I was born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a small island in the Caribbean (near Puerto Rico, 1000+ miles south and east of Florida). The good: wonderfully warm weather and beautiful beaches. In short, the kind of place many people call paradise. The bad: the boredom that goes along with living on a small island, Hurricanes Hugo and Marilyn, and lack of academic opportunities.
I was a nerd. I did well in school, liked math and comuters, and was constantly reading and writing. I participated in nerdy hobbies like quiz bowl and MathCounts, devoted myself to lengthy research projects, and racked up a large phone bill after discovering usenet. I spent two summers at Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics, an excellent math summer program, where I was introduced to yellow pigs. Attending HCSSiM was probably one of the best things I ever did.
I had a few really good teachers and classes in high school, but overall I was pretty bored. So when I heard about Simon's Rock, a college which accepts students who have not yet completed high school, I applied. I was accepted, and I dropped out of high school after my sophomore year to begin college in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I had a wonderful time at Simon's Rock. I took excellent math classes, wrote lots of papers, learned lots, and was genuinely challenged. Most importantly, I found a place where I really fit in and had lots of close friends who were also interested in learning.
My sophmore year I installed Debian GNU/Linux, and began working for the school's IT department. Much of my last two years in college revolved around my nearly-fulltime job. Somehow I also managed to carry a heavy course load and spend time with my excellent housemates.
At the end of my junior year, I drove to California for a six month computer internship at Stanford University. While there, I spent an excessive amount of time writing my thesis, a mathematical story based very loosely on Alice in Wonderland.
I graduated in May 2000 and took a position working as the sole Systems Administrator at Simon's Rock. Initially, the department was understaffed, and I was doing all things remotely computer-related. Outside of work, I also taught a linux class and spent time with some of my co-workers, my housemate Amber, and my boyfriend Karl.
In September 2001, while still continuing my job part-time, I moved to Somerville (just outside of Boston) to purse a masters in philosophy at Tufts University. For three semesters, I took classes and exams, wrote a ton of papers, worked too much, and spent my free time with my boyfriend, housemates and other nearby friends. In July 2002, one of my housemates and I spent two weeks traveling in Europe.
In November 2002, I moved to Cape Cod to live with my boyfriend. I began working full-time (same job, still remotely), audited a class, studied for exams, read a lot, went to the beach when the weather was nice.
In October 2003, I finally left Simon's Rock and began working at WHOI. My primary project there was to implement a network registration system and generally work on things at the intersection of networking and system administration. Meanwhile, I continued studying for philosophy exams. I also juggled, gardened, and visited nearby friends. I passed the last of my philosophy exams in January 2005 and received my M.A. in philosophy in May 2005.
In October 2005 my boyfriend and I both moved to Silicon Valley to work at an Internet company you've probably heard of. Work and other computer geekery keeps me pretty busy.
I still pretend to be an academic sometimes. In May 2006 I presented a paper on Virgin Islanders at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In July 2006 I attended Yellow Pig Math Days at Hampshire. In September 2006 I started attending history and philosophy of science talks at Stanford. In my free time, I read a lot of books and edit Wikipedia.
(Last updated Nov 2006)