embarassing embarrassment

one of the beauties of the work i do is going for conferences. I am at one at the moment. For privacy (and some other reasons), can't tell where...

I remember having big problems for introducing myself and speaking with strangers at conferences when i was younger. But that's also caused by some professors, who treat PhD students at conferences a bit worse than their socks after a long walk. Now the bits of conferences which I prefer is knowing new people. Sometimes it's ok, and you find someone to do some nice smalltalk (where you can use the jokes you have been testing with your students); some other times it gets very lucky, and you find someone with the same interests as yours. That's not only nice, it also gives sort of an excuse to get along with your research ("i'm not the only one wasting my time on this stuff")

I remember the PhD general-tutor in my former job, listing a number of errors to be absolutely avoided when going to conferences:
1) do not walk in groups with your PhD buddies everywhere
2) practise your 5-words statement to introduce yourself, and be captivating!
3) do not tell obscene jokes when approaching a magnus professor
4) avoid having sex with any of the conference attendees
and others

To these wise advices I would add the following:
"never run like hell out from the train to reach the conference in a haste"
"avoid to sweat massively after that"
"for goat's sake, never share the lift with other attendees in those conditions"
"if you do, complain that the lift has a strange smell and that they didn't clean it properly"
"in doing so, do not raise your arms"

if thee hath done that, do not complain if approaching people you will feel like Moses and the splitted waters of the red sea

wrong sequence

Lukas Moodysson is a very brave director: he first created a number of devoted fans all around the world with three (fucking amal, Tillsammans ("Together"), and Lilya 4-Ever) beautifully crafted movies, and finally spat in the eyes of each single of them with his latest movie (Hål i mitt hjärta, Ett ("A Hole in My Heart"))

I saw an interview with the director, where he said that when you are in such a position to be able to speak to many people, you should say something important. Like in the Oscars' night, when you get a prize you shouldn't just stand and thank your mum, say something for real

"a hole in my heart" is a disturbing movie, i like to think that the director was so deeply impressed by a certain sequence of "lilya 4-ever", that he created a whole new movie digging in the hole that sequence created in his soul. It's a moral baptism, where all sins are washed away in the latest scenes. I was not impressed with the movie, but yesterday, due to the absence of ilaria, i made an experiment. I played first "a hole in my heart", and next "tillsammans", to see if that made more sense as a sequence. I found out that yes. The newest movie looks like conceived by a young anarchist, with all his dreams and hopes and confusion and anger shaped up in a nasty black hole, the only redemption being keeping your eyes wide open and watch. "Tillsammans" made me think of a director building around his peace of mind, rather than trying to cope with a psychosis.

And I wondered: how many directors or artists can claim a "reverse order" in the power of their works?
Also, playing that sequence, I really hoped that his ghosts did evanesce after opening up the hole in his heart

my tube

i like questionnaires, especially when they ask you to rate your opinions, like in "strongly agree", "mild agree" or "mmm i agree but i would rather ask my wife first". Some of them nowadays are about how long you spend on the internet, but mainly about what you are interested in, when surfing among pages. Typically you can find these answers:
1) Newsgroups
2) Chatting
3) Sending email
4) Information-seeking

Questionnaires are made to extract patterns, so choices are restricted. Therefore you will never find this option, which I add as the most dangerous one:
5) Losing time

there's dozens of choices to loose your time, instead of sending boring emails, or reading about people buying viagra on internet and then finding themselves small as berlusconi.
Since blogging is mostly sharing, here's my shared catch of today for loosing valuable time: http://www.youtube.com/. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of videos, made by amateurs for everybody to see their compositions. My second catch of today is: how many will never have a TV again? or prefer to download free music/videos/amateur football/amateur theatre, instead of the bloated, commercial ones?

