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Tara Raine Bloyd
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So I think I'm one of the few people in the world (or at least the World-Wide
Web) who doesn't have at least one picture of myself up for everyone's perusal.
Why? Well, for several reasons. First, I'm lazy. Even though we have a
perfectly good scanner at work, it would still take too much effort to
actually find a picture and scan it in. Second, I don't really think anyone
needs to know what I look like. You know the old saying "On the
internet nobody knows you're a dog"? Well, I could be one, or I could be the
most stunning example of human perfection you've ever had the chance to
witness.... You can decide, but if you think about either option too long you
might want to wonder why it is that appearances matter so much to you.
Finally, though, I really enjoy the above
pictures --
I find them calming, and thought other people might also.
I'm not quite sure whether it'd be worse if I was nominated one of the Babes of
the Net, or if I wasn't mentioned at all -- so I'll just not even invite the
option! Thus, rather than showing you what I look like, I'll instead
try to share a little about what I am like.
Eek! The world should be scared -- my brother's now online!
First, the basics:
- In case you hadn't guessed, I'm a woman, and I'm online. Why should this
matter? It shouldn't. But sometimes it does, and that's why I've started
trying to gather different places where being female is celebrated, not
denigrated -- places where I can go to find "An eddy
of estrogen in the vast sea of testosterone that is the Internet."
- Along those lines, I wrote a paper about
gender issues on one particular machine which I like to frequent --
Soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU.
This link has the added benefit of confusing the poor people who use
certain search engines, because they do searches for things like "hot
naked babe looking for men" and end up at my paper, which discusses sexism.
I just find that rather apt...
- I have a fairly odd background, which
you might want to read about if you're particularly bored -- it was far more
fun than it sounds, really it was!
- Simultaneous with this odd background comes a fairly odd job history --
I've had more jobs than most people my age, because I've moved around so
much, but I've finally decided what I want to do with my life -- check out
my resume! And hey, if you've got a wonderful
job that's just crying out for someone of my abilities,
hire me, please?
- Until just recently I was a student at
Cal -- I graduated last May, after
three years here and with a grand total of five years in college. And now
I hardly know what to do with myself (though I have discovered that the real
world has homework too!). Because of the above-mentioned job, I'm still in
Berkeley -- Peter (my fiance) and I share a decent house, so you should come
visit me -- it's easy to get
here!
(Just FYI, I graduated with a double major in
English and
Anthropology,
specializing in Archaeology. Good majors, both, but Anthro was my real love.
Well, anthro and Computers.
- After I finished with classes, but before I turned in my honors thesis
(don't ask me if I ever turned it in, please!), I got a job,
working at StarNine Technologies,
in Berkeley, as a sales rep. It was fun. Maybe sales is in the genes or
something, since all three of my parents were in sales at some point of
their varied careers.
- Then I moved on -- I'm now working for Keynote Systems, a very promising start-up in San Mateo; I'm the Sales Manager, and it's my job to see that we stay in business.... no pressure there, of course.
- Before I decided to go out and get a job, I'd pretty much decided to
apply to grad school
for next year (ack!), but that's been postponed indefinitely for reasons of
both finances and sanity...
- Back when I did think I might have a career in academia, and to an
extent even now, I spent a fair amount of my time checking out
archaeological
resources and
fieldwork
opportunities online -- there's lots!
- No matter how much I love archaeology, I will never
be like Indiana Jones -- though I can
imagine some uses for a bullwhip!
- Oh, yeah, and I'm working on the
Anthropology Undergraduate Association
home page. Why? So I have something to do when I want to procrastinate
on everything else I'm working on, of course! But I can only update the
page as I get information, which happens far too rarely...
- As the culmination of my archaeological experience, I spent
the summer of 1994 in Hawaii doing fieldwork. It was fun, and all
those things that tourists pay for, like hiking to the Halawa Falls,
I got to do for free.. yay!
- There's one fairly significant part of my life which I've neglected to
mention until now -- I have a
fiance... and
it's his fault that I started learning HTML, 'cause he created a
home page for me that I had to change.
So I learned, in order to do so... Thus, if you feel the need to blame anyone
for my presence on the net,
mail him....
- Even though I have a fiance, I'm also a geek. (The discerning reader has probably already figured this
out, simply from the oh-so-subtle hints leading up to this big revelation.)
Maybe that should be the other way around -- I'm a geek and still have a
fiance? Not quite sure, I just know that we deserve each other, especially
since he worked at Netscape -- which I
suppose means I can forego the obligatory "Netscape Enhanced" message. He's
now a sysadmin at Inktomi Corporation,
creators of the wonderful new entry into the already *quite* full field of
search engines.... staff
at the OCF and spend too much time
hanging out on
soda.CSUA. Additionally, I'm
doing some work for server, the UC
Berkeley student-run WWW server. I have to admit, though, that as I put in
longer and longer days at work, my need to come home and geek all night
lessens considerably!
- Need help? Well, computer-help, at least -- even though I do answer
mail sent to therapist@server
(don't feel compelled to try it, though it really
does work... ), I'm talking about computer-stuff. I'm helping in the upkeep
of the help sessions
home page; I also answer mail sent to
staff@ocf.berkeley.edu and
help@csua.berkeley.edu.
- I answer lots of other mail as well -- many of my friends are online, and
it's a great way to stay in touch. They send me lots of wonderfully humorous
stuff, which I then turn around and share with you. Want to know what your
favorite color says about you? Of course you do!
Then, a bit about what I like...
- Music is fun; I like lots of very different groups, but the ones I'm
currently fixating on include:
- The Indigo Girls
(I went to their concert in Berkeley last August!)
- Tori Amos (I went to
her concert also... )
- Liz Phair (If all you want is
lyrics, try here.)
(Her concert was far less exciting than I had hoped.)
- They Might Be Giants (Yes, I
managed to get to their concert too -- but it wasn't one of the free ones... )
- Sarah McLachlan
(Missed her concert, to my eternal dismay... )
- Hmmmm... what else do I do? Oh yeah, I read. A lot. All the time, even.
Avidly. Voraciously. Everything from cereal boxes to campaign fliers to comic
books to literature... but somehow not including schoolbooks! Some things I like
to read that you might enjoy too:
- Science Fiction
is fun...
- So is children's literature
... (since I have an eight-year-old brother, I find kids' books particularly interesting.)
- Along those lines, I really appreciate
Dr. Seuss's works.
Hey... he taught me how to count after all!
- Winnie the Pooh
also amuses me immense amounts -- I particularly like Eeyore.
Of course, if you're going to discuss the Bear himself,
you have to discuss tigger, too.
- Mark Twain consumed my
life for a couple of years (a senior thesis, a class, and just a general interest in
his work... and particularly his cynicism!)
- Save yourself some money if you buy a weekly newsmagazine -- try
here first.
- Of course, there's always the ubiquitous Project Gutenberg.
- Comics and cartoons are lots of fun.... Check these out!
Really bored? Check out these cool/interesting/weird/psychotic places to visit
Ooooookay, so you made it all the way down here... I'm impressed. I just told
a friend that my home page is long...
and he said that when it was short, it was "more indicative of the real Tara."
Then my fiance chimed in with the comment that at least I didn't tell many tall
tales. People are so very kind to me....
