July 8, 2025
Finding My North Star: Building Tech for a Better World
The last month has been a crucible. Navigating burnout, freelance uncertainties, and even a bout of laryngitis has forced me to get quiet and really think about the "why" behind all this. Why am I pushing myself to learn Python? Why am I diving into the complexities of data and AI? The answer that keeps coming back, louder and clearer each day, has less to do with the code itself and more to do with the people it can serve.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the world of technology and who it’s typically built for. So often, the latest and greatest advancements seem to serve a very narrow, capitalistic slice of the population. The developments trend toward serving the powerful, and I find myself completely at odds with that. In a world with so much turbulence and inequality, I want my skills to mean something more. I want to build tools that help, not just tools that sell.
My focus is shifting toward creating technology for the communities that are often left behind: people with disabilities, the elderly, people of color, and the LGBT+ community. I want to use my growing knowledge of tech and AI ethics to build things that matter, things that create empathy and advocate for a more just world.
It feels good to say that out loud. And it feels even better to start building it.
I just uploaded my latest project prototype to GitHub, and it’s the first real step in this new direction. It’s called "The Ripple Effect." It’s a simple interactive tool designed to show the real-world, human impact of job and social program cuts on disabled workers. We see statistics all the time, but this project tells the stories behind the numbers, walking you through realistic scenarios to show how one event, like losing a job, can create a devastating ripple effect on a person's entire life.
It's a small project, built with simple, accessible web tech, but it feels like the most important thing I’ve worked on yet. It’s technology as a tool for activism.
This is my north star now. This is the "why." As I continue to learn and grow—working through my data analysis courses, wrestling with Python, and researching ethical AI—it will all be in service of this mission. I don't just want to be another cog in the machine. I want to be a builder of better, kinder, and more equitable machines. It’s a huge goal, but for the first time in a while, the path forward feels clear.
July 5, 2025
Losing My Voice to Find It
It’s been almost five weeks, and I still don’t have my voice back. Not really. I’m living in a state of perpetual laryngitis, a physical souvenir from a job I had to walk away from. And in a strange way, it’s fitting. Because this past year has been a masterclass in what happens when you lose your voice at work - and the difficult, necessary process of finding it again.
If this were last year, my priorities would be different. I’d be hustling in a state of near-constant anxiety, grateful for any scrap of work after a long quiet spell with little to no projects from companies I'd previously had good experiences with. I've taken on soul-crushing data annotation jobs and navigated the feast-or-famine cycle of freelancing. The only consistent bright spot has been my seasonal work as a test scorer for a company I genuinely love working for.
This whole experience has made me a little jaded, but I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just… clarity.
Which brings me to a recent project. If this were last year, I’d be slaving away, eager to impress. But my perspective has shifted. A new style of management felt more demanding, less collaborative, and just…less, I don’t have the exact words. Furthermore, the general sentiment communicated was that the freelancers needed to bust their asses so that the people who were NOT freelancers could enjoy their time off during a holiday/weekend.
A year ago, I would have internalized that and pushed myself to the brink. Now, all I could hear was the tone-deafness of it all and the unspoken expectation that freelancers should sacrifice their own time for the sake of capitalism. It felt compromising. It felt like being reminded that, to some, you are not a person with a life, but a cog in a machine.
And in that moment, I didn't feel angry. I just felt… clear. I’ll do good work on this project, because that’s my standard. But my energy, my passion, my late-night efforts? Those are no longer for sale.
That energy is for me now. It’s for my Python courses. It’s for building my own projects on GitHub. It’s for figuring out how to be my own boss, a free agent paving my own way. This is about more than just surviving; it's about building a life where my worth isn't dictated by someone else's bottom line.
So yes, I physically lost my voice for a while. But I think I’m finally starting to find the one that matters.
July 3, 2025
The Non-Linear Path: On Burnout, Bounces, and Building
Well, it’s been a minute. I wanted to check in and post an update from the front lines of building a new career, and let me tell you—the last few weeks have been a real testament to the fact that this path is anything but a straight line.
If I'm being honest, I'm feeling pretty run-down at the moment. I'm nursing the tail-end of a fourth straight week of laryngitis, which is a lovely parting gift from a customer support job I tried out recently. It took only a week and a half to gather some very clear personal data: high-stress, micromanaged call center environments are absolutely not for me. Walking away from what could have been a steady job was tough, but it was one of the best decisions I could have made for my mental health. It was a detour, but a necessary and valuable one.
And in a wild turn of events, just as that door closed, another one opened. I was so fortunate to land a project right after with an educational scoring company that I absolutely adore. The work is so fulfilling, and it was a much-needed boost for my finances and my spirit. If only it were a year-round opportunity instead of seasonal, it would honestly be a dream job!
That project has since wrapped up, and I've been lucky enough to jump right into my next contract with a tech company I've worked with before. I'll be doing content review, writing, and data labeling until about the end of July, and I'm incredibly grateful to have these projects that keep everything moving forward.
But I suppose the real story isn't just about hopping from one gig to the next. The real work is what happens in between, during the quiet hours. My brain is constantly trying to absorb everything I can. I'm pushing personal projects to GitHub, diving into AI ethics research, and working my way through courses on **365 Data Science**, **Maven Analytics**, and **DataCamp**. And through it all, I’m still plugging away at my biggest goal: learning more **Python**.
It isn't easy, and some days (like today) I'm just plain tired. But every course I finish, every line of code I write, and every project I complete feels like laying another brick in the foundation of a future I'm building for myself—one that's more skilled, more marketable, and more authentically *me*.
So, that’s the update from my little corner of the world. A little bit of burnout, a couple of lucky bounces, and a whole lot of building. Thanks for reading. ❤️
July 2, 2025
init: Starting The CodeByteQuill README
Hello, World!
And just like that, it begins. This is the first post on my brand new blog, and if I'm being honest, it's both exciting and a little terrifying. This space is something I've wanted to create for a while: a personal log, a digital lab notebook, and a public record of my journey into the world of code and technology. This is my README file, for the project that is me.
For a long time, I've been fascinated by how things work under the hood. I finally decided to stop wondering and start doing, and this blog is my first real step. It's my commitment to myself to learn in the open, share what I discover, and document the inevitable bugs, frustrations, and those amazing "aha!" moments along the way.
The name of this blog, and my username **CodeByteQuill**, is something I put a lot of thought into. It’s a summary of its mission here:
* **Code & Byte:** For the technical, digital, world I'm diving into.
* **Quill:** For the timeless, human act of writing and journaling. It’s a nod to my own name and a reminder that learning to code is also a creative craft.
What you're looking at right now is my very first project. I built this simple blog app from scratch with the help of my AI brainstorming partner, Gemini. It’s a single HTML file that uses JavaScript to save posts to the browser's local storage, all wrapped in a clean, dark-mode theme. We even added edit and delete functions! Deploying it to Netlify felt like a huge victory, and every little feature we added felt like unlocking a new level.
So here it is. The first commit. The project has been initialized. I have no doubt this journey will be challenging, but I'm ready for it. Thanks for stopping by. I can't wait to see what we build next.