This week has been fairly quiet. We presented the very, very early version of our work on Tuesday, and it went rather well. The rest of the (short) week was spent packing boxes etc.: The University has been constructing a new building for years and finally, FINALLY, it's nearly finished. That is, the 5th floor is now finished, and that's where I (and most of my friends) well be. So during these days, starting last Wednesday, the whole University is basically moving, which means packing lots of boxes, sorting through many, many, many old exams and old books and hoping that all is going to go well. In principle, from Tuesday on, my new office is supposed to be in the Via Roentgen, but you never know what may go wrong. My computer may get lost, my boxes may get lost, I may not be able to find my office (5-d2-08 is my office nr: what does that mean? No idea), et cetera. Adventures, that's what I call them!
Anyway, the week was a bit shorter than normal due to the fact that last Friday was Liberation Day! Remember, the day that Italy got liberated from the Germans? Hmmm, a slightly odd perspective, but that's how it is here. And on that day, everything is closed, incl. University. So it was also a free day for me. Which was good, because my parents came to town Thursday Night (on their way to the South), and we had a good time with them, drinking, eating, drinking, so it was good not to have to wake up too early.
Then on Friday Night, we had a Rubik's Cube Party (everyone had to come with items of clothing in the colors of the Rubik's Cube and through cloth-trading, make sure you're all wearing just one colour at the end of the night: very cool party theme). Unfortunately, this is Italy and Italians are not so good in the "look-like-a-jackass-but-just-dont-give-a-fuck"-department, so the theme wasn't overly successful. I did manage to end up in full orange garments though.... :-D My own photos aren't so great (click here for photos), but I'm hoping to see some other ones and I will post them when I do see them.
Today is just a nice quiet day: the weather is lovely, we have no obligations, it's perfect! Same for tomorrow, and we're loving it!
ciao,
OJ
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Izmir et al.
So, last Saturday I did not even have to get up so ridiculously early to be able to catch my Alitalia flight to Istanbul. It really was quite relaxing just to calmly go to Malpensa and fly there. In Istanbul, a convenient connection brought me to Izmir (after I had noticed that Istanbul is the most outrageously prices airport ever. It's about twice as expensive as Malpensa, and Malpensa is already not-so-cheap. I also noticed that I really hate indoors-smoking. How is it possible to enjoy your teeny-tiny 7 euro sandwich when everyone around you is smoking cigarettes? It's foul!!!). Anyways, I arrived that night and went to the hotel.
The next day, there was trip organised to visit Ephesos, the House of the Holy Virgin (right....) and the little wine village of Sirince. An absolutely lovely day, where I really got to know a few people.
In summary, good times were had! In the evening, it was time for the conference dinner, followed by some drinks in town. Of course, as always with these kind of things, a few drinks turned into too many drinks and it was seriously difficult to get up the next morning. I had no chocie though, as the conference was the next day. After the first few presentations, I felt much better though and I made it through the day alright.
Unfortunately, the presentations I saw were mostly not very interesting to me. Either the level was simply too low (this was a mixed undergrad-graduate conference) or the topic was far away. I did seriously enjoy a paper by an Italian PhD student from the University of Namur, though, and I got a little bit of feedback on my own paper.
At the end of these presentations, it was time for the official celebration of the founding of the University. It was similar to last year, with long-winded speeches and lots of dancing performances. The nationalistic flag-waving and reverence of Ataturk is still something I cannot get used to, though (and yes, that was an understatement, but i don't want to insult my Turkish friends by embellishing on the topic). Oh well, afterwards a nice dinner was had and we hit the town again...
The next morning, I got a ride from one of the guys in order to get to the airport at 6.30am. Mid-morning, I arrived in Istanbul again where I met up with another conference participant and her friend.
I think I am finally convinced that Istanbul truly is a beautiful city, and I enjoyed walking around and visiting the spice market etc. In the evening, Alitalia brought me home again, where Fedor was awaiting my return.
The rest of the week has been hard work, preparing my Political Economics students for their exam on Friday and running lots of computer programs to make sure we have some results before Tuesday, when Idil is going to present our joint work for the first time (and no, there is no paper yet, and not really any results: don't get me started!). Finally, i also got some grading done and went into the weekend absolutely exhausted!
