Switching my mind

I know

2010-09-11T09:52:00.001+02:00

I know what I dislike, I do not know what I like, unfortunately

Feeding

2010-08-18T21:07:00.001+02:00

With papers I feed my mind,
with sport I feed my body,
with poems I feed my soul

Have a good holiday

2010-08-15T21:23:00.003+02:00

Dear readers,
I haven't forgotten you of course!!!
I haven't blogged anything, basically for two reasons:
- I worked really hard during the last weeks
- When I was free I didn't want to stay at home in front of my pc, therefore when I had time I was at the beach or with other friends.

I was involved in many things, most of them were new to me. Trying to list them:
-I was an assistant professor for an exam
-I'm also a student, it means that I have to take some exams. I passed one of them in July.
-I refined my research better and presented them to my research group
-I was in Rome for a presentation about possible partnership between industry and university
-I went to the sea as soon as I had some free time
-Running and cycling

Well if I explained each point thoroughly I would need to write an endless post...
Going to summarize, as an assistant professor it was quite embarrassing at early time because I wasn't accustomed to be called "professor" (actually at first time I barely dwell upon laughing) and neither to examine another guy. Fortunately, I started gradually, at the beginning I only corrected the written examinations and at the last exam session I also had the viva examinations.
I'm also a student, that is, I have to sit for exams.. weird I'm an assistant professor and a student at same time :)

It is due to the fact that we attend advanced courses that require us to take a final examination.
My research is still at embryonic stage, my adviser told and assured me that I' m doing well, but I'm not convinced and I keep on being quite skeptical.
Rome again, yes! it's officially my second city. I have never left Rome in somehow :) I'm still linked to this city, it is not that bad definitely :)

Since I worked really hard, sometimes at night as well, I needed to get rid of my pc. Some days I spent more than 11 hours (on the whole) in front of my PC,
I wanted to give a relief to my puffy eyes and aching spine-column, thus I deliberately left many tasks to do with my pc pending, like replying to friends, shame on me...
Running and cycling is wonderful!, my body is back in a good shape! I adore these two sports. I practice them on the weekend usually. I cycle to reach out the park where I do jogging for 30 minutes and back on the bicycle for other 15 minutes.

Holidays.. tomorrow I'm going to Munich (Germany) for 5 days I'm hosted by a close friend of mine who I met in Rome. She moved there some months ago. I'm really happy to meet her and to visit Munich at the same time :)
From 21st to 27th August I'm going to Umago, Croatia. It is a different holiday from the previous one, we (some friends of mine and I) will be in a residence for guys.
We will be dancing and sunbathing all the time... not so bad :)
Stay tuned

Hot and tepid water

2010-06-06T23:17:00.006+02:00

Hi guys,

as you noticed I've been writing about my PhD studies. I deliberately decided to use this blog as my notebook with advice for new Phd students or candidates, hopefully to help you out in somehow.

When you start your PhD studies (aside from recognizing that you must be quite crazy :) the first thing that you should realize, it is to update your knowledge about your research topic as soon as it is possible. Fill the existing gap between your current knowledge and the state of work. In other words do what you are supposed to do before writing your paper, check the "related work" and then think out of the box!!

In my city we have a common byword: when you find or propose a well established solution to a problem, we say "you discovered hot water". During these last days I've had many "tepid" ideas that turned to be hot as the water, not extraordinary.

In hopes that my tepid ideas turn into cold ones :) I wish to all PhD students good luck for their careers.

Serendipity-Fate-Destiny

2010-05-16T12:47:00.004+02:00

Do you believe in fate?

I sustain this idea, it is quite simple.

Many things happen to us, we run into unanticipated events, people and places...

When this unpredictable situations occur we make a decision whether to pick them or not.

Decisions deliberately made, without a specific crunchy reasons behind them.

Sometimes just a word, a smile, a distraction drive our life towards another direction.

We can barely control our life, definitely.

Serendipity, do you know the movie?

I do believe that this theory mostly applies to love-story,

love should came out easily, no effort to find the "right" person... like the two protagonists of this romantic movie do

Or conversely shall we create our opportunities, encourage ourselves to take another street?

The Legend of 1900 here comes, another movie.

Shall we act like T.D. Lemmons? Accept to live on a ship for ever because scared of

the infinity possibilities that are beyond our sight or take the plunge and go ashore?

Problems

2010-05-09T22:17:00.003+02:00

It is not what kind of problems that makes us academicians, but how we manage to sort it out.

How to present your Working package

2010-04-25T20:14:00.004+02:00

Dear guys,
As I wrote in my former post, I attended two European meetings last weeks.
One of them gave me a preliminary idea on how to present your working package. Firstly, a kick off meeting is hold, mainly, because the partners need to present their working packages and duties. For the ones not aware of the structure of an European project, they are split into working package (WP).
Each WP represents a "work unit" that encompasses some tasks. The WP is presented by its leader. I prepared the slides for the working package in which was involved my university (but I didn't present it). After the meeting realized that I was neglect on some points. What I learnt and I wish to share with you is:

Kick off meeting is not only a presentation of your institution and the working package you're charged of.
Avoid presenting your working packages as a standalone piece, it has interactions with other WPs, find and highlight them.
Show the potential weak and toughest points, your partners and you might agree on a common strategy to sort them out.
Propose and discuss solutions, if you already have any in your mind.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have other suggestions.

European meetings

2010-04-25T19:03:00.003+02:00

Dear guys,

Last weeks I attended two weeks.The first meeting was two weeks ago in my city. The audience was heterogeneous, exponents coming from both academic and industrial world. The meeting lasted the entire days and several panelists had their talk, some of them were well known professors. This meeting was interesting because I gained a deeper insight about some scientific topics that I ignored or barely knew,

The second meeting held in Rome last Friday was more exciting and with a different focus. It was a kick off meeting that involved all the partners of a consortium.

This fruitful and amenable meeting helped me to understand how different European groups join and work. Indeed the participants were German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, CECIc and... Hungarian :) and they have expertise on different subjects. To tell the true, a kick off meeting is not easy to chair. You have to keep things moving correctly since it's the first meeting you have to establish the roles of the partners. Moreover, these meetings are a viable opportunity to make new partnership,

exchange contacts and ideas. I personally managed to get in touch with two people who might cooperate in the future for some research activities :)

But the best part of any meeting is ... the lunch and coffee break!

You can't miss them.

A nice discovery

2010-04-22T09:07:00.001+02:00

What Pulcinella are you looking for?

2010-04-04T12:06:00.002+02:00

I've seen the statistic for my blog, I noticed that a lot of you research the word "pulcinella" and get my blog about this character. I don't think that it is what you were searching, maybe you were more interested in the "Pulcinella di Mare" that is a popular kind of bird. Please let me know what pulcinella brought you here when you search by "pulcinlla". Thank you.

Hard copy book lover

2010-03-28T16:06:00.002+02:00

Can we get rid of books made up of paper?

Honestly, I do not know, I reckon that is something really linked to your personal flavor.

Many technological solutions address the problem to store and retrieve information easily, reliably,

permanently and at low cost. Indeed one of the goals for the next years onwards is to reduce the amount of documents that are made up of papers, the so called "dematerialization" of the documents. A document in electronic format, let's say a "pdf document" has many nifty advantages over a document of paper:

portable. You just need a usb flash drive to store and bring it everywhere you want without wasting space!
deliverable. You can buy and get it within a few minutes, you can also pass it out by attaching to an email.
money saving. You don't need to take a car or bus to get to the library-> fuel not wasted. Additionally, It is not a hard copy made of papers,
time and energy saving. You just add it to your virtual chart with a click, you can attach it to your email and sending it to your friends without planning an appointment,
green. You do not increase your ecological footprint because you do not need to take a car or whatsoever to reach the bookshop. Additionally , cut the number of trees hacked up.
usable. You can write on it with "add comments" command of your pdf reader and change it over and over easier than using a pencil
copyable, if you hold the proper grant you can copy the text from the it to your document (the well known copy and paste) it 's quicker than typing.
safety. Less paper in your house harder it blazes :)
cleanness. You do not have shelfs and books to dust off :)

Despite all these advantages (some of them are really quirky e.g. cleanness but I think it makes sense in somehow) I still do believe that books of paper are far away from disappearing.

I consider myself "a true hard-copy book lover", I need to touch them, to sniff at them, to flip through them, to see them, to blend the upright side corner for reminding me the most relevant pages, to pile up them on my bedside table ... in a nutshell I cannot image a world with no hard copy books..

Are you a hard-copy book lover?

Marriage vs PhD

2010-03-26T15:33:00.002+01:00

From http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

Dealing with the damned prepositions: "talk to" or "talk with"

2010-03-24T09:07:00.006+01:00

What preposition follows the verb "to talk" when it means to speak, to communicate?
I was pretty convinced that the correct preposition was "to", therefore "talk to "is allowed and "talk with" is frowned upon... Now, I step back after discovering that on BBC they use "talk with"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8583589.stm

The copy and paste people

2010-03-14T12:18:00.004+01:00

I was sitting on my barber's armchair, we were making small talks, interleaving them with a serious reflection, then a laugh and again this cycle.

All of sudden, he asked me, you have been working at university for some weeks, is it a good job?

I rolled my eyes around, thought for a while trying to answer in the best way avoiding bothering him with unpleasant grievances.

Finally, I manged to summed up what I had in my mind and I said to him:

"Currently I'm a PhD student, it means that the university is offering me the last educational stack.

Indeed I attend other courses like an ordinary student does, additionally I'm learning how to do, lead and present researches. After three years (that is the complete course) I'll be granted a PhD title and I'm prepared to work as a researcher.

Then the barber added: you'll be a sort of scientist...

Regrettably, in Italy the State does by no mean support the research!

In the past, every two-three years, Government called researchers for a national competition, the winners could get a full time position as researchers. Recently, some laws have been changed and it's not possible to hire a researcher for a permanent position, but only for three years. After these three years your contract might be renewed for other three years and then you are finished."

My hairdresser: it doesn't sound really good for your future. You are destined to a precarious condition.

Then I replied: it's not me, but the research is destined to an uncertain future and in long haul to disappear!

