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The Twitter Diaries: 2009-04-05: CO

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TCKs

Famous TCKs: Third-Culture Kids in the News and in History

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What’s a TCK? Read here.

A much more complete list than mine can be found here (thanks, Sezin!).

Barack Obama: The world’s most famous TCK right now, and maybe that’s a good sign (perhaps it’s fortunate that few American voters recognized the term).

Other Famous TCKs

Santiago Cabrera – actor, Hero

Julie Christie, actress – “Julie’s father ran a tea plantation in India, where she grew up.”

Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and author – born in Kenya

Elizabeth Edwards – late wife of John Edwards, US vice-presidential candidate – “Edwards is the daughter of a Navy pilot and lived in a dozen places by the time she was 18. ‘There is no better experience’ in preparing someone for the madness of a presidential campaign, she says.” New York Times, July 17, 2004. She wrote: Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers

Scott Foley, actor – “Foley relocated often during his childhood due to his father’s career in international banking. He lived all over the world, including Sydney, Australia, and Tokyo, Japan.”

Michel Gondry – film director

Katharine Gun, whistle-blower:

“Her decision to follow her conscience sounds almost unthinking – I didn’t want to step back and think, ‘But, hey, what happens if I do this, and then this happens and then that happens?'” she says. But she has clearly thought in detail about what made her that way… “One of the things the research says is that third-culture kids tend to be extremely empathetic, and because they’ve usually lived in at least one other foreign country, they somehow feel a global alliance… ” Guardian

Mohsin Hamid, novelist:

“So where does Hamid belong? Does he feel a Pakistani Muslim, or an American?

“I’m fully neither,” he said, adding that he believed it was unwarranted to expect individuals to sign up for allegiance to the nation-state.

“What I feel like depends on the context you put me in,” he said. “In the Pakistani context, my attitudes toward religion, to the state, to gender relations are perceptibly American. That makes me American.” Yet when he is in the United States, he can feel quite Pakistani, he said.” International Herald Tribune

Teresa Heinz – John Kerry’s wife, born in Mozambique.

John Kerry, US politician – Attended boarding school in Switzerland while his father was a US diplomat in Germany.

Robin McKinley, author

Viggo Mortensen, actor: “I remember coming to the U.S. and not only having to learn the accent but the slang,” Mortensen says, adding that being forced to adapt quickly helped him later on. “Out of habit you assume that you have something in common with people no matter how different they seem.” Washington Post

Mervyn Peake, author and illustrator

John Rhys-Davies, actor – “Rhys-Davies spent his formative years in Wales and East Africa, returning to the UK when he was nine.”

Alexander McCall Smith – novelist – his books

Cordwainer Smith – A science fiction writer who spent many of his formative years in China and was bilingual in Chinese and English. I suspect that this is the reason for the unusual, even poetic, style of his writing. Cordwainer Smith’s books

W. Richard Stevens, UNIX guru

Kathleen Turner, actor – diplomatic “brat”

Dominique de Villepin, former Prime Minister of France

Mike Volpi, CEO of Joost

Joss Whedon, screenwriter and creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – partly schooled in the UK

Hugo Weaving, actor – born in Nigeria, has lived in Australia, South Africa, England.

let me know of any other famous TCKs you are aware of!

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what I do

Party Animal

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I never planned to be an event planner, but I do have a lifelong history of entertaining in a big way. This was bred into me during my childhood as an expatriate in places like Dhaka, Bangladesh, where (in 1977) there wasn’t a lot for foreigners to do except invite each other to dinner parties, musicales, etc.

So I grew up assuming that getting a bunch of people together and letting them have fun was a normal thing to do, and worth the effort I put into it. I’ve seldom been disappointed in the results. During high school (an international residential school in India), I helped organize dorm open houses. In college, I threw dinner parties to which I invited students and professors, to the surprise of both. For my 21st birthday, with the help of my roommates, I had a big bash at my aunt’s place in the country outside Austin.

Whenever I’ve had space for it (and even when I haven’t), I have entertained. At home in Italy, Enrico and I were famous for our parties with “exotic” food (Indian, American, or barbecue) and live music (provided by Enrico and friends). Now that I’m living in a (shared) big house in suburban Colorado, I have (Italian) dinner and (Indian) movie nights for friends and colleagues.

