<p>Everyone else is writing one of these end of the year blog posts, so I suppose I will jump on that bandwagon too. I'm lazy, so I'm going with a list. Here's some of the stuff I did this year in no particular order:</p>
<ul>
<li>Started a new job at Google.</li>
<li>Continued as the chapter leader of <a href="http://www.meetup.com/Girl-Develop-IT-Pittsburgh/">Girl Develop It Pittsburgh</a> and taught two classes.</li>
<li>Gave my first conference talk (and then two more after that).</li>
<li>Attended 6 conferences in 5 different cities. <a href="/speaking">Spoke</a> at three of them. Helped organize <a href="http://steelcityruby.org/">one</a>. This was probably too much, but it was awesome.</li>
<li>Went to <a href="http://gracehopper.org/">Grace Hopper Celebration</a> for the first time. There's nothing quite like being in a room with 4,000 other women programmers. If you've never been, you should go at least once.</li>
<li>Started a speaker support group.</li>
<li>I read (and <a href="/blog/2013/04/03/julie-s-lean-in-livetweets/">livetweeted</a>) Lean In. I'm still angry about it.</li>
<li>I started assuaging my corporate guilt by donating to awesome people on <a href="https://www.gittip.com/">Gittip</a>. Thank you to the folks who donated to me!</li>
<li>I got scared (see: pycon 2013), and I got loud because silence is too high a price for my safety.</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="/blog/2013/03/24/my-experiences-in-tech-death-by-1000-paper-cuts/">death by 1000 papercuts</a> because it was important.</li>
<li><a href="/blog/2013/11/10/site-redesign-using-middleman/">Redesigned my site</a> and tried to write more.</li>
<li>Created a <a href="/blog/2013/11/02/101-off-limits/">101 off limits</a> list because I wanted to educate without exhausting myself. What can I say, I'm a coder, I like to keep things DRY.</li>
<li>Thought a lot about mental health. I went on medication for the first time in 28 years for my anxiety. I saw <a href="http://vimeo.com/72690223">Greg Bauges</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_ku2YmnWkA">Ed Finkler</a> speak candidly about their own experiences with mental health issues (if you haven't seen their talks, go watch them now).</li>
<li>I <a href="/blog/2013/11/02/it-s-dangerous-to-go-alone-battling-the-invisible-monsters-in-tech/">spoke about impostor syndrome</a> as an important mental health issue. I started an <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/battling-the-invisible-monsters">online support group</a> and hope to continue talking about this in 2014.</li>
<li>Spoiled the crap out of my cats and took approximately a billion photos of them.</li>
<li>I internalized and started really working on something I've known, but had difficulty with in the past: setting and maintaining boundaries.</li>
<li>I ran out of fucks to give about people who are harmful and don't respect boundaries. I burned some bridges it was no longer worth maintaining.</li>
<li>And last, but definitely not least, I made some awesome new friendships and strengthened others. Much love for all of you. &#x3C;3</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm still working on figuring things out. What I want to do with myself. Finding my voice. This was a rough year, but I pushed myself to do a lot of scary things that were important to me and met some amazing people as a result. I consider it a net positive.</p>

/vercel/path0/content/blog/2014-01-01-year-in-review-2013.md

In which I talk about stuff I did in 2013.

Year in Review 2013