I don't mind loosing the latest episode of X-Men on widescreen if i can see four folks preparing and smoking the largest joint ever (40 gr!!!). A video or two after lunch are even better than coffee and cigarette!!

be my driver

looking for the definition, the term "generalisation" (or its yankee counterpart, "generalization") is termed here as follows:


Noun 1. generalization - the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances

i love generalisations, like "all faculty meetings are boring", or "all socks stink after some running" or even "you are really a man, you always generalise" and the such. Generalisations ("gen" in the following) help cleaning your mind, and provide fewer things to carry with boring details. My previous tutor is a great generaliser, and I guess his ability in writing academic papers is his focus on simplicity and how to give the big picture quickly

Lately I found this article, that reports on some outspoken attack by a Sun (the eXtreme magaZine) journalist claiming he would shoot in the face bus drivers, because they are "little Hitler bastards". He claimed that bus drivers never let go cars first... But something else which happens quite a lot in London is that bus drivers never open the doors when they are any centimeters away from their stop, they shout at you if you don't sit properly, they shout at you if you are eating mentos on the bus, and in general, they shout at you. Bus drivers do not open the doors even if the passengers are waving correctly, in the correct position, with the right amount of waves and everything. They simply vroooom away. So, my generalisation is "London bus drivers are mad".

In the movie "Wings of Desire" by wenders, two angels speak about the nice things they see about humans, how many wonderful small and big actions men and women do along their days: so my counter-generalisation was this amazing London bus-driver (angel?) who picked me from the bus after waiting for me who came running, asking me if I was ok, where I was going, letting cars pass with a smile, waving at his colleagues on other buses, letting an old lady jump on the bus to cross a dangerous junction, and smiling, smiling like only africans can

masquerade

blogging is like sharing secrets (well, kind of...)
i'm astonished of what people can tell when writing blogs.
Like noone could ever judge them for what they say.

Admission of a poor personality becomes a value point through comments: i read once the "set-him-free" comment pool for a guy admitting he's always watching girls ass. Always. When he's with the girlfriend. Can't imagine what's the driver for saying that thing publicly

Last sunday it was father's day in the anglo-speaking parts of the world, and along with the celebrations of "regular" dads, i found this site where people share their secrets on eventually not-so-nice dads
I was wondering what is the difference here, so is these guys trying to catch some easy compassion? But then I realised that I prefer this one better: my secret is my secret is your secret, you might say...
i give away something valuable when you don't see me

ready for the flood

interesting news shows that the son of the last italian king has been convicted to prison, alligations being his involvement in mafia and prostitution

the best thing of this is what is happening as a side effect: politicians are called to testify, other politicians are allegedly involved, a whole scandal has been raised (again). Again. Always the same story: a young girl asks for favours and lays with some politician. As a result she was given a TV program for kids broadcasting tom&jerry. I remember thinking she was angelic and a bit dumb doing that program "chiiildreeeen, are you ready for the toons??", but now someone claims she was a big "porcella" (i wouldn't know how to translate that)

and once again, I would like all this system to crumble down, politics being involved with mafia, mafia being involved in casinos, casinos being involved with prostitution, and everything being symbolised in an italian town, called "Campione d'Italia" (Italian Champion) created with the pure intent to attract healthy managers and mafiosos to spend money and have some young girls as a compensation. Once again this news gives the false hope that something will finally change, there will be some wheel spinning, and as the tool sing in Aenima, "The only way to fix it is to flush it all away". I am ready for the flood, let's do it

when fact is fiction TV is reality

united 93 is the movie related to the events happening on one of the four planes which allegedly were hijacked by terrorists to crash on specific targets around US. Three of them hit their targets, and the movie tries to explain what happened to the fourth one, and why it couldn't reach its final destination.

there are some theories on what could have happened on that plane, different from the original version of the facts. There are also well-documented, extensive documentaries about what could have happened in the tragic day of september 11th.

I had strong feelings on what I have seen, which make my veins tremble with anger, and useless frustration: one was getting to know, once again, that in these absurd, dehumanised, horrible cases, what you are shown is something digested and pre-processed by someone else. That isn't even censorship any more. That's managing emotions and feelings, moulding brains, building the breath of the nation into one single stream.
Also, what I experienced during the movie was something new and violent and unexpected: my brain could not filter the facts on the screen. It is for real and you can't excape that. On internet you can find all sorts of weirdo movies, hard scenes, bloody imagery, and what you are left with is some numbness, the inability to tell what's true, what's giving you emotions, what's a plot, what's made for my voyeurism. United 93 gives shape to real feelings of real people, and you can't fool yourself anymore.