As a very active alumna of Woodstock School, I’ve also been involved in the planning and execution of alumni events, and have learned a few hard lessons about how not to do this stuff. (Though I fear I will never learn not to over-order on food, but I guess it’s better to have too much than too little…)

The first big event I worked on that wasn’t strictly personal or school-related was vlogEurope 2006, held in Milan and on Lake Como. That was a lot of work, but I met or re-met a bunch of cool videoblogging folks, and enjoyed taking care of everybody and helping them to get more out of a part of the world that I know very well.

Sun Events

All this considered, it’s not surprising that part of the work I now do for Sun is event planning. My job is about community development, and one of the surest ways to make people bond is to get them together and feed them (along with generous libations, for those who partake). I’ve been working with developer communities, but also with others such as Girl Geeks.

Storage Summits

I was part of the team that organized and ran the first Open Storage Summit in September, 2008, which was such a success that we followed it up with another one – with an even larger attendance – in February, 2009.

Student Events

Sun likes to meet students who are our potential future (and current) users, customers, developers, and colleagues. So we’ve been experimenting with new ways to involve them in industry and community events.

The biggest event I’ve worked on so far was for the benefit of ~400 students who came from all over the world to attend SuperComputing ’08 in Austin. We threw a party for them with great food and great music, but also gave them the opportunity to meet with some of Sun’s HPC developers and marketers – in fact, the Sun folks in attendance were kept busy talking with students the entire night. (I kept busy ensuring the steady supply of barbecue, cupcakes, and entertainment.)

We are now planning something similar for SC09 in Portland, and working with the Broader Engagement program to help bring in wide variety of students from around the world.

But, before that, there’s ISC09 in Hamburg, where we’re planning a Sun HPC workshop to kick off a coding competition, and, of course, a party. Suggestions are welcome on what kind of party and venue the students (probably mostly German) would enjoy.

And, even before that, there’s CommunityOne West in San Francisco, June 1-3. Watch this space for announcements!

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Italian songs

Learn Italian in Song: La Casetta in Canada

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The Little House in Canada

(Panzeri / Mascheroni, performed by Carla Boni and Gino Latilla

Rossella’s great-grandmother used to sing this phrase to her. It never made any sense to me then and, now that I’ve heard the whole song, it makes even less sense! But it apparently was very popular in 1960.
Quando Martin vedete solo per la città

forse voi penserete dove
girando va.

Solo, senza una meta. Solo… ma c’è un perché:

Aveva una casetta piccolina in Canada

con vasche, pesciolini e tanti fiori di lillà,

e tutte le ragazze che passavano di là

dicevano: “Che bella la casetta in Canada”!

Ma un giorno, per dispetto, Pinco Panco l’incendiò

e a piedi poveretto
senza casa lui restò.

“Allora cosa fece?” – Voi tutti chiederete.

Ma questa è la sorpresa che in segreto vi dirò:

Lui fece un’altra casa piccolina in Canada

con vasche, pesciolini e tanti fiori di lillà,

e tutte le ragazze che passavano di là

dicevano: “Che bella la casetta in Canada”!

E tante e tante case lui rifece ma, però,

quel tale Pinco Panco tutte quante le incendiò.

Allora cosa fece?

Voi tutti lo sapete!

Lui fece un’altra casa piccolina in Canada

con vasche, pesciolini e tanti fiori di lillà,

e tutte le ragazze che passavano di là

dicevano: “Che bella la casetta in Canada”!

 When you see Martin alone in the city

perhaps you’ll wonder where he’s wandering to.

Alone, without a goal. Alone… but there’s a reason:

He had a little house in Canada

with tanks, fish, and many lilacs,

and all the girls who passed that way

said: “What a beautiful little house in Canada!”

But one day, out of spite, Pinco Panco set it on fire

And the poor chap
was left without a home.

“What did he do then?” you will all ask.

But this is the surprise which I will secretly tell you:

He made another little house in Canada,

with tanks, fish, and many lilacs,

and all the girls who passed that way

said: “What a beautiful little house in Canada!”

And many and many houses he rebuilt, but still

that damned Pinco Panco burned them all.

Then what did he do?

You all know!

He made another little house in Canada, with tanks, fish, and many lilacs,

and all the girls who passed that way

said: “What a beautiful little house in Canada!”

(repeat ad nauseam…)

if you find this useful and want more, let me know!

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Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia