The copy and paste people

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 to dress for your job interview

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

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.

New Year

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.

Looking for a room in Rome

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.

Shame

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.

From the rubbish to the coffee

In my last post I spoke about the rubbish emergency in Naples. At this time I want to be optimistic and show you a worth noticing idea that might help us to get rid of this situation.
A friend of mine, Gigi, advised me about the possibility to recycle the half litre bottle (made up of PET) and the common can.
You can go to Filangieri street and there you'll find a recycling machine, it is still an experimental version, indeed it can't compress your bottle and you're forced to put them in without shaping otherwise the machine isn't able to recognize that a bottle got in.
In addition to this model others which should be more sophisticated are expected.
How does it work?
Simply you have to fill the machine in with thirty bottles of water and it gives you in turn a bill whose value is about 1.5€ with it you can buy a good Neapolitan coffee (the machine is near a bar ;- )
I read that other similar machines are coming up and they are likely to be placed in public places like cinema, in this case you receive a ticket for the cinema as prime for your well behaviour.
In some European countries this kind of machines are widely spread, for instance when I was in Stockholm I saw some of them out of the supermarket.
This is just the first attempt to get people recycle their wastes, grow in our conscious a new thought towards the environment.
Here's the video, unfortunately it is in Italian I didn't manage to find an English version.

For the Swdens we are not an european country !!

I've read this funny article and I want to share it with you, a question is rising:
Are the Swedish people so ignorant or the Italians are completely ignored by anyone?

Is Italy in the EU? - A Swedish ID card farce

From The Local

Is Italy in the European Union or have I just imagined the last fifty years of my country's history? This unusual question has sprung to mind on several occasions recently when I have been in contact with Swedish customer service.

A few months ago I applied for an Ica card at my local supermarket. The girl at reception stared for ten long minutes at my Italian national ID card searching for the Swedish personal identification number, unwilling to understand that she was never going to find it on a non-Swedish document.

She was greatly surprised when she asked to see my passport and I answered that I did not have it with me.

"And how did you enter Sweden without a passport?" she wondered.

I did not know if it was better to explain to her that it is possible to travel from Italy to Sweden with just a national ID, or if I had to tell her that actually I did not come directly from Italy to Ica, but have in fact lived in Sweden for a year and had just come from home where there is no passport control at the door.

Recently I tried to buy a bed at Ikea in Uppsala. There was an offer for payment over 12 months without interest. This time I came prepared: I had with me both an official document stating my personal identification number and my Italian passport.

But the guy at the customer service desk refused to let me apply for the offer.

"You do not have a valid ID". Referring to my Italian passport, he stated: "This is not a valid passport, since it does not have the personal identification number".

Of course I tried to explain him that a foreign passport will never include a Swedish personnummer, to which he retorted: "If you do not have it in the passport, it means that you do not have it, thus you are not eligible".

So I showed him, again, my ID document from the tax office and his answer was: "Well, if you have a personnummer, just go and get a Swedish passport".

At this point I asked to speak to a supervisor. The guy phoned his supervisor and told him he had a problem with a customer (me) who had a passport "that he claims to be from Italy".

Finally I was able to talk to the supervisor. But he had some bad news for me.

"I am sorry, we cannot offer you the 12 month rate since you are not an EU citizen". Try as I might I could not convince him that Italy actually is a member of the EU.

I decided there and then that it was finally time to get a Swedish ID card.

Since I am a customer of Nordea bank I decided to call their customer service to find out how to get the card. A nice woman told me to take the following with me to my bank: an ID document from the tax office, a personal picture of specific size and features, my Italian passport and 350 kronor.

Along I went to my local branch and presented all the requested documents. The first answer I got was: "We do not provide this service anymore".

Not being in the least surprised at this stage, I informed them that the customer service had expressly told me, just a couple of days before, that they do provide this service.

The second answer was quite funny: "Do you have a Swedish ID? You'll need one to get a Swedish ID."

"Of course not, I am here to get one."

The third answer brought me right back to Ikea: "I am sorry, you have only an Italian passport and you are not an EU citizen. We cannot provide this service to non-EU citizens".

The front page of my passport bears the words: "Unione Europea, Repubblica Italiana". On the second page this is translated into all 27 languages of the Union.

Despite this, I had to explain once more that Italy was one of the founders in 1957 of what today is the European Union and that Sweden joined it only 38 years later (in 1995).

However it took another half hour, the advice of a supervisor, and the signature of my Swedish-citizen girlfriend (with her ID), to fill out all the forms necessary to obtain the elusive ID card.

