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Posted: by Jacqueline
Tags: blogspersonaltechnologycollegeprogramming
Over the weekend, I had one the best, and the most memorable time in the last 2 years of my college journey. It probably just an ordinary weekend for most, but for someone like me, it is something I don’t experience often. I and 4 others, 2 of them I consider to be my very close friends here in the middle of Pennsylvania, went to HackPSU, a Hackathon sponsored by MLH at Penn State.
I'm attending Penn StatePosted: by Jacqueline
Tags: blogspersonaltechnologycollegeprogramming
I have recently been admitted to Penn State for Computer Science major, and needless to say, I’m taking the offer.
For those of you that do know me, this might have come as a shock, since I have been so vehemently opposed to going to college back when I was in high school. Surely you remember my speech in Mrs. Palmer class about how if you truly want to learn, you can just read, research, do it yourself, and then take a test (in this case, AP tests) to prove your knowledge instead of wasting your life in honor classes. To me, I felt like college was a waste of time, was a waste of money, that I would rather spend my times self teaching myself rather than wasting 2 years of my life learning gen ed. I hated the idea of college, I hated the thought of being evaluated by my grade instead of my skill, my portfolio, and my passion.
I Love Fantasy Life (Game Review)Posted: by Jacqueline
Tags: blogsfeminismwomenpersonalvideogame3ds
I consider myself to be a seasoned gamer, I have played a lot of games, from many different categories and genre, and have been playing video game since I was as young as 3-4 years old, back in the day of Doom day of Win 98 and Battle Chess. Now obviously being a girl, Dooms wasn’t really something I had much interested in, but I have played Doom, experienced it, and had came back and finished the ported game on my PSP. Needless to say, I think it pretty safe to say that I played a lot to know about many different great games and that each game have its own uniqueness that might make one like it more than the other, and therefore, I just want to say that this is purely my opinion and I’m only going to talk about the reason why fantasy life appeal to ME. Obviously there are many other great games out there, such as Age of Empire 2 (oh don’t hate), Empire Earth (yeah I love RTS), hell for the sake of fairness I will list popular one like Dota 2 as a really good game that people (and I) like. But Fantasy Life above all game that provoked an emotional response in me much more than any other game that I have played. I will lists the reason why I like the game from the broad overall and slowly get into specific details of why it is such a great game.
What does it mean to be a woman (to me)Posted: by Jacqueline
Tags: blogsfeminismwomenpersonal
What constitutes and defines a woman vastly varies depending on where you ask and on how specific you want to be. Some say being a woman is no more than two X-chromosomes and a female organ, some say it is much more than that. Of course, this being my blog and my writing, I’m going to be writing about what being a woman means to me and its significant. This is one of the few topics that challenges me as I grow up and explore my identity; even now, it is still hard for me to describe what a “woman” is; and I refuse to believe that a woman is simply two X-chromosomes and a vagina. Let me say that I’m writing this isn’t to argue about transgender rights, and that I just want to critically think about what defines a woman socially, culturally and a little biologically. However, I don’t think that it would be fair to touch this issue without writing about transgenderism along with the topic, because it is through transgenderism that the solid idea of ‘sex” is being challenged. The definition of woman for me has constantly evolved, and maybe five years later, this article will no longer reflect how I feel. But with that being said, I think it is important to note that this is purely my observation and experience as a young woman who is just in her early adult years; when compared to older women, I definitely lack both insights and experiences to truly understand womanhood. Therefore, please read what I write through skeptical lens and know that this is just my young and immature opinion.
Why I am a feministPosted: by Jacqueline
Tags: blogsfeminismwomenpersonal
For a very long time, I wasn’t able to tell whether I was proud or ashamed to be a girl. Self-teaching myself to code as early as 12 years old, I had a lot of ambition and a lot of personal pride. I remember myself strongly opposing, even getting angry at organizations like “Girls Who Code” because I felt like they were conveying message that “it’s not normal for a girl to code, so we have to make it a big deal to get girls into programming” and “Girl programmers aren’t good enough and lack merit on their own, so we have to push for diversity like, affirmative action of sort, and quota to present girls in tech”. In a way, I felt bad because I felt like my effort in self-teaching myself to code was trivialized, I felt like because I’m a girl, people are going to assume that I never had interests in computer in the first place without the help of those organizations. Even now, six years later, part of me still finds the idea a bit insulting, but my attitude toward it had changed a lot; If anything, I couldn’t careless if someone did think that I learned to code from those girl camps - after all, if you get the job done, you get the job done, no one cares about how you learn to do it. Maybe deep down I still feel the same, but I know one thing for certain - I’m no longer ashamed to be a girl.