It's the season to be older.... I wonder if anyone ever researched whether there is a correlation between birth month and probability to do a PhD (actually, I know some research which does look at birth quarter and education achievement, but not on PhD level), because in my PhD it seems that by far the greatest majority is born between mid-January and May. This means: lots of celebrations. Last weekend was Felix's turn, but he decided against celebrating it. Obviously, we didn't accept this and we (well, I) organised a surprise party for him this weekend. And it was fun! Unfortunately, I did forget to bring my new party-camera I got on my own bday. So no interesting photos of the event...
For the rest it's been hard work to finish my paper before a few conference deadlines. And I managed! The first version of my second PhD-paper is now finished! "Measuring Ethno-Linguistic Affinity Between Nations": in the theatres near YOU! Well, the latter part may not be true, but I will be submitting this paper to a number of conferences (Ankara, Tunis, Amsterdam, Zurich, Athens): we'll see what's going to happen... But I must say that I am rather satisfied about the speed with which this paper has been written. I got the idea in November, so it only took about 3 months. And while it is not completely finished of course, the body of it should be just about finished. I will present it at the Graduate Seminar Series at Bocconi on Monday: let's see what people think...
I have also started brainstorming about the next paper, and it might be a cooperative work! Let's see where that goes...
Fedor and I do not see each other a lot, because we both work a lot. But at least we have the weekends together! Not for long anymore, because the bookings are starting to come in seriously now. February: fully booked. March: fully booked. April: 1 or 2 free weekends. May: fully booked. It's hard being this popular, isn't it???
This weekend: Fedor's mother. That should definitely be fun!
Ciao,
OJ
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Happy bday to me!
Well, happy birthday to me! As I mentioned in my previous post, I actually celebrated my birthday for the first time in years! And it was lovely!!! I am absolutely doing it again next year. I found a newly opened hip bar near the University and celebrated it there with some 40-ish people present. What can I say: pictures say more than words, so I'll just post a collage of photos and you can see for yourself:
So, that should give a nice overview of what the party was like. My friend Maja had put herself in charge of taking photos and she did an admirable job! 335 photos in one night!
Although, admittedly, Fedor took the last photo, on the way home when I may have been slightly drunk, but apparently convinced that this was an absolutely gorgeous object and that I would not come home until he took a photo of me with the object:
Oh well, what can I say? It was a good party!
Yesterday, we did very little and simply watched some movies. One more movie tip of the week: Go West, an absolutely amazing movie about a gay Muslim-serbian couple who have to flee Sarajevo and are hiding in a small town in Bosnia. Not the most upbeat film you'll ever see, but certainly very interesting!
Ciao,
OJ
So, that should give a nice overview of what the party was like. My friend Maja had put herself in charge of taking photos and she did an admirable job! 335 photos in one night!
Although, admittedly, Fedor took the last photo, on the way home when I may have been slightly drunk, but apparently convinced that this was an absolutely gorgeous object and that I would not come home until he took a photo of me with the object:
Oh well, what can I say? It was a good party!
Yesterday, we did very little and simply watched some movies. One more movie tip of the week: Go West, an absolutely amazing movie about a gay Muslim-serbian couple who have to flee Sarajevo and are hiding in a small town in Bosnia. Not the most upbeat film you'll ever see, but certainly very interesting!
Ciao,
OJ
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Just some things
We were in Coventry last weekend, to see Matt and Antony. A four-hour delay on the way there, meant that we had to miss out on the restaurant we were supposed to go on Friday. Instead we stayed at home and talked and drank a lot: it was lovely. The next morning, Fedor got the English Breakfast he had been looking forward to for weeks, and so did I. Of course we got to a slow start, but finally we managed to get out of the house, on the way to the city known for its ceramic and its sauce....
Do you already know which one I mean?
Do you?
Really, seriously: do you?
Well, it was Worcester. An interesting cute little town, with an amazing cathedral and a cute city centre...
