Hard copy book lover

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?

How many passwords do you have to remember?

Mine:

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

On the whole 14!!! it freaks out

First week after leaving Rome

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

Rowing

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.

Becoming crazy or feeding my mind?

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"

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.

what became of me?

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.

Rebel Heart

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.

Life

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

Piccadilly by night

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

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...

A great surprise

In the afternoon I received a wonderful gift by my American friend Scott, look at the picture below:

They are 7 books (in English of course) that Scott advised me to read and I wanted to do it
!! it's awesome

Thank you, Scott

P.S.
From which to start ? :)

Datum point lacking

I follow many blogs and most of them are written by people who live abroad, for example some in Dublin others in Sweden.
By reading them I learn their life story as immigrants, there is something that hurts them, they are lacking a steady friendship and in a few months they pass from one friend to another without making a long and stable friendship grow.
Probably it is due to the fact that they have lots of friends who are immigrants just like them and sooner or later they go back to their native country.
I think it's truly tough (and demeaning) to live this way. it seems like living without a datum point, without a friend with whom you hope to spend a big slice of your life along.
To integrate ourselves into another society which may be rather different from ours, isn't an easy task at all.

Sometimes you have to struggle to make people appreciate your origins, and you can live for a long time with the reasonable uncertainty of not being a part of them and maybe after a very long time you will be able to say I have a trusted friend; you're close to them.
There is a fact that surprise me, I heard someone say when you're in the United Kingdom it's quite simple to get in touch with the British for a night in front of a sparkling pint.
It takes just the night but the day after, the same people with whom you had sung and sat shoulder to shoulder, don't recognize you or say hello to you... it's unbearable !

Thanks to Zsofia and Nadia for correcting me

What do you know about Italy and Italians?

I' m wondering for what reasons or things, we are known in the world.
I have tried to find some answers to this question and most of them are platitudes like:

• the good food and wine. Italian cuisine is really healthy and with a large variety of tastes. Recent studies have stated that the Italian cuisine is a cooking model to copy.
  
• Countryside and seaside (most foreigners seem to know only Tuscany, Sicily and Amalfi),
  
• Art History (Florence, Rome, Venice, ...)
• Berlusconi who is the richest man in Italy and at the same time he has been our prime minister.
  
• Most of us are not good at speaking in English at all (included me).
• Fashion
  

Now I'm curious, do you identify the Italians with other symbols ?

My crafts

When I was a teenager, I used to work during the summer break.

I worked in different fields and one of these was old wood furniture restoration, I discovered this job by chance and it was very good for me because the laboratory where I worked is near my house, thus I didn't have to get up early :-D

The first impact wasn't really appealing but day by day I started to fall in love with this job and getting in touch with my boss who has become a friend of mine.

The smell, colours and veins of wood are fantastic and I had never imagined how tricky to restore an ancient furniture is, (sometimes you have to start from scratch !), I learnt many wise techniques from shaping wood to painting it.
Every wood has its own brightness, smell and "way of furnishing", a wood can make a dark room shiny, can fill an empty space with harmony.
During those days I developed the passion of creating something with the waste wood (leftovers) before they had thrown away, I wanted to give them a new shape, arrange something; I can't accept the idea of wasting wood for a personal purpose.
I built some items: a bass getting it directly from a raw olive branch, a little bear which embraces a heart, other subjects that I gave away, an old style airplane and two butterflies, these last objects are the only ones that I currently own.

The Airplane, in the pictures, was built with different kinds of wood for example the wheels come from a dismissed broomstick, the body is made of fir.
I left it as it appears without painting, I like seeing the veins of wood and its real colours, paint it, from my personal point of view, is like to overwhelm the wood.



The other pictures show a couple of butterflies, one of them I gave to my sister. Their wings are made mostly with oak stripes and their body have been built with olive wood pieces remaining after the airplane was made.

Thanks to Zsofia for her corrections

An old board game...

I don't like playing cards very much, I don't know games like poker but only some easy ones I learnt when I was a child (in my childhood I used to play cards with my maternal grandfather).

This year, I played, after a very long time, an old board game called Hero Quest, it was like coming back to my past when I played it with my friends.

I found this kind of games appealing and a funny way of spending your free time, unfortunately now I haven't got any free time to spend on it.

I can't forget the pleasure of choosing your plastic miniature (dwarf, elf,..) with their eye catching shape, challenging the "game master" and the sound of rolling dices.
I think this kind of games are much better than playing alone against a stupid and motionless machine like a Pc. If a day I have some sons I will encourage them to play board games with real dices and touchable challengers. What do you think about?

Thank you Zsofia for her corrections

When I run down

Every one has its own "weak" moments, we can run down for many reasons:
by attending an intensive course, by working and studying in the same time,
by going out every night of week and so on..
When I fell so weak and mainly while my mind is turning off there is one
thing I love to do is listening to music and in particular there is one song
which make me feel better, it is an old song but ever green, its name is
Ain't no mountain high enough sung by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell


What do you like to do when you run down?
Do you like listening one song ? which one?