Trisha Cornelius

Rizzoli and Isles: The Surgeon, The Apprentice and The Sinner

Titles: The Surgeon, The Apprentice and The Sinner
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Genre: Crime/ Suspense
Date started: 31 July 2018
Date finished: 8 August 2018

I first picked up a Tess Gerritsen book when we were living in Costa Rica, I am not entirely sure which one it was, but I suspect it was Vanish. It had the attraction of being written in English and available. I enjoyed it and as time went by after I purchased a Kindle I picked up the remainder of the series.

I had a lovely binge-read of the first three books in the Rizzoli and Isles series over about 8 days. The books are well-written and tell compelling stories. I love that they feature strong female characters, some of the details about working in male-dominated fields hits very close to home and can probably be attributed to Gerritsen’s work in the medical profession.

I don’t know if it was intentional or accidental, but the gradual introduction of characters is well done. The first novel in the series introduces Jane Rizzoli as lead detective on a murder investigation. The introduction of Maura Isles is in the second novel which allows for solid character development. Additionally, even though there are references made to medical procedures and techniques the books are still light reading and provide a delightful escape.

The Surgeon tells the story of a murderer with medical expertise. The Apprentice picks up on the tale after the antagonist of the Surgeon escapes from prison and begins to work with a new partner. The Sinner continues Rizzoli and Isle’s stories with a fresh antagonist. A move that keeps the series fresh.

Instead of solely focusing on these ladies in their professional environments, Gerritsen humanizes them by introducing bits of their family life into the tales. This is done in a manner that adds to the story and does not feel forced.

If you enjoy suspense novels and books that feature female lead characters this is a great series to read. If you are not a fan of crime novels or gore, these should probably be given a miss.

Love and reading,
Trish

P.S. I feel like I suck at writing book reviews. But it’s okay, one sucks at whatever one is learning. So I am going to be brave and keep on publishing them. (After all, no-one is compelled to read my posts)

On anniversaries and influential women

When I speak of influential women here, I am speaking of the intensely personal influence. The influence of my mother and grandmother in my life. Both my mother and my paternal grandmother passed away on the third of August. My mother died 7 years ago and my grandma 25 years ago.

I don’t remember much about my grandma, but what I do remember is that she was kind. Not that she acted kind, but that she was fiercely kind and I remember how she was gentle, and I only remember one sleepover with her and my pops, and how as a curious child I insensitively and with the curiosity of a child I asked my WWII veteran grandfather about his experiences in the war, she gently turned the conversation away. I recently learnt that pops suffered from the invisible wound of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in addition to his scars from being injured by a “friendly” landmine (pieces of shrapnel that were pulled from his shoulder were on top of my grandma’s piano).

It was at this same piano that she patiently taught my sister and I some notes. My sister continued to play for a few years after my maternal grandmother also passed away. What I remember most about sitting at the piano, apart from the love, was some snippets of the stories that accompanied the tunes. I don’t remember many of them, but I remember how when she played us “In the Mood” she recounted that it was a favourite in the clubs that she played at during WWII. (As an adult I look back and think that it’s pretty cool to have had a grandma who was a nightclub pianist during WWII). I also know that it was during this period that she met pops. I seem to recall the story being that she was his nurse, which is so romantic that it is almost cliché, but I have no idea whether it is true or not.

And while I don’t have as many memories as I would like, nor did I ever have an adult conversation with her, I have no doubt that the kindness and tact that she lived every day, strongly influenced my father and probably influenced his attraction to my mother.

An image of parents of the groom ,Graham Booth, Joyce and Albert Booth, flanking Kathleen and Graham Booth on their wedding day. — My parents, Kathleen and Graham Booth, with my paternal grandparents, Joyce and Albert Booth on their wedding day. (Note that my mom is not wearing a white wedding dress!)

My mother and I didn’t have the easiest relationship, for all sorts of reasons. Some of these reasons I know and choose to share, other reasons I know and choose to keep close to me and yet more are unknown to me.

And yet, the more I learn and age and gain perspective, the more I see her influence. My mom was a bit of a rebel, but not in the ways that you would think. As the eldest daughter it took an act of courage and rebellion to choose not to wear the wedding dress that her mother and grandmother before her had worn when they got married. My mother also did a lot of things behind the scenes, and instead of choosing to be become bitter when she was exploited or mistreated, refused to give away her power and kept her optimism and view of looking at the world. As I grow older the more I realise how much courage it takes to live optimistically and kindly, especially when people misjudge that kindness and see it as something to be exploited.

