Recently, I moved to one of the biggest tech city of them all, San Francisco or better yet Silicon Valley. Here is where many of the big name companies that is driving our consumption of media built its name, i.e., Google, Apple and Facebook.

Before coming here I had decided to become a programmer.

In my simple life living in the Midwest, I thought that I knew what a programmer meant, and what kind of job I would end up doing.

Building websites right?

Well, that idea of a simple streamline path to becoming what I thought was a simple to describe job was in fact dashed as I got deeper into the field.

The next thing I know people are talking about "Software Engineer" as prominently as "Computer Scientist"  had been back in 2008 when the technology craze had really hit the ceiling (at least for me).

Now, I'm scratching my head and wondering what the hell is a "Software Engineer" and how is anything different from a Front-End, Web Developer, Back-End....

The one thing I have discovered so far is that the field of computer programming is diverse. There is so many faucets of this infinite field that one day you can be expert Python coder to becoming a ninja at DevOps.

Exposure I think is key to really understanding all these crazy paths that exists in the tech field. If I hadn't read countless articles, watched countless videos, searched millions of job posts, or network at dozens of meetups I would not have an inkling of what these terms even mean.

But I'm slowly getting there, and that's the point.

Everyone's journey towards achieving whatever life goal they aim for starts with climbing and pushing through the muck. There's no easy track and even the best ones out there doing all the speaking at workshops and conferences all began just as everyone had, which was scratching their head...wondering what that first term in programming meant.

Not everyone was born knowing everything. Like Sal Khan says "Everyone Can Learn", and that's the point, we're life-long learners and it's by being persistent every day that we end up truly helps us improve.

Nothing comes easily or quickly, but if I want to become awesome at what I want, I've got to work on it.

So like I learned from my first Write/Speak/Code workshop at Github Headquarters in SF on January 21, 2017, you've got to #OwnYourExpertise!

And I didn't define Software Engineer here...and that's the point of this post :-)

Happy 2017!

Many people must have been glad to see 2016 off, especially with so many traumatic news stories and unpredictable events that has happened...Although 2017 did not start off great for some parts around the world...We still live in some of the most interesting times.

Technology is growing (i.e., self-driving cars, AIs, etc), medicine is much better than it had been, people are living longer, there's no shortage of food, and living standards are getting better.

But we shouldn't forget that we share a planet with many other people. And a lot of folks do not have the same access to the goods many of us living in the developed nations do have.

The world is not separated by borders or blocked off by walls.

The air, land and water are still connected no matter if we contain it into small bottles and sell them off for high prices.

My goal for 2017 is to continue to live a zero waste minimalist lifestyle, where my focus in my life is to find ways to produce less waste and to live with less. Not only do I want to do that in my personal life, but also to make my career in a way focus on this.

As a developer, I want to find ways to build apps that provide a service to those folks that want to find ways to improve their health and lifestyles in order to minimize their exposure to the unnecessary. I'm not sure yet what that looks like, but I believe that like everyone in life, we learn from each other and from our experiences. So only time will tell.

So, for now I look forward to continuing our 7th year together with my husband, enjoy our new city of San Jose, and to continue to reduce our wants and waste so that eventually when we start a family and age we can contribute something good to our planet.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery