Hello steemit! It's exciting to be here and blog about life and my views. Before I go on any further, I want to thank my sister @cabernet for inviting me to steemit. We have some amazing discussions at the dinner table which excites, inspires, weirds out and sometimes offends guests. I am looking forward to bringing those intriguing topics to this platform and either entertain or inspire you.

About Me

I am @logical-hindu and I am a software engineer by profession. I was born and raised in Nepal and came to the US in high school. Belonging from another culture has given me a great perspective on both eastern and western culture.

Fitting-In

Do you want to know what it feels like to be an alien and not fit in? Well, coming from Nepal to the USA as a teenager felt like that to me. When you migrate to a new country, especially from a third world to a first world country, you are pretty much in a new planet. Everything from language, food, life goals, fashion sense, climate and fellow humans are different in this new land. You either sink or swim when you are thrown in the deep end. I chose to swim. I chose to accept my uniqueness and come in terms with the fact that I may never fit in.

My Goal

Instead of accepting the status quo, I apply logic to situations and events. This quality of questioning leads me to research about interesting topics like ancient technology, politics, astrology, meditation, yoga, etc. In this platform, I would like to share intriguing facts, ideas, and "secrets" about these topics in hopes that they will widen your horizon.

Giving Back

Being a female in technology, you are a minority. In my class, there were hardly 3 or 4 women programmers in a class of about 25. This problem starts young and it's too late to get girls interested in programming when they reach High School. I wanted to inspire young girls to become programmers and to show them that they too can do it. Therefore I started the first Girls Who Code club at my town. I taught them programming after work and helped them to build a website against bullying. Here is me with my amazing students featured in Iowa Source.

Next issue I am passionate about is women rights in third world countries. I am fortunate to have this opportunity to live life in my own terms; however, most of the girls in my home country Nepal aren't this lucky. This encouraged me to give back to Nepalese women and what better way to do it than teaching them programming! I have donated $5000 to an all-female government school in Nepal and I am the sole sponsor for them. Middle school girls are learning about computers and programming and we plan to expand this to high school as well.

Personal Life

In spirit, I am an entrepreneur. I started my own business in college and was part of the entrepreneurial community as a student. This experience taught me self-confidence and I learned a lot from my mentors, both professionally and personally. In the picture I am pitching my business idea at an entrepreneurial competition.

This entrepreneurial side urges me to do something out of the ordinary. When I was an intern, I was always looking for ways to contribute more than work assigned. It led me to create the first mobile app for my company. When the CEO was complaining about a problem in the company meeting, I sent her my mobile app. She was quite impressed and invited me to her office for more details. Apparently I am known as 'the app girl' in the company. Some of the credit for my confidence goes to Toastmasters. My life was changed when I joined it as an intern. The girl who was afraid to speak up, afraid of sounding stupid became a well-spoken person able to present her ideas clearly and confidently.

Planning Ahead in Life

Investing in one's future is the greatest investment one can make. It is important to invest in education, good habits, skills and financial products. Buying a house is the biggest investment for most people; it is everyone's dream to have their own house, completely paid off. Consequently, I became a home owner at 24 years old and signed the papers when I was just a graduate student. I spent my nights and weekends in the library as a student, working hard, honing my programming skills and investing on my skills. The hard work paid off when I got my dream job with an amazing salary. Currently, the Chief Marketing Officer of my company is my neighbor. I can't wait to see what I will achieve when I am his age.

Some people will say, great you own a home but it does not have a good ROI(Return On Investment.) That was my thought when a large chunk of my income was going to the mortgage. Therefore, I immediately opened an IRA(Individual Retirement Account.) Young people should get an IRA even if we earn less because time is the biggest factor that will help grow our money. With my quick calculation, it turns out that $1000 invested now is equivalent to $5000 invested after 10 years. I can talk about being financially intelligent in future posts but bottom line is invest as much as you can in a retirement account when you are young.

Weird Is Good

Finally, I am not afraid to sound stupid. Some of my posts will make you think I am related to Giorgio Tsoukalos.

However, I'd rather be called weird than be called boring. Any point I present should be backed with research. I am an engineer and engineers love deducting things, proving equations, applying logic and using common sense. Programmers are often called magicians by the non-technical folks(at least at my workplace.) What is a magician? Merriam-Webster describes magician as "one who performs tricks of illusion and sleight of hand." What I hope to share may seem like illusion, something I am making up out of thin air. But a lot of research will go into my posts. Even if you don't agree with some of it, I will consider myself successful if you think about a topic than blindly following what you are told.

"Guglielmo Marconi was taken into custody and examined in a psychiatric hospital when he announced he had discovered a principle through which he could send messages through the air, without the aid of wires or other direct physical means of communication(Think And Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill)." He was of course, the inventor of radio. Similarly, Hill lists many visionaries in his book that were considered crazy and eccentric at the time. Decades later, what they theorized we now know as facts.

You can find normal, boring and sexual things all over the internet. This blog will try to talk about something worth pondering upon, something worth sharing.

Thanks,
Logical Hindu