Another way that my mother was influential towards me was by showing me the magic of books, and sharing her love of history and context with us. I believe that her love of history was something she shared with my dad, he too was a history geek. My mom was also a bit of an English geek, something that unconsciously has become part of me. And despite our difficulties she also mentored my public speaking and debating. (I suspect that she was the anonymous sponsor for a junior debate team in my high school the first year that it happened.

I definitely got my love of museums from her, my friends know that I am not a good person to go to museums with if you want to have a quick trip. I want to suck every ounce of information possible out of my visits, and go back for more. When we had our adventure in Costa Rica and traveled through Washington D.C my mom mentioned that she was jealous about the fact that I had the opportunity to experience the Smithsonian. On my trip through Washington after spending some time on the Mall, I deliberately went to the Smithsonian (specifically the Museum of American History) as my first museum.

As time goes by and perspective changes and contexts become clearer I see and appreciate influence differently, I see more and more of these women in me, and I am glad of it.

Love and anniversaries,
Trisha

Dear SAA, please do some user testing

Dear SAA,

I love flying with you, you are one of my favourite airlines. But this evening, your technology let me down. Earlier this evening I attempted through your website, multiple times to buy air tickets for my brother and sister in law. They are coming back from Thailand to South Africa (yay!). This meant that I got to experience your booking process. These are my observations.

When I arrive on your website, my default location is Mauritius and my language is English. My IP address is South African based, and you are the South African National carrier. So perhaps it makes sense to default the location to South Africa. I did not notice this, nor pay it any attention on my first attempt to buy these two airline tickets.
I enter the required information to book this flight. It should depart from Bangkok and arrive in Johannesburg. I have selected that it is a one way flight, and I click the “Find Flights” button. At this point I am optimistic.
I then reach the page that allows me to make a selection of flights. All of these options are displayed in Thailand Baht (THB). I am somewhat surprised but eagerly continue to select a flight.
I am taken to the next page where I fill in all of the passenger details. I note that gender options are binary and only extend to male or female. (This feature may need to change in the future as more countries recognise gender unspecified “x”). I click through to the next page. The prices are still displayed in Baht with no option to change the currency.
It is at this point that I can select seats. This is where I encountered my first hurdle on multiple attempts, where after selecting seats that are displayed as valid, once I click the “confirm and close” button, I encounter the error message: “At least one of your specific seat requests could not be processed. (4631 – 4360)”. After multiple tries I eventually manage to book seats for both legs of the flight. It is the Bangkok to Hong Kong leg of the flight that was causing the error. There appears to be a need for better communication between SAA and Hong Kong Air’s systems.
I am now approaching the finish line, or so I believe in my naivete. At this point I have reached the payment stage, and this is where it all falls apart. I expected to be presented with a payment page, and since this is a South African page serving a South African client I expected the page to show me the amount in South African Rand (ZAR) (possibly with an approximate conversion of Thailand Baht. Instead I encounter yet another error. This time it says: “There was an error processing your request. Please contact your local SAA office.” Unfortunately this message is neither hyperlinked to a list of local SAA offices nor to a contact page.
I search the internet and find an out of commission number. My brother in law who has been Skyping with me the entire time, tells me to try phone 0861-FlySAA. After being on hold for a while I reach a customer service representative. She tells me that I can log on and pay for these tickets. That is not the case. She then tells me that the reason that there is no payment option is because the transaction is in Thai Baht and that I can only pay for the tickets at an airport with a South African Airways office. She suggests that I re-book the tickets after changing my location to South Africa.This marks the beginning of attempt two
I return to the initial booking page and after changing my location to South Africa (keeping my language in English). I enter the requisite flight details and click through to the next page. The prices initially display in THB, after about 30 seconds the prices display in South African Rand. I celebrate, while still on the line with the call center agent.
I enter all of the details and repeat step 5. I can see the finish line as I click through to the payment page.
Fantastic! A page that displays an amount in South African Rand and a form to complete my credit card details. YAY! I get a booking reference number. I believe that all is well.time passes
I receive a notification from FNB that they have reversed the transaction. I contact them. Apparently, they cannot un-reverse a transaction.This marks the beginning of attempt three to six.
I go to the booking homepage. I set my location to South Africa. I repeat steps 2 to 6.
Tomorrow I will go to the airport and purchase these tickets.