In the future other students will not be pushed to keep on studying, it's not worth doing or payoff (if you are not really animated by a strong passion and you were born with a tea spoon in your mouth).

My hairdresser: "What will it happen to Italy?"

me: maybe Italy is going to become an executive arm, just an arm without a brain to master it. Presumably, we will become the "copy and paste people" ... you know. when you do some researches and just copy someone's results/ideas and sell as yours...

How many passwords do you have to remember?

2010-03-09T21:44:00.004+01:00

Mine:

4 Bank accounts
3 emails
4 social networks
2 computers
1 internet connection

On the whole 14!!! it freaks out

PhD equation

2010-03-07T17:56:00.004+01:00

My PhD officially started off last week. Now, I'm eager to know what my research theme(s) will be...
At the moment I'm busy with my first publication, the firm that should sponsor my studies
and something that I have to study for the next European call.
What is a European call ?
The research needs fund, a way to get them is to submit a proposal to a call of the European Commission (EC).
EC periodically calls for new ideas, for solutions to new problems, in turn they fund researchers
that want to (and can) address their problems.
Well, I should also be involved in one of this European Project as part of my duties.
Summarizing my PhD equation is

EC projects + Firm + ? = PhD

I hope to replace the question mark as soon as it is possible with my research themes...

My first PhD school

2010-03-01T22:55:00.002+01:00

A new life, a new School...
When you are a PhD student you should (or better it is warmly advised ) to attend some PhD Schools. A PhD school is a school (of course!) that lasts, generally, one week and the students are all graduated.
During the week, several professors have a talk, seminar. For instance, in the morning you can attend a course and in the afternoon another one. A university hosts these series of events, but there are also professors and students coming from other universities, in this sense it seems a sound occasion to meet other researchers, explorer new ideas, discuss a topic of common interest and learn a lot.
I adore this jubilant spirit, I met people who are really concerned about what they do... great!
In these moments I feel satisfied and I'm enthusiast for the decision that I made.
Stay tuned :)
PS in July and in Sept I should attend other school, I'm looking forward to being there :)

At secondary school after years and years

2010-02-21T13:40:00.001+01:00

Dear
Have you been at your secondary school after several years?
Have you met your professors since then?
I was finished with my studies at the secondary school about seven years ago.
I attended a school for technicians, you develop some technical skills in a particular field,
in my case I studied mainly electronics for telecommunication systems.
It means that mostly, during my last years, I focused on subjects like telecommunications, electronics, electrical systems and so on. It was my first time that I dealt with those topics.
At the end of my studies I also was a lecture in that school. Yes you read correctly.
For teaching to some courses you are not supposed to hold a master degree. Actually there are two kinds of professors, one of them is a "support teacher" who works during the lab sessions.
I was one of them :). It was fantastic, so young and already on the other side of the desk :)
My professors were my colleagues, some friends of mine were my students... so funny!
Well, after this experience that lasted some months (it wasn't a full time position) I have never
been there. Last week I decided to go there and get back in contact with my old teachers, longing to drive me?
I do not know it.
However a lot of my previous teachers were very proud of me, my achievements and my next adventure. One of them (that I've always considered to be a good and thorough teacher) enjoyed my choice.
He also wants to keep in touch and immediately involved me in a scholar competition as judge...
It is something that went beyond my expectation, they were really welcoming and nice.
Now that the "channel is open" as my teacher and me say :) we want to do more for the future. If I have time I want to submit them some ideas and to become the man in the middle between them and the university... many ideas in my mind... I love this :)
Now again, have you met your old teachers ? if so what was your feeling ? I'm prying to know ...

First week after leaving Rome

2010-02-14T17:11:00.003+01:00

This is my first week in Naples since I definitely left Rome.

I still do not know exactly what I'm supposed to do during my PhD, I'm going to meet m y advisor tomorrow and then I'll be able to tell you more.

I want to speak about some things that came into my mind during this week.

1) My friend M. I met her for the first time in Rome, we stroke up our friendship on that semi-virtual world called Facebook. She was one of the most kind people with whom I spent my time in Rome. Together we went visiting museums, doing shopping and so on. She literally introduced me to the "glamor of Rome". Like me she is exploring new options for her future, I wish her all the best.

2)Sinelli girls. These three girls (among them there is M.) were very kind and nice to me.

With them I got used to spending our English Sunday afternoon. We generally met at Pompi (the best pastry store in Rome, renowned for their yummy tiramisù) on Sunday at 6 pm.

It was just an excuse to get together and talk about how was our last week and plan something for the next one. I hope to meet all them soon. I'm going to miss you :(

3)My previous work. I've been on good terms with my boss. He was more than a chief.

He was always available to give you a sound and heartfelt advice, you could ask him suggestions about everything from "how to behave with clients" to "where to find a car battery seller". Someone you can trust.. really hard to find in this lousy world especially in the job market.

3)My colleagues: S., L., R. They were good guys with whom I shared the pains of our job, the crazy laugh (when we were under pressure) and some nights.

L. is an extraordinary girls, she adds a bit of joy and freshness that are necessary in a typical male office.

S. a good colleague. I reengineered with him entire piece of codes, compared solutions and had good dinners. He is a really good cook. It might be a viable solution to become a cook if you need a new job :)

R. I dedicated an entire post to you... there is no other word to say :)

4)Rome. It's a buzzing, lively city that can offer you a lot of things to do and see.

It's an international city that gradually is getting multinational. Some examples, when I took the subway I could hear people talking in English (American mostly), French, German and so on.... in Naples I can't have all that :(

Moreover I missed the snow! if you don't know yet, two days ago it was snowing in Rome, you must see the wonderful pictures of a white Rome. Awesome!

5)The other guys. Again thanks to M. I came across with many people, some Italians with whom I had nice night-party and have been in fashion places.

Some foreigners coming from France, Ireland, Turkey... fantastic I had a great time with all of them by talking about our countries, traditions.. who knows if I ever meet them again.

Stop listing. There is no time to regret.. the show must go on

Back with news

2010-02-08T14:13:00.002+01:00

Hi readers and lurkers

How are you ? I haven' t posted a blog for a long time...
Well, maybe you were wondering what happened to me. In January I made an important decision, I wanted to go back to university and keep on studying, definitely.

Maybe you remember that after my studies, my mentor asked to me if I wanted to study at university as a PhD student. At that time I turned down his offer.
In this year, many things have changed in my life: new friends, new habits, the first salary

and so on. But I didn't feel satisfied with that way of life, I started to miss the university, the time dedicated to study books (and not manuals!), to cooperate and challenge myself in an international environment..

Then, I dedicated the entire Christmas holiday to study and prepare myself for the PhD competition in my native city (yes, now I'm back in Naples).
On Jan 18th I sat the first exam, one day after, the second exam.
The final result was that.... I have passed the exams and the university will support my studies
for three years with a student grant! (not so much, actually, but better than nothing!)
I will be living in Naples by next week. There are other news linked to this new challenge,

I'll tell you later

The pleasure of clearity

2009-12-12T17:26:00.002+01:00

I've been sending my resume abroad, to be more specific to Swedish companies. I run into some job offers that, in my mind, seemed to match my current qualifications. Unfortunately, they, politely sent me back an email saying my qualifications do not meet our needs/profile. What a bummer!! . Anyway, aside from these dismal responses :( what I want to empathize here it's their efficiency. Even if they are not interested in my application they reply to my job submission. In this way you don't fuel faint hopes, make pipe dreams and I think it's the correct and serious behaviour that a company should have. In Italy, generally, the human resource managers contact you only if they want to interview you...

Stop writring guide, it's time for Video Guide !

2009-12-08T19:25:00.007+01:00

In my role as IT consultant, one of my tasks is to write user guides for our products. It' s really boring, useless and it sucks definitely! at least when my chief says to me: please write the guide, I brace myself !

Why is it boring ?
Because you have to spell out every step that you take in order to make things run. You can't omit anything, to write it as comprehensible as it is possible is an asset , otherwise the end-user can't make it out!
You have to care about the details, take several snapshots hopefully none of your colleagues change the front-end in the meantime.
Why is it useless?
In my brief experience, I've run into several users that simply ignore the guide or skim through it. The final result is that they will contact you in anyway is possible and ask you for an explanation. Please do not ask them have you read the guide ? the obvious answer is no or they stammer to say something " I didn't find it".
Why does it suck?
if the reader has never written any guide, please try it just once and I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me.
Then what can we do ? I realized that we might pin down on video-guide. People have changed the way they interact with media over last years, generally there is no time to read a paragraph, sometimes the instructions are not clear, misleading and not up to date.
Why not use video-guides? End users, nowadays, are familiar with Youtube, they are accustomed to see short movies and probably they can get the information in much easier, more quickly and funnier way !!
With a video-guide it's very hard that they do not understand, images and voices can drive them to explore all the features of your products.
To produce a video-guide is simpler than writing one, I suppose it saves time (therefore it implies your company saves $$$). Some problems arise, of course. You shall guarantee that the user has installed on his computer a video-player, but it's not a big problem because you can provide it with your user guides. Maybe the toughest thing is to keep your video-guide up to date. Sometimes we need to update only a few lines or change some screenshot, how can we do it with a video ? I do not think it's easy to replace a frame with a new one.
Now I want to read your comments.
As user guide do you find a video-guide more handy than a written one?
As technical writer would you replace the traditional user-guide with a video guide ?

How to dress for your job interview

2009-11-29T11:35:00.006+01:00

Today's topic is focused, again, on a typical job issue. My intention is to lead you in our labour market, to unfold some typical issues and, indirectly, answer common questions about job in Italy.

Shifting today's topic, what to dress depends mostly on two factors:

the position you've applied for
the company

In my brief experience as an engineer I've always suited up before having a job interview. Honestly, I don't know if there is a real dress code I suppose there is a hidden consensus about a tie and a jacket for your job interview even though nobody has told you to put them on. Probably because I've always applied for consultant positions which requires a customer face role. In Italy a consultant is often thought as someone who suits up, is elegant. We care about our physical aspect too much. However you are not forced to dress a suit always. For instance, in my current company I'm free to dress as I wish when I work in our offices, but when I meet my clients I had to suit up.

