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Career Networking Presentation WISE women in computer science

Who Do You Think I Am?

Recently, I was at an event. A colleague was giving a talk, which I’d worked to set up. Someone “important” at the location, who I’ve met, who in fact once signed a thank-you note to me and was, I’m told, part of a (positive) conversation about some of my work days before came down. I […]

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Networking Reflections

No Drama, Please

  The other day, my boyfriend said to me, “One of the things I love about you is that you’re incapable of bullsh*tting. But I think that gets you into trouble, because people who do bullsh*t just assume you must as well.” This is his explanation for my latest headache. Where I make the argument […]

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inspiration Networking Presentation

#TEDxWaterloo

My mind was blown at TEDx Waterloo – the Uncharted – on Thursday. Seriously, it was SO AWESOME. I was extremely excited and it was more awesome than even I had prepared myself for. Vincent John Vincent (from GestureTek) talked about gesture-based computing. It’s incredible what they’ve been doing and for how long, and made […]

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Books Networking Presentation Social Networking Twitter

Being Yourself On The Internet

I’m Cate, I work for Google as a Software Engineer (on mobile Gmail). For fun, I’m a qualified ski instructor and I love to kickbox. I was the Instigator of Awesome at Awesome Ottawa, and I do various things around getting more women into CompSci. I have a BSc from the University of Edinburgh and […]

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Awesome Foundation inspiration Networking Reflections Relocating

Ottawa, a Love Letter

I received something in the mail last week, and it made me really happy. It was a copy of What Would Google Do? (Amazon) and a hilarious card from the wonderful Ian at the Code Factory. It really made me think about how I changed as a person during the two years I spent in […]

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Education Networking Organization Reflections

The Waterfall Method is No Way to Plan Your Life

I have a new mentee, her name’s AY Daring and you should check her out because she’s awesome. The other day we were talking about what she wants to do with her life, and she has this great stuff that she’s doing with respect to LGBT youth, and I said, “sure, that’s great but will […]

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Extreme Blue job hunting Networking Organization

Failure Is Not An Option

Having admitted that I seek out a high level of stress, it’s timely that I have, once again, gone way past the level of stress that I like to operate and hit the “woah this is damaging to my productivity” bit. I wrote before about How to be Crazy Busy Without Losing Your Mind and […]

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Education Networking Programming

“Must Not Be Used for Evil” and Other Things CS Students Need to Know About OSS

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time this summer reading software licenses. Ultimately, a lawyer would have to be the final judge about what I can and cannot use, but it’s helpful for me to know when it is worth taking to the lawyer at all. Depressingly, a little knowledge can often tell you […]

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inspiration Networking WISE

CCWESTT Conference

Among the (many) reasons I haven’t been blogging lately, is the conference I attended at the weekend – CCWESTT, which stands for Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology. It was great – amazing speakers, enlightening talks, and the chance to spend time with some of the other execs from WISE. I […]

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Networking Reflections

Being Nice

I’ve been thinking about being likable lately, because things seem to keep coming back to kick me in the head. Am I doing it wrong? Trying too hard? Not trying the right things? Not trying the right people? Over thinking all this? And then, well, I just offered to do a favor for a friend, […]