Sunita Girl

Sunita's Blog | Est. 2015

Mexico Cruise Adventure

Over Christmas break I ended up going on a 4 night cruise to Cozumel Mexico with JT.
It was sort of a last minute decision but resulted in us getting a BOGO deal with Royal Caribbean.
It was my first trip to a country that the first language is not English although lots of the locals seemed to have basic understanding. I had to try to remember every bit of Espanol I learned in Junior High School.

Day 1

Independence of the Seas

Independence of the Seas

We had to drive down to Ft. Lauderdale, FL and park our car in the covered parking garage. Then a shuttle bus came and took us to the Royal Caribbean Check In station.
Good thing we printed our luggage tags at home before we left because it allowed the porter to collect it from us quickly and start taking it out to our ship.
We each kept an overnight bag with us with the basics in case our luggage was delivered to our room late.

  • Change of clothes
  • Pajamas
  • Sunscreen
  • Jacket
  • Toothbrush and toothpaste
  • Binoculars
  • Swimsuit
  • Camera
  • Sunglasses

 

After we dropped off our suitcase we went through security. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the TSA airport security. We were able to take 2 sealed bottles of champagne with us 🙂

Then we checked-in with Royal Caribbean and collected our Seapass cards. It’s pretty much the card you need for your room key, port departure and boarding, drink package, and if you link your credit card to it you can use it for onboard purchases. I’d recommend linking a credit card to it so you don’t have to pay a bill at the desk at the end of the cruise. Once the card is linked the purchases are done but be careful not to lose the Seapass card. I got a glittery lanyard and cardholder at the port for mine which was easy to keep with me.

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Macaroni Pie Recipe

Mom's Macaroni Pie
Crowd pleaser macaroni pie that my mom sent instructions for how to make when I went away to college.
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Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
30 min
Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
30 min
Ingredients
  1. 1 Pyrex dish or deep foil dish needed
  2. 1 lb cheddar cheese (hard cheese) not soft
  3. 2pks Carnation milk
  4. 1 pk. macaroni (small/med.)
  5. 1pk. Crix or Dixie Biscuit crumbs (or any other Biscuit crumbs selling in the grocery)
  6. ¾ amt. of water in a sauce pan or deep boiling pot
  7. 1 Grater needed as well
Method
  1. Grate cheese (first) ½ of it for mixing with the pie in the Fine side of (a grater) and ½ on the rough side of grater (for the top of the pie)
  2. Check in the grocery to see if they sell fresh rough and fine grated cheese. (Buy this instead of grater and cheese)
  3. Put ¾ pot of water to boil and then add some salt about one teaspoon( be careful not to burn yourself when straining the water in the sink )
  4. When the water is boiling (Break up macaroni in 4 to put it in the water (do not let fingers touch water to burn) Do it easy!
  5. Let boil for a while about 10 -15 mins. (not too soft) then strain it in a rice strainer or colander.
  6. Add fine grated cheese to strained, cooked macaroni and add 1pk. of carnation milk and a pinch of salt. Then stir with a spoon.
  7. Put it in greased dish (grease dish with butter). Flatten it out.
  8. Then add course cheese on top (Add more carnation milk).
  9. Press down and put biscuit crumbs on top.
  10. Put in oven (center) at 325 degrees to bake for 30 mins. or (1/2 hour). Check and take out when golden brown (use gloves to take it out of the oven and place on mat).
  11. Let it cool and cut with bread knife when cool.
Notes
  1. N.B. Your father say for you to stay in the kitchen until it is finished or monitor the oven so you would not burn down the apartment. Also to make sure that the oven is coming on and coming off properly.
Sunita Girl http://www.sunitagirl.com/

First month at Coding Bootcamp

JS coding

Code snippet from my latest homework using JavaScript, jQuery and Giphy API

This past month has been pretty busy with Coding Bootcamp. I learned a lot of new stuff. The class has a good mix of people in it from different backgrounds and coding experience. The instructors and TAs are pretty good and helpful towards students. 

We also had 2 guest speakers from potential employers come into class and talk to us. 

