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A good friend suggested I add to my resume what I like to do. I thought about it a while and realized the things that I most like to do involve using tools that I most like using, because they represent the day-to-day reality of what I like doing. |
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| My Brain |
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Fortunately, I am blessed with a good one. Not just for the work that has become my career, but for other endeavours too. I have a curious mind that always wants to understand and know more, about pretty much any topic. I learned to read early, and as a young teen I devoured crossword and logic puzzles to set the stage for an interest in solving things. Collecting stamps taught me about far-flung parts of the world, places and things . Playing several musical instruments and dabbling in a couple languages (human and computer) taught me how to think in varied ways. |
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| My Eyes and Ears |
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I am an observer first, a thinker second, and an actor after that. |
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| Education |
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In high school I was in the debate club, which gave me several tools: - Research (library card catalogues, following cross-references)
- Analysis (juggling data, balancing disparate arguments)
- Communication (writing and public speaking)
My multi-disciplinary university education gave me another set of tools: - How to ask the right questions.
- How to seek the best answers among reasonable alternatives.
Independently I learned the power of Lateral Thinking to discover non-obvious solutions and see the world in new ways.
I also started my teaching experience then, trying to convey the new concepts of computers to scared middle-aged women that feared the new machines replacing their typewriters and foreign students in a new world that just wanted to write their theses and graduate. |
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| Collected Wisdom |
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First the Library, now the Internet. I can't know everything, but I can know how to gather and sift through the wisdom of others to add it to mine. Coupled with an ability to read quickly and work a web browser, I enjoy surfing the seas of data, collecting information that can make me smarter. |
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| Words |
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With a pencil for scribbling, later MS Word for printing, now vi and HTML, I enjoy sharing thoughts and ideas with people. I always have pencil and paper on me, for the last 30+ years, to record notes and ideas. |
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| Spreadsheets |
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Spreadsheets are my favourite form of ad hoc programming, and sometimes graphics. I've used them to create budgets, forecasts, databases, my taxes, even logos and business cards. The stretchable grid (sometimes cube) of cells that can collect data or be coloured or programmed has been a source of inspiration since my first exposure to Lotus 1-2-3. |
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| Perl |
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I've used a number of programming languages over the decades, and still use a few others, but Perl has stood the test of time against all newcomers. Even the currently fashionable. I use it in my job, and I use it in my hobbies and it's the language against which all others are compared. |
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| HTML |
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HTML lets me present information I can share in a way that everyone can consume now that the Internet is everywhere. From this résumé to my blogs to the iPRSM application that pays my bills HTML has become the lingua franca of Internet communication and carried on from my days using and teaching TextForm, and earlier publication markup language in the pre-Desktop Publishing days. |