In other circumstance I felt out of my comfort zone at my job interview because of my suit. I had a job interview with a Swedish telecommunication company that hold some offices in Italy, as well. When I was there, they immediately broke the ice and weren't formal at all. The line engineer who interviewed me dressed a simple T-shirt accompanied with blue jeans. They didn't make me feel embarrassed but you know, in some occasion you feel like a fish out of water.

Another example, during my interview for a consultancy company, aside from the fact that the manager was suited up, he clearly said to me: " we have a dress code to follow, just on Friday you do not have to respect it, Friday is called casual day."

Conclusion:
if you've applied for a consultant position you should suit up, but it's not compulsory. It's impossible to guess what best choice is, but in general it's advisable to be elegant, show that you are not scrubby, definitely!

A call for more democracy in the tv world

2009-11-22T14:04:00.003+01:00

Young guys and girls, with a brawny body, tattoos, tanned 365 days per year, call for more democracy in the TV world.
An entire society which, over last the years, has its fundamentals and pillars on the importance
of becoming popular, showing off. Youths who are obsessed by the idea to become famous, as the only turning point of their life, unique way for escaping from a common, ordinary life.
This pipe dream for some of them may be true, for the majority can't be.
The way for the success goes through a picture with a vip or an appearance in a Tv show, few minutes to show your face, smile and catch up Who is Who's attention.
Behind the faint hopes and ambitions of these guys, there is a restrict circle of decision maker people, who can give you a pass for the gate of your dream.
You could be taken aback to discover how important the image is in a country and to find out that is in the hand of just one person.
He is not a common man, he is someone who is in power, who represents an entire nation, whose abilities allowed him to become rich and start up a profitable business.
If I've managed to make these lines tempting you must see Videocray, a call for the democracy in the Italian Tv world.

How to write an Italian resume/cv

2009-11-16T22:23:00.004+01:00

Hi dears,

In this last period it seems I'm really concerned about the job and all the things related to it... it's true, definitely :)
Now, I'm going to give you some suggestions for writing an "Italian" resume.
Listing:
1) Use a standard template/format, we generally fill in the European resume template. It's available here. Broadly speaking, we don't have a lot of different CV styles, for instance I saw that in other countries there is a resume particularly suitable for executive manger or other for young graduate, we just use a standard format.

2) Write not more than two pages. Recruiters are always in a hurry, they just skim through the text and their attention is caught by some key words, therefore you do not need to make it long.

3) Pay attention to your hobby section, do not be neglect. A lot of times, even managers, have been interested in my hobbies.

4) Report your work experiences from the more recent to the less one.

5) It is not compulsory to add your passport picture. If there is no compelling reason or it's not explicitly required do not put your picture. Provide it only on demand.

6) In your languages skills section provide your listening, writing, speaking and reading capabilities. It might come in handy the self assessment grid with which you can assess your capabilities on your own. Also, this grid allows you to express your mastering of the Italian language (and eventually others) in a standard way.

7) At the end of your resume add your agreement for your personal information treatment according to our law. We write something like: "Ai sensi del d.lgs 30/06/2003 n. 196, autorizzo il trattamento dei miei dati personali".

8) Good luck :)

Do your social media contact go into your cv (3)

2009-10-31T16:43:00.003+01:00

I came across an article published on The Local, a Swedish news paper.

This article reports that an employee has been dismissed allegedly for the post published on his blog! In my first post of the series "Do your social media contacts go into your cv ?" I started to investigate whether it's worth publishing or not your social media contacts on your resume (or curriculum vitae). Even though the fired employee, in the article that I have pointed out previously, haven't posted his blog address on his cv, I think this article well-stress the conjuction between your internet corner and your work.

See you.

Do your social media contacts go into your cv ? (2)

2009-10-27T22:38:00.004+01:00

I still can't give some answers to my previous post. I just want to add that after I have questioned myself with those answers I ran into this blog. The author is an engineer like me and he posts his personal thoughts as well as his "geek articles" on it and he also have added his blog address to his work email signature...

Programming and Going Green

2009-10-25T15:45:00.002+01:00

I'm just wondering how I can give a sense to my work...

I'd like to work at software project (I'm mostly a software engineer) whose target is an everyone benefit. For example a project that involves "going green" aspects or aids to achieve humanitarian purposes. Any help or suggestion is appreciated.

Do your social media contacts go into your cv ? (1)

2009-10-18T16:49:00.007+02:00

During these days I spent some time to update my curriculum vitae (cv, resume) with the new competencies that I've gained since I started to work.
Two questions arose:

Shall we add our social meeting contact to our cv ?
Shall we add our blog address (or windows web space or whatever you use to "post your thoughts on internet") to the cv ?

Regarding the first question, the answer is not immediate and easy.
You can also add your Skype contact, in somehow you can consider it like an additional telephone. I've already seen managers who exchange their Skipe contact, maybe in Italy we are not accustomed to use it in our business meeting, but I bet in other countries it is widely spread for your daily job conversation. But would you write your messenger contact on your cv ?
How can it come in handy for the recruiters ?
I don't think that it's helpful to add your msn contact to your cv for several reasons:
1) Maybe you are not going to add your recruiter contact to your list because you do not know who is behind that nickname, a similar explanation is valid for Skype as well.
2) Chatting does not reveal enough about you and might be misleading. On the contrary, Skype works well because it's like having a job interview at telephone.

Let's shift our focus on the second question.
Nowadays a lot of us get on line in a several different ways. Just to name few social-media: Facebook, Windows web space, blog, Twitter and so on.
Would you allow a recruiter (who still does not know anything about you) to access to your FB wall, or blog ? Would you write your blog address on your cv ?

Well, here the answer is more complicated and crunchy. Proceeding by examples. if you have your "geek coffee on line" and you hunt a job in the IT sector it might interesting to reveal it. Indeed it shows that you're really concerned about technology, you're fond of it :) and moreover you show how you are able to master some kind of technology.

Now, changing the example. Suppose you have your blog where you tell your personal life, your daily experiences, in other words a place where you free up your thoughts. If you give these information to your recruiter, you might reveal more than you would do during an interview.
From the recruiters' point of view, I suppose your blog or FB is an attempting source of information. Indeed the human resource manager is highly interested in your soft skills (organizational. communication capabilities ...) and sometimes they are more important than your technical background or previous work experience(s).
By adding your "on line personal corner" (for the sake of simplicity, I call FB, blog, etc in this way) you expose yourself to the human resource manager and it could even be an advantage.
You're just saying "that's me" , here my true point of views, you can also enforce your candidature with your blogs and show that you're the right person for that vacation.

How would you answer the opening questions ?

Day 5: Malmo

2009-10-11T10:03:00.005+02:00

45 minutes by train keep us away from Malmö, in the morning we decided to take the train and visit it.
Malmö is quite different from Copenhagen. Firstly the weather was sunny I can't say hot, but good, definitely. The city is more calm and quiet than Copenhagen, there aren't many tourists at least this was my impression by sight. The city centre is very small and in preparation for hosting the next summer events, unfortunately we couldn't take part in them because they started in the weekend we will be leaving for that time :(

I also caught the opportunity to train my poor and basic Swedish with some Swedes, for example with the customer assistant at shop, but I have to work around it really hard...
Again, I can say that Swedes are welcoming and kind. Like it happened two years ago, when a bicycle rider helped us on his own volition, now a woman, gently, pointed us towards the correct direction without we would have asked her any help... I love this Swedish society's aspect :)

Another big difference between Copenhagen and Malmö is the average population age.
Copenhagen citizens look much younger than Swedes.
Comparing the two city centres, Malmö seems more concerned about love for the environment, indeed I notice more parks than there are in Copenhagen and in some cases they are obsessed as you can see in that picture in which some three grow up over a house wall... but it's nice :).

Anyway I was there for a short time, I can't give you a real taste of Malmö :(

day 4 There is no perfect place

2009-10-04T14:03:00.004+02:00

Copenhagen has been recently stated as one of most liveable cities according to Monocle's Most Livable index, despite its second place I saw an area near the city centre called Christianshavn in which you can find clear signs of urban blight and decay.
Wall destroyed without a safety protection, or more dangerous, young guys driving their mopes without their crash helmets, crossing gardens at fast pace almost stumbling your shoulder..

About night life, if you visit Copenhagen during the week don't expect a buzzing city at night, actually it was tough to find a good place where to drink and dance.
In a lot of places the admission is free and there is a huge variety of clubs, some dedicated only to techno music other to rock and so on.
I noticed that CPH lacks a place like a "disco club" in Italy. We have places where you can either eat or dance when it gets later .
In Copenhagen, but I reasonably suppose in the entire North Europe, clubs are used exclusively for drinking and dancing..
The prices are quite high as I told you in the former emails and their alcohol did not seem to have any effect on Marco and me... I'll tell you how we get drunk on last night :)

Girls are typically drunk, I haven't seen a girl to drink as much as Danish girls do.. . Chatting with some of them, they told us that the Italians give always a dim-view of themselves
I had to hear always the same complaints.. we can't speak English, we are womaniser, we talk out of loud and so on .. what a crap !!
In Copenhagen I ran into some Norwegian girls, to tell the true I expected that Norwegians go to
hotter places for their holiday rather than going to another quite cold place :)
Yet about CPH, one Norwegian girl told me that Copenhagen is quite expensive even for them and she was going shopping in Gotenborg because it's dirty cheap !!

What else? In club there were also people over 40 among people aged from 22 to 30...
it was weird indeed we were wondering if it was night for over 40 people, but we went to the same club more than once and we noticed again the people over 30.. conclusion there is no age range in the clubs ;) .

I was about to forget another upsetting point.. in the club there were sluts (sorry if I'm rude..)
mostly coming from Africa and Asia. They were there to make someone take the bait
and carry him to the other "colleagues"... disappointing.

At the end of the night we couldn't miss out a wonderful spectacle, some guys throwing glasses bottles to othe each other and someone says Naples is not a safe place....

