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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: January 28th, 2024

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  • I have been really struggling with my health at the moment, more than usual, with my autoimmune disease. Yesterday my specialist mentioned there is a possibility that I have a very serious side effect of my autoimmune disease. This is the sort of serious complication that has a 5-year mortality of 30-50%, so it is pretty nasty. It is about as bad as it gets with this particular disease. Now I have to go off for further tests and wait about a month to hear. I am trying not to overthink, but then also, surely they wouldn’t have bought up something so nasty unless they were fairly certain, right? I really don’t know what to think about it all, and since I have decided to keep it to myself unless it’s confirmed, I am going to vent to you guys.






  • Che disastro, my street is blocked off for the next month for tram works, and the council promised I would still have access to my driveway. The construction company has decided no we won’t have access. So now the council is pissed, and I have one car stuck in the carport and one car that can’t get back in, and I don’t have permits to street park. All a complete cluster fuck, but at least the council are actually being really proactive about finding a solution for me.




  • Feeling really low today. The last month has been really tough, leaving Venice, the first city where I made great friends and felt like I belonged. Then, right before Christmas, I lost my beloved Nonna. I have been so busy I have just been pushing through and not thinking about it, but I feel it today. At least the PhD work today is funnish finishing off the speech and PowerPoint for a conference next week, I always enjoy making powerpoints.





  • So, the rabbit hole was achieved. Turns out Venetian blinds, like so many Venetian ‘inventions’, were invented elsewhere but perfected and mass distributed in Venice. In the case of the blinds, Venetian merchants found them in Persia and took the design back to Venice. Due to its large maritime trade and fabrication capabilities, they were able to ship the design around the world, where it became especially popular in the early USA. It is actually really common for this to happen in Venice because of the maritime trade; they travelled to parts of the world other Europeans hadn’t. In Venetian history, it is really common to find an idea in other parts of the world and then take the idea back to Venice, where it was changed into a more producible item and sold all over the world through their huge trade output. This is actually how many popular European foods entered into general usage throughout Italy and Europe. The Venetians perfected taking small ideas from around the world and perfecting and, more importantly, commercialising them; Venetian blinds are another example of that. Sorry for the rant, I love Venetian history (obviously).