They told me that I should receive it in a couple of weeks. I really hope so. Meanwhile I have now been waiting five months for my Ica card.

And I haven't bought that Ikea bed yet.

Tales about bad luck

In the morning while I was studying I heard my mother say: be careful with this mirror !
Handle it with attention ! because if it falls down we have to expect seven years of bad luck!!
These words reminded me of the unusual platitudes and traditions that we have about bad luck.
For instance we are also afraid of walking under a ladder or a black cat which crosses the street while we are driving our car.
I think that all of them come from old and scary tales.
For example concern about the black cat's story I suppose I know its origin.

In the Middle Ages, people used coaches pulled by horses. At night the horses weren't able to see the black cats but could feel them pass near their feet so they got scared and started to make trouble as consequence the people seated in the coach got frightened.
I don't know if these stories are widely spread only in Naples or in the other Italian cities too, but I'm quite sure: the bad luck is everywhere :)
Do you know similar stories?

Thanks to Zsofia for correcting me

When they speak in English...

I was wondering how our politicians speak in English and by surfing the web I came across some
videos... what a naff example ! :(

For the left party: Rutelli



and Prodi (our current prime minister)




For the right party: Berlusconi (this man was also our prime minister and could become again I hope he has improved his English..)



For who doesn't suffer from heart diseases

Discover Naples with Tom & Jerry

With this blog I've always wanted to make you discover my city: Naples.
Sometimes, I write some short topics but this time I don't want to bore you with my words and I'll let Tom and Jerry take you for a brief trip in my city.
Enjoy movie

Thanks to my "Swedish" friend Nunzio for this link

Italian Ping Pong

In these recent years, to be more precise since 1994, we have been seeing a continuous alternation between governments headed by right and left parties.
In 1994 Berlusconi (leader of center- right coalition) was the prime minister who barely won power for about 8 months, next followed a government made up of "experts" with Dini as premier.
From 1994 to 2000 was the turn of the left coalition which was, at the beginning, led by Romano Prodi, then followed by D'Alema (twice) and Amato.
Then we arrived at the XIV legislation (June 2001), Berlusconi, again, who was able to govern for the entire legislation.
In 2006 we were called for the elections and you can try to guess which party won, it was left coalition whose leader was... Romano Prodi !
I hope to have made you understand why I entitled this post "Italian ping pong" because it is really what happens here: left, right, left, right and so on like a ping pong ball which bounces from one side to another.
We will go to vote next April and if the game keeps alive it will be Berslusconi's turn.
What do I want to say?
Simply, our country needs a steady and stable government because it'll take a long time to improve Italy and the Italian conditions.
Be careful, I'm not saying that a legislation, which takes 5 years according to our constitution, is too short, but we need an able government that gets the country out of the current demeaning situation in which Italy still lives.
In the best case, in five years, it is quite impossible for our slowest government to give the necessary reforms that Italy needs now more than ever, Italy has bottomed out and something must be changed.
At the next election, Berlusconi is likely to win because the people, reasonably, will no longer trust the left party.
What will it happen if Berlusconi wins the election once again ?
Like in the past, at the beginning he will change and tear down the things done by the former government and then he'll start with his own electoral program.

The consequences of this ping pong are a waste of money and time, and a country which is still stuck in the same frustrating situation.
it 's like to play ping pong having a mirror as opponent... you will see only and always the same image.

Thanks to Nadia for her corrections

Something to teach

After Capello, who is currently manager of England football team, another national team, Republic of Ireland, has decided to leave its faith in care of an Italian manager, Trapattoni.
Trapattoni and Capello are both among the most representative Italian managers, two men with a high experience and a great career of outstanding results, they have won in Italy as either player or manger and abroad they have led great club towards challenging goals with the determination that they bring into their job every day.

Why did English and Irish chose them?
For their unquestionable technical skills, of course, but in my humble opinion because they are able to do something that is more than teaching game plans, they can spur players to reach ambitious goals, make they believe in themselves and in their capabilities, at the same time Capello and Trapattoni have always faced tricky situations face to face by making facts not fictions.

On BBC web site there is an article entitled Italy's football factory from which I extracted the following lines:
...Capello was extremely successful as a club manager in Italy, winning championships with AC Milan, Juventus, Roma and in Spain with Real Madrid.
Where does that winning formula come from? Perhaps from the Italian football academy at Coverciano, near Florence, where Fabio Capello began his career...
(also Trapattoni started his career as manager from Coverciano)
Going on listening the Christian Fraser's report, he says that Italian mangers study football at Coverciano as a science and the English need an academy like Coverciano to improve themselves and probably they will copy Covericano's teaching model for football managers, but they can't copy the mentality, the enthusiastic spirit that some Italians just like Capello, Trapattoni, Lippi and so on bring with themselves and this is something to be proud of because if we, Italians I mean, want to do something we can, we aren't only the pizza people.

