Coding Raps!

One of our ScriptEd alums, Earl, is attending Flatiron School through the NYC Web Development Fellowship.  He is now completing his internship and is well on his way to becoming a web developer (and, we hope, a ScriptEd volunteer!)

Below I'm sharing some of his freestyle raps about code.  They are awesome (especially Fizz Buzz. Watch it!)

Enjoy.

Fizz Buzz!

Ruby on Rails

Legacy Show

Triathlon Season + ScriptEd's Triathlon Team

This weekend, I competed in my first triathlon of the season - a very hilly Northeast Regional Championship at Quassy Amusement Park in Connecticut. I am really pleased with how I did.  Last year, I finished the race in 2hrs and 49 minutes, and this year I got at 2:41. I dropped a minute in the swim, 2 minutes in the bike, and 4 minutes on the run, and went a bit faster in my transitions.  I also re-qualified for the USA Triathlon National Championship in Milwaukee this August. If this is any indication of things to come, I'm feeling pretty confident that this will be my best season yet.

This season, I combined my two passions -- ScriptEd and competing in triathlons -- and registered ScriptEd as a charity partner in the New York City Triathlon.  A small group of us have been training together and raising money for ScriptEd.  Please consider donating. If you're interested in competing with us - please let me know. I just secured three more individual spots on our team.


Happy Monday.

Changes

Yesterday, I turned 31. Thank you to everyone who made my day really special.

If I could pick one theme that defined the last year of my life, it would be “change.” My life completely changed in the last year:

1. I moved three times -- From Manhattan, to Brooklyn, to another place in Brooklyn. Before last year, I lived in the same apartment in Manhattan for seven years - the longest that I’ve lived in one place for my entire life. There’s a lot I miss about living in Manhattan and in my old apartment, but I also feel like I’ve “come home” by moving to Brooklyn. Living in Brooklyn forces to me have more of a work / life balance. I’m really loving it here and can’t believe it took me so long to get here.
   
2. I ended a relationship with my best friend. Erik and I lived together for five years. He is one of the most creative, passionate, charismatic and intelligent people I know. He has so much to do with who I am today - he taught me all about bikes, he got me into programming, and he is the person who first came up with the idea for ScriptEd. His family became my family. Our relationship allowed me to pursue all of the things I wanted to in my twenties. In the end we decided, for a whole bunch of reasons, that we were not meant to be each other’s life partners.  
   
3. ScriptEd changed a lot. A little more than a year ago, it was just me and Becca working out of my apartment and coffee shops. We moved offices four different times in the last year to accommodate our growth.  We worked with a lot more volunteers, students and schools. The things I do day to day in my job are very different now than the things I did a year a go.

I definitely know a lot more about myself at 31 than I did at 21, but I’m still figuring some stuff out. All these changes have made me re-examine who I am and what I want out of life. They’ve all made me grow.

I’m really excited for the next year.

Wallpaper is Coming Down!

The wallpaper on the 17th floor bathroom walls at WeWork FiDi is coming down.  (See Monday and Wednesday's posts for more information.

Here's the email I got from WeWork about it:

I'll refrain from commenting on some of the parts of this email.  Overall, this is a good way to kick off my birthday :)

(Yes, it's my birthday! You should DEFINITELY give me a present. In fact, what I want most for my birthday is for you to donate to Becca's or Tom's Triathlon Fundraiser for ScriptEd. Becca and Tom give their blood, sweat and tears to ScriptEd every single day and could use some help. Thanks!)

Wallpaper Update

On Monday, I wrote a post about the WeWork bathroom wallpaper. I have also posted a few instagram photos here, here and here about the wallpaper. This has generated a lot of conversation on both Twitter and Facebook, and when we arrived back to the office from our internship training yesterday we found a ton more post it notes on the bathroom wall (which were removed almost immediately after I tweeted about there being more post it notes...)

Here's a more full story of what's been happening.  We first submitted a complaint about the wallpaper to WeWork last Thursday, May 28th. We did not receive a response to the complaint, so I followed up with them yesterday (Tuesday, June 2nd) again.  The Community Team at FiDi said I would need to address the issue with the Brand Team at WeWork.  Here's the exchange we had:

Me to WeWork:

WeWork Response:

Here's to hoping this gets resolved. While WeWork strives to be edgy, cool and forward thinking in its decor, I think we can all agree that there is nothing edgy, cool or forward thinking about objectifying women. That's been going on for ages.

Volunteer Feature: Andrew Ingraham

I'm planning to feature some of our awesome volunteers here from time to time.

Me and Andrew at Get Fit or Be Hacking.
(We were a team - and we won!)

Meet Andrew Ingraham, a software developer with About.com. Andrew is one of two of ScriptEd's first ever volunteers. He accidentally wandered into our first volunteer training at Columbia University in 2012, and because no one else showed up, we had no choice but to take him.

Andrew has totally blown me away by his commitment to ScriptEd and our students. This year, he completed his third year of teaching at Harlem Village Academy High School. He played a critical role in creating the first version of our curriculum, and he also has taken on ScriptEd students as interns at About.com every summer, and this year, is raising money for ScriptEd by competing in the New York City Triathlon (want to donate to his fundraiser? Click here.) He's also just an incredible teacher, friend, and human being, and our students are so lucky to have him.

Below I asked Andrew some questions.  Enjoy!

What's your favorite part about volunteering for ScriptEd?
Seeing a student have an "Aha!" moment.  Their excitement is contagious and it brings me back to how enthralled I was when I was first learning to code.  It never fails to put a huuuge smile on my face.

How has ScriptEd made you better at your job?
It's completely transformed my role at About.com.  When I started at About 3 years ago, I was a backend developer writing C++ with absolutely no frontend experience.  Since ScriptEd teaches HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (all frontend technologies), I had no choice but to learn them and to learn them fast.  As a result, my frontend skills have developed tremendously to the point where I'm now a frontend developer on my team at About and better at JavaScript than I ever was at C++.
It's made me a better public speaker, teacher, and gotten me more involved with the programming community as a whole, all of which benefit my work tremendously.
And it's not technically part of my job, but I'm designing and teaching a 10-week web development course for non-developers at About.com which will largely follow ScriptEd's first year curriculum.

Has ScriptEd changed your life?
Practically every aspect of my life has improved as a result of ScriptEd.  I'll keep this short, but it changed me from a backend developer to a full stack developer.  It introduced me to a community of amazing people, many who have become my best friends.  It expanded my programming interests beyond what's relevant to the coding I do at work.
I have found nothing more motivating than having students who depend on me.  It makes me so much more driven to understand material and find interesting ways of sharing that knowledge.
ScriptEd has made me a better programmer, teacher, and person.

WeWork Wallpaper

ScriptEd works out of the WeWork offices in the Financial District. Recently, WeWork put up new wallpaper in the women's restroom featuring sliced off women's legs and crotch areas.

This is ridiculous.  I feel uncomfortable having guests use the restroom, let alone any students that visit us.  It's disrespectful and makes me not too happy about working here.  This definitely does not scream "professional work environment."

Hoping WeWork gets this message and takes this crap down ASAP.