a diary every now and then

Is it cool to be ignorant, full of stereotypes and racist nowadays?

2008-07-24T12:19:00.008+02:00

well well well..it'been a long time since I last wrote.
It's not that nothing happened in the last six month, I think actually that even too much has happened. I don't regret I didn't write before, though I really feel like writing some notes now.

As a start, let' s explain the title. I read today the newspaper (the Volkskrant - Dutch newspaper) and there was a flattering article about how brave are the people who spread shit about Islam and that once were Muslims themselves, and a history of their redemption.
In the article there was also a nice reference to all the "cool" people that once were Catholic or Jews too and that " luckily" now they can distinguish between, let's say, the"bullshits" of their holy books and the "real life".
The article sounded quite pathetic to me, in its attempt to portrait the message of the monotheistic religions as in antithesis with the "real world".
As if there is no other possibility than either being a ridiculous aggressive intolerant fanatic that takes every little word of the holy books as undebatable either being a ridiculous intolerant ignorant about religions at all.

I regret to say that there are thousands of other ways, in between these too sides, and that unfortunately nowadays it doesn't sound cool to be in one of these middle-position, because apparently only ignorance and redundancy of stereotypes is noisy and appreciated...

Will this trend ever come to an end?

I don't know, but it seems to me that there is quite an interest in keeping hate between believers, religion prejudices, etc... by mass- media, writers, and intellectuals in general.
An example? why on earth, after all has been written about the eloquent message of xenophobia and racism by Oriana Fallaci (allegedly she was a "writer"and she passed away couple of years ago), the Italian mass media still portraits her as a hero of our times? a hero of what? according to the brand new article I read today on the Corriere della Sera online, a new book is going to be published, thanks to the efforts of her nephew. In the intro of the interview to the Fallaci nephew, the journalist writes an incredible detailed review of all the remarkable efforts of Fallaci throughout more than three decades in depicting the striking cultural differences between the West and Islam, and in attempting to warn the western society of the " Islamic invasion".

I would like to point out that Fallaci was a journalist that wrote several books about ideas on " how to get ride of them" (i.e. the Muslims and immigrants of other ethnic groups than western, from Europe), in which, in comparison, Mein Kampf of Hitler is a nice good-night chamomile.

Even at the European Union headquarters her books sounded quite nasty. But still. Italy, with its more than one million immigrants of hundreds of different background, carries on its attempt to increase hate, ignorance, and prejudice amongst its citizens.

I guess the Italian government, mass media and intellectuals think it's cool.
I don't.

to write or not to write?

2008-02-28T12:50:00.006+01:00

Yesterday evening I was reading a book about Yoga - a book that my mother gave me, a couple of months ago.
While a was reading with interest the meaningful inspirations about the importance of meditation and breathing correctly, my Love, my Witte Haai was writing.
He, after one year or so, yesterday has started to write again - I presume, a little novel. I like the way he writes, immediate and misterious at the same time. I was quite happy to see him writing again.
And then I thought: why did I quit to write poems? It was my favourite way to approach writing, and it has always been together with singing and painting the activity I like most.
Of course, none of these have been carried out in the recent yearS. Embarassing.

anyway. It is never too late to take back what I have and let it grow again. And because, as I've just written yesterday, I am backing up my docs in the computer, I found this old thing I wrote three years ago.
Well it's in Italian, but I don't want to change it in any other language. Every thought is meant to be in a specific language. This is in Italian and will remain like this.

L’esistenza in questa vita è un ambizioso e breve viaggio

e noi siamo i viaggiatori

che con coraggio e ostinazione

cerchiamo di essere vincitori.

Ma qual è la più grande vittoria,

il successo, il denaro o la gloria?

È un quesito senza risposta,

poiché tutto è perituro

e la vittoria materiale è tanto vacua quanto insoddisfacente.

Quello che resterà di noi

Sarà l’amore che avremo saputo donare

Sarà la ricerca della conoscenza che saremo riusciti a coltivare

E la consapevolezza e la gioia che niente potrà cambiare

il nostro ritorno alla Luce, alla fine del tragitto,

il cuore colmo di gratitudine, per essere giunti al Termine e al Nuovo Inizio.

once again

2008-02-27T11:04:00.004+01:00

Here I am hopeful again, and I can say that I feel this way since a short while, but my intention is to keep this feeling forever and ever...
This blog is meant to be a public diary, with thoughts and inspirations readable from everyone - eventually, my friends read this blog, especially Alfio who is in Italy and does not reach me so often as my friends here (where? here!).
Today is a bright shiny day of the end of February, and in this period I am doing mostly everything and nothing. So basically it's difficult to explain but I certainly keep myself busy.
Time is precious and so are people we meet, so why loosing our time in doing something we don't like or in dealing with the wrong people?
This is why I have taken the decision to move out from my room (two meters per five, 400 euro a month, no window but an annoying door directly to the garden, no privacy and two neurotical flatmates). I lived in Oud West for almost one year, and I had to deal with an utterly impolite landlady and I think I did my best in bearing her stupid behaviour for a reasonable period. Now I think it's time to move on and begin new endeavours in new fields and interests and I'm certainly not interested in wasting my time with her unreasonable requests any longer.

