To and From Torre Guinigi

Whenever I go to the Italian classes, I am disappointed, angry, aggressive...

Trying to think about some positive things, I just looked at my pictures in Italy and decided to put some nice pictures here. Just for having a little break between PhD issues...

dura lex, sed lex

ANNOUNCEMENT:
[...] you won’t be allowed to use your classroom when you have no lesson.
All classrooms will be locked at the end of each lesson, so you will have the possibility to study only in the school library.
I’m sorry, but these are the rules.

...what to say? Maybe it's a way to tell us we need to study a little bit less?

Given that "our rights" are a monotonically decreasing function I have already prepared countermeasures for when the next ANNOUNCEMENT arrives; you can all just come and study at my place (obviously ONLY if you have your badge, and ONLY between 10:26 and 12:14!!!)

Who knows, maybe they'll even ask for our fingerprints next time!

better give this exam soon!

help

A long-long day full of lectures.

This is an overview of today's fatal classes from the last raw.
Everyone was suffering (I think) in his / her own way. Guido was upset because of some strange, complicated shape of graphs, Michele was trying to improve his abilities as a painter, Ales B. was in another orbit with some another exam, Binh suffered because of some paper (maybe Dini's presentation), Ales C. couldn't fix the correct height of his chair and periodically changed it, Sonia was scared reading Dini's slides, Farshad was looking outside of the window, Nicholas was preparing some ppt file, Lusine was refreshing browser intensively and Maddalena was with her stato esame.
That's all...

Software enginnering

This morning I will not write a long post, because during my "break" I am working to a project for an exam. Maybe this afternoon...

Anyway, look what I found somewhere on the web:

"If you are a plumber, you will fix your own leaking faucet; if you are a mechanic, you will change your own oil; if you are a doctor, you will give yourself some nice prescription; if you are a lawyer, you will sue your neighbor's pants off; if you are a teacher, you will teach your children; if you are a software engineer, you will..."

Of course it does not refer to any course we are attending.

Approaching an exam

I promised you to write a post during "a short break", so...here it is my first post in our blog.

As you probably know, in these days my sister is doing the high-school final test. She sent me an e-mail that explains what a student does during (and before) this important period.

I hope you like it, I laugh every time I watch it.

Let's start:

First week of lessons


Last week of lessons


Before the exam


When you find out the starting letter for the orals


7 nights before the exam


6 days before the exam


5 days before the exam


4 days


3 days


2 days


1 day


The night before the exam


An hour before


During the exam


Just after the exam


After the exam...holidays



It took a long time to upload all images, but this break was quite long (about 2 hours...).
Welcome to our blog!!!

Fantozzi and the 1000 euros per month

This morning, I found in my mailbox the most dandy news I'm waiting for: PhD's scolarship is now of 1000 euros per month! ...thank you, Michele, to have made so sweet my wakening!! :)

Just as I read the news, I thought to a very funny shot of the masterpiece-movie "Super Fantozzi".
This pauper man Fantozzi receive announcement of his (very rich) uncle's dead: he is very happy, because it is the sole heir!
Hence, he burn his house and run to obtain the money, but... the uncle's name is Lazarus and you know the history: eventually, the rich man will be resurrected from Jesus.

Ok, for us the things are different... or not?? :D

Aumento delle Borse di Dottorato

water on mars!

Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University (here)

Or better, ice on mars..

These two pictures were taken at different times, and the small "balls" in the lower left corner disappear. The (only?) possible explanation is that it's ice!!

[edit] Our host "blogspot.com" will not display animated gif's. So what you see above is just one frame, go here for the animation [/edit]

Now the objective is to catch some of those and analyze them... aren't you curious?

Here is a color version and here the official announcement from NASA.

And here are some other really impressive pictures from Mars... seriously, take a look.

p.s. I don't know what the copyright is for this image. I put the source beneath the image (and I hope no one thought it was my own work ;-) and think that this is better than deep linking. But since this is a shared-blog if you feel I should take it off or something else just tell me.

A piece of my country

These are the places that I like at most in my country.

The first is Khor Virap. This is the place that you have an illusion that Ararat is just in a few meters. And I have a stupid dream (as I know it never will become true) not to take a picture from Armenia to Ararat, but from the top of Ararat to the side of Armenia...

The second one is Noravanq (monastery of 12-th century) where the human made architecture competes with the architecture of the nature.

CPM 2008

If you think these happy faces are the result of the presentations that we 'listened carefully' during the conference, you are completely wrong...

and now for something completely different

So, just to keep the average tone lighter here are some videos i would like to share with you...

One is for italians only (sorry!) and is the imitation of a famous italian presenter

The other one is a sketch from Monthy Python. It is typical english-humour. I find it very very very funny, but some people just look at it and think it's plain stupid, nonsense. If you don't know them be warned.

cached sun clip

The previous post reminded me of a quote I read time ago.

"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers."

Oscar Wilde

At first sight it may sound just cynical, or a phrase from someone trying to surprise with an uncommon thought.

But time after time I have found it just plain true, so true.

We need dreams, hopes and wishes, but I think we need them in their own world, where they can continue to be perfect. The clash that we experience when we try to bring them into our imperfect real world can indeed be a punishment. But is it always so? No, I hope not..

Maybe one should wish to find a wish that can become true and remain a wish.

Ah, and welcome to our weblog! ;-)

a persian proverb

Do you have a special wish?
think a happy thought, then blow on the dandelion to make it come true!

.. my dear friends, Welcome to our weblog ...