Tag Archives: bio

The Twitter Diaries: August, 2007

12 or earlier: http://www.fotolog.com/rossella/19953061 – Ross is back on fotolog, first pix from India

Ross LIKES SCHOOL. For the first time EVER.

Ross just called from school. Amazing. In my day we barely had phones and they didn’t work!

why does everything I eat in America give me gas?

back to another afternoon of videotaping Leadville training. with maybe a lab visit – whee! (I’m such a geek)

I feel good, I knew that I would yeah. No, really, I do! Productive day, about to go for happy hour with a bunch of geneticists

aiuto! cercasi linguisti italiani: http://tinyurl.com/23957c

cultural differences: Ross’ new English teacher thanked her for commenting in class. Her Italian lit teacher told her she thinks too much

Define, refine, redefine. My life has changed, is changing – radically. And that’s good. It was time.

@pippawilson – l’evaporated milk si trova all’Esselunga, credo si chiami latte evaporato (o condensato?). Cmq il lattino e’ uguale

only been away 2 weeks and my Italian is going to hell. It’s losing brain space to Solaris storage software.

bracing myself for two more hours of filming highly technical training. I think I must be learning something…

contemplating driving to New Mexico next weekend. 6 hours. Far more than I’ve driven in years. It’s an adventure, right?

2 million things to do, too brain-dead to do any of them. Waiting for my massage – yay!

had a very good massage, immediately followed by a piece of potentially very good news. Now dinner with an old friend. A good day all in all

per chi volesse seguire le avventure di Rossella in India, e’ tornata alla grande su fotolog: http://www.fotolog.com/rossella

when geeks do urban planning: https://www.beginningwithi.com/

@mafe anche mia flglia e’ leoncina, oggi 18enne! festeggiando in India.

coppia italo-americana cerca nome per un figlio in arrivo. Chi li puo’ aiutare? http://tinyurl.com/2c43po

13: hiked 7 miles in Rocky Mountain National park yesterday – much harder than we anticipated, joints sore today. The pines are dying. Very sad.

interesting times: http://tinyurl.com/29w9sm

14: winding down after a long, busy day. Saturday passed by a famous site: http://www.fotolog.com/deirdrestraughan/25304286

on today’s menu: video production planning, wiki work, meetings, metrics, and a movie… beh, almeno qui c’e’ l’aria condizionata!

15: good morning from not-sunny Broomfield, Colorado! I do not have enough caffeine in my system yet…

buon ferragosto agli Italiani, happy independence day to the Indians! (Ross wears a sari for the first time today, singing Jana Gana Mana)

16: Ross celebrates Independence Day: http://www.fotolog.com/rossella/20157674

my new playground: http://wikis.sun.com/display/StorageAdmin/Home

@kitykity Ah, but have you been one of those women? I’m not a screamer in any other situation, but when you haven’t seen a friend in 20 yrs

just had a filling replaced. Good thing I wasn’t in Italy – would not have found a dentist working this week! Cheaper here, too.

@blublog – non avevi mai sentito “Stuck in the Middle with You”?? Mi sento vecchia. Mi sa’ che l’originale era di Stealer’s Wheel.

17: trying to figure out my very complicated life. I don’t TRY to be the exception to every rule. I just am!

this is one happy kid: http://www.fotolog.com/rossella/20181328 We’re finally doing something right!

@abeggi – she’s at my school and wearing my jewelry! And if she’s learned a thing or two about communication from Mom – not surprising!

I give up. Taking antibiotics for what is probably a sinus infection tho it behaves very differently in this dry climate.

18: The Silent Screams of Dying Trees: https://www.beginningwithi.com/travel/070812a.html

just took a whole bunch of great photos at a flea market in New Mexico, but don’t have my cable with me to download them!

also bought some great t-shirts with the Virgen de Mexico

@louordorica we will all sneeze together when we sneeze? <grin>

@caseymckinnon – I suspect that you got quite a lot of the netosphere panting at the thought of a dream with you and Zadi in it!

20: welcome aboard @igorminar – now you’re in trouble! ; )

just back from a fantastic weekend in New Mexico – old friends in new places, what could be better? Photos and video soon!

