lots of stress and gaiety

Well, it was an interesting return to Milano. All my mates were stressed out about the presentations of our first papers that were supposed to happen in that week, and as a result of that, it was obviously chaotic at University. I was not extremely stressed about it all, and it turned out that my presentation had been postponed by a week anyway, so I threw myself full-throttle into the other bureaucratic bitcheries that seem to inhabit the life of any person living in Italy... During the holidays, I had acquired 2 jobs as a Teaching Assistant for this semester. Or so I thought... Because it turned out very soon that something had gone wrong, and everyone had misunderstood each other and some emails never arrived and there was quite un casino (a chaos) going on. So, as a result of that, I only turned out to have 1 job as a TA for 16 hours this semester. Obviously, I was not happy about this (these are the extremely well-paid jobs that make life bearable as a PhD student, with its 176 euros an hour rate), so I decided to do it the Italian way. I got myself a secretary to agree with me and start fighting. Some gossiping, some acusing people of favouritsm, the standard Italian fare...
The result: I now have 16 hours as a TA, plus 56 hours as tutor (at 44 euros an hour), which gets me up to the maximum number of hours I am allowed to work this semester. In addition to that, I managed to get a new office and I am still aiming at getting a new fast computer in addition to that. Conclusion: I think I have done rather well for myself, the Italian way..... :-D Of course, it did take up a considerable amount of time that I may have been able to spend more usefully. Oh well, shit happens.
In addition to this, of course there was also the forementioned presentation to be had. While I wasnt nervous before, when the day itself finally arrived, I did get a bit freaked out after all. It actually did not go too bad, although I personally was not so satisfied. Professor Tabellini, however, did tell me that he thought it was quite good, and that is what matters! In other research-related news, I am now officially a published author!!! You can download my first real publication HERE, which is the website of the Review of Income and Wealth (September issue: pp. 422-439). If you don't have a University account and therefore cannot download the paper, but are interested in seeing a copy anyway.... Please send me an email and I can send you a copy. For copyright-related reasons, I am not allowed to post it online, but I am actually allowed to email copies to people. Also, I am (since Thursday) a MULTIPLY published author, because I also received the Summer-Autumn issue of the Baltic Journal of Economics (pp. 35-49)!!! This one will be available for download from HERE, but is not actually there yet. I don't have the file either, but I have 5 hardcopy issues of the Journal, so if you are interested, just tell me and I can give one to you...
So, that definitely made me very, very happy, and it made up a lot for the long-lasting stress caused by Banca Intesa. The bastards!!! I have posted here before about their "dear Sir, we are now closing your account"-message they sent in July, but I did not mention they did the same thing again in August. While we were on holiday, so it gave me quite a shock, I must say! Although, again it wasnt actually true and it turned out to be completely ignorable. At least, so I thought. But just now, when I tried to pay the rent, I discovered they did pull back the loan I had with them, so that sort of ruined my day. Although I have already created a way in which this is not going to be a problem in the end, it is rather inconvenient nonetheless. Tomorrow morning, I am opening a new account with another bank. That will make me feel soooooo good. FUCK BANCA INTESA!
Anyways, for the rest everything is going well. No visitors these weekends, but instead we can do many other things. Yesterday we had dinner at a colleague of Fedor's and tonite we are having some friends over for dinner. Lovely.
Next weekend: Paris!
And in answer to Gerwin's question, our trip in The East did not give us any extra wonders for the Hillman list. Which is why we are going to Paris next weekend, because we will have 1 (Fedor: Louvre) or 2 (me: Louvre and Versailles) new Wonders there!!! (both of us having done the Eiffel Tower already). I cannot wait...
Ciao,
OJ