We learned about the following topics so far: 

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Recipe: Fresh Shrimp Spring Rolls

Fresh Shrimp Spring Rolls
Easy to make fresh shrimp spring rolls
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Ingredients
  1. Round sheets of rice paper
  2. Pre-cooked shrimp. (2 shrimp per rice paper roll)
  3. Bean sprouts
  4. Vermicelli noodles
  5. Fresh Mint leaves
  6. Fresh Cilantro
  7. Lime juice
  8. Peanut sauce
Prepare the precooked shrimp
  1. Sprinkle lime juice all over shrimp.
  2. Let the shrimp sit in the lime juice in the fridge till needed for the rolls.
  3. Chop the mint leaves and cilantro.
Prepare the noodles
  1. Boil enough water to cover the noodles. Do not add noodles to the pot yet.
  2. After the water is boiling, remove from heat and carefully add the noodles and let them soften in the hot water.
Prepare rice paper rolls
  1. Boil 5 cups of water in a medium-sized saucepan, then remove from heat and let cool to a warm temperature. Make sure your water is not too hot or your rice paper will break apart!
  2. Once your water has cooled to a warm temperature, take one rice paper and dip it completely in the warm water for about 10-20 seconds, or until flexible and sticky.
  3. Place rice paper flat on a smooth plate.
Assemble the roll
  1. Place 2 shrimps in the middle.
  2. Add a few pieces of mint and cilantro pieces.
  3. Add some bean sprouts.
  4. Add a small amount of noodles on top.
  5. Gently fold your rice paper burrito style. Fold in the sides then the bottom then roll it up. Seal off your roll by folding the rice paper completely, and place on a serving plate.
  6. Repeat until you have your desired amount of spring rolls.
  7. Dip in peanut sauce and enjoy!
Sunita Girl http://www.sunitagirl.com/

Computer Crisis

Laptop Operation

Laptop Operation

My web developer class is a BYOD (bring your own device) class so I needed to dig out my 4 year old Sony laptop. They don’t make them anymore so I guess it can be considered a collectible antique.

I’m glad it was able to be powered on after not using it for about a year. It was being super slow though so I decided time for the dreaded wipe out and reinstall Windows. Thankfully after the move I was able to find the restoration DVDs for it and it worked. After much progress bar action it eventually came back up looking like when I got it back in 2012. Then came updates to get it to a 2016 software version. That took even longer. However after all that it was still being slow with the fan making a ton of noise 🙁

 

 

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My next Adventure! Becoming a Web Developer

how-to-become-a-web-developerAfter much thoughts and consideration I decided to quit my job and go back to school. 

My ongoing struggle with immigration led me to the decision to take time off and deal with immigration, go take classes to improve myself while waiting on processing. Then apply for jobs again once it’s over.  

I got accepted at UCF’s Coding Boot Camp Class where I’ll learn to be a Full Stack Web developer and gain skills to become proficient in front-end and back-end technologies. 

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The To-Don’t List for getting a Career

“A career, is a long-term pursuit of a lifelong ambition, where you’re moving forward.  

A job is something you do to earn money, where you’re not going anywhere.” 

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Tired of seeing lists on what to do to get a career? Below are some of my tips for what not to do when getting a career. They are things I wish someone had told me when I was searching for jobs and interviewing. You can thank me later 😉

 

 

 

 

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Reads

This was an inspiring and informative book. There were real life stories and practical steps to take in various situations women in tech or engineering face and it’s definitely NOT just for women.
If you’re interested in building a career in technology, read this book.

I want to ride my Bicycle…

New Miami Citizen Folding Bike

New Miami Citizen Folding Bike

…I want to ride my bike. It’s summer time! I keep seeing bicycle posts all over my Facebook news feed probably because RAGBRAI season back in Iowa. I’m not that much into biking but it did make me miss my bike so I decided to get a new one. It sucks that I had my helmet and gloves, etc but no bike.

 

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Safety Season

Now that I’m living in Florida I’m more aware of hurricane season June to November. Since this is a new place for us we need to get prepped for emergencies. 

Regardless of where you live you should have some sort of emergency or evacuation plan and stock up on emergency supplies.  Part of my preparation supplies are listed out below. I have never experienced a major hurricane yet but I have had the parking lot of my old apartment in Florida flooded out before. I ended up stranded for a day and a night before the water went down the next morning. I had to survive off of canned food for lunch and dinner that time.  

Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide sensors. Make sure to test them and make sure they are working 

Fire extinguisher. Note that there are different types  of extinguishers for different types of fires such as cooking fires 

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