Some good news, some bad news.
The good: i have a new hard disk. 80giga. Huzzah.
The bad: my brother's still busy installing it, so my pc is currently off-limits.
The worse: i should be preparing next week's calendar/timetable, but it's proving to be difficult without a pc handy.
The better.: no updates till all this is sorted out. I'm updating from the office so i can't even link to other sites. So in the meantime learn some magic tricks. No, learn to juggle.
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
BREAKING NEWS
It's official!
Yours Truly will be in Rome from monday the 2nd to sunday the 9th of november. That means from monday!
Among the many things he'll be doing will be:
-being the guide for a group of over 14 students+ 2 teachers through specific roman monuments(the ones i can bullshit long enough about)
-Providing commentary and discussion for the Roberto Matta mural mosaic in Piazza di Spagna's underground station.
-on wednesday morning, possibly having an audience with [free inside!] The Pope!
-on wednesday afternoon, staging a performance/installation between Campo Dei Fiori and Piazza Navona. Details TBA.
-Visiting the exhibition "metafisica" at Quirinale.
-Attending the Official Opening Ceremony of the United World College of the Adriatic's Academic Year. Followed by buffet dinner for all. That's the main reason i'm going there.
-Visiting several record shops, ditto comic shops.
-Drinking around the place. Investigating on the possibilities of finding a good waikiki in roman bars. Last time wasn't too successful(but we did manage to fill our bellies free of charge)
As you can see, the clou events are on wednesday. Hopefully.
Definitive calendar/timetables are being worked on. Or rather, they will be, as soon as i finish reading webcomics.
All events will be thoroughly chronicled on this very Blog.
Won't Go Down, we're all about Your Privacy!
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Just added a wee counter. Thanks to the sitemeter guys.
Of course, i still have to understand how exactly it works.
Lately.
So i realize i haven't posted any real content in the past couple of weeks or so. That's because i was either too busy metamorphosing into a slug in the library eight hours a day, or outside getting some social life taken care of on weekends, which is something that has quite surprisingly been going fine recently. Can't help wondering how long it lasts this time.
Anyway, exam tomorrow. Tomorrow? Yes, my dear reader. For last you had heard about exams was, last thursday, three o'clock, Contemporary History Oral. Things didn't quite turn out that way. Well, let's start from the beginning.
Some ten days ago i had to give my history teacher a paper on pre-fascist concentration camps in Ustica. Of course, i wrote it the day before. And the night before. Of course, i didn't sleep. Of course, on the way to Udine i started hallucinating.
I somehow managed to get the freshly printed 3000+word paper into the assistant's hands, even though giant carrots were bulging from the ground, the marble floors were making me pirouette and most traffic lights were morphing into chamaeleons or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bad guys. On the way back, i almost got run over because i'd failed to see the green chamaeleon turn red.
Once i got back to Duino, having been awake for over thirty hours, the most logical thing to do was to go to sleep. But thirty was such a dull number. It was decided forty-two was far better. So i stayed awake until around five, topping around forty-four hours awake, for once reaching 42 conversation ensued. That explains this.
So on thursday i go to udine to give my exam. Contemporary history, 1914-today. The assistant comes. The teacher doesn't. The assistant informs us that the exam will be divided into two parts, the second being with the teacher on tuesday(tomorrow).
I was third on the list. Five minutes before the first examinee exits, i hear the guy on my left tell me:
"1914-today? No, it's 1814-today!"
and the the girl on my right:
"the second girl just left. You're next in the queue."
My reaction was immediate: i ran down the road to the closest bar, and had myself a shot of grappa.
Shortly thereafter, i entered the examination arena.
Before i even had time to sit down, the assistant asked me to digress a bit on the paper i had presented him the previous week. He said it was somewhat peculiar.
"students don't usually write so much about such specific facts".
Nice.
The first half of the exam was more of a friendly chat about italians deporting libians in the 1910s, the conquest wars, Omar-al-Mukhtar, the movie about him starring Anthony Quinn and its being censored on italian land, the fact that it is widely available on p2p, and why WinMX is better than Kazaa.
