If you are a woman in Seattle, you can’t not learn web development.  It is prolific, ubiquitous, pervasive, easy, and inexpensive-to-free.  In the past week, for a total of $100 plus bus fare, I have attended:

JS Seattle Meetup’s Free jQuery training held at picturesque Red Fin
Girl Develop It’s HTML5 and CSS3 eight hour course
Seattle Tech Meetup (at least the first hour before intensive day job had me sleep walking back to the bus)
RailsBridge Seattle weekend intensive Ruby on Rails workshop (we made an app!)
Awesome post-workshop happy hour sponsored by BlueBox (they deserve the plug because we got free margaritas)

And I have learned:

• Basic jQuery commands that I can now apply to JavaScript
• That my entire website made so proudly by hand now needs to be changed completely to make the most of the awesome-ness of HTML5 and CSS3 (will be done as soon as said intensive day job is finished this week!!!)
• Why Ruby on Rails is easy but also very different from the other languages I’ve used
• That I know enough about programming to self-select the “advanced” section for the Rails workshop and be successful there
• That I still have so much to learn!

But mostly, I have been so inspired by all the awesome people I have met at these events and classes. And I’m not just saying that because I’m trying to get a job writing sappy greeting cards.  Meeting other people, especially women, who share my same goals and interests makes me feel so much less adrift in this crazy life and career change.  New goal: one day to be a volunteer at these events as a “TA”.

Thank you, Seattle!