@cristianconti Zecchino d’Oro omiodio – falle ascoltare della musica vera, altrimenti impazzerai con Cretina LaScema e bella compagnia…

turista americana chiede consigli sulla sicurezza a Firenze e Milano; potreste rispondere? http://tinyurl.com/2aa7n2

“everyone” says Mac is better than Windows for video editing. But has anyone actually USED both to really compare?

okay: tonight I miss Ross so badly I can hardly breathe. Why tonight in particular? Dunno. Maybe being at the home of friends who have kids

21: whuff, long day! I’ll be going to California (1st time since 2001) ~09/06-16. This will be interesting. @schlomo – time for that drink!

@lskrocki – You knew I was a troublemaker, right? ; )

Roasted Green Chiles at the Las Vegas Flea Market: https://www.beginningwithi.com/travel/070818a.html

22: spectacular monsoon shot: http://www.fotolog.com/rossella/20297274

23:

for those who’d like to follow Ross’ adventures in English, I’ve been translating (with her permission): https://www.beginningwithi.com/W …

plans set: in Calif Sept 5-17, of which 8th-13th in/around San Jose, rest in SFO. Who will be around?

translating Ross’ writing – too mind-shot to write anything original of my own

24:

my head is spinning – so much to do! I’ll be downloading and compressing video all weekend!

25:

quiet Saturday to myself, and that’s okay. Had my nails done. Movie this evening.

pre-ordering TV shows on DVD to bring home to Italy. When I go…

I’ll have a lot of Economists to catch up on when I get home. This is both good and bad.

did I mention that my life is going to be totally different when I get back to Italy (in Sept) from what it was before I left (in July)?

26:

a pleasant day mostly alone (except for phone calls). Downloaded hours of video. Ate sushi. Saw HP5 again (no subtitles, yay!), now to bed

ev’rybody knows I love my toes: https://www.beginningwithi.com/

a fast, winding drive into the mountains today left me limp. I wish someone else had been driving so I could have enjoyed the view!

27:

@michaelverdi Dylan in high school! Go Dylan! I bet she won’t take crap from anyone (and good for her).

time to have a shower, coffee, breakfast – and go to work. Which is very, very close now that I’m in a hotel.

@lskrocki taking your advice and going to Taos this wknd. Any advice on a B&B?

Ross called y’day to say she landed the role of “the maid mad to marry” in “The Taming of the Shrew”. Now can’t get that song out of my head

waiting for a video to finish compressing so I can go home. About to give up.

hmm. gonna be a lot cooler in SFO. Good thing I brought some warmies. Now what about Taos and San Jose?

@davidhowell I have seen American teenagers in AIRPORTS in what looked to me like flannel pajamas – at least the bottoms were. Seems rude.

28:

I keep waking up from nightmares. What’s up with that?

last night’s lack of sleep making itself felt

@nicolamattina bisogna far vedere a ‘sti giovani come si balla davvero (e con quale musica!)

29:

initiating life changes

c’mon, caffeine, I need you to start working!

avrei bisogno di qualcuno che mi possa mettere su in casa una rete vera – shared printer, storage, backups, ecc. Windows, purtroppo…

@abeggi Lecco. Bed & breakfast (& lunch & dinner) compreso!

30: wish I was in Mussoorie (India). For many reasons. But I’ll have to make do with Taos. Living the life that only I could live…

okay, ‘m definitely doing too much… SO glad I’m taking a long weekend break. I foresee many margaritas in my near future. Better be!

squeezing video, translating Ross’ fotolog (more), getting ready to go pick up my friend at the airport. Vacation! 4 days better than none.

The Twitter Diaries: July, 2007

I don’t have precise dates on these; something goes wrong in Google Reader’s interpretation of Twitter’s RSS feed.

my head hurts so bad I could cry

Occasionally, I get something that is actually identifiable as a migraine. Not too surprising given the stress I was going through at the time.

@pm10 spero che sia anche mamma porno-tolerante – mi dicono che e’ tutto sesso li’ dentro!

A friend was showing her mother around Second Life. I had just tried it a bit myself, and had read that there’s a lot of online sex in there. Not that I mind, but don’t consider it a compelling business venue for this reason. At least not for the kind of business I deal with…

maybe my migraine is finally calming down. I still just want to crawl into a corner and whimper.