But satisfied.
Uhm, is there anything else I should add now? I did have a meeting with Chris Blattman, an absolutely amazing and interesting economist who is extremely well-travelled and knowledgeable: it gave me happy feelings! Oh, and one more thing: I am moving offices next week or so. There is a new building for the University (which is absolutely unfinished), and I will be sharing an office there with Idil and someone else: it'll be great!
Ciao,
OJ
The next day, there was trip organised to visit Ephesos, the House of the Holy Virgin (right....) and the little wine village of Sirince. An absolutely lovely day, where I really got to know a few people.
In summary, good times were had! In the evening, it was time for the conference dinner, followed by some drinks in town. Of course, as always with these kind of things, a few drinks turned into too many drinks and it was seriously difficult to get up the next morning. I had no chocie though, as the conference was the next day. After the first few presentations, I felt much better though and I made it through the day alright.
Unfortunately, the presentations I saw were mostly not very interesting to me. Either the level was simply too low (this was a mixed undergrad-graduate conference) or the topic was far away. I did seriously enjoy a paper by an Italian PhD student from the University of Namur, though, and I got a little bit of feedback on my own paper.
At the end of these presentations, it was time for the official celebration of the founding of the University. It was similar to last year, with long-winded speeches and lots of dancing performances. The nationalistic flag-waving and reverence of Ataturk is still something I cannot get used to, though (and yes, that was an understatement, but i don't want to insult my Turkish friends by embellishing on the topic). Oh well, afterwards a nice dinner was had and we hit the town again...
The next morning, I got a ride from one of the guys in order to get to the airport at 6.30am. Mid-morning, I arrived in Istanbul again where I met up with another conference participant and her friend.
I think I am finally convinced that Istanbul truly is a beautiful city, and I enjoyed walking around and visiting the spice market etc. In the evening, Alitalia brought me home again, where Fedor was awaiting my return.
The rest of the week has been hard work, preparing my Political Economics students for their exam on Friday and running lots of computer programs to make sure we have some results before Tuesday, when Idil is going to present our joint work for the first time (and no, there is no paper yet, and not really any results: don't get me started!). Finally, i also got some grading done and went into the weekend absolutely exhausted!
But satisfied.
Uhm, is there anything else I should add now? I did have a meeting with Chris Blattman, an absolutely amazing and interesting economist who is extremely well-travelled and knowledgeable: it gave me happy feelings! Oh, and one more thing: I am moving offices next week or so. There is a new building for the University (which is absolutely unfinished), and I will be sharing an office there with Idil and someone else: it'll be great!
Ciao,
OJ
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
bits and pieces of news
It's because G. asked that I am posting this. No real news yet from the interview. It seems they are positive, but some minor problems have arisen. Next week there should be more news. Which means I am unfortunately going to miss the conference in Amsterdam.... that's too bad. But to compensate for that, I did get accepted for a conference in Tunisa, early June and invited to attend a week-long seminar at Brown University at the end of June (which I will attend, if I do not get the desired result from the job interview).
So all in all, things seem pretty good, eh? For the rest, I'm very busy, making sure I am all prepared before next week's conference in Izmir, Turkey. And Bart and Tineke were here last weekend and it was lovely! The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed the city and the antiques market a lot!
I'll keep you posted on further developments!
Ciao,
OJ
PS This was the 300th entry into my blog... And while I am not going to present statistics as fancy as G., I will point out to you that my speed is declining significantly. The first 100 was reached after about 6 months. I reached 200 after about 12 months, but to reach 300, I needed a total of 32 months! It's pathetic, isn't it?
So all in all, things seem pretty good, eh? For the rest, I'm very busy, making sure I am all prepared before next week's conference in Izmir, Turkey. And Bart and Tineke were here last weekend and it was lovely! The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed the city and the antiques market a lot!
I'll keep you posted on further developments!
Ciao,
OJ
PS This was the 300th entry into my blog... And while I am not going to present statistics as fancy as G., I will point out to you that my speed is declining significantly. The first 100 was reached after about 6 months. I reached 200 after about 12 months, but to reach 300, I needed a total of 32 months! It's pathetic, isn't it?
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