We spent a few hours walking around in the city centre and take in all the sights. It wasn't too cold and more surprisingly, it wasn't raining, so this was very enjoyable. Matt is very good at making sure we see all the cities in the entire area (previously checked of: Cambridge, Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham, Stratford, Rugby and obviously London). At night, we went out in Coventry and the next morning we flew back to Milan. It was a very enjoyable trip, and it was good to see them again. And to see their new house, which I (bad friend, I know) hadn't even realised they moved into...
Apart from that, it's been lots of work recently. Still aiming for a January 31st deadline to finish a not-so-preliminary version of my current paper and I am still hopeful to make it... And additionally, I have been spending lots of time clearing up other people's examinations mess. Some things at Bocconi are really amazingly unorganised: A group of students who had a midterm exam, but got asked a question that wasn't part of the curriculum, sure that happens. But if you collectively forget to solve this problem and ignore it when people warn you about it, that's not very nice. It gets worse though: If these students (who haven't gotten their final grade for their midterm yet) then get their exam about the rest of the curriculum, you obviously make sure that no such mistake can happen again, right? So I did that, and made sure that the questions were appropriate. Unfortunately, my advice was heeded and instead some of the exercises were added or changed. Result: Students get a 5-question exam, of which 3 questions are not actually part of the curriculum... Of the 2 questions they did get, one was so badly translated from Italian that it was impossible to answer and the other one was an extension of the material they had never seen before and could not possibly know either.
Does this sound like a mess to you? It gets worse: the responible professors are all out of town and no-one else knows what is going on.
Luckily for the students, I do. Which causes a significant upward shift in their expected grades.... This has been my time-consuming good deed of the month!
Ciao,
OJ
PS I am celebrating my birthday this year for the first time in yeeeeeears: I am actually looking forward to it!
Do you already know which one I mean?
Do you?
Really, seriously: do you?
Well, it was Worcester. An interesting cute little town, with an amazing cathedral and a cute city centre...
We spent a few hours walking around in the city centre and take in all the sights. It wasn't too cold and more surprisingly, it wasn't raining, so this was very enjoyable. Matt is very good at making sure we see all the cities in the entire area (previously checked of: Cambridge, Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham, Stratford, Rugby and obviously London). At night, we went out in Coventry and the next morning we flew back to Milan. It was a very enjoyable trip, and it was good to see them again. And to see their new house, which I (bad friend, I know) hadn't even realised they moved into...
Apart from that, it's been lots of work recently. Still aiming for a January 31st deadline to finish a not-so-preliminary version of my current paper and I am still hopeful to make it... And additionally, I have been spending lots of time clearing up other people's examinations mess. Some things at Bocconi are really amazingly unorganised: A group of students who had a midterm exam, but got asked a question that wasn't part of the curriculum, sure that happens. But if you collectively forget to solve this problem and ignore it when people warn you about it, that's not very nice. It gets worse though: If these students (who haven't gotten their final grade for their midterm yet) then get their exam about the rest of the curriculum, you obviously make sure that no such mistake can happen again, right? So I did that, and made sure that the questions were appropriate. Unfortunately, my advice was heeded and instead some of the exercises were added or changed. Result: Students get a 5-question exam, of which 3 questions are not actually part of the curriculum... Of the 2 questions they did get, one was so badly translated from Italian that it was impossible to answer and the other one was an extension of the material they had never seen before and could not possibly know either.
Does this sound like a mess to you? It gets worse: the responible professors are all out of town and no-one else knows what is going on.
Luckily for the students, I do. Which causes a significant upward shift in their expected grades.... This has been my time-consuming good deed of the month!
Ciao,
OJ
PS I am celebrating my birthday this year for the first time in yeeeeeears: I am actually looking forward to it!
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Just rambling on...
With Fedor not having to work, I am rarely home alone anymore. And it just feels a bit odd sitting next to him writing my blog. Particularly since, despite Jorryt's best efforts, his computer is now in an even sorrier state than it was before. The only thing that still runs (most of the time, not always) is a dressed down Linux version with which he can access the internet. That's it. Not so nice...