Based on my observations, I have some recommendations:

First off, do some user testing. I know that there is the very true joke in development circles, “I don’t often test my software, but when I do I test it in production.” This is a bad joke for a reason.
Secondly give the user an opportunity to select their currency.
Improve the communication between different airline’s systems and give the user an opportunity to skip choosing their seats.
Your error messages need to be more meaningful for the end users. Tell me which seats can’t be booked, and if possible link the messages to an additional helpful step.

I don’t really believe that anything will change on the basis of this post, but I feel better for getting it off my chest. It is also a good small scale user test example.

Love and user testing,
Trisha

Edit: The saga continues

Edit date: 3 August 2018
Tomorrow came today. I head off to Lanseria airport in order to try and pay for this reservation. In my interaction with the call center agent, she had been very adamant that I could pay at any airport. I specifically asked if I could pay at Lanseria airport and I was pointedly told again that I could pay at any airport. I believe that Lanseria International Airport fits under the category of “any airport”.

I arrive at the airport feeling cautiously optimistic. I approach the information kiosk and I am told that there is no SAA office specifically at the airport but I am directed to the Mango airlines desk which shares some of its operations with SAA.

I am decidedly less optimistic as I approach the Mango desk where I explain my predicament to the lovely lady behind the counter. She is apologetic in her explanation that I need to go to O R Tambo international airport (53 – 86 km away depending on the route). I ask the lovely lady if I can vent. She kindly lets me, and was very sympathetic to my plight.

I decide to have breakfast at the viewing deck so that I can at least have a reason to have been a trip to the airport. The eggs benedict were mediocre but the service was excellent.

At this point I decide to go to a travel agent. I went to Flight Center in Cradlestone Mall, where I was assisted very competently and kindly by a lady named Sherrine. I left within 30 minutes having successfully bought tickets on the same flights as I was attempting to last night.

The extensive time spent on SAA’s website last night served me well, when I was able to reserve seats (the same ones as yesterday) using the “Manage my booking” functionality.

I also realised that I had become rather fixated on the solution to the problem being buying SAA tickets instead of trying to fly with another airline.

Love and (eventual) successfully purchasing flight tickets,
Trisha

Some thoughts about society and transgender issues

Hello blog,

First off, I am not transgender and so I cannot speak from that perspective. Secondly, I recognise that this is an emotional topic and I apologise for any errors that I make. I have no intention of hurting any person, so please, if I get something wrong and you feel comfortable, drop me a comment or a message (trishacornelius at gmail dot com) and I will do my best to rectify it, and now onwards.

On names and gendering: I strongly believe that it is a person’s right to be called by a name of their choosing and whatever pronouns make them feel comfortable. I acknowledge that some people are uncomfortable with adapting to additional pronouns in the English language. But, part of the beauty of language is that it evolves. And people’s feelings of love and belonging and acceptance are for more important than the temporary discomfort of adapting to some new words, like ze or e, or the unfamiliar use of they, their or them. Stephen Fry makes this argument far more eloquently I can, so over to you, Mr Fry

On living as a trans person: It is an act of courage to live in a way that is true to who you are. Brene Brown talks eloquently about this in her book, Daring Greatly. It takes extra courage to live in a way that is true to yourself when large parts of the world are actively hostile towards you and dangerous for you.

Some of these thoughts have been blundering around my mind for a bit, and when I watched a YouTube clip that features one of my doctor’s, I decided that it was time to write. The clip is mostly in Afrikaans, and if you don’t understand it, and want to know what was said, leave a comment and I will translate:

There are a few things that I believe are especially worthy of being highlighted from this clip:

As Dr Rudolph emphasizes, there is nothing mentally wrong with a trans person. Trans women are women who were born in a man’s body and trans men are men who are born in a woman’s body. The higher incidence of mental illness including depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies are the result of how society treats trans people rather than anything inherently being wrong with a trans person.
The act of transitioning is a process of becoming who you are.
A person who discovers that they are transgender can benefit from psychotherapy, not because there is anything wrong with them but because support when going through a journey of self-awareness and discovery is generally beneficial. If the psychologist says that being trans is wrong, they are not the right psychologist.
I love these words that Bianca Minaar shares “Find your heart, be human again, love unconditionally”

I am glad that the world is changing and moving towards becoming more accepting. I hope that I will love to see the day when the idea of being hostile towards trans people is a thing of the past. But for now, to my trans friends, remember that I love you and I salute your bravery in living in a way that is true to yourself.