I could resist and avoid to have a look at Nick Berg's humiliation. My brain refused to take that. I had to refuse some scenes of United 93 by closing my eyes. Also to avoid to throw up my lunch over my friend Fabio

singing the twilight - aka again weird habits

in my career of music passionate, i listened to some hundreds albums (dont say thousandz cuz wouldnt like da RIAA to come and inspect my houze...)

my stupid stupid habit (which i'm trying to work on) is about associating people I meet with albums I've come to listen: have you ever met anybody looking like a pet shop boys album? Personally I have crystallised some friends to the "papa don't preach" period of madonna, some others to the "concert in finsbury park" by art and garfunkel, someone other to the trance-techno of underworld's "dubnobasswithmyheadman"

of course the best part is seeing whether and how these references change over time: has any marillion record ever become a nine inch nails one? i can testify one case indeed

the powder burns new album by twilight singers is what I'd like to be associated with for the next 10 years or so

think for yourself, question authority

Opinions are a damnation to me: it's always possible to find someone undermining your (my) hard-earned vistas on events and things. I used to love a music magazine in my youth, where opinions were straight and in black and white, no shadows of doubts there. "This record sucks" hey, I'll never buy it! "Look out, that movie is a masterpiece", cinemas here I come! Most of all I loved a movie reviewer speaking weird technical and philosophical terms about movies: i remember the review of "dancing in the dark" by von trier, and how it made me want to see the movie and feel the same hate for the director...

But then I realised: how many movies did I skip based on bad reviews? how many more books are there which could cause a sparkle in my mind, even if everybody agrees it's crap? why do I feel frustrated if I can't appreciate "Ulisses" by Joyce and everybody says "aahhhh wonderful" instead?

and there it came: the perfect fusion of theory, opinions, historical facts and fiction, that Da Vinci Code which is turning everybody in suspicious doubters on everything religious...
what if jesus was an UFO troll? maybe we would be adoring some fake icon since too many years... what if the daughter of jesus was connected with the millennium bug? or the high heels of berlusconi? I bet each one of us would like to be among the jesus and magdalena descendants to watch the world and think "ha! THAT is something to tell friends at the pub"

beside the "american catch" that the whole operation is having, I am amazed by how everyone wants to have _their_ view on the facts, maybe biased and incomplete, maybe extreme or naive. And I amazed that everything, _everything_, can be questioned

noone likes to be pushed opinions in the head and to realise it

Bad teachers create students. Good teachers awaken the teacher in you.

A former colleague used to say that marking exam papers for teachers is like unloading trucks... at least you have the sensation of doing something real, like other jobs do

I spent three whole days marking papers for my new "operating Systems" course, and it was amazing: you can't predict the outcome of what you say during the course to the students. It's simply a matter of hope to believe they are really involved in what you teach.

Ilaria strongly believes that I'm a good teacher, but I much prefer thinking that I'm mostly NOT a bad teacher: _my_ models of bad teaching are the first and only ones I try to avoid. Some teachers in my youth were apparently concerned only with the best eggheads in the class, and I hated that. Some teachers patronised the class, and I hated that. Some teachers terrified the class, and I was revolted by their responsibility and how they managed it... puah

That said, the exam papers where splitted in some clusters:
- the majority was citing the book, citing my words (gosh, somebody even cited my example of a trip between Turin and London...)
- some of them wrote "highly common-sensed" sentences
- but...

...but some of them really made something out of what they learned... it was not only the concepts, the lines in a book, the boring details of the subject for them. It was engaging their brain in something new, it was trying and focusing their attention on *other* details that I wasn't even mentioning

On the question "how can you define this xxxx policy"? a student wrote "this is self-explanatory, and I won't explain it...", but oh
...after that s/he gave a long, amazing, appealing dissertation on a more open question and I was gazing the paper and I was happy

As a student, I had never been THAT clever: but, boy, it feels GREAT to have such students