Wow - someone actually remembered my talk from GHC 2012 !

I attended a Systers/GHC meetup this evening at Google and was blown away when a young girl walked up to me and said: "Rupa, I wanted to say Hi again.  I met you in 2012 in Baltimore at GHC and still remember your talk on Negotiation!  It was so memorable."

Good grief - I was quite flattered (naturally) and mumbled some sort of thanks (don't quite remember what I said).  Never would I have imagined that anyone would remember the presentation from two years ago!

She remembered the 3 skits on Negotiation where I (along with Christina Schulman) portrayed:

(1) A negotiation where I didn't ask for anything.  (Not good)
(2) Where I asked for a little bit and got a little bit.  (OK)
(3) Where I asked for a big increase in my salary, stock etc. and got it.  I then asked for a pony and got turned down :).  (Good)

I know there's a video of this floating around somewhere - need to find it and reminisce.

I remember that Chiu-ki, Christina and I had some really potent drinks after our presentation and were pretty much toast for the rest of that day.  Didn't help that we had slept the previous night since we were all so nervous/anxious.

Good ol' days.  Looking forward to seeing Christina at GHC again this year and recalling our first major presentation over a nice glass of wine in sunny Phoenix - it was a first for both of us.

VMware picks up my PiDoorbell GHC acceptance to showcase me

Well,  PiDoorbell got accepted at GHC this year and I'll be presenting there in a couple of weeks.

Since VMware is a big sponsor this year, I got showcased for my talk and to help with recruiting/inspiring women engineers.

http://vmw.re/ZH13sQ 

This is the third year in a row that I got accepted to Grace Hopper and will be speaking.  In 2012, I did my first major talk (350+ women) with Chiu-ki Chan and Christina Shulman on "Letters to my Younger Self" and was the producer/director of our famous skits on stage on Negotiating salary :).  In 2013, I went to GHC India to teach a workshop on the RaspberryPi called "Getting your Hands Dirty with the RaspberryPi) and this year, it's PiDoorbell.

This talk will be a 20 min version instead of the usual 45 min.  I do plan to do a live demo but it will depend on how I can squeeze it into a 20 min format because of setup/teardown etc.

Onward...

This year, so far, has been a crazy, busy, and mostly, very difficult year for me.   Between work (for which I get paid), CodeChix work (for which I don't get paid and, often, have to pay from my pocket), personal life (great upheavals) and getting hit with pneumonia in the first quarter (dragging into the second quarter), it has been "interesting".

But, I'm still alive and kicking (relatively weakly at present) - and recovering slowly.

I even managed to submit a proposal to PyCon 2015 last weekend.  Yay.

A critical juncture approaches later this year and I hope that things will fall into place and provide some much-needed sustenance and support.

And until then, I will keep doing what I can to find the most sustainable path forward for me as well as my endeavors.

I am so grateful and thankful for all those rare individuals that suddenly appear unexpectedly to show me that I am not alone and that they too want these endeavors to succeed.

Thank you for being there, behind the scenes, emanating goodwill.