Once again I am here writing in this blog some of my thoughts. In the end my plan was to build up a site about politics and immigrants rights and all the bla bla bla that is around this because THIS is what I care most. But I didn't so far. I am just writing this blog. Why? Why I haven't started yet with my plan? I have no clue, I think I have no excuse. I should have begun with it long time ago but so far I simply didn't .
But let me say, one thing at a time. I finished my thesis (sorry to bother, my third thesis, and few people can understand which kind of pain is that) so I just started to LIVE again since a short time.
Once again I am cleaning up my computer, and my coming next plan is to install UBUNTU!!!! and make partitions so I can use both Linux and Windows
Once again I finally decided to move out and starts new projects.
Once again, I am coming back to all the plans I had to hybernate for all the time I was involved in the last two masters. Now I can come back to what I care most.
Once again.

16 days after the new beginning

2008-01-16T15:32:00.001+01:00

Happy New Year!
the first day of the year I went to a concert in the Muziekgebouw, were the Sleeping Beauty was the ballet to celebrate the beginning of a new year.
Just the day before, at 15.56 in the afternoon, I handed in my final version of my last thesis, and I was feeling so tired that I could not realize, by that time, that it was really over.
7 days later I receivedthe grade, and I was officially graduated: without having my diploma in my hands yet, I'm officially not a student anymore, from that moment on.
do you think I finally felt that it's over? NO! I still feel as if I have to do something in the master, and I have to deal with the student life again...and again...and again....aaaaaah!!!!!
hey, but I know myself that soon I'll forget about it, and without even having the time to digest my graduation, I'll start to be busy with my unemployed status :)
honestly, though, I prefer to be someone who is busy to look for a job, than someone who feels sick and tired because of a thesis to write.
and you can feel quite tired, I tell you, if you have written three master thesis in the last three years and a half, being treated as an eternal student. It's a great feeling that is over now.

oh! I said that! I've just said that! it's over!!!!!

it's over!!!!!!!

Il Cucchiaio d'Argento (The Silver Spoon)

2007-12-20T11:29:00.000+01:00

Today I have had an important task. Looking for nice recipies to do together with Witte Haai and Sophie-the-excellent-cook-for-sweet-dishes.
Although the Lady that will host the dinner of the 26th is giving to everyone advices on what to bring and what NOT include in the recipies, time is running out and I forgot to check out the recepie that WE should prepare.
As one of the guest is pregnant and very careful with food at the moment, the last thing I'd like to do is to choose a dish that SHE can't eat.
Thus, out of more than 100 recepies for fancy desserts, only one is saved: the blueberry custard.

...wait a minute: I've been looking in an Italian book of recepies, the famous, de enige de echte Cucchiaio d'Argento and the only suitable dessert I could prepare, according to the circumstances, is the blueberry custard???!!!

but...but...the custard is an English, I repeat, ENGLISH recipie!!!!!!

uffa.

dimanche à Bamako

2007-12-10T16:16:00.000+01:00

In this period of the year days have a short life, and it feels as life is short too.
You wake up and you hope to see some light, between the rain and the clouds, before the sunset.
And today has been one of those days, in which the light has come out every now and then, and the sun was bright, and even if after a while clouds begun to appear again, while biking I have had the feeling it was just like early spring...
Nice feelings, happy inside, thoughtful and concerned...I go back home, I have some lunch, and before going back to the very LAST part of my thesis, I check my email.
I check my email with the thought: I wonder what my supervisor wrote me, this time....and there she is, with all her beautiful "bastardaggine" (well, you are very welcome to study some Italian, any time), very eager to demonstrate that she can be my personal pain in the a** whenever she feels like doing so.
In less than two minutes my mood was completely turned down. After all, how could I have been happy to read that:
- she goes on pregnancy leave for several monthssss
- she insists to be my supervisor, notwithstanding (yes, notwithstanding!!!)
- she assumes that her and my (in)formal second supervisor will read the thesis taking aaaallll the time the'll need, without specifing when the hell I will be able to meet her/him/them and talk about my final graduation date.

nice.

