//Denise Ngai

I’m a 25-year-old female born, raised, and currently residing in Southern California. I am half-Chinese half-Filipino – my father is from Hong Kong and my mother is from the Philippines; my parents met during the time which my father worked in the Philippines. (Funny story is my father’s secretary at the time was my mom’s cousin… but that tale is for another day). I attended the University of California, Berkeley (GO BEARS!), where I graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, with my concentration on computer science. Naturally, as you can imagine, there aren’t very many females in my field of computer science. As a female who is passionate in various areas aside from computers and technology, such as art and fashion, I find myself searching for outlets other than my typically technologically-driven male-dominated community. This blog is my means of communicating my wide range of interests to the world (or anyone who cares to listen, that is). Do not be alarmed if you encounter geeky, techie posts amidst feminine posts regarding random clothing purchases or “fall’s hottest look.” And of course, we can’t forget the food posts – a girl’s gotta eat!

Like every modern-day individual, I spend way too much time in front of the computer. Actually, I pretty much spend way too much time with technology in general – smartphone (Android!), tablet (yes, Android!), computer. My passion for computers and the internet roots back to when I was but a wee little nine-year-old. While typical nine-year-olds were busy watching cartoons and playing games, my idea of fun was making a website and attempting to make it look good. Yes, I kid you not: a nine-year-old child found coding and designing websites highly interesting. Armed with Notepad, I taught myself HTML and found joy in seeing the websites that my code rendered. As any computer programmer will tell you, HTML is not actually “coding” or “programming,” but to a nine-year-old, “coding” HTML seemed pretty legit. To this day, I still have that passion for designing websites and making them look pretty. Although I also enjoy programming back-end functionality with more algorithmic concepts, front-end web design brings me delight in the sense that it gives me the instant gratification of being able to see the fruits of my labor on my screen, peering at me with beautiful complementary colors and eye-soothing typography and graphics. Who can resist eye candy? I hope to incorporate some of my web design endeavors, in addition to my programming skills, in this blog.

I’d like to consider myself relatively well-traveled. I have been to three continents (North America, Asia, Europe) and lived in two (North America & Asia). As for countries, I have been to the Philippines, China, Italy, France, Switzerland, Britain, Mexico, Canada, and of course, the United States of America. Does a stop-over flight in Japan count? Although I was born in the United States, I lived between Hong Kong and the United States until I was about 4. My family and I permanently settled in the United States when I was 5. Growing up, my family and I traveled quite often, and we still do to this day. We typically visit Hong Kong once a year, and throughout the year, we try to plan various trips to other places. My parents absolutely love traveling, and so do I. I hope to revisit all the countries I’ve been to with friends some day, as well as visit other countries to which I have not yet been. Aside from being a record of my random interests, this blog will hopefully also be a means of documenting and sharing my travels and adventures with those out there in the world wide web who are curious to know what I’ve been up to.

I apologize if I have bored you with my autobiographical essay. Perhaps it has just been way too long since I’ve written essays/lengthy blocks of text and I miss it. If I have not somehow managed to bore you, however, hopefully this brief (or extremely long – depending on your perspective) “about me” will entice you to read my blog. And please do come back often! :]

 2011-09-30

“What? She finally wrote on her ‘About’ page?!”