Day 3 in Copenhagen: Mind the cycles

2009-09-26T13:48:00.003+02:00

Strolling again...
The first sentence of the day is:"Domenik, here, we have to mind the bicycles not the cars"

In this phrase I can sum up the Danish (broadly speaking, the North ) way of life. They are accustomed to use bicycles rather than cars. Cycles lanes are widely spread all over the city,
there is also a route dedicated to the tourists in order to make them enjoy the most relevant places of the city by bicycle.
You can rent a bicycle or get one for free, indeed there are some that you can take like you do for a shopping cart. With 10 DKK (Danish coroners) you borrow it from one of well known bicycle points and you can freely ride it. When you park (not necessarily in the park where the cycle was picked ) you 'll get back your 10 DKK.
Unfortunately, the number of bicycles is underestimated and it's not easy at all to find some one that is in a good condition... what a bummer !
Going ahead, we went to the Round tower from which you can enjoy the view of the city.
Then we reached the Kastel Church, here I ran into some mills. Shifting briefly our focus to the mills: In Denmark, I noticed that even on some souvenir are represented or depicted some mills, as far as I know, Netherlands is famous for its mills... I have to ask to Google :)

We went sightseeing the city with a canal tour that takes about one hour.
The city is a mixture of old and new buildings. Residential areas are really nice and
liveable as we could notice by going there on foot, later on. For instance, a lot of houses stretch along a square in whose centre there is a playground for kids.
There are also several benches where you can simply seat on and wind up...
Honestly, a lovely place where I eventually would like to grow up my family. These facilities impress me, because I think that they are expensive to build up and maintain, but they can really enjoy only for a short time due to unaffordable weather conditions.

At 6:00 pm we were back on our way towards our hotel. Generally for the whole holiday, we decided to go back to the hotel at about 6:00 -6:30 pm, in order to have a shower, give relief to our pour aching foot and.. SLEEPING for 2-3 hours before going clubbing :)
In our hotel was also available a swimming pool, well why don't we plunge ?
that 's what I and Marco did, we brought with us a swim-suits, originally we wanted to
go to the Copenhagen shores, but as you can imagine the weather prevented us from doing it :)

A sad and nasty note:
At night we wanted to join the night life in Copenhagen, first of all, we were unlucky because during the working days Copenhagen is not so buzzing.
Second of all, we asked to the reception assistants to show some places where we could enjoy ourselves. One of them pointed us towards a well know night club...
Ok we might have looked like wolfs ready for their buck-hunting, a classic Italian stereotype
but you can suggest to your clients a night club, when they ask you "where can we chill out?,
where can we have a whale of time? "
Anyway we decided on our own where to go... this is another story, stay tuned :)

Recession... curious signs ?

2009-09-17T22:24:00.003+02:00

You can see recession every where, big companies are going to close their offices in some countries, laying off a lot of people... I personally notice a curios sign.
Every morning when I take the bus there is a woman who used to bring with her a handbag branded by a blue chip company... some days ago I went to know that this company was laying off its personnel and coincidence the lady has replaced her bag with another one....

Second day in Copenhagen

2009-09-13T10:41:00.010+02:00

We booked a room and in our package breakfast was included, the only drawback due to this choice was that we had to get up early in the morning, not later than 9:30 a.m.otherwise we should have said goodbye to our "vital" breakfast.
The first morning we had a great idea, why don't we prepare enough sandwiches for our lunch time ? Well, while we were eating croissants, sweet biscuits, jam and everything you can imagine
we packed our sandwiches let me say we made 10 of them ... Stupidly we left them lay on our table... a big hill of sandwiches, two minutes later a waitress, gently, rebuked us by saying: sorry, you can't take them out"... we were running a pony show, Italian stereotype.. I know it's frowned upon...
We were embarrassed, but we didn't want to excuse ourselves from the table with all those sandwiches therefore... we started to eat them, can you believe it? we were already stuffed ... just one word PIGS :)

Ready for our first visit in Copenhagen, a sweater or a windbreak -jacket embraced our chest (it was a bit cold), a map in our hands and we went to the city centre on foot. It's nice, small and most people ride a bike, it reminds me of Stockholm but the latter is better :)

What I didn't expect is the width of the main streets that are larger than the ones we have in Rome (frankly, the avenues in Rome are very large). For example the Andersen boulevard takes 50 seconds to be crossed from one side to another.. how can I know it ?

because they use some traffic lights equipped with an electronic counter that shows how many seconds remain :)
The buildings are quite similar, one to each other with stunning colours but it seems a city without a precise identity, actually. For example I didn't see a square dedicated or in honour of someone. Now I can also reveal what staff is really expensive in CPH.. FOOD !!
A bottle of natural water, half litre 1,5€ !! a chewing-gum packet 1.3€ thus our breakfast turned out to be "vital", because by eating in the morning as much as I could,
I could skip our lunch and this was what we carried on doing...
Next ride, next tale :) follow some pics

(From) Farewell

2009-09-07T23:29:00.000+02:00

I love the love that distributes
in kisses, bed and bread.

Love the can be eternal
and love that can be fleeting.

Love that wants to liberate you
to return to love again.

Divine love that gets close
Divine love that leaves

P. Neruda

First Day in Copenhagen

2009-09-06T15:57:00.002+02:00

10-Aug,
I didn't know one of the fellow travellers: Valerio, the other one was my closest friend Marco.
> We were at the train station waiting for our train for the airport, all of a sudden Marco's mobile rang...
I'm Valerio, I'm facing a problem... I don't find my ID card... well

Marco told me that Valerio lives at the edge of this world :) , but I couldn't believe he was able to lose his ID-card...anyway, no panic !! and try to wash away silly prejudices :) before meeting him.
Nevertheless, we decided to go to the airport and talk to the local police station, they suggested to Valerio going to the municipal office and ask for a new ID card, in the meanwhile we, Marco and me stayed in the queue for the check in.

I didn't care about his "problem" because I felt pretty positive about this holiday and confident that Valerio was able to reach us somehow.

Since by nature I'm a sociable animal :), I have started to talk to a guy and a girl..

The latter one surprised me with her story. She was Peruvian and living in Italy, her brother was half Danish and half Peruvian. This world is more and more beautiful and wothy to be discovered. Chatting, getting in touch with people, the time goes at fast pace... I've never told you, but I love queueing if there are some people you can talk to:)

Thanks to God, our airplane was delayed two hours and Valerio
succeededin getting to departures with us

In Copenhagen, a cloudy day was waiting for us, I personally didn't know that it would have been
our closest friend for the entire vacation ... The CPH airport is well connected to the city centre and within a few minutes, we got to it. Public transport are wonderful and efficient, but trust me, damn expensive.. one ride in the city centre is about 2 €... but we still ignored what the most expensive thing was

I'll say it to youlater, in the meantime try to guess ...
Our hotel was DGI Bean, a newly furnished building in a perfect Danish and modern style. A bit cold in my opinion, you know, some places can make you feel some emotions already at first sight...
In the end we unpacked our luggage, had a shower and went out, strolling in the city centre,
teasing and laughing at Valerio for his ID-card and planning our next days...
Intense, tiring, funny, exciting days were on the way :)

It'sdramatically true

2009-08-31T12:08:00.004+02:00

Travelling&Love

2009-08-28T20:39:00.001+02:00

Travelling is like Love,
excited before leaving like while wooing,
a new place is being discovered, a new life is in front of you.
Happy when you get to the destination, when you give your first kiss.
A soul to love, a place to live
unhappy when you're coming back, when it is over...

To a sweden woman

2009-08-23T11:01:00.002+02:00

White blond girl lights my nights,
true beauty, you fell my eyes

I'm back

2009-08-19T12:08:00.001+02:00

I'm back from my journey in Copenhagen, I' m writing some posts about it.. stay tuned

Departure eve

2009-08-09T09:57:00.002+02:00

Now I'm in Naples, organizing last things before leaving for Copenhagen...
I wish all you "Wonderful holiday"
Kisses and hug !

Last months

2009-08-01T10:30:00.002+02:00

Probably, you've wondered how I spent my time recently and why I'm always out of time to write an email...
Well, unfortunately my free time is dramatically decreased due to two sucking deliveries in these last months.
In addition, it's getting hotter and hotter so I don't like to stay at home in front of my PC,
actually I sweat like a pig (we haven't got an air conditioner :( and what I do, mostly, during my weekend is to go to the sea.
I haven't been in the habit of going to the sea for years, I disliked it... now my mind has changed and I like being tanned and have a rest in the sun lounger... maybe because after an entire week spent to slog away I just need to relax...
In the past I was addicted to tanning, someone called me "lizard" because the number of days spent to go sunbathing... it's true, old habit die hard :)
But, definitely I can't say that I'm a sun worshipper :)
About my next holiday, the dice is cast finally ! just another week at work, We are going to go to Copenhagen from 10th Aug to 14th Aug then I'll be back in Italy and plan other things to do, my days off last until 23th Aug.
How have you planned your holiday ? What country or city will you visit ? What is your itinerary ?

Happy-nice-small-things

2009-06-26T23:23:00.000+02:00

Your shiny smile in the trembling sun light
A kiss with your plump lips still milk flavoured
Another day gets started
work,friends, duties, time-wasting
...
The sunset is fading away
and I'm walking in your moon light
At home, you and me,
another night loving each other.

Rowing

2009-06-21T12:54:00.002+02:00

I had rowed for a long time in the ocean,
I never lost my direction, my heart was my compass
it carried me to you.

First time..

2009-06-13T11:57:00.002+02:00

Last Thursday I was on business trip for the first time, precisely I had to go to a meeting off-site, in Turin, where our client is located.

It was the first time that I had to deal directly with the client, in the past I had just a conference.
Moreover I was alone, I mean as technician without a senior, on my left there was only the sale manager who didn't give me a great support, actually.
Honestly, before leaving for Turin I gathered all the possible advise that I could, I spoke to seniors, managers and so on.. I was worried about this task because I didn't have any frame of reference on how to cope with customers.
I was afraid of becoming the laughing stock or shooting from the hip.

Also, it was the first time that I had to take some decisions for our current project and guide our client towards the best solution (at least I hope it was the best one...) and propose a new activity for the sake of increasing our revenue.
In some moments I acted more as a pre-sale manger than a technical adviser... but it goes with the territory in my profession.
Summing up, I think I hit the target :), I reported the outcome to my manager and I received some compliments on it, but it's not the time to rest on my laurel :)
An unhappy note... I was forced to pay all the expenses (aside from the flight tickets) in advance and I'm about to be strapped because I can't withdraw more money, I'm near to overcome my monthly limit withdrawal ... I set it too low... :(
How was your experience when you had your first meeting with the client ?

