TAKE. UP. SPACE.

TAKE UP SPACE.

BE INSANE.

BE INTIMIDATING.

💅💁🏼‍♀️ 💅💁🏼‍♀️ Hey STEM Baddie! Hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I am back home in St. Louis, Michigan right now. Yes- there's a St. Louis, Michigan.

It's a very small town in the middle of the mitten surrounded by fields and forests and is so cozy and quiet. I did miss it- it's so nice to be home. I love to play euchre with my dad and drink hot cocoa with Baileys with my mom while we watch our favorite Christmas movies.

Fave Christmas movies:

• Last Holiday

• The Holiday

• Eloise at Christmas

• Christmas in Connecticut

• White Christmas

& we're currently watching a new Netflix movie called Champagne Problems

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

I wish my brother and sister-in-law were here to spend the holiday weekend with us... but they just moved to Cincinnati and work this weekend :/ But it's so nice to be home! Though I did NOT miss the cold. It is absolutely FREEZING here baddies!! I just bought the cutest sweater and fuzzy socks from Meijer today and I feel so cozy wearing them as I type this for you. It's supposed to be a snow storm tomorrow and to be honest- I am so excited! I haven't seen snow since last Christmas when I was home. Though after a day of that I think I'll be ready to go back to the sun and palm trees.. and my kitty.

Now onto more pressing topics... You need to intimidate men. Take up space. Be annoying. Stop being accomodating. Stop being overly nice to people that don’t deserve it. Assert your dominance, baddies! Us women, especially in male dominated fields, shrink ourselves too much because we feel we don’t belong or that we are don’t deserve to be there in the first place so we just keep our head down so we don’t get “caught” when they find out we’re not actually that smart or competent. Well let me tell you, that will never work. Closed mouths don’t get fed. So be loud and proud of who you are and what you DO know. Because I can almost guarantee you know as much as or more than most of the guys you work with. You BELONG where you are and you need to start acting like it. You think I know what the hell I was doing when I got this hard ass job? Absolutely not. I embarrassed myself so much when I was first starting out, and I was ok with that because embarrasment is the price you pay to become good at something. And I wanted to learn so I was everywhere soaking up as much as I could from everyone that I met, I followed around the lead engineer for my first 3 months there probably annoying the hell out of him with all my stupid questions but man I learned a lot. If I would’ve kept my head down and just did what I was told, I would not have gotten anywhere. I made things happen for myself. I had the audacity. And now, we are all better for it because I have the skills and experience needed to succeed in our projects. So I say all of this to say: don’t be afraid to look dumb and take up space.

Lose the imposter syndrome, because it is not benefiting anybody no matter what you think.

Because you DO belong.

Now go get em baddies.