Therefore Furthermore Moreover I felt so pushed down that for a couple of hours my enthusiasm in finishing my project simply faded away.

I don't know how the coming hours will be, hopefully better than the former two.
I really hope this, for my own sake...

ah, yes, the cheerful album Dimanche à Bamako is a perfect soundtrack in these cases.

il sogno

2007-11-16T15:21:00.000+01:00

lo stesso sogno, ogni notte - the same dream, every night
una casa diversa, ogni volta - een verschilende huis, iedere keer
...ma é la mia casa - but it is my house
che strano peró, ci sono troppe persone, in questa casa - wierd though, er zijn te veel mensen in dit huis
sto cercando il mio posto, in questa casa - ik zoek mijn plekje in dit huis

spesso alla fine del sogno mi accorgo che non sono io che ho scelto quella casa - at the end of the dream I always feel that it's not me to have choosen that house
ah, forse é per questo che non mi sento a mio agio

i look for my place in this house - big, crowded, confused as my dream.

productively productive

2007-11-05T11:40:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, like now, it feels as if the biggest challenge is to remind oneself how worthwhile is one's own project, plan, product, no matter what, no matter how we do it.
Today is Monday, the first Monday of the month of November, 2007. I should have finished my third thesis two thousand years ago - or at least, this last summer- but no, I'm still here working on it. I used to love the academic environment, however since the last year and a half I'm quite oppressed by it, as I really feel the time to be somewhere else and doing something else is now, and is rushing out.
It's like a river flowing very fast, and I look at it and I want to jump in it and swim in it but I just learnt now to swim again, and I'm not that practical yet - so I'm afraid. In the meanwhile, the fact that I still need to produce this last academic work within a short time doesn't give me the pleasure I used to feel when I was writing before. So I'm not enjoying this time either.
I am looking at the flowing river with the feeling that my breath will be taken away any moment, without having done something really meaningful yet - maybe this feeling is wrong, but it's there and it hurts.
It is probably a common pattern among human beings, to be refrained in facing the river, but soon or later everybody does. Sometimes it takes too long, and then you are swallowed by the water because you forgot how to use your abilities in handling it. It will be nice if it will not take me that long.

to be alone with yoh'

2007-11-02T13:56:00.000+01:00

Today I spent the morning trying to plan my coming weeks, which should be dedicated exclusively to my thesis (?).
But there was an interference in my thoughts due to the upcoming great event (?) - one of my flatmates suddenly decides to screw us up and leaves the house we share out of the blue. This mess is not exactly what I hoped for when two days ago I was telling myself that I need some calm and quiteness to understand what to do in the coming months, but that's how life goes, usually.
However, because I love complicated situations, I should be happy that now every side of my life is very challenging. (no, I'm not happy and I'm fed up).

now I have to go to the dentist who is not able to fix a carie in one time, so I have to be tortured again and again. But while I'll be biking toward the dentist, I'll have in my mind "to be alone with yooooooo" a dear song which I finally manage to download, which makes me laugh and cry...so, is very challenging :)

I never wanted to use the word never

2007-10-31T15:23:00.000+01:00

As a never-ending dreamer I've always dedicated part of my thoughts to the creation of brand-new dreams, and this is a pattern of my life since my childhood. Dreaming is cheap, keeps the mind busy with positive thoughts and sustains the positive energy. It does't really matter whether these dreams will come true or not. It is much fun to create them.

Once I read that people should stop to dream too much, otherwise the moment they'll wake up from this full dreaming they'll realize how their lives are close to a nightmare. I don't believe in this. Dreaming is useful, especially when it helps to enrich critical perspective on things with positive imagination - which might turn into reality, after all. In my childhood I always imagined myself in the far future, probably because I wasn't particularly interested at the elementary school fancy moments. It was more funny to try to foresee how could I have lived in twenty years time or so. (Provided that I was always taking into account that death could have taken me away any moment despite all my plannings).

Now that I'm actually twenty years older, I can say that I live the condition of whom is putting all the efforts in pursuing that old dreams. I've always thought, in fact, that the real joy is to commit oneself in the realization of the biggest dreams of life.

but what if I'm wrong?

When you plan in the long future, and you dream about it, you usually end up foreseeing only the bright sight of it, without taking particular attention to the side effects. In my case I started to figure out only now what does this imply. I realized only recently that only when you start to bring into life your dreams, you can see that you might be not so happy as you thought, and that your heart might suffer even more than what you could have imagined in the case you wouldn't have been able to realize that dreams at all.

