Hi everybody!

Before starting, I would like to premise that I'm not English or American, so my english could be a little strange or inaccurate.
However, I will do my best.

So, here I am!
My name is Cristiano but most of the people just call me Cris, it's easier, faster and I like it way more than my complete name. I have 25 years (my birthday is the 28th of November).
I'm Italian and, as you can expect from an Italian, I really love pasta and pizza.
When I say that I love pasta and pizza, I mean that I could easily eat pasta and pizza every day of my life.
I don't do it just because it's not exactly the healthiest thing to do, but I dream a world in which pasta and pizza contain everything a man need to survive.

But I don't want to start my introduction with a monologue on food.

Who am I?

I live in Rimini, near the sea, but I was born in Bergamo, which is near the mountains. Due to that, I always feel a sort of nostalgia for the mountains and the wonderful feeling of being surrounded by the peaks and the forest.
My story is quite complicated.

I live here in Rimini because I can't live in Bergamo anymore.
When I was 13, I developed a drug addiction that lasted until 19, when I finally decided to move in a very famous rehab near Rimini, which is called San Patrignano.
It could be that some of you already heard about San Patrigano, or "Sanpa" as we like to call that place.
Surely, this saved my life.

Before going to the rehab, I was using every single drug on the market and I was seriously damaging me, my family and my girlfriend.
I wasn't violent, I never phisically hurt anyone, it's not how I'm made.
But I was really self-destructing and this was taking everyone around me down with the ship.

The rehab has been really hard, but it did something really wonderful to me: it was like washing away some leeches that were sucking my positivity and my energy.
It has lasted four years and some months, but the path I choose to follow at the rehab led to a better situation.

Now I recovered most of my capacities, that the drugs were destroying.

My job

I'm an IT Technician, working in a small company where I develop software, manage many different servers and study to improve my coding skills.
Right now I'm studying the C# programming language, to be able to develop software for Windows, Mac, Android and ever iOS.

My free time

In my free time I love to explore new things.
I've always seen my mind as an endless field full of different buildings, each one filled with different activities and interests.

I love writing poems and short novels, so I published a poem and haiku collection on Amazon (paperback) and I'm almost ready to publish a short novel based on seven stories that are linked by a complex plot.

I also love building or creating things, so I'm building a small "robot" powered by a neural net, a vocal assistant and some sensors. In my project, the robot will soon learn to detect faces, to interact with humans and to move without crashing and without a driver.

Another hobby that I love to do is playing my harmonica.
I have a Chrometta, which is a Chromatic Harmonica, and I love to practice by playing those famous videogame themes (especially Zelda themes).

Oh yes, that's right, I'm also a fan of retrogaming, and I have actually assembled a portable game console to play with Zelda, Mario and other games on the go.

Why is @otosclerosi here on Steemit?

I'm here on Steemit because I love the concept behind this platform.
I've always been interested in the blockchain technology, and I traded some cryptocurrencies before, but this project is completely different, is really useful and well-done!

I hope to find a good way to integrate and participate to this community, so...

See you around, guys!