Anyways, right now Fedor's away shopping, so I have time to update my blog. Happy New Year!!! Buon Anno!!! I can't believe it's already 2008. Anyways, it's the way things go, isn't it? Time passes and the years come and go: goodbye 2007, welcome 2008! Now that I mention 2007, Christmas was a lot of fun. I think most of my courses were received well, but more importantly: we had a lot of fun! Obviously, we also had a bit too much to drink, but it was not nearly as bad as some of the christmas dinners I have organised in the past (I have half a mind of adding a picture that clearly depicts how terribly wrong things can go when drinking too much for christmas, but I have promised the person in question never to show those photos to anyone, so I won't...). Interluding the entire christmas dinners were plenty of presents. It's a fun way of spending your time in between courses: unwrapping presents! Both Jorryt and Lilian seemd very pleased with their set of presents (Lilian's new sparkly golden high-heeled shoes fit remarkably well....) and so were Fedor and I, of course! I received CD's of Sarah Brightman and the 1960's Italian singer Mina (who is AMAZING), as well as my long-desired Angels in America DVD. I only had the downloaded copy, but it's so amazing that I really wanted to have the DVD as well. Finally, two of my other presents really stand out: a chocolate fondue fountain (seriously, we now have a chocolate fondue fountain: how frigging awesome is that?) and a book I had been looking for for a long time: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (you know, the guy who invented economics), which is an obvious must-have for any economist.
Of course, like last time when Jorryt and Lilian visited, we went on another little trip. This time, we rented a car and drove to the north-western Italian region of Valle d'Aosta (apparently the smallest and wealthiest region of Italy). It's an Alpine region, where there are apparently excellent skiing opportunities and some amazing landscapes. Of course a trip with Jorryt and Lilian isn't complete without a Hillman Wonder to see, and luckily there's the Matterhorn on the border of Italy and Switzerland to see. Or Mount Deer, as they called it in Italian (Monte Cervino).
After seeing that and playing in the snow for a bit (small bit), we had lunch in a ski resort before continuing to the regional capital Aosta. A cute little town, where it was very, very cold, so we didn't stick around very long.
The trip back to Milan was not very far (it's only about 2 hours away, really), but the fog was quite dangerous. At one point, we could hardly see the road markings, never mind about road signs or other traffic participants... I was extremely glad not to be driving (thanks to Jorryt). In the end, we made it home safely and in time to enjoy playing some more games as we do often...
The next morning, Jorryt and Lilian left and I decided to go back to work, and because my own building was closed, I went to my old office, where I was hoping to be able to use a computer. I felt very lucky when it turned out that not only were there computers available, there was even heating! That's the first time between xmas and new year that the university actually doesn't switch of the heating system... Unfortunately, they did decide to (temporarily) switch of the network, making it impossible for me to access both the internet and my own documents. Conclusion: little work was done...
Oh well, a few days later the network was back online and I have been doing quite a bit of work since then. Of course not many people are in the University, although it started picking up again the past 2 days (mind you, both 1st and 2nd year students have exams starting on Monday. So they ought to be back).
New Year's Eve was spent at the house of Belinda and Enrico, who returned from their honeymoon in the morning, after getting stuck in Dubai (piece of advice: if you're not European, make sure to bring your Permit of Stay when you leave the European Union...). It was a pretty good night and we got home around 4-ish.
Finally, we've had snow.
...
...
...
It was disgusting. It rain-snowed on Thursday and actually snowed on Thursday night. Friday during the day, it may have looked fairly pretty, if it wasn't for the rain that was falling, and the fact that the snow had already turned into one big muddy quasi-frozen Margherita. Slush, that is.
I'm glad that's over, anyway, and temperatures should be up again soon!
Ciao,
OJ
PS Movie Tip of the day: The History Boys. A BBC production based on the play that ran at the Royal Theatre in London in 2004. Absolutely excellent movie and interestingly enough, using the same cast as the play. Absolute must-see!
