BrainPower

About Marinela Miclea

Childhood

I was born in Bucharest, Romania, in eastern Europe, in the middle of the Communist era. As a natural-born free-thinker, I was a misfit in Romania – (the question "Why" and the statement "It's not fair" never being far from my lips, as my parents could attest). Luckily, my father, an engineer, was able to take his family with him on a long-term assignment in Africa, and I discovered a new world.

In Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa, I attended a wonderful private school, where learning was fun, students and teachers were from a wide range of ethnic and racial backgrounds, and the color of your skin, your accent, and your gender simply did not matter. I learned English within a month, purely by assimilation.

Unfortunately, we were forced to return to Romania, and I could not adapt to the now insupportable restrictions of living in a Communist state, growing increasingly unhappy and desperate. With my constant nagging ringing in their ears, my parents took the courageous decision to defect, making the sacrifice of leaving my younger brother behind with an uncle and taking me instead. (We were reunited in the U.S. a year later.)

Adolescence

We stayed in Paris, France, for a few months; I went to school and acquired French. Finally, we were approved for emigration to the U.S. and came to "the new country."

I attended high school in Ohio and California, where I took college-prep classes and graduated early. I went on to the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

At UCLA, I was one of the first non-computer sciences majors to start using a computer: first a Mac, then a PC. I was planning to become a psychologist and did both research (alcoholism, other addictions, and child abuse) and therapy (with autistic children and schizophrenic adults). I became disillusioned with the cold detachment I perceived in the psychology/psychiatry professionals I dealt with and switched my major to sociology, focusing on social psychology.

Adulthood

Like many American graduates, I had only vague ideas as to how I'd "gain my daily bread." I knew I didn't want to become a social worker and just push paper around, filing endless reports and moving children out of family homes and into foster homes without any real power to better their lives. So I decided I might as well get into the business world.

After college, I worked in marketing for CIGNA for half a year when the opportunity presented itself to go to Europe on a couple of international internships.

I worked in Belgium for three and a half months, using my French language and computer skills, first as an office assistant and then as a foreign languages teacher in a language institute. (This was enough to convince me that I'd never have the patience to be a school-teacher!) I also worked in London, United Kingdom, for a few months and traveled through western, northern, and southern Europe between stints.

After a year abroad, I came back to the U.S. thinking I'd land a wonderful job – I thought, "Some company is sure to jump at the chance of hiring a person like me: fluent in several languages, with computer skills and international business experience to boot!" Instead, I was asked about my typing speed and offered secretarial jobs.

A couple of dead-end jobs later, I settled into a marketing job at Arthur Andersen, a reputable Big Six professional/accounting firm at that time. There, I learned a little about the fine art of "marketing fluff" and a lot about marketing writing ("benefits, not features"). Also, as I found software so easy to figure out, I helped to train less technically-inclined colleagues in Microsoft® Word and Lotus Notes.

After a few years at Arthur Andersen, I decided that I wanted to become a freelancer and chose my passion: writing. I won Arthur Andersen as my first client and produced a series of proposals, presentations, and other marketing documentation for the company. I suppose it was inevitable that, living so close to Silicon Valley, I'd get involved with technical writing and the wonderfully chaotic world of software development, first by subcontracting to others and later through my own contracts.

Seeing the enormous potential of the Web, I started out designing Web pages, tutored others in this art, and wrote a column about the Internet. After dabbling a bit in programming, I stuck with writing for the Web and producing Web pages for companies such as EMC (and, formerly, Documentum, PeopleSoft, and Wells Fargo). For details of my work experience, please view my resume.

And now?

Let's see... Weekdays: I write for the Web. Evenings and weekends: I explore the natural and social delights of the San Francisco Bay Area, reading and writing voraciously, listening to music (opera, blues, Italian, classical, Brazilian, oldies, French, country, among others), dancing, traveling as much as possible, and going on nature walks with my dog, Bijou.