@rosso received my second copy of HP from Amazon today, gave it to peppermint patty. Who passed our lunch together petting it. ; )

pensieri di una figlia in partenza: http://www.fotolog.com/rossella/ – non sa’ cosa sta passando la mamma!

@kitykity – sounds like my own pathetic fallacy of assuming that whatever is obvious to me is obvious to everybody, i.e. nothing special.

I’m awake, I’m awake! For once my body would have slept, but have things to do. Statistical things. Very exciting.

up to my eyeballs in web metrics. Should I try to corral my wandering content?

just posting about my daughter leaving. And Google slaps on an ad for sugardaddie.com ?!?!?!?!?

Ross shedding possessions: just “lent” her Fornarina shirts – considered part of her public identity – to a friend for the year she’s away

Argh! BA only allows 1 bag Milan-London. But Ross is going on to India for 10 months (Air India allows 2). !@#$@!$@#@#$ airlines!

http://www.fotolog.com/rossella

NOT participating in a 2.5 hour conference by phone. just too much for a hot summer night in Italy. Had a great dinner and too much wine.

ordered HP 7 read by Stephen Fry to meet me in Milton Keynes. Absolute bliss for airplane listening.

@blublog se fossi passato per Jesolo la settimana scorsa, avresti trovato Rossella!

Symbols & Connections: https://www.beginningwithi.com/Woodstock/symbols.html

last-minute stuff: online check-in, print boarding passes, pay extra baggage, print that receipt just in case, what am I forgetting?

sticking last-minute things into suitcases. Are they too heavy now? Probably. I paid $77 for Ross’ “extra” bag – better not hassle me!

@jeffreytaylor – thanks, yeah, been through that. Apparently some passengers have resorted to putting everything into a garbage bag!

Death by Waiting

Thanks to those who have written words of encouragement and kept me in your thoughts and prayers. Yes, even as an atheist I can appreciate prayers – if you care enough to intercede with your god for me, I take it as a sign of affection, and affection never hurts. Besides, I have so many different denominations praying for me that one of them’s bound to take, right? <wry grin>

I also had a bunch of phone calls yesterday wanting to know the news. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any yet. Some people have said this may be a good sign: if there was bad news, the hospital would be in more of a hurry to inform me about it!

All this helps, but basically I’m going through hell. I cope better with unhappy certainties – god knows I’ve had enough practice at that – than I deal with any kind of uncertainty. I’ve slept very poorly for a week (staying at a noisy campground at the beach last weekend didn’t help), and there aren’t enough distractions in the world to keep my mind off this. (Though Ross is certainly providing a full repertoire of teenage moments – I begin to suspect she’s trying to make me glad that she’s going away to boarding school!)

The fear and anxiety I’m experiencing are very normal – even the American Cancer Society says so. I now know that a number of my friends and relatives have already been here and done this. So why didn’t I hear about it before? It seems that people have different reactions: some keep it to themselves; some share, but only with their closest. And I suspect that, when the results come back negative, many feel a bit foolish for having put themselves through so much misery: “What right do I have to complain? I’m one of the lucky ones: turns out I don’t have cancer.” And they put it out of their minds until the next time.

Make no mistake, there will be a next time – after all, I have difficult breasts. And I have heard from and about other women who have gone through this multiple times for various reasons. There’s got to be some way to make this waiting period less horrible for all of us.

update at 10:30 am: Finally got hold of the doctor (“But she called you yesterday!” – oh?) – all is well, nothing to worry about.

Biopsy: Digging to China Through My Breast

Well, that was extremely unpleasant.

First there was the wait, from Thursday to Tuesday, going through stages from: “I certainly don’t have cancer, they’re just being careful” to: “Ohmigod I’m going to die!”

I spent a lot of the weekend working hard in the garden – a very good distraction. Saturday afternoon Enrico and I went to the bookstore to look for birthday presents for his mother. As usual, I gravitated towards the comics (aka graphic novels). My eye was caught by Il Cancro Mi Ha Resa Piu’ Frivola (originally titled Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics), by Miriam Engelberg. In other circumstances I probably would have liked, if not exactly enjoyed, this book. The first few pages described exactly what I was going through. I flipped to the About the Author blurb in the back. She died last year. No, don’t want to read that now.

