About

Hi, I’m Diana.

I have a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology.

I wrote some WordPress plugins which were the most enjoyable projects I’ve done in my life. During the week, I’d look forward to Saturday, when I could resume my work on them. Fond memories.

I spent most of my twenties and thirties dealing with vague but persistent health problems including metabolic and digestive problems, poor wound healing and easy bruising, tinnitus, acne, eczema, Raynaud’s syndrome, restless legs, weak ligaments, dizziness when getting up too fast, shortness of breath, hand eye coordination problems, tension and anxiety. I got most of it under control by first eliminating dairy, sugar and sweeteners and then moving on to a ketogenic diet. Well, actually, I went the carnivore route for two and a half years. Nowadays I still try to limit my carb intake (but my oh my, those carb cravings), avoid dairy and grains and some nuts, beans and seeds. But life’s much better now. I remember well the stress of overhauling my diet (What will I eat? What will I drink?), but it was worth it.

For quite a chunk of my life, I wandered about. My soul was starving on a diet of nihilism, workaholism and atheism. I tried to be someone I’m not. My social life was too busy, causing my energy levels to alternately spike and plummet. Personal and family circumstances took quite a chunk of my life to come to grips with. I remember as a kid deciding that I wanted to be a wise woman when I grew up, and one of the Dutch sayings goes “One grows wise through damage and disgrace.”. You can’t set out to become wise without seeing a lot in the way. Oh, and in 2019 I nearly died from a ruptured tubo-ovarian abscess that in hindsight I had walked around with for over one and a half years while my health deteriorated and the infection triggered anxiety attacks, which doesn’t do wonders for your performance at work either, obviously. Nevertheless, I have very fond memories of collaborations and connections with people. In spite of a difficult personal life, I made a promotion into a Scrum Master role twice. (Nowadays I only mention one of the two in my LinkedIn profile. The second stint was supposed to be a simple write-some-code-gig but it turned out to be… a story for another time.) My primary element is fire, my secondary is earth. The pitfall is that I can open the gas burner really wide, perform at a high level and then run out of fuel. I was trying to sustain a lifelong, non-stop sprint. I knew it was unsustainable. I’ve had to learn to temper the fire with earth. Still, old habits die hard. Oh well.

Things that burned me out: Feeling pressured to bend the truth. Taking the wrong things seriously. Oh and trainings. Good grief, no, please, no more trainings or workshops. Looking back, it seems that three or four times, I quit a job just days after another one of those “Jump through this hoop”-kinda things. Do I sound cynical? I’m sorry, that sometimes happens to me. I can be hilariously funny too, just ask my husband. I admire John Cleese, who has noted that you can either see life as a tragedy or a farce, has decided it’s a farce and seems to be able to cackle at just about anything. So sometimes, I cackle. I’ve got two cats, I’m allowed.

My life’s a good story. Mind you, the first forty years weren’t what I’d call fun. Well, I did have a lot of fun, looking back. Great collaborations with people. On the other hand, I also went through a lot of things (Hey, life’s hard: Who hasn’t?). I didn’t really talk about a lot of it back then, and I don’t really need to right now. I just count myself lucky. Today, I’m in better health than I was in my twenties, I’m married, I rediscovered the creativity I had in early childhood and I’ve got a reasonably good idea of how to spend my time well in my own eyes. Whenever life gets tough, I survive on litres of green tea and humour (no milk, I prefer mine black). Oh, yes, and a return to God. But I won’t shove it down your throat, no worries. Just close this blog and leave if you don’t like it. You do you, it’s all good.

I have my own business, jodiBooks, with my husband Joep.

In December 2022, four months into the carnivore diet, I returned to the best side job I ever had: delivering mail. During my studies, I’d deliver mail on Saturdays. Go to mail office, sort mail, deliver mail, go home and in the afternoon and evening: play around with some code. During my six years in software engineering jobs, I often said something along the lines of “Why don’t I just go back to delivering mail? That was a good job”. So, eventually, I did. With some encouragement from my husband who told me to ignore whatever I thought the world would expect me to do for a living. Best side job ever. It gets me outdoors and into the sunshine. It’s flexible and social. It grounds me. I now work part time on my business, part time on delivering mail and have plenty of time for whatever else I want to do.