All of a sudden

2009-06-08T23:09:00.001+02:00

it happened that I don't want to speak in English

An easy week

2009-06-05T16:03:00.003+02:00

During this week I haven't worked a lot, actually I had a simple task to accomplish: technical writing !! it's not rewarding and cool at all, but sometimes you need a bit of relax.
I also discovered a singer whose voice is cosy and nifty, he is Paolo Nuttini
I hope we 'll have a sunny weekend I want to go to the sea and go sunbathing.. I needed it !
Enjoy your week !

Goodbye Ricccardo

2009-05-30T10:49:00.006+02:00

It was January, my first work experience, my first project and I met Riccardo, recently graduated like me. We didn't know each other but sooner we discovered to share the same dreams, ideas and the spirit to tackle down every challenge ! .
Someone named us "Cluster"for our extraordinary capacity to work together and accomplish every task. Someone thought that we have been friends for a long time... even thought our friendship was born only some months ago..
Riccardo, an indefatigable worker, a true and kind person, an intelligent guy.
I will never forget when we burst in a loud laugh (mixed with some sarcasm and desperation) in the late afternoon after an entire day spent to do some researches for our first project, trying to do our best.
How can I forget how you pronounced in English some words and your willingness to improve it and follow my advice.

Now, Riccardo is going to take another chance, another opportunity and I wish him all the best hopefully we'll keep in touch. Good luck Riccardo !

What do you look when you choose your apartment?

2009-05-23T18:07:00.006+02:00

I want to list what someone should look for when he/she chooses his/her room:

The flatmates: they should be old like you're, it helps you to make new friends and to feel in your comfortable zone.
Students with students, workers with workers: in other words, partying doesn't match with working :)
The floor: I live in an apartment at the lowest floor of the building and I can barely see the sun light of this wonderful days :(
The furniture: try to have enough furniture to put your things...
Number of people: more than three people with one bathroom..it's a bit tough to share it
Location. if it is well served by public transport it's better otherwise... car
Balcony: I would like to dry my wet clothes easily by taking advantage of sun, above all during summer !
What am I missing out ?

to throw the conscious to the wind

2009-05-22T09:26:00.001+02:00

is what I would like to do now !

Free admission weekend

2009-05-09T19:23:00.004+02:00

As I anticipated I had my tourist tour in Rome a week ago. It was nifty and winding down for my mind but not for my legs :)

I started off on Saturday afternoon with "Il Vittoriano" Palace in which mementos of our history have been collected since the Renaissance. To tell the truth in some show rooms there is a bit of confusion because in the same area were messed up symbols of Futurismo with Risorgimento (Reinaissance).
In the palace, statues and portraits fill all the rooms as you can reasonably expect, but the thing that caught my attention was a post about Futurismo. I have always been attracted by the Futuristi's words and dialectic, even if their speech, sometimes it's harsh and bloody, but on the whole it is vigorous.
In the palace you can also run into some Roman wall paintings!!!, they are just spots !

On the contrary if you want to find out about Roman history, you must visit Foro Romano and
Foro Traiano. Visiting them took me the entire Sunday. You can go through those old ruins and try to imagine how the Roman society lived.
We discovered that the marble with which the pillars and interior house objects are made of varies, some have even a quirk name. For example, there is a marble slab called "Cipollino" little onion, its name is due to the several layers, from the grey to the red colour, that compose it !

I even learnt that Romans used to build up animal shaped statues!!!. As far as I know Egyptian

> were accustomed to it, but I ignored Romans had this habit either.

Unfortunately, I didn't join a guide there and it was needed because I could have gained a deep insight :)

Speaking about your boss

2009-04-27T13:43:00.002+02:00

I don't have any boss, at most I have a guide.... and I choose him/her
Puntino

Free admission in Rome

2009-04-26T11:46:00.003+02:00

It's the free admission week at Roman museums, actually today is the last chance to visit them for free... try to guess what I'm going to do..
bye

Following what ?

2009-04-18T11:06:00.002+02:00

After my studies at university I can say that I've just started to hand my Life, definitely.
Until some months ago, my life was filled with many things: dreams, desires, travels and so on but everything traveled on well-know rails, I could know when some things had to happen, it was more than guessing a date or an event.
Since I moved to Rome, I can say that my life is off the train, thanks to God.
I don't know what's going to happen and I live every day with more expatiation than I did before.
There are a lot of things that I'd like to change, like my job, it is sometimes mind-numbing not excited how I wished, strike up new friendship, I need new people around me with whom to share only my dreams.
I heat to find me and other people sipping our beer and after a while start speaking about our work in an end less conversation. It's par for the course to discuss about your work, exchange your experiences, etc but I can't afford an antire conversation about your crappy work.

I honestly miss my conversation with Gigi Electrionic and Top, with them I feel like a fish IN the water, not like someone is swiming against the current.
They are really good friends, with them I fell in my comfortable zone and get the force to pursue my happyness.

What I'd like it's going to happpen is to meet some quirky, interesting, buzzing people with whom I can share my passions, like travelling, English, literature, desire to moving out from our native country.
When I read my fellow blogs about Sweden, I get encouraged and I hope to meet people like them.
I feel that I'm not alone, many people follow my same dream, have my same willingness to change their life, but where are them? what do they do in order to make their dreams true? Do they live just in another country ?
I'd like to get in touch with someone who is following something.

Lesson learnt

2009-04-12T08:09:00.004+02:00

Dear guys,
Before leaving Rome for my Easter holiday my manager delegated to me the translation of project written in Italian into English.
It's going to be really challenging and helpful to improve my business English.
In order to have a good translation, I thought of studying some project management guides in English because it's much easier to get the proper words that match the Italian ones.
I suppose that this translation methodology makes much more sense than looking up in a vocabulary and get a translation. Anyway I have to be very careful because this project will be sent to our French board direction...
While reading the guide as I mentioned above, I've noticed an interesting section called "lesson learnt".
I think it expresses the idea of a continual improvement, the willingness to learn from the previous mistakes and results. As you can imagine this section is missing in my Italian documentation... upsetting !!
This lack shows how we manage our project and more generally our methodology !

Becoming crazy or feeding my mind?

2009-04-05T12:03:00.004+02:00

Dear guys
I've started to study Swedish on my own, unfortunately I can' t attend a Swedish course at the moment.
The pronunciation is really painful (it's a royal pain to me, honestly!) but I'm trying to do my best. The weird thing is how I study it.
Maybe you could suppose that I refer to the plenty of free available resources on Internet, it covers only a small part of my work. I mostly use a self teaching book whose explanations are in English... so to learn a new language, Swedish, I go through to another foreign language, English... at least I can master the latter fairly :)
One friend of mine said to me: it's good, you can train two languages at the same time.
It's true, and it's not maddening (for me)... I'd say it's quirky :)
the final results are:

I don't use Italian language for my notes (written only in English :)
When I pronounce Swedish words for some reason, I use an English accent (I had better say American accent). For example I tend to apply the "schwa" sound for words like Här, år

Curious ...

From "The Great Gatsby"

2009-03-28T21:15:00.003+01:00

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us, but that's no matter-to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning

It's a fragment form the last page of "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the last book that I read in English.

How I rule myself

2009-03-22T20:53:00.004+01:00

Dear

Probably, you've wondered how I spent my weekend in Rome and how the Roman night life looks like...
Well, I was in some places here at night even alone. Indeed most of my friends are from Naples like me, in the weekend they go back home and I remain in Rome. After my first weekend in Rome spent at home what a pity ! it was upsetting, I firmly decided to go out even if I was with no friend ! I don't want to give up!

So sometimes I visited Rome at night and I found it amazing and extraordinary. Also, I was a moron I left my camera at home !! But no pain for that, I'll have time to get lost in the Rome's night again :)

Yesterday I was at "literary coffee", really nice. When I was in Naples I didn't use to go to these kinds of places, honestly I don't know any of them in my city !
They are buzzing places where you can sip your coffee or cocktail or whatever you like and read a book, talk or simply surf on the web. While I was picking my book I saw one guy that I met months ago, he was a friend of one friend of mine... it's a long chain :)
After one minute I was with him and his friends...
I found it wonderful because you don't need to arrange everything,
sometimes you can enjoy yourself easily, just to take the first step, a bit of willingness...
If I hadn't taken the plunge to go out, even when I was alone, I'd have never met that people !
Living is exciting !

what became of me?

2009-03-16T23:36:00.002+01:00

maybe you have wondered during these days.
I have been snowed under, too many things to deliver.
One of the project in which I was involved ended up (thanks to God!, I could no longer stand it! )
Secondly I had to prepare myself along with one colleague/friend of mine for our first workshop.
The latter was a good and exciting experience and as I like saying it's a cross experience because it covers different aspect of our growth as consultants as well as men.
Yet, after my presentation there were our Spanish partners who provide some software to us.
They had their conference in English and I was elected interpreter to support them, if they didn't manage to get understood. In the afternoon I had a long meeting with them in order to discuss some technical details, I can say I spent 3/4 of my day speaking in English...great I needed it, before I became all out of practice.
Moreover I worked extra time last week and it wasn't paid at all !
What a sucking week !!
Now I hope to take a breath of relief and to be more free.

Where I live and around Rome

2009-03-08T21:26:00.010+01:00

Dears

I spent my first weekend messing around in Rome, finally. Until last Friday every weekend turned to be a weekend warrior, once I needed to buy some things for my room, another I was back in Naples and so on .
Yesterday, I met an old friend of mine and together, we took in Rome. We walked for a long time, about 3 hours or more !!! but it was a pleasure and healthy, as well.. you know when you work as an engineer you spent your day in front of a PC, above all.
Our stroll started from Colosseo to Navona square and ended up in Circo Massimo.
I took some pictures during our walk, you can see them below...