Anyways, right now Fedor's away shopping, so I have time to update my blog. Happy New Year!!! Buon Anno!!! I can't believe it's already 2008. Anyways, it's the way things go, isn't it? Time passes and the years come and go: goodbye 2007, welcome 2008! Now that I mention 2007, Christmas was a lot of fun. I think most of my courses were received well, but more importantly: we had a lot of fun! Obviously, we also had a bit too much to drink, but it was not nearly as bad as some of the christmas dinners I have organised in the past (I have half a mind of adding a picture that clearly depicts how terribly wrong things can go when drinking too much for christmas, but I have promised the person in question never to show those photos to anyone, so I won't...). Interluding the entire christmas dinners were plenty of presents. It's a fun way of spending your time in between courses: unwrapping presents! Both Jorryt and Lilian seemd very pleased with their set of presents (Lilian's new sparkly golden high-heeled shoes fit remarkably well....) and so were Fedor and I, of course! I received CD's of Sarah Brightman and the 1960's Italian singer Mina (who is AMAZING), as well as my long-desired Angels in America DVD. I only had the downloaded copy, but it's so amazing that I really wanted to have the DVD as well. Finally, two of my other presents really stand out: a chocolate fondue fountain (seriously, we now have a chocolate fondue fountain: how frigging awesome is that?) and a book I had been looking for for a long time: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (you know, the guy who invented economics), which is an obvious must-have for any economist.
Of course, like last time when Jorryt and Lilian visited, we went on another little trip. This time, we rented a car and drove to the north-western Italian region of Valle d'Aosta (apparently the smallest and wealthiest region of Italy). It's an Alpine region, where there are apparently excellent skiing opportunities and some amazing landscapes. Of course a trip with Jorryt and Lilian isn't complete without a Hillman Wonder to see, and luckily there's the Matterhorn on the border of Italy and Switzerland to see. Or Mount Deer, as they called it in Italian (Monte Cervino).
After seeing that and playing in the snow for a bit (small bit), we had lunch in a ski resort before continuing to the regional capital Aosta. A cute little town, where it was very, very cold, so we didn't stick around very long.
The trip back to Milan was not very far (it's only about 2 hours away, really), but the fog was quite dangerous. At one point, we could hardly see the road markings, never mind about road signs or other traffic participants... I was extremely glad not to be driving (thanks to Jorryt). In the end, we made it home safely and in time to enjoy playing some more games as we do often...
The next morning, Jorryt and Lilian left and I decided to go back to work, and because my own building was closed, I went to my old office, where I was hoping to be able to use a computer. I felt very lucky when it turned out that not only were there computers available, there was even heating! That's the first time between xmas and new year that the university actually doesn't switch of the heating system... Unfortunately, they did decide to (temporarily) switch of the network, making it impossible for me to access both the internet and my own documents. Conclusion: little work was done...
Oh well, a few days later the network was back online and I have been doing quite a bit of work since then. Of course not many people are in the University, although it started picking up again the past 2 days (mind you, both 1st and 2nd year students have exams starting on Monday. So they ought to be back).
New Year's Eve was spent at the house of Belinda and Enrico, who returned from their honeymoon in the morning, after getting stuck in Dubai (piece of advice: if you're not European, make sure to bring your Permit of Stay when you leave the European Union...). It was a pretty good night and we got home around 4-ish.
Finally, we've had snow.
...
...
...
It was disgusting. It rain-snowed on Thursday and actually snowed on Thursday night. Friday during the day, it may have looked fairly pretty, if it wasn't for the rain that was falling, and the fact that the snow had already turned into one big muddy quasi-frozen Margherita. Slush, that is.
I'm glad that's over, anyway, and temperatures should be up again soon!
Ciao,
OJ
PS Movie Tip of the day: The History Boys. A BBC production based on the play that ran at the Royal Theatre in London in 2004. Absolutely excellent movie and interestingly enough, using the same cast as the play. Absolute must-see!
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