Introductions are so intimidating! It's the same sort of paralyzing fear that I associate with middles school dances, or awkward first dates. What is cool? Who should I associate with? What impression will be made?

SO, Hi. I'm Alexandra, a 30-something mom of two. I have no idea what's cool, and few associations, but I've long been driven by an overwhelming love of learning - so if any impression should be made, it's that.

Most recently, I was a high school English teacher. By recently, I mean for I've been in education since 2010, until I decided last fall that teaching secondary education had become more draining than uplifting. After turning in my resignation and faced with the quiet refrain of "so what are you doing next?", I turned to coding. Returned, really, as I spent two years out of college designing and coding email newsletters. There's been a long path here, of in and out of tech, that I'll get into another day. But for a long time, I never thought of myself as smart enough or tech-y enough to succeed as a developer. Those days are over with.

So now I have enrolled in a bootcamp of sorts, but not the typical coding bootcamp. Rather, as a member of the first cohort of MomsCan:Code Develop Camp, I'm honing a lot of developer soft skills - personal branding, remote working, peer programming, and more - while also working through coding tutorials and building products. And it's AMAZING. I'm energized. I'm learning. I have accountability, peer support, AND an amazing mentor in tech.

In the long term, I want to converge these constant threads in my life. Learning, technology, teaching, design, coding, stories. I haven't figured out how I'm going to do that yet, but the journey is half the fun - right?

As long as I don't let that paralyzing fear get in my way.