on. It is really interesting to see how everybody’s different college experiences present themselves as viewpoints in our conversations. It is amazing to see the differences between someone who has lived in Nebraska all their life versus someone who moved from another state to here. We are constantly surrounded by people, and we naturally tend to study them and learn about them, whether it is unconscious or conscious.

So, why all of these examples? Well, for the first 5 months that I was in Omaha, I completely forgot (or ignored) one of the things that has always contributed to my constant optimism: my love for learning. Recently, I started talking a lot to one of my (now most amazing) friends here, and in the time spent with him, I realized that he has the same love for learning that I do. This love of learning is infectious, and where I had forgotten it for quite some time, he helped me rediscover it and spread that love to me. Being able to realize again that there’s so much to learn and that it will never stop… it has given me such a renewed appreciation and outlook for my life, and I can’t say thanks enough.

For all the people that read my blog, please try to embrace learning as much as I do – I hope it’ll make a world of difference for you too. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go try to see what’s on my Google Reader and learn some more!

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. At that moment, she didn’t have a care in the world. She forgot about everything else – classes, friends, the pressure from everything else. The only thing going through her mind was how perfect the breeze was. She had a tendency to get so caught up in activities and planning and classes. Of course, she loved it all, but in the midst of it all, she sometimes forgot why she did all of those things. She would look, but not really see.

For that one moment in time, as the breeze passed through her hair, she remembered to see, not just to look. And since that moment, she has never been the same- never again did she forget to look, never again did she get too caught up to forget the important things in life.

She will forever be thankful for that one moment – for that breeze.

Nach. Baila. Danse. Tanz.

Regardless of the country you are in, all of these words mean the same thing. I have always been involved with music – whether it’s singing or playing piano. But last night, I realized that dancing brings music to a whole new level. Whether it’s dancing to country music, hip-hop, pop, rock, or Bollywood music, it’s just a time when you can let go. Let go of worries, let go of stress… let go of reality. It’s a tough feeling to sometimes achieve, but when you’re dancing, you are guaranteed to get that feeling – every single time.

And that’s why I loved Nach Night :) I felt like, for a few hours, I could just forget everything and laugh and smile… and dance the night away. :)

“Once in a lifetime means there’s no second chance.”-High School Musical 2

It has been well over a year, and yet, I relive it every day as if it was yesterday. Nowhere else have I found the perfect combination of classes, culture, and technology. As I sit here trying to concentrate on my reading, all I can think about is going back to the place of my dreams. Whether it was walking to the beach, going to the English movie theater, visiting the gorgeous musical fountains of Mont Juic, or just strolling down a few streets to Placa Catalunya or even to El Mercado… every moment was magical, and it still is… every day. It’s an experience that taught me so much, but more than anything, it taught me to enjoy every second of life and live in the present- to cherish that moment, because regardless of however many great moments I will encounter in the future (and I am very much looking forward to those), I can never get this one back, if I miss it- and I am glad that I didn’t miss a single moment of my adventure.

Sometimes, I wonder what I am doing in this college. I love the education I am receiving here, but the stress sometimes seems to overpower the simpler, more important things in life. Back in Barcelona, it wasn’t the case. Here, there is so much drama and debate surrounding personal relationships, student organizations, and college politics. There, there is none of the nonsensical business- just a community that bonds and holds that unity with such value that it allows the people to get through any possible problems that come up.Every day since I left… and every day until I go back… I will keep on dreaming of the time of my life.

I’ve been waiting for my dreams
To turn into something
I could believe in
And looking for that
Magic rainbow
On the horizon
I couldn’t see it
Until I let go
Gave into love and watched all the bitterness burn
Now I’m coming alive
Body and soul
And feelin’ my world start to turn

And I’ll taste every moment
And live it out loud
I know this is the time,
This is the time
To be more than a name
Or a face in the crowd
I know this is the time
This is the time of my life
Time of my life

Holding onto things that vanished
Into the air
Left me in pieces
But now I’m rising from the ashes
Finding my wings
And all that I needed
Was there all along
Within my reach
As close as the beat of my heart

So I’ll taste every moment
And live it out loud
I know this is the time,
This is the time to be
More than a name
Or a face in the crowd
I know this is the time
This is the time of my life
Time of my life

And I’m out on the edge of forever
Ready to run
I’m keeping my feet on the ground
My arms open wide
My face to the sun

I’ll taste every moment
And live it out loud
I know this is the time,
This is the time to be
More than a name
Or a face in the crowd
I know this is the time
This is the time of my life
Time of my life
More than a name
Or a face in the crowd
I know
This is the time
This is the time of my life.
This is the time of my life.