Today, I explored my borough whose name is EUR. I still don't know its history, some colleagues told me that Mussolini was his founder, anyway it's a residential area with a lot of green that I didn't expect, definitely. But there are some businees building too, like the ENI's building.
I went to the "Laghetto" (small lake) in English. Actually it's not worth visiting, if you're a tourist don't come to see it.. or at most you can visit me, the latter it's worth doing :)
The Laghetto was particulary over croweded, I suppose because it was a spring day and at the same time the "Woman day".
The "Woman day " as you can suggest it's a day dedicated to celebrate the woman in our country, I'm wondering there is such a celebration in other countries too ?
Let's pull off my writing about where I live with some pictures took near my house.

Laghetto

St.Paul church

Easy Love

2009-02-28T18:08:00.005+01:00

With your breath I lived,
in your eyes there was my broken mirror,
From your mouth my misunderstood thoughts came,
Your sharpened voice in my ear, never in my mind.

Get out of our rut, let's play with our souls
no fear, time goes, it doesn' t wolf our days,
it simply ticks at the same pace.
Tomorrow it's another joy-day, you don't need to plan it
With sorrows and pains, Love flame fades away, dear.

I lie flat on my playground,
eyeing the sky and smiling to my faith,
I know my everlasting Love will come.

By Puntino

Dreaming

2009-02-25T22:36:00.004+01:00

The only risk is not to risk...

Male thoughts

2009-02-16T23:06:00.004+01:00

= stupid thoughts !! (not always, actually !)
Some week ago, my flatmate and I wondered why the best cook are male while at home, usually, in our country the women is the Queen of the kitchen.
This silly and trivial question received a first answer by Zsofia, a dear friend of mine. In her opinion the people tend to be committed with other tasks, when they are at home.
if they work as teachers at home they don't like to teach their own children and so on.
An interesting theory, what do you think about ?

Another thing that I've noticed during these days. I spent most part of my work reading technical books and I discivered the existence of a masculine oriented literature. Let me spell out a lot of books are written keeping in mind that only man can read them. It's likely to be true for some kind of topics (e.g. computer network, programming languages,...) but they should never point towards a specific reader, I rekoon.
So I've run into loads of "his" and "him" and if the reader was a woman ?

Last goodby

2009-02-09T23:23:00.003+01:00

Dears,

I'm going to speak about a sad and harsh topic, if you are not in the right mood, store this post for a better time. The last weeks have been crucial,intense and bitter in Italy due to the strong debate about the euthanasia.
As a matter of fact, we've been arguing since Eluana Englaro's story was under the spot light.
Eluana was a woman who had a cruel incident ten years ago from which she got out of alive but in a coma, at the age of 20.
To make matter worse, she has been condemned to be tied to a bed whenever she had woken up, because of a spinal column fracture.
Eluana's pains were so strong that after 12 months it was possible to make a clear and definite diagnose: Eluana will live for ever in a permanent coma. For the English and American medical authorities is reasonable to state the neurological death and it's allowed to suspend the artificial nutrition.
Here in Italy, we couldn't consider this tough and painful fact because the Italian justice rejected the requirement of Eluana's father (Beppino Englaro) of blocking the artificial care assistance.
For this reason, in the 90's, Eluana story's got visibility: it was the first sign of a lasting, frustrating fight between Eluana's father and the Italian state.
A doubtful proof of Eluana's willing turned out through a friend of hers' confession.
She will have never accepted to live in that way, he said to have listened to this words by Eluana when they spoke about a similar topic before all this occurred.
Beppino Englaro conviced of the medical sentence (she'll never get alive back) and the Eluana's friend confession kept up his personal battle and more than once he asked to suspend the medical treatment for her daughter. A tiring series of battles against the Italian justice.
After a number of sentences from all levels of Italian justice system, Beppino, finally managed to receive from the highest court the permission to suspend the artificial nutrition, it was 8 October 2009.
The last and most dramatic step, Eluana was taken to a hospital where she could take the last breath of her life by suspending the care assistance gradually.
People who have followed this fact split up: with Beppino or against him.
It's a national involvement, people who still want Eluana to receive her cures and others who decide to leave her poor father to make his decision.
Behind this event, there is the lack of the Living will. We can't express how we would like to be cured in such a situation.
This last week the blind run of our government has started to rule this matter, a faint hope..
Tonight Eluana has passed away... goodbye Eluana

I'm totally convinced that we have the right to decide in this case and if we haven't expressed our will, someone who deeply knows us can take the plunge and act on our behalf, definitely .
Church, Pope, any national government can't and mustn't replace us in this situation.
There is no a reason for their intervention or speech. We are free and, after our 18s, able to decide (we are supposed to be mature...)
By the way, what do you think?
What is the feeling in you country or where you've moved to?
Have your government ruled this event in somehow ?
Please let me know

New prospective

2009-02-01T17:51:00.004+01:00

These days are making me discover new prospective of life. I know I made a big change weeks ago, house moving, getting a job and so on...
But it's different what I feel now. I see my life like one sitting in front of an aquarium, I see what happen to me and how I react, it's hard to put it into written words. From this unusual point of view, I also see people who were compelled to move from their country and come here, they have a strong visible sign on their face like I have.
I can understand their efforts and feel much closer them to me, now. To open my mind there is Olga's speech.
Olga is one of my flatmates' girlfriend, she is from Ukraine, she works as a caregiver.
Today we spoke about being immigrants, living alone in a foreign country, her difficulties and challenges faced day by day.
Olga, smiling, says: "nobody is waiting for you, it's hard to gain people's trustiness but I never give up". Brave, happiness, pain, determination enveloped in a unique simple sentence.
Olga says: "My son wants to join me, I discourage him, here is not easy to get by and again I remark nobody is waiting for you, please I beg you stay in our country, I'll help you". Mother's love.
Olga says:"I try to shape up my Italian, when I come across a new word I look up in my dictionary and please correct me when I make a mistake". The immigrant willing to be part of the hosting society.
Olga says:"I have to work hard every day, but I also enjoy my life, even now that I'm talking to you". We have one life, fill it with all the possible experiences that you can live.
Olga carries on speaking and I learn from her.

Rome is getting cold

2009-01-29T22:08:00.002+01:00

When I went to Rome I was surprised how warm it was despite of winter time... now I'm changing my mind, Rome is as cold as Naples !!

Stupid to say..

2009-01-25T12:30:00.002+01:00

Once again I regret to say that I'm short of time this period of my life, a lot of things are going to change unexpectedly!!
From now on I will never say expressions like "sorry if I write only now" or similar ones..it's pointless, trivial!
I'm back in Naples, actually I was forced to come back because I had to fix my old desktop.
In Rome I can't say that all is going fine, I have been facing some problems at work, I hope it's normal for a freshman...
The thing that I'm suffering from the most, it 's that I can't keep in contact with all my friends when I'm in Naples. Since I'm in a friendship with several people belonging to different loops and I have just one night when I come back, it's hard to pick the one to join.
To make matter worse, I come back twice a month (this weekend is an exception), I can't endure it.
I also think that the time when the Friends come out, the ones will never leave you alone and smiling when you're back !
It's the curve of our life, ruled from a complicated equation! I've known it will happen sooner or later, because of the decision I have made for my life. I've always considered myself a tinker.
While writing this blog, I'm listening to one of the best musician ever: Jeff Buckley

The first post after moving to Rome

2009-01-17T14:53:00.002+01:00

Dear,
How are you
..well, a long time has gone, I' m really sorry but every day a new thing comes out !!

For instance, the day before yesterday I planned to buy a device for my PC, it meant to waste a lot of time queueing from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm then I went to home, wiped out at 9:15 pm.
Yesterday, I was really unlucky because my Internet connection at home was out of service. Anyway my work is really interesting and at the same time I feel lucky because I can say that it is heavily related to my university background, I don't have to throw away my university competencies as some friends of mine have to do. I joined a friendly team whose members are ready to help me and get my way in. Among them, there is Paolo with whom I'm pleased and
glad to speak in English.
He is Italian like me, but he has a good proficiency in English. All my colleagues are from Rome and their accent is funny and weird, I'll get used to listening to it soon.
My home is far away from my office, it takes me about 1 hour walking and by bus to get to office, I don't mind it because in the meanwhile I can schedule my things.

What about you ? any news?

Housemoving

2009-01-04T10:11:00.002+01:00

Dear guys,

Time is up!! I have to move to Rome to start my new life there, I got a job or to precise I'm going to attend internship which lasts 3 months after they would offer a contract.
I hope I can write on this blog regularly, tell my adventures in Rome and so on.
Bye

New Year

2008-12-31T09:59:00.003+01:00

Dear guys,

It's the last day of this year, how do you celebrate it ? We, mostly in my city, use fireworks at midnight. It's a nasty way of partying because many people among children and adults injure seriously and in some cases they lost their limbs.
Hopefully we don't experience such an upsetting and cruel situation I want to wish a Wonderful New Year fills of joy and desires.

2008-12-25T00:09:00.001+01:00

Merry Christmas

Looking for a room in Rome

2008-12-23T19:59:00.004+01:00

Hi guys,

I'm going to live in Rome from January to March because I'll attend an internship there with a firm which should hire me at the end of it, I hope.
I had to find a room in Rome for this reason.
As far as I know if you need a room in Rome, you can start your research by looking up in "Porta portese" advertisements journal. Actually, you can come across advs from cars to rooms.
Porta portese is dirty cheap (only 1€ ) and there is an on line version as well, but I don't suggest relying on the advs published on that website because most of them are out of date.
You can can also search on line in Easy Stanza, where there are advertisements only for renting rooms.
I honestly advise to buy a Porta portese (it is issued on Tuesday and Friday), because it's the most popular resource. If you're an English native speaker and your Italian let you get by or you need to be assisted in your researches, for instance you want a translation for some advertisements into your language , if I'm free I'll be pleased to help you.

have you a "dog park" ?

2008-12-19T12:07:00.003+01:00

Naples is a fun place and nobody can tells otherwise !
Have your city got a place to park your dog ? We have it !!
A friend of mine took this picture outside of shop located in the Vomero borough, I'd like to remember the street's name...

