s/good/absolutely wonderfully great/
This is seriously probably one of the most important weekends of my life. I came to California somewhat confused, feeling incredibly isolated, and wondering if I was in the right place. The entire 6 hour flight to San Francisco was just one continuous identity and existential crisis.
I feel kinda bad that I won't be able to stay for the entire google microsoft reception tomorrow night (on account of the fact that I have to leave for my flight) but at least I will still be able to attend for one hour.
Today has been just an eye-opener. I am surrounded by 200 other female computer science graduate students, all in their first or second year, from all over the country, some with similar interests, others with vastly different ones. Either way, we are all going through the exact same thing. The exact same thing. I've always thought that some of the misgivings I was having were nothing, just things that were wrong with me. I thought, hey, no one else feels this way, it's just me. Boy, was I ever wrong.
For example, I am considered by many (including my friend Ethan.. hi Ethan! :-) ) to be a misogynist, mainly due to my inability/unwillingness to interact with most females. Guess what? So other girls in Computer Science have the same problem. How do you talk to girls from other disciplines about a field that you're so completely passionate about when they are (at times) so repulsed by it? I've had conversations of mine become limited to hair, clothes and nails, since there isn't much else that I have in common with them. I find that there are several other girls who have had the same problem. Let me tell you: that was so refreshing to hear. That it wasn't just me, that I don't have some abnormality about me that just makes me not want to interact with girls. I just don't want to interact with girls who don't understand, who can't be passionate about computer science and/or research. Here, there are 200. This is great :-)
Anyways, I have to head over to another place for another reception. I will definitely write during my next break! I'll try and post pictures of San Francisco. Today was just a beautiful day, and I'm fighting the temptation to go shopping. More later!
4 comments:
HELLO, LADIES!
Anyhow:
I mostly call you a misogynist because you made a few comments several years ago along the lines of how all women were gold-digging whores who took advantage of their attractiveness to skate by at life. (I don't have a reference handy; I'll look it up one day.) Which at RPI is a widely-held view, which is of RPI females perhaps accurate. Of course, me and my friends sometimes use a Something Awful quote: "All women are filthy, lying whores", but we're usually joking (there's an implicit s/All/Most/). Anyhow, file this with my ribbing you about being anorexic under "ha ha only serious". I don't think you'll ever beat your wife or anything, I'm just making light of a personality tendency I see by exaggerating it. It's easier than actually trying to sort out what you think and why!
As for whether women suck because they aren't Comp Sci majors, well.. it's inarguable that Comp Sci ladies are much hotter than their non-Comp Sci sistren. But I have lots of friends of both genders who are not conversant in CS. You do too. Do you really try to talk shop with everyone you meet? I'd recommend other strategies. You can always ask them about their field, and I bet you can come up with some interesting questions to ask them that will let you appear smart while learning from someone who knows what they're talking about. If they don't care that much about their field, then what the person lacks is passion. I've seen enough of that in both genders too. And a lot of conversations aren't about either person's field of study, but about life issues big and small.
Anyhow, the major conclusion I drew from this post was that you are such a nerd that you neglect social graces and focus on your passion. Good for you. :)
I'm glad SFO is doing you good. Enjoy the rest of your trip and ride a cable car for me!
Ethan
See, so all women can't be gold digging whores, for two reasons:
1.) This is completely unfair to the girls who have hearts of gold and are absolutely wonderful in nature
2.) Predicate logic taught me that the above statement would imply that I am a gold digging whore, an image that I don't think I fit nor want to perpetuate (I mean, c'mon! I'm attracted to people who are generally approaching/in grad school, and thus have no money... that, and I hate getting expensive gifts..). I consequently tend to stay away from such blanketing statements. However, I can definetly see myself saying something like, "there exists a substantial population of females within the female population who are gold-digging whores". That I agree with. And yeah, I've seen too much of that at RPI for comfort's sake. But yeah, maybe I made the comment along the lines of the Something Awful one; an implicit "most" instead of "all".
I've never approved of nor understood the whole "buy me this if you luv me" mentality, since it's seems like an convenient way to get free stuff at the consequence of exploiting someone else's feelings. The whole idea of dating or marrying for money is also a little confusing for me (and twenty years from now, I'll be a trophy wife, I know, I know... :-) ). Money is transient; there is no guarantee that it will always be there. What are you going to do if your husband loses his job? Divorce him? I don't know... relationships and marriage seem to be too important to be built on such flimsy foundations. But perhaps I'm just too traditional.
Women don't suck! Well not usually. I don't expect them all to be comp sci majors; if they were, I'd probably get bored and try and seek out artsy people or something. I just get isolated sometimes. *head down* And yeaaah, I get too into what I do sometimes, and try and tell others about what I'm doing. My poor suitemate has gotten an earful of "eeeee! I just got my cgi web interface working!!! Wanna see???? [enter explanation of how cgi works, what my research project is all about]" I do prefer to listen when I talk to people outside of computer science, but I just miss talking smack the way comp scis do. That's how I relax.
You need to explain to me "ha ha only serious", since I'm strongly starting to suspect that you think I'm an anorexic. I asked Dan what he thought and he said, "yeah. You suck at remembering basic things like when to eat." While I understand that the whole concept of "not eating" is just ridiculous to you, I just eat when I'm hungry; sometimes, I just don't get hungry very often ^-^ And I've gotten the misogynist comment from more people than just you, so I wonder if there is something to it :-)
Ooooh! So I'm back from San Francisco, AND I have my Sudo shirt (think XKCD)! I'm thinking of posting a pic since it's so awesome. What do you think?
I'll be posting pics of San Francisco soon as well :-)
As always, it's so good hearing from you.
-Suzanne
Cool. A couple of my friends here (Miranda and Chi) went to that conference too.
Should I sneaking in next year?
~Theo
You should! Tons of hot CS ladies!
Though, I should warn you, we were all cautioned against dating people in our department, much to the dissapointment of many a CS major, I'm sure... ^-^
Miss ya Theo :-)
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