When I was in the second grade, my teacher was Mrs. Gregeratus, which always made me think of dinosaurs.

One day, Mrs. Gregeratus announced that the entire school district was holding a poetry contest. That day we all worked on our poems for submission. I still remember the poem I wrote. Here it is:

Bugs, bugs.
They’re under your rugs.
Know what I’d do,
If I were you?
STEP ON THEM!!!!

It was my great honor to win 1st prize for second-grade poetry.

Yes, 1st prize my friends. Maybe I should have been a jingle-writer. But then I’d never be able to face Bill Hicks in the afterlife, and I couldn’t have that.

I’m less scared of bugs these days, probably due to desensitization after living in the tropics. But crazy-ass creatures still fascinate me. (And don’t get me started on cryptids.) But, as is my wont, I digress.

So I showed up at Carbon Five on the evening of February 8 for my first Women Who Code SF meetup: an iOS Build-an-App workshop. I’d never worked in Objective-C before, but I had Xcode installed on my machine, and it was advertised as being for all levels.

So glad I went. I had a fantastic time. Carbon Five fed us a delicious Mediterranean dinner, and then we tucked into the Ray Wenderlich tutorials. Most people paired up, but I was the odd woman out, so I started by building an app, called Scary Bugs, that allows users to rate the scariness of various bugs.

The tutorial was so well done. I applaud and bow to Ray Wenderlich for explaining things so clearly. I can’t say I came away with a deep understanding of Objective-C, but I got my hands dirty with it, and I finished the first part of the tutorial without a hitch.

 

 

Now I can’t wait to get myself to do part 2 of that tutorial, and meet up with those awesome women again! Thanks to Michele Titolo, Stephanie Shupe, and Diane Zmuda for leading this très awesome meetup.