Love and acceptance,
Trisha

Being a woman in tech

Hello blog,

This is a difficult blog to write and I am not sure where to categorize it. I will probably file it under development, which is where it belongs but it touches on a lot of things.

I am the daughter of a developer and women in tech were a part of my life, where my father spoke of his female colleagues in the same way as he spoke of his male colleagues and work social gatherings included both men and women. So for me, women in tech were not unicorns, and as they were spoken of as being equally competent as men. The first time that I encountered hostility in tech was in a forum and in all honestly it shocked me to the core. Also, being me, it pissed me off, but I dismissed it as being an isolated incident and not a reflection of the general tech community.

For the most part I kept on with tech in the background and I did not pay attention to what was going on in the tech community. In 2015 I went to my first tech meetup hosted by WordPress Joburg. I felt safe and welcome, especially when I made a comment that my ability to attend a meetup on weeknight would depend on getting a baby-sitter for my son and was met with the response of “Bring him with”. I have been an active member of the WordPress Joburg Community ever since and now am one of the co-organizers.

<sidenote> Of course being a woman comes with a level of being aware of background misogyny, both the unintentional systematic misogyny that permeates the world and the deliberate and malicious misogyny that forms part of the day-to-day world. In this regard I have a few advantages, being a white woman from a middle class family who studied law and was warned by my principal in the first few days of my articles about the inherent misogyny of the legal profession and given some tips to ignore it, combined with a low-level of neuroatypicality meant that I generally was able to ignore the effects of misogyny until my thirties.</sidenote>

My first in-person encounter with misogyny in the tech world happened in 2016, where I was made to feel like a completely unreasonable, trouble-making bitch for daring to be anything other than a sycophant when I spoke up at a meetup. In a not atypical reaction I did ask a fellow attendee privately whether I was being oversensitive or whether there was genuine hostility, they too had perceived hostility.

It is against this background that I read the New York Times’s 2014 article “Technology’s Man Problem”. I have some specific thoughts and comments:

Women who enter fields dominated by men often feel this way. They love the work and want to fit in. But then something happens — a slight or a major offense — and they suddenly feel like outsiders.

I never felt explicitly unwelcome in the tech community until the incident I described above, and that incident along with a collection of other comments and interaction made me consider walking away from the tech community 🙁

A culprit, many people in the field say, is a sexist, alpha-male culture that can make women and other people who don’t fit the mold feel unwelcome, demeaned or even endangered.

“It’s a thousand tiny paper cuts,” is how Ashe Dryden, a programmer who now consults on increasing diversity in technology, described working in tech.

A thousand tiny paper cuts is an excellent description and if you raise these incidents in isolation you look like you are blowing things out of proportion and if you try to create context by speaking of them in a larger picture you are accused of holding grudges and being hysterical and generally being unreasonable.

“We see these stories, ‘Why aren’t there more women in computer science and engineering?’ and there’s all these complicated answers like, ‘School advisers don’t have them take math and physics,’ and it’s probably true,” said Lauren Weinstein, a man who has spent his four-decade career in tech working mostly with other men, and is currently a consultant for Google.

“But I think there’s probably a simpler reason,” he said, “which is these guys are just jerks, and women know it.”

The choice for people who are uncomfortable with the “bro” culture is to try to change it or to leave — and even women who are fed up don’t always agree on how to go about making a change.

Firstly, yes #notallmen are jerks.
Secondly, I think that we should admit that there is unlikely to be one true way to make the change and should not overly stress about finding a homogeneous solution and be willing to support efforts to effect change even if they are not done the same way as we personally would have implemented them.

Writing code is a high-pressure job with little room for error, as are many jobs. But coding can be stressful in a different way, women interviewed for this article said, because code reviews — peer reviews to spot mistakes in software — can quickly devolve.

“Code reviews are brutal — ‘Mine is better than yours, I see flaws in yours’ — and they should be, for the creation of good software,” said Ellen Ullman, a software engineer and author. “I think when you add a drop of women into it, it just exacerbates the problem, because here’s a kind of foreigner.”

“I’m in no way saying that women can’t take a tough code review,” she added. “I’m saying that no one should have to take one in a boy-puerile atmosphere.”