On another shelf, my eye lit upon: “The Big Book of Breasts” (a book of photographs – the book, and presumably the breasts inside, was indeed big). Then Non C’e’ Paradiso Senza Le Tette (“There’s No Heaven Without Tits” – about a Colombian girl who wants breast implants so she can be a mistress to drug dealers. ?!?). I fled the store.

Sunday night we went out to dinner at Lanterna Verde, as an early celebration of Ross’ birthday – we’re running out of weekends with her! I was feeling pretty good Sunday. Friends had sent in encouraging information: only one test in one hundred turns up positive. Another friend backed this up, and she’s got a lot more to worry about as there is a strong history of cancer in her family; I have no such history. As yet. My mother is having a (probably ovarian) cyst removed next Monday, and won’t know whether it’s benign until it’s out.

Monday I went to the office, also a good distraction. Had an interesting lunch that day, too.

Tuesday morning I got up early and worked on Sun stuff. Then it was time to go to the hospital. Ross came along for moral support.

The Radiology department was nearly deserted, and we spent only ten minutes in the waiting area, then another five or so inside the changing room, where I was increasingly uneasy at all the preparations I could hear. This was sounding less and less like a quick in-and-out with a fine needle.

Sure enough, the mammogram machine was set up with a whole different set of torture devices. This time there were two clear plastic platforms, each with a rectangular hole, one above and one below. My breast was carefully arranged and squashed (not quite as painful as last time – my period has come, so the pre-menstrual tenderness is over – but not comfortable, either), and an x-ray taken for positioning. The doctor entered x, y, and z coordinates on the machine, and attached to it two pieces of metal which she explained were needle guides. (I think this is called in English a stereotactic biopsy.)

The z coordinate – depth – was set to 14.8 millimeters. They’d be drilling one and a half centimeters into my breast. I guess the gap under the plastic platform my breast was resting on was in case they came out the other side!

The nurse swabbed iodine on the part of my breast exposed by the upper rectangular opening. The doctor injected a local anesthetic, which burned as she worked the needle around to cover all the areas she expected to work in. Ow, ow, ow. The technician was again unsympathetic: “Does it really hurt that much?” You should have heard me when I was in labor, lady. I am not heroic about pain, and I don’t care who knows it.

The doctor and nurse were kinder. They kept asking questions to distract me: “What kind of name is Deirdré Straughan? I’ve never heard it before.” I was relieved to chatter away, though even I was only half-aware of what I was saying. They touched me as they bustled back and forth, gently on the shoulder, as if to acknowledge that I was a scared human being they were doing things to, not just a lump of meat. That was reassuring and comforting.

My right arm was stretched around the machine as before, and I was panting with discomfort and stress. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a big, thick needle coming at me, and promptly squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t feel the needle going in, or at least it wasn’t painful. But the loud chunk! as it bit off something inside was startling. That needle was withdrawn and another one put in. This time I was braced for the sound, but still didn’t like it. “It’s just the noise that bothers you, right?” asked the doctor.

She took x-rays again, I think while the needle was still in place (I didn’t look). Then I had to wait, maintaining my position, while those were developed. I leaned my head against the machine. The nurse pressed hard on the wound with a wad of cotton held in medical forceps, I suppose to stop it bleeding, so I couldn’t see how big the hole actually was. I’d seen a scalpel at some point, don’t know whether they used it.

After examining the x-rays, the doctor evidently decided she hadn’t quite got what she wanted. One more needle, one more chunk bitten out of my tissues. Then, finally, it was over. My breast, with a round red hole in it, was released from the machine. The nurse helped me over to an examining table nearby (“Don’t bump your head on the machine”), cleaned off the iodine, closed the wound with three little strips of tape, and put a big bandage on top of that. After I had got dressed again, she gave me an ice pack to place between my bra and my t-shirt. I probably looked pretty funny walking around Lecco afterwards, clutching this big lump to my chest.

The doctor took my cell number and said she would call me as soon as she had results, probably next Monday. In the meantime we’re all going to Roseto to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday. We’re not going to tell herr about this.