TOEIC

2008-12-14T11:21:00.004+01:00

Dears,

In the last week one friend of mine questioned which is the best certification for proving your English proficiency to the companies or employers.
First of all, after tons of researches on English job offer website, I never come across a job offer which absolutely demands TOEFL or IELTS or TOEIC.
I concern that they ask you to master English, if you prove your competencies with a certificate it's even better of course, but it's not strictly needed.
I might say that TOEFL and IELTS are required mainly for university purposes (e.g to enrol at university).
Yet, you have to take into account that after two years the certificate expires.
What hell does it mean that you no longer speak English?
I don't think so.
If you had a work experience with foreign clients you could state in your cv "I'm confident in English because I worked abroad or because I dealt with non Italian speaker partners or customers. A real experience, surrounded in an English environment is a commodity more important than a certification, I guess.
Whether you're really interested in getting one certification, maybe the best one for non native English speaker that wants to give a proof of their English skills is The Test of English for International Communication™ (TOEIC).
Indeed it seems a specific and reliable test to qualify your English competencies in a work setting.
What I wish to ask you is:
1) Do you think that a (long term) work experience in an English speaking work environment is more worthy than a certification such as TOEIC?
2)Have you ever been asked to prove your English proficiency to your company by showing a certification?
3)If I'm compelled to get a certification which I should to choose ? TOEIC?
Thank you in advance for your consideration !
please lurkers answer the question...I really need a feedback

Being bone idle

2008-12-11T08:54:00.003+01:00

In this period that I'm still out of work (I'll start on 2 Jan) I' ve became bone idle, I mean in the morning I can't get up straightaway after my alarm ring as I used to do!
Maybe it's the cold winter that ties me down to my bed!

Rebel Heart

2008-12-07T21:03:00.002+01:00

I promise I'll come back speaking about my adventure in London. In the meanwhile I want to enjoy "rebel heart" by Corrs with you.

Assessment II

2008-12-03T19:32:00.005+01:00

I promised you to keep on speaking about the recruitment procedure.
As I said after the first assessment is followed by a second one, actually it's an interview with the project manager of the service line for which you have been selected for.
The interview aims to know your motivations and skills, sometimes you can be asked to study a business case and give your solution to it.
During this phase be prepared to answer firmly some questions like: What do you except from our firm? how do you imagine your work? Why did you choose us ?
This should be the last step of your ladder, if they're interested in you, you'll receive an offer.
Good luck to all job seekers

To open an English bank account

2008-11-18T13:16:00.003+01:00

Another maddening adventure during my buzzing journey in London was to open a bank account. Actually, I didn't need it because I didn't manage to get a job there and I could withdraw money with my Italian debit card.
In order to open a bank account in London you need your ID, a cover letter by your employer and sometimes your passport (it depends on your nationality and the bank). I reasonably suppose that the same procedure works everywhere in the UK.
Anyway I was asked to help my Spanish friend to open her bank account (she strongly relied on my English ..oh my God). We chose the Lloid bank, where you can get a bank account free of charge. For the first time you get an appointment, generally within one week, you can go to the bank again to open your account definitely. After 3 days we went to the bank and finally we had a complete interview. Here an incredible thing happened to me.
The clerk was speaking in English to us, but she mostly talked to me because I was able to understand her and translate from a quick and "complex" English into a simple and slow English for my Spanish friend....a bit of gloat :)
I was a sort of electronic device which makes a good English broken :)
Anyway only after 20 minutes the clerk realized that I was speaking in English and not in Spanish and she said to me "But you're speaking in English!",
I replied: "Yes of course! I don't know Spanish, if you spoke slowly and easily my friend could understand you without my help" and the fretful clerk continued: "OK, I got it, we don't need you any more!!! " oh my God I hit the roof, the clerk made my blood boil !
I wanted to say: damn maroon you need more than 5 minutes to understand that I was speaking in English !!!! The interview lasted about 25 minutes, they are really thorough and I'd bet they collect enough info about you to have a complete profile of their client for legal and advertisement purposes.
In the end we went out and to celebrate the successful bank account opening.

Thanks, Zsofia for her corrections

Other English podcasts

2008-11-13T10:51:00.006+01:00

I already emphasized how important is to practice English every day.
For instance, you can listen to English podcasts which take a few minutes. As well, I showed you where some of them are available.
Now I want to suggest another resource that might be helpful especially for people who need English for their work.
I can't leave a comment yet about their usability, practicability and quality but in the meanwhile you can try them out for me and report a comment :)
I'll try them as soon as possible.
Bye

Thank you Nadia for her corrections

Shame

2008-11-08T12:47:00.004+01:00

I have no words, I fell truly ashamed for the Berlusconi's off the cuff remark about Mr Obama.
I apologize for being an Italian.

LOOK LEFT, LOOK RIGHT

2008-11-06T15:10:00.004+01:00

In London there is a huge amount of pedestrian signals all around. Before crossing the street, you should notice from which direction the cars come.

In order to help the people distinguishing the correct way to check they write on the street "look left" or "look right" near the crosswalks.

Above all they help the tourists to settle in, I guess.

What I want to point out, here, is the presence of these indications that I've never seen in other cities. Since in my city I don't have this kind of road signs and I was about to be run over several times, I got used to look at both ways... I know I was a fool:)

Another weird thing occurred to me. When I cross the street, generally, I 'm in habit of looking at the driver's head. I have my theory: you don't need to look at the car but just the driver's head and if they seem absent minded or they are looking at some girl :) you shouldn't cross the street, it's unsafe.
When I was in London I looked at the driver's head but given that I'm European I mistakenly looked at the passenger on the left while I should have looked at the one on the right !!!
Result : in the early time I thought that British people didn't care about the pedestrians and I was utterly confused where to look, you know, they are those kind of actions that you take without reflecting, they are spontaneous.

Now in Italy, l always look at both directions, even though I exactly know from which way the cars are supposed to come. Before my departure for London I didn't do it !

Assessment I

2008-11-01T19:36:00.004+01:00

Hi guys,

In the recent days I had some assessments that I hope I tackled (it's better to say overcame ;). What is an assessment ?
First of all the recruiters, generally, don't translate the word "assessment" so it's good idea to be accustomed to listen to and use it.
An assessment, usually is splitted into different phases and every one is characterized by specific tests.
Phase 1:
It takes about 5 hours with a break in the middle.
In this phase you have to speak out for five minutes about yourself in front of some managers (or psychologist) and the other applicants, obviously your presentation is mostly focused on your transferable skills.
After, you will be asked to do some number reasoning tests and a written English test. Not all the firms submit you this kind of tests.
At the end or in place of the reasoning test you have to sort out a (or more than one) business case.
In this step they give you some minutes (from 20 to 40) to solve the business case on your own and record your solution on a paper. Then follow other minutes to exchange your idea(s) and interpretations with the other applicants. During this asset to find a reasonable and feasible solution is as important as cooperating with the others effectively and peacefully. It's not a good idea to say something like "We have to put in action my idea because it's the best..." potentially you found the most appropriated solution but you must convict the others candidates to follow you without arguing or prevaricating them.
Afterward the other candidates represt your future coworkers or your manager.
Phase 2
I still don't know because I'm waiting for the results from the first one.. anyway a technical interview is rumored...
Phase 3
Obviously if I lack info for the second I can't give you any for this one.. again somebody says this is the final step. You'll be in front of a senior (= one of the big shot in your firm) and he will question you in order to understand if you deserve that post and you have such a motivation to be part of his firm.

PS1
If you've started wondering what a hell business case is, you can take a look at Mckinsey (How do well in the interview).

PS2

I'll keep on speaking about London soon :)

Travelling with hopes

2008-10-29T22:01:00.002+01:00

Dears

I apologize that I haven't written anything for a long time, in these days I'm traveling.
Travel with a faint hope (sometimes) to get a job.
As soon as I can I post something about London.

The world is my house

2008-10-20T15:08:00.000+02:00

Seiko's pen

2008-10-18T11:02:00.005+02:00

When I was in London I met some guys and I stroke up a friendship that I hope will be lasting.
I've never spoke about and now I want to write some lines.
My classmates were mostly Asian people, Koreans, Japanese and with them I spent my time during the lessons, just once I went out with Nyungian to visit the Tate Modern.
Among them there was Seiko (Japanese) who is friendly and she laughed at me a lot of times. I always asked her to lend me her blue pen. I thought it was a special Japanese pen because of the Japanese characters signed on it. She, Seiko, said to me it's not Japanese you can buy it everywhere in London but I replied it's not true and I needed her special pen to do my exercise.
She, kindly, lent it to me but recommended to give her pen back. I always gave her the pen.. day to day we fought like cat and dog for this.
The last day Seiko said to me "I want to give you a present, it is my NOT Japanese pen as a sign of your friendship". I happily took it and I've been keeping it jealously .

In the afternoon I usually went out with my Spanish and Brazilian friends and we had a whale of a time. It was wonderful to wander London and mass around with them or simply to drink a pint of beer.
With the Spanish and Brazilian people I got in touch easily and immediately, it was almost normal to spend our free time together, perhaps it was due to the fact we were arrived all us alone or because we are sunny, shiny, share our history and we have the same behavior.
I still thank to God to let me know these people.
It was funny to speak to M. (Spanish friend) who always said to me "quick", "quick" while we were crossing the street or you're not a good photographer at all !! I'm missing these moments...

Life

2008-10-11T21:32:00.002+02:00

I have my lungs full of life I don't want to empty them...

On the bus

2008-10-10T11:50:00.004+02:00

London is an endless list of new experiences for me, I chose to speak in this topic about the "bus".
The buses are, generally, efficient I mean they go regularly but sometimes they don't make a stop, I don't know why and it's really dreadful. Apparently there are no compelling reasons to avoid stopping, in most cases we weren't packed like sardines or the bus wasn't completely full.
On the bus, in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening in other words the silence always reigns in it.
I took the bus everyday and every hour, during my daily trip I saw many people reading a book or a magazine or a newspaper if you are lucky to have a seat, it's a quiet place where you can even prepare your exams.
If you don't sit you had better hold on the pole because the drivers run quickly from one stop to another and break at once before stopping. Maybe this is the answer to my own question "Why in London do the engines of the buses block all of a sudden and it's necessary a wrecker?"
I'm not kidding, sometimes it happened that the bus had stopped running and we needed to get off and wait for another one!
Generally the people on the bus are quite polite and offer their seat for the ones less able to stand. I honestly recommend you to do this and after, you also will hear "you're really kind"as a form of thanking.
Yet, some buses unfortunately not all them (but it' s better than nothing) are fully equipped to allow people on wheelchair to get on easily without any help, it's simply great and a sign of a civic minded society.
The drivers are rather strict, serious (and pissed off), you must respect the rules: before boarding buy your ticket from the machine near
the shelter; don't ask or beg an additional or extraordinary stop it doesn't
matter if you forget your things near the former stop; touch in your oyster card.
Other silly and unpredictable thing: sometimes during your trip the buses may change their ordinary route, they warn you about this but you can imagine it's not pleasant at all.
Be ready to change the way to get your destination or be patient to get off and wait for another bus!
What else ?
I think there' s nothing more to add.

