Hello again friends,
There are an unexpectedly large number of things going on right now for me. Since my last update, I’ve finished settling into our new apartment in New Haven, and my new studio/office is very nice.
So… I left my full-time job in 2023 to travel and be self-employed, and now, almost two years later, it turns out that I feel ready to return to a more “normal” job again. I started polishing up my resumé and created an account on LinkedIn (something I have resisted doing for a long time).
Well, it turns out that my resistance was justified, because LinkedIn is, in fact, an extremely hellish platform. Within a couple days of joining, I managed to get my new account banned twice until I figured out that some software I run for online privacy was making them think I was a bot. (That has since been resolved, but it didn’t exactly inspire confidence.)
It’s been a while since I undertook this type of job search, so if anyone has any recommendations or advice, or if you know someone who is hiring, please get in touch. I’m especially looking for jobs in software development/IT, and I’m in New Haven but can make it to NYC fairly easily. I published a resumé page on my website, feel free to share it if you want to.
Also, if you use LinkedIn as well, please feel free to connect with me there and we can “endorse” each others’ “skills.” At least until I get banned again!
In semi-related news, I am excited to be attending a 6-week coding retreat at Recurse Center. I’ve heard a lot about their program from friends that have attended, so I’m looking forward to finally getting to participate myself. It’s sort of like an artist residency, but for computer programming instead of art. (Although you can also make art if your art consists of coding computer programs.) You can work on whatever projects you decide, and collaborate with others who are doing the same. The goals are to improve your coding skills and challenge yourself to try new things, while also building community, and they can also help connect you with job openings.
Since I’ve been obsessively building websites for the past couple of years, I’m planning to channel that energy into making some interactive web-based experiments and pushing myself beyond my current comfort zone of fully static HTML/CSS. The session I’m attending starts in just over a week! I’ll be heading into their Brooklyn-based hub for some of it, and doing the rest remotely.
What else is going on? I’m teaching an HTML/CSS weekend intensive workshop at Wavefield in Brooklyn on March 8-9. If you’re in the area and want to learn how to build websites from scratch, or you already know how to and just need some external motivation to get you to actually do it, consider joining! If it’s anything like the online version of this class I did last year, it should be really fun. I can’t wait to see what people make.
Tickets via Wavefield on Withfriends
Aside from those things, I joined an awesome Makerspace in New Haven and am looking forward to using some of their extensive array of tools to make my next batch of Mystery Objects for Zine Club. I also started doing a work-trade at a local yoga studio. There are a lot of cool things in New Haven!
I have more things coming up in March that I’m excited to share, but they are still in the cocoon stage of being organized, so I’ll probably send out another update early next month. In the meantime, be well.
Best,
Paloma Kop
palomakop.tv/now
