[Grace Hopper Conference, Orlando, Fl, October 2019 - serving as the Project Manager for a project during Open Source Day.]

Wellll, the answer to that is pretty layered. I've fell off the wagon of documenting my journey into tech after landing my first role as a Program Manager for the technical apprenticeship I graduated from and rightfully so lol. When I tell you that I led and carried out the duties of 99 percent of the that startup, it's no understatement, so unfortunately my bandwidth in regards to writing went Kerplunk lol!!

What Have I been up to???

Well, on the two year anniversary of the day I took the role as PM (March 18, 2021), I stepped down from the role for a much needed break (burn out is real). Not only had the program took some major hits due to the pandemic, I realized that there was no more room for growth fulfilling the duties within this role.

Aside from releasing new music, I also started a juicing business called "Heavenly Hibiscus Juice" selling drinks with all natural ingredients and folks absolutely love it! I recently transitioned to an LLC format and have been working to get placement within both small and large food and drink establishments (so far, I've distributed to one local restaurant and one local gas station). I've began to build out my company website, but in the meantime I'm using Shopify as my merchandising platform (http://heavenlyhibiscusjuice.com/). More details TBA!

Remounting My Technical Horse

Now, after almost a year shy of taking a break as a PM, 4 years after pursuing my original goal of learning how to code and becoming a Software Engineer, I've been putting myself out there for my next technical opportunity. I've had a few interviews so far, a lot of email rejections, but this fire that has burned deep within me since setting out to manifest this goal won't let me quit.

Amidst the no's and rejection letters, I've been building out my own small projects. One is a tab extension tool that I've partnered with my mentor in order to build out. It was his brain child, and he's allowed me to join him in building it out - it's been a great learning experience so far. The other thing I've been working on is my very first NFT. I've grown quite interested in NFT's since hearing so much about them and wanted to understand them from a developer standpoint. What is required to write a smart contract and mint a token? Well, I tried my had at building out my first NFT a couple of weeks ago. Upon completion, I ran into some errors when running the deployment script, so am gearing up to build out NFT number two to see if I run into the same errors. Wish me luck!

I'm just getting started. Four years later, and I'm still in my newbie season. I'm still a beginner. Still embracing being an apprentice in my learning journey. I'm ok with it. As long as I follow my gut, I'll have no regrets. I'm ready for anything. Let's go!!!!!

A look back

[St. Anthony's hosted workshop, San Francisco, October 2019, Lead Volunteer and Emcee.]

[With the 3rd cohort of apprentices I managed, SF Indeed Building, October 2019.]

[With apprentices from varying cohorts, SF Indeed Building, June 2019.]

[Collaborated with Neil - a Software Engineer, during one of their internal hackathons, February, 2020.]

[Virtual Surprise Farewell party organized by the founder and various apprentices from the various cohorts I had the pleasure of managing, March, 2021.]