I was exhausted last night. Anesthetic and kindness aside, what I went through yesterday would in any other context be called torture. In the aftermath, I feel bruised inside, both physically and emotionally.

next

Light at the End of the Tunnel

They say it’s always darkest before the dawn. I’ve just been through a dark period, but… here comes the sun! (In more ways than one, as will shortly become clear.)

I’ve been stressed and depressed since well before Christmas. Money (lack of) was becoming a problem. is a privately-financed start-up, and my salary there is low – working for so little has been my investment in the company, at my personal risk: there are no guarantees that what we’re doing will fly and, if it doesn’t, I will have practically thrown away all these years (financially – experience, of course, is always valuable).

I don’t care about being wealthy by anyone else’s standards. Thanks to my husband and his family, I have a very nice roof over my head. But I don’t like feeling that I’m not pulling my financial weight in the family (though we have the basics covered, my salary is needed). Worse, feeling that I’m losing my financial independence eats away at me.

Furthermore, my daughter wants to go away to school next year, to Woodstock, my alma mater – which has become a great deal more expensive since I attended it: $16,000 for tuition and boarding, plus airfares, a new laptop, and other sundries that a teenager abroad will need. This adds up to approximately my annual salary at TVBLOB. <wince>

So, I have to somehow at least double my current salary. I’m not in a hurry to leave TVBLOB: although, after four years, start-up mode is getting very old, the project is still absolutely fascinating and potentially world-changing. That, plus colleagues whom I like and respect very much, is hard to walk away from.

But, financially, I wasn’t sure I had any other option. I started looking around for other full-time jobs in high tech in Italy (Google? hmm), but – am I actually employable by any “normal” Italian company? I have no personal experience to go on, but I have heard that most Italian companies are more gerontocracies than meritocracies (and chauvinist, to boot).

Job ads in the Italian papers specify that they want someone young (yes, this is legal in Italy), so they can pay them miserably and keep them low on the totem pole. Many entry-level jobs across all industries are being done by low- or un-paid interns with the excuse: “you can afford to work for us just for the experience – you live at home with your parents anyway.”

I fear that a middle-aged foreign woman who’s inclined to speak her mind and wants to be paid what she’s worth is not likely to do well in such a context. The crowd I saw at Cisco Expo the other day confirmed my (possibly mistaken) prejudice that even high-tech companies in Italy tend to favor hierarchy and conformity – I would love to be wrong about this, but am I? I don’t want to find out the hard way.

Where else to look for work, and what kind of work? There’s always the small stuff, like translation, but globalization has depressed prices in that arena as well – most companies are not willing to pay fairly for a really good translation by someone who actually knows how to write in English. I put in a bid here and there, with no immediate result.

Because I have a director title at TVBLOB, I felt uncomfortable at the idea of explicitly advertising that I was seeking additional work. So I brushed up my resumé, trolled LinkedIn for connections and recommendations, and quietly told a few friends that I was in the market.

This has brought results far greater and faster than I ever hoped for. Next Tuesday I’m flying to Colorado to start part-time, freelance work (one quarter budgeted so far) with Sun Microsystems, as a web producer for one section of their vast online empire, among other tasks. After this initial visit, I’ll be able to work from home (though I won’t mind travel as needed – I’m generally happy to go places and see people).

I’m slightly terrified. I know all about building and sustaining online communities, and writing, managing and editing web content – in fact, I was one of the pioneers in corporate online communication. But the subject matter of the Sun storage site I’ll be supervising is hardly an area of expertise for me.

On the other hand, I didn’t know anything about CD-ROMs when I set out to write a book on them: I am very good at learning what I need to know (and enjoying doing so), when I need to know it. And there’s more than one former colleague in the group I’ll be working with – a bonus to the whole situation. It won’t be easy but, if it was, I’d get bored!

I’ll keep my TVBLOB job, four days a week instead of five (in lieu of the raise that they can’t afford to give me right now, the lack of which started all this), so I have the remaining hours in the week to work for Sun, maintain my site, and, oh, yes, have a personal life from time to time. I’m heading into a very busy period now, but I’m happier than I have been in months. Turns out there was Sunlight at the end of the tunnel.