As I have not worked in an environment with formal code-reviews, I cannot comment. But on anecdotal evidence and based on conversations with both men and women in tech my thoughts on this are:
1. Initially getting used to code reviews is tough. Learning to take any kind of constructive criticism is a skill, and considering that coding is an act of intellectual labour that is often accompanied by strong emotions, it is natural for coders to feel sensitive about feedback.
2. The biggest challenge in any code review is ego and preconceived notions.
3. Some men are intensely threatened by women and resent any feedback them. And I have heard guys say that they are much harsher in their reviews then some of their female colleagues and get far less grief about it.
4. People need to reframe code reviews from being threatening and personal attacks to being a form of mentorship and improvement. (Honestly, has any code not looked at some of their past code and gone “What! Why did I do it this way. I am much better now”

But the debate isn’t over. In fact, Ms. Shevinsky now finds herself in another argument. This time, however, she’s on the defensive with other women.

A prominent feminist in tech told her that she was doing a disservice to women by accepting Mr. Dickinson’s apology and working with him again. The conversation, Ms. Shevinsky said, was “hateful.”

Ms. Shevinsky says that she judges Mr. Dickinson “on his actions, how he is with other people in the company and with me,” and said that there was no contradiction in both working with Mr. Dickinson and supporting feminism in tech.

By virtue of being human people are going to make mistakes and be insensitive and possibly, unintentionally misogynistic. I believe that we should allow people to move on from their mistakes. As I stated above I also believe that we should allow women to have their own agency and allow for a diversity of approaches to women in tech.

Lea Verou, an incoming Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering and computer science at M.I.T., wrote in a much read essay that women-only conferences and hackathons “cultivate the notion that women are these weak beings who find their male colleagues too intimidating.”

“As a woman,” she wrote, “I find it insulting and patronizing to be viewed that way.”

I strongly disagree with this view, and find that these environments allow for a different form of collaboration and openness, and to find it to be an environment that counters systematic, unconscious misogyny as well as outright hostility.

Love and (lots of) thoughts about being a woman in tech,
Trisha

Maverick: Extraordinary Women From South Africa’s Past

Hello Blog,

A while ago I made the decision to start blogging about the books that I have read. This post marks the first such entry in this iteration of the blog.

Title: Maverick, Extraordinary Women From South Africa’s Past
Authors: Lauren Beukes and Nechama Brodie
Genre: Biography
Published by Umuzi (an imprint of RandomStruik)
ISBN: 978-1-41520-754-3
Date started: 27 July 2018
Date finished: 28 July 2018

Reason for reading: For enjoyment and to learn more about South Africa’s past. And because it is written by Lauren Beukes. (I have also ordered Nechama Brodie’s The Joburg Book based on the strength of Maverick).

Maverick, delivers on what it’s subtitle “Extraordinary women from South Africa’s Past” promises. The second edition, updated in 2015, tells the story of 23 women who in one way or another were extraordinary. The stories are reported without strong judgement in a delightfully conversational tone. Lauren Beukes and Nechama Brodie do a fantastic job in exploring a diverse collection of politicians, entertainers, killers and other miscellaneous women and I would love to see a sequel exploring more of South Africa’s women.

Reading these stories, I learnt things about South Africa that I did not know. For example that during the South African war (1898 – 1902) the British promised African soldiers land and had them set the Boer’s farms alight during the scorched earth campaign. I was delighted to read a story about Lilian Ngoyi, whose existence I was ignorant of until last December when I discovered her through her appearance on the San Francisco’s Mission District Women’s Building MaestraPeace mural. Reading Helen Martins’s story enriched my memory of the trip through the Owl House in Nieu Betheseda that we took last September when we did our first family road trip.

My favourite incident recounted in the book is how Helen Joseph, Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams ensured that the 9 August 1956 Women’s gathering was not a large public protest but 20,00o individual protests instead.

I wept when I read about Ruth First’s murder and the outrage that allowed a liar to be granted amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. (Note: I know that this is one of many such instances and I am sure at some stage I will write a rant about how appalling it is that those who did not offer the truth received amnesty instead of prosecution).

This was a holiday read, and with it’s format of each chapter telling the story of a different woman (with the exception of the Struggle Sisters which combines the stories of Helen Joseph and Lilian Ngoyi) makes it an easy to read book. I highly recommend it.

Love and South African Women’s History, T
Trisha