Then some questions about Hitler and Mussolini. Got over those without too many problems.
Then came the tough part.
Him: "let's go back a little. Choose an independence war and comment it to me."
me: "hmmm...how about the american independence war?"
Him: "That was 1776. A bit early for this exam."
Me: "Oh! Yes, silly of me. How about the italian independence war?"
Him: "Okay. The first, the second or the third?"
I eventually weaseled my way out of the question.
Final verdict: 27/30. To be confirmed on tuesday. That's tomorrow, for me.
Haven't seen a history book since.
I'm currently blogging, listening to the radio and chatting, all at the same time.
Exiting the exam, i went to buy a bottle of Baileys at the liquor store in the bus station. When the baileys-selling-person found out i was from Chile, he began an extremely friendly chat about neoliberism under Pinochet and the similarities between Aldo Moro and Allende's political coalition programs. Interestingly, he was just as prepared in the topic as the exam assistant. Nice.
On the way back to Duino, lifting my eyes from a comic book for the first time in half an hour, i noticed my bus was going through places i'd never seen before. I got up from my seat, went to the bus driver, and politely began the following exchange:
Me: "Excuse my irreverence, but where the fuck are we?"
Bus Driver: "Medea."
Me: "Oh."
Ten minutes later, we got back to the beaten path. And then got to Duino twenty minutes late.
Ok, that's the story of the first part of my exam. I shall now proceed to have a drink before going on with the story.
Monday, October 27, 2003
And finally,
check out the cheap beer taste test (by way of Dorothy, whose site i visit and link to so often i've started calling her by first name)
This is a public service safety message. Stay tuned for more blog.
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 14:34:53 -0800 (PST)
From: "Robin Luis Fernandez"
Subject: Please, delete eventual previous message.
To: [myself]@yahoo.it
[bcc: a load of other people]
Dear sirs,
If you happen to have recieved a message containing
nothing but gibberish from an email account extremely
similar to mine but nonetheless
unrelated(evaristocavallo[at]publisa.it), i suggest
you all delete it.
It would indeed not be very healthy to open it, in
particular not to open the large executable attachment
it comes with.
I apologize for the inconvenience, even though i am as
much of a victim of this as you are. Or more of a
victim if you haven't recieved such a message and this
is just a false alarm(if this is the case, hello! how
are you! we probably haven't heard from each other in
quite some time).
I shall do all that is in my power to avoid this from
happening in future, even if this may mean dismissing
the present account and getting a new one, which would
be quite a pity because i only use it for writing to
special, special people and have thus grown quite fond
of it. Really.
Please accept my most humble apologies, and possibly
proceed to turn off your computer and go out to enjoy
the more tangible sides of life. All this is of no
importance in the end, indeed we ought to remember
that life wasn't at all that bad before we had
computers.
Yours,
-Robin Luis Fernandez
And now, in italian:
Cancellate il messaggio di prima. Aveva un virus.
-R.
__________________________________
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Saturday, October 25, 2003
Quick post.
It's official: finally going to Venice tomorrow, to the Theatre Biennale.
Tonight, the 1st years gave a short but 75% nice show for the 2nd years, since it was "E.E. Day". Before the show, a *marvelous* performance by the Tambours di Topolò. They're only getting better.
At the show, i noticed everybody was dressed really cool. I asked around what the dress code was. Half of the people i asked answered "dress like Robin", the other half answered "dress like a '60s alcoholic hippie". I don't kno whether to be flattered or offended.
Anyway, 7:30 wakeup tomorrow. So goodnight.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Was reading this article on the bus on the way to my exam. I found one passage particularly provoking. Here goes.
"Phrases like "axis of evil" or "the road map" are not policy statements, but merely soundbites. Officials such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz talk like Rambo in public, as in private."
So the US has officials who talk like Rambo.
A president who acts like Rambo.
A governor of the State of California who is Rambo.
Scary, very very scary.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Forgot to point out Banksy's official site. I just bumped into this page over there which is undoubtedly the single most shocking thing i've read all day, which is relevant if you consider i'd been studying twentieth century armed conflicts for the past eight hours.
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