A neapolitan Braveheart: Davide Imberbe

Davide Imberbe, 35 years old, is our Braveheart who has decided to struggle "O' Sistema" (name of the criminal organization in Naples, a.k.a. camorra) by rebelling to the racket.
Davide and his family, currently, live under the Italian police protection because they have been threated of death many times, nonetheless Davide keeps on speaking out about O' sistema both at TV programs (LE IENE) and in square.
He revealed how the criminal organization headed by Vollaro family forced him to pay an extortion, if you own a shop with ten rolling shutter, you must pay 10.000€ for three times (Christmas, Easter and mid-August holiday) a year without arguing! the poor bosses need money for their holiday and gifts!
Davide lost his old friends and now the guards who protect him are his best friends, Imberbe's life has dramatically changed, but he still fights.
He remarks that Italian government helps who denounces the racket and invite other business men to join him in order to defeat O' sistema definitely, if we are tens, then hundreds, then thousands; who can kill us? Davide says earnestly.
I hope other people will follow Davide Imberbe's suit and all together will beat O'sistema, because they can...

Good luck, Davide

Thanks to Selma for her corrections

The Carnevale day

On 5Th February, in Italy we celebrate Carnevale.

On this day every child masks themselves with a costume, and makes tricks to the people, indeed a famous byword says "E' carnevale ogni scherzo vale" (It's Carnevale day every trick is valid).

Some masks worn this day belong to our ancient tradition and symbolize a specific city, for example in Naples we have the funny and poor Pulcinella, in Bologna there is the fat and rich Balanzone and so on.

Just a few words about Pulcinella; he is the symbol of the poor side of Naples the tale tells that he is a negligent worker, always angry and looking for someone to cheat by selling his fake swills, but he is also kind and sensitive.
For some aspects, Pulcinella represents what Neapolitans are.

Going on
To celebrate this day we also make some sweets: the crispy chiacchiere, the cold sanguinaccio and the round castagnole these are their name here, but in other cities they could be named differently, for example in Liguria the chiacchiere are also known as "bugie".

Chiacchiere's recipe needs few ingredients: eggs, butter, flour, lemon skin
flakes. After making the dough, roll-out it and cut into narrow strips, then fry them. In the end, dust them with icing sugar.



Castagnole require the same ingredients of chiacchiere but you have to add rum for cooking too, make the dough and shape it in little balls which will be fried.
Like for chiacchiere dust them with icing sugar.

Finally the sanguinaccio, in the past, lots of years ago, it was made with pig's blood, but today we no longer use the it (disgusting...how could they eat it? madness).
To prepare it you need: milk, sugar, flour, cocoa, cinnamon.

Put them into a pot, keep the fire low and mix the cream slowly for a while.
Let it get cool and then take some chiacchiere to dip into it... what do you think I'm doing now :)

I was going to forget migliaccio ! which is the one I like the most....
take some sugar, milk, butter, seed corn, eggs, ricotta.
Place the sugar, milk and butter in a saucepan over low heat, when it stars boiling add ricotta and seed corn, stir them for a while then let it get cool.



Since I'm really busy with my exams I can't help my mother and sister in making them thus I play the tiring role of taster :)

Thanks to Zsofia for correcting me

Bye

A storm on Italy

Italy has facing a really hard time, day by day the situation gets worse and soon or later it'll fall down!
What's on?
Let's proceed with order, first the rubbish crisis in Campania is still unsolved, people keep on refusing incinerators or dump sin their backyards, at the moment Naples is being cleaned up but we haven't found any final solution yet.
We are sending our rubbish to other Italian regions and German, the incinerator in Acerra is still under construction and our unqualified politicians are arguing which the best solution is.
It seems they want to reopen some old and dismissed dumps in Campania but the local people don't want, because they are responsible for a number of cancer cases.

Secondly Mastella family is under the fire, first only Clemente Mastella (Minister of justice) was at the centre of "why not" investigation by De Magistris, but the smart minister saved his skin by making De Magisitris snatched away.
Then it has been the turn of Mastella 's relatives, both his wife and brother in law who have been arrested, at the moment, no one knows anything about the accusations laid against them however Clemente Mastella decided to resign because he said I have to stay near my family in this nasty and sad moment.


Consequence of Mastella's decision, Romano Prodi our prime minister has been forced to resign and we have an interim government whose goal is to reform electoral rules and then will vote again.