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!