Conference on Rachel Joi

where I'll be in 2024

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 21:54:00 +0000

I’m going to be at software testing conferences this year! It’s June as I’m writing this, and the first is in eight days, but I guess it’s better late than never!

Romanian Testing Conference : June 12-14, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
- opening keynote - Real Life Is Not an Edge Case
PNSQC : Oct 14-16, Portland, Oregon, US
- invited speaker - Mistakes I Made So You Don’t Have To
- workshop - Leveraging the Power of AI in Software Testing
Testing United : Nov 7-8, Vienna, Austria
- opening keynote - Artificial Intelligence: the Good, the Bad, and the Bias
Agile Testing Days : Nov 19-22, Potsdam, Germany
- musical - The Owl Problem
- talk - Mission Possible: Leading as an Individual Contributor

I am THRILLED to be at these conferences. I couldn’t have imagined that these doors would open, and I can’t wait to meet people, learn a bunch, and share some of what I think about!

CAST retrospective

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 07:41:00 +0000

I attended the Conference of the Association for Software Testing (CAST) two weeks ago in Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was a fantastic learning and networking experience over four days, and I’m still reeling a little bit. I started with a full-day tutorial about how to coach testing with Anne-Marie Charrett (her site is here ). She and James Bach built the coaching model together but have added their own flavors to it. Anne-Marie emphasized understanding the person and starting from where they are. We had a couple of exercises where we paired up to teach a concept or test something, and we realized how easy it was to move in and out of pairing and coaching alternately. It gave me a lot to think about if I move into coaching, and Anne-Marie’s style of teaching was engaging and thorough. The overarching theme of the weekend was “Bridging Between Communities”, so a lot of the talks and workshops ended up stressing communication. This ranged from communicating in healthy ways to defuse situations (Don’t Take It Personally by Bailey Hanna - her blog post is here ) to a keynote about Cynefin by Liz Keogh where she said:

Harry Potter cosplay at LeakyCon

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 17:14:00 +0000

I went to LeakyCon in October and had a FANTASTIC time. My friend Austin and I celebrated our way through the weekend. I cosplayed each day, some days with multiple costumes. The first day, I was Luna Lovegood, and once the wig became too annoying, just a Ravenclaw student. The second day, I was a Wizengamot witch for the morning, while I did my presentation. Then I changed to a stag patronus for the afternoon and evening. Saturday during the day, I was a Beauxbatons student, and for the ball, I was a phoenix. And on Sunday, I was a sleepy Ravenclaw student (Austin and I declared Sunday pajama day, and some others joined in). I’m sure you’ve been dying to see pictures from the weekend, so here they are! My Luna Lovegood costume was the heaviest of all my costumes. Or at least it felt so because of the wig. With this, i made the wand, Carl made the necklace and earrings, I bought the wig, the tie, and the sweater (from the shop that made the sweaters for the films), and my friend Tyler Beal made the Quibbler purse, which was just amazing. I took my picture with Moaning Myrtle, of course. Once the wig was too burdensome, I became a more relaxed Ravenclaw student with the earrings as a nod to Luna. The Wizengamot wear plum robes with an elaborate silver W on the left front. I wore a simple black dress under it. My mother-in-law sewed the bag for me and cut out the W for me. My stag patronus! This was entirely purchased. The mask is a work of art by Mythical Masks . I had Austin casting me multiple times in the halls. It was a great time. This costume was the closest I got to being spot on. The hat was purchased from a store on Etsy . The dress was made by a much more talented seamstress than I am, Cherie Duggar, who was dead set on getting it right and did a pretty fantastic job. I painted the shoes. The bag has an embroidered Beauxbatons crest on it, done by my friend Tyler Beal. My phoenix costume involved a LOT of glitter powder. I bought the dress. The mask is another incredible design by Mythical Masks, this one custom made. I got two colors of glitter powder - red and gold, and we put them layered on top of each other. Austin helped with the glitter, particularly on my back. The last morning, Austin and I went as sleepy students. I had my deathly hallows shirt and my Ravenclaw pants (yay Hot Topic!), and Austin wore a 9 3/4 shirt and her Hogwarts pants. It was a great end to the week!

Rational Rebellion: Morality and the Rule of Law in Harry Potter

Sat, 22 Oct 2016 12:43:00 +0000

I’m at LeakyCon in Burbank, CA right now, and yesterday I presented a talk about law, morality, and rebellion in Harry Potter. It went better than I expected, and though I wish I had been better prepared (and had practiced it enough to not have to read it), it was fine, and I received positive feedback. Since most of you weren’t able to be there, I thought I’d post my talk and slides (with “(slide)” written into the script if you want to follow along). The slides are mostly pictures and quotes to complement the talk, but I did work on them, so I wanted to put that out there. Without further ado:

I'm back from New York

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:49:00 +0000

The international law conference was great! I met lots of really interesting people. The panels were pretty decent. My best friend also ended up being at the same conference, and we hadn’t established that until Tuesday. Crazy. But it was great to see her. It had been graduation since we last saw each other. And another really good friend from college lives in New York and works as a pastry cook. It was so good to be around people who know me. I guess it was a nice balance of old and new. KU won the NCAA basketball tournament. It was an exciting time. I was in New York for the Final Four, and I hung out at an unofficial KU alumni bar. People were going crazy for Russell Robinson (from New York, NEW YORK!). It was tons of fun. Anyway, life is good, and I’m very thankful to be surrounded by people who love me. Oh, I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but I got a summer job at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services! I’ll be living in Washington, D.C. for the summer. I just need to get through this semester. I just need to get through Friday, really. Our human rights symposium is on Friday. Hooray!

conferences

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:06:00 +0000

I’ll be attending two conferences in the next month and a half, and I’m really excited about them. The one I’m going to this weekend is the Rebellious Lawyering conference at Yale. It’s a public interest law conference, and there are two lectures on immigration. And then I’m going to the ABA Section of International Law spring meeting in New York City. I don’t think I even need to talk about how great it’s going to be. There are public international law lectures and “young lawyer/law student” lectures, which are of particular interest to me, but then there are also corporate law and trades/customs law lectures, which could possibly be interesting too.