Advice of the day: never buy socks in Primark.... they are dirt cheap BUT they aren't worth buying

The last weekend

2008-09-25T12:54:00.008+02:00

Sorry guy for the long (really long) pause.
I know I`m not a good blogger at all, since I haven`t updated my blog for weeks, but I have had a great time in London and busy in different activities.
For them interested in my experience, I`ve decided to write several posts when I`m back (next week) or at least I hope to do it.
Now I want to resume my last post and complete it.
Where were we? uhm
I talked about we went to the church.
it`s not a church as we (Catholic people) usually think about. The Mass was hosted in a theater, the atmosphere is almost impossible to describe, there are light effects, one band, some preachers and many many guys.
The Mass lasts about 2 hours but it`s not boring or tiring, on the contrary it`s quite relaxing, warm and lively, just to give you an idea, take a look at the intro of their website, it really summaries the atmosphere in the Church and the message they want to deliver.
It was an awesome experience because I thought that something can happen only in the movies. For some aspects it was extraordinary, at the beginning I felt a pent up emotion that came out with a mounting excitement.
At the end I realized that I really enjoined it.
We`ll see

Piccadilly by night

2008-09-21T23:47:00.007+02:00

Sorry guys,

I'm short in time as usual and wiped out to write anything.
In the meanwhile enjoy these pictures that I took while I wandered Piccadilly.

Weekend 2

2008-09-16T18:15:00.019+02:00

Dear Guys,

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted for a long time but I was very busy.
In the weekend I did a lot of things, or better, I visited some places. First of all on Friday night we couldn't miss our appointment with one of the club in the lively London.
Obviously I didn't do AM on Saturday morning, but in the afternoon I went (along with other Italian girls) to Camden Town.
Actually, I didn't know this borough, but my friends told me that it's a popular area dotted with lots of stands and it was worth visiting so I took their sound advice and joined them.
As you can see from the pictures below, the market is literally over crowed during the weekend.

I think that the main characteristic of this market is to sell hand crafted objects (clothes, paintings, earrings,...) and the atmosphere, which is a contamination from the hard rock to the Jamaica sounds.

On Sunday I had to go with some classmates to Hampton Court Palace (I made a lot of efforts to persuade my friends to go together to this place.)
Unfortunately, some of my classmates stood Hyun-Jung (from Korea) and me up for a long time that we supposed they didn't want to go to the palace so we decided to wander the area that stretches from the London eye to Tate Modern (it's a museum).

Graffiti under one of the bridge that crosses the Thames.

View of Buckingam palace

During our hike, we came across in a Korean celebration, indeed it wat the korean National day and Hyun-Jung told me about their traditions and culture... an excellent event to know something about a popultation that I don't know at all!

When we arrived to the Tate modern, I made the decision to visit only the floor dedicated to the pop art ( I really like it) and Hyun-Jung, once again, was a good guide that gave me some explanations about the paintings.

outside view of the Tate Modern

In the evening, Fernando and me went to.... church!
Maybe you're wondering " Does Puntino remember the meaning of church?" or "it's a typo, they couldn't go to church" but I'm not taking you for a ride... it's true !
Provided that I want to make this post gripping I'll continue it in the next days...

London kisses

2008-09-10T20:14:00.005+02:00

....maybe a lot of people know the famous French kiss (actually I have never tried them... I'm teasing you of course !!) , here in London there are the famous London kisses, what do I mean by that ?
That for an unknown reason when I say hallo to someone I never give him/her a kiss on the cheek as I used to do when I was in Italy, it's quite strange because sometimes I tend to kiss someone but I have to stop this natural gesture.
When I say London kiss, simply, I mean those kisses that I never give when I say hallo.

Go sightseeing by bus 88

2008-09-08T22:44:00.007+02:00

You can take in London by the bus 88, it's a dirty cheap way of doing sightseeing because it's one of the bus you can get on with your ticket or your Oyster card.

I took it with my friend Fernando, who was my guide for the trip. The bus offers you the views of Tower bridge, Convert Garden and Trafalgar Square. We started our trip from Plimico, a residential area in zone 1 and got off in Trafalgar square where is located the famous National gallery (you can enter for free).
Obviously we entered the National Gallery and we saw the stunning paintings but we want to go back again with another friend of us that will give us some explanations about the paintings.
Then we enjoyed a nice cappuccino, offered by my skinflint (Fernando).
Some pictures...

Excuse me if they aren't very clear because of the rain drops on the glasses of the bus

One week

2008-09-07T11:12:00.002+02:00

I've been here for one week, and the time has been going very quickly.
Yesterday I visited Hyde Park and Harrods mall.
Hyde Park is very nice, a place where you can find the snail's peace. You can see lots of gray squirrels that sometime are close to you, I wish I had brought with me my camera :( to take some pictures of them.
Hyde Park is very large, as you probably know, and we didn't have enough time to wander, but I hope to go back.
To tell the truth, we needed a brief of relief and for this reason we went to Hyde Park.
After we went to the famous Harrods, I was really impressed by the lust.
First of all I didn't expect some kind doormen at the entrance and I didn't know that you can even buy old fossils! it might be a souvenier for some friends of mine :)

On Friday, we ( I mean some Italian friends and me) horsed around Tottenham court road by night. It was funny and my friend Fernando presented me two girls.
Another thing that kept my awareness was that it's not allowed to stay over midnight in some clubs. Why ? I'm looking for an answer ?
We'll see

149 or 1-4-9

2008-09-04T13:28:00.004+02:00

English is a language that can drive you crazy, during these first days I`ve come across the pronunciation of the numbers greater than one hundred.
They have two different pronunciations, the well known one hundred and... but the other one is to spell every single number if you mean the number of the bus.
Going to give an example:
if you get on the No. 149, you have to say "I take the number one-four-nine"
but if you have to pay a bill.. you say:"I pay one hundred and...."

With this post I also want to start a new column "Advice of the day", in which I can give you some, maybe noteworthy, advice.
If you are going to live in an English house with carpet inside, you had better bring with you a huge plenty of socks, because it is not allowed to put your slippers or shoes on and your socks get dirty very soon.

PS
How do you say "I catch up the number 30"? thirty or three-oh ? :)

First day at my English school in London

2008-09-01T23:30:00.002+02:00

Hi
I'm very sorry if you have missed me :) .
I'm here in London and fortunately it's available a wifi connection so I can keep you posted as it's possible. I wanted to write some notes down before my departure but I ran out of time.
Today I took my English placement at Mayfair school, it was not bad at all and I have to attend an English course in the morning (9-12) from Monday to Friday plus other lessons in the afternoon (I chose a semi intense course).
I haven't had time to horse around London, I saw only Oxford street.
Here I'm guest of a host family, they are very welcoming and friendly.
I'm dead tired.. I go sleeping.

Answer to my former post

2008-08-27T12:08:00.003+02:00

ohhh how many people have answered my former post ?! I'm really impressed !
I'm joking of course, given nobody hasn't answered my question aside from my dearest friend (who already knew my choice) I'm going to answer..

It's London

Now I 'm waiting for your wishes before my departure that is scheduled on 31 August !
Thank you in advance !!

Where are you going?

2008-08-25T15:39:00.002+02:00

I looked for my English course and I have found one that I suppose to suit my needs.
Just a question for you.. where do you think I'm going to attend my English course?

London or Dublin

Cheers

My neighborhood

2008-08-20T19:21:00.005+02:00

Every suburb of every city brings its own history, I think.
By looking at them you know the dirty and lousily side of the city.
My neighborhood are grey, like the old asphalt with pits, sometimes white like the colors of the houses or the fear upon the face of them that reach my neighborhood, or black like the color of the wheels pile near the dumps or the bereavement for who has been killed or dead in a senseless incident.
In my neighborhood you see the black people drive an expensive car with gold necklace as big as a chain, or you'll see other waiting near a roundabout for someone who give a day work...a black labor market.
In this damn neighborhood every dumps is burnt because of the recent wast management disaster or simply for fun.
Fun ? Yes, here fun is to run on the street as fast as it's possible by car or by motorbike, it doesn't matter if there are children that are playing at football or crossing the street.
At night you had better not take a walk on this wild side you can run a risk, which risk?... someone will make off with your stuff..no!
You can become a witness of something that it's better not to see or it may happen you hear what you mustn't hear.
There is something that you can hear without any problem, it's the rowdy sound coming from the boosters of those flaming cars.

About the life

2008-08-18T15:10:00.003+02:00

"When you think about changing your life, it is like to plunge in the sea with a jump"

Thought by Top, English translation by Puntino

Don't buy them !!

2008-08-17T16:53:00.003+02:00

You know, I'm striving to get my English better with different kinds of efforts and "little experiments".
I have already told you that I try to use an English dictionary instead of a translator. For this reason I bought some months ago a dictionary and "phrasal verbs" dictionary, both depicted in the picture below. I wanted them to be portable thus I can bring them with me everywhere for this reason they look very small in the picture.

Concern about the School dictionary which is an English dictionary, it has a wide list of vocabulary with a deep explanation despite its small size. Unfortunately it lacks the pronunciation for the words and that would be very useful to me!
Anyway it's my fault because I should have checked this before buying it!
Regarding the phrasal verb is not good at all!!
It misses many phrasal verbs that I manage to find in the school dictionary. Honestly, it is not worth buying, trust me.
Bye