It hurts to admit that your own path, the one you've choosen with all your strength and stubborness, is forcing you to make choices you never wanted to face, and you never thought you would have been forced to do. By myself I managed to build up the most complicated puzzle of my life. I hope to bring together all the pieces.

this is my consideration, after the two trips back and forth to the city I've grown up.

the colours of memories

2007-10-14T14:37:00.000+02:00

to see you

to meet you

to see you

at last.

this is the path where all my memories are still alive.

I know it's just a small place in the middle of a forgotten area in Milan, but it still has its appeal.

maybe because is so forgotten. and so transparent.

Once and twice

2007-10-09T00:04:00.000+02:00

How many times do we go back to the place we've grown up? sometimes we live there for ages...forever, even. But this is not my case. In my case, I lived in my hometown (hometown? boh...) for quite a while, then I left, and at the moment I don't see any reasonable reason to go back for good. Usually, I go back for a small trip, back into my old memories, and new feelings mixed together. Now instead, I'll go there not only once, but twice. I'll go back to Milan, then back home again (my new home is 23 min. by bike from my white shark and 3 hours by car from a place where you get home made honey, so basically is a very good place)- then back to Milan again. Summing up, I'll be in Milan twice, during this month. I hope that at the end of these two trips I'll be able to figure out whether what I feel now is homesick or I just miss my memories and I'm simply hoping to find them back, in the same place I left them...

Dedicated to mr. white shark

2007-10-09T00:01:00.001+02:00

65 and 26

2007-09-24T13:42:00.001+02:00

At the beginning of the Seventies a young woman, in her early thirties, was trying to make a living by her own. She was a chemistry researcher in a farmaceutical company. She was still living with her parents, but she was dreaming to live alone. One day she had the opportunity to leave the parental house finding a place in the city center - a small cosy flat, just for her. She moved out, she was happy. But the mother insisted for long time to let her come back home - treating her as a "disobedient girl". After almost two years, she decided to move out again and "come back". But things were not the same anymore.

She found the parents' house too narrow for her, and she couldn't breath. She started to plan making a radical change in her life, thus decided to join the academic environment again and started studying medicine. Days were harsh, between the work, the university and a never-ending complaning mother. In between she was also making new friends - at the university. One of this new acquaintances was a guy studying medicine as well, coming from another country, also with the dream to make a change in his life - after having being travelling around the world for almost two years. His path and hers came to meet unexpectedly, and soon they decided to get married.
Marriage is a complicated thing. It's like a garden: if you don't put enough water, if you don't cut out the useless parasites, it will die, or it will live looking like a shadow-garden. But it's a life challenge that can be quite appealing. Two people coming from an allegedly different path decided to undertake this challenge together.
It was the beginning of the Eighties: the young woman was going toward her forties, and her mother was warning her that her chance in having a baby was already lost - you are too old! - she kept repeating to her. But the woman was ready to challenge herself with a new commitment, and at 39 years old she became a beautiful and shiny mother.
Months and years passed by, and the baby she had became a thoughtful daughter, almost having the same approach to life her mother used to have at her age. She was also trying to challenge the path of her life with difficult plans. Mother and daughter, having 39 years of difference, became the best friend of the other. One could mirror in the other, as their strong will to make a change in their life unified them more than ever.

It is now the fifth September in a row that I'm outside the country: in Sept. 2003 I was in Sweden, in Sept. 2004 I was in Austria. Now is the third year I spend the month of September in the country of tulips, which has taken my soul and my heart - unexpectedly. This morning I called my best friend to wish her a pleasant birthday,she has just turned 65! - and blaming myself not to have been able to celebrate this day with her. But this is the path I had to take. After all, I am almost like you, mum. And I love you also for this. You gave me the strength to challenge my life everyday, because you must never regret not to have done what you really wanted to.

learn to love learn to live

2007-07-25T15:31:00.000+02:00

oh!
it's oh so quiet
it's oh so still
you're all alone
and so peacefull untill...
untill you don't realize, I would add - and I hope Bjork excuses me for changing her song -that love is fully part of your life, no matter what you do no matter how hard you try to deny to yourself the pleasure and the joy, the suffering and the tears, but most of all, the beauty to live, simply.

today is not the same as yesterday

2007-04-23T15:56:00.000+02:00

apparently somebody believes that to be a reliable woman you have to live with your parents until you don't get married, that means never, because apparently - yes, again- you are not allowed to date with somebody at all, so that makes things a litl bit complicated, in the sense that you'll probably never get married at all.
and I must say, I do not want to believe that a woman's freedom from parental decisions on her life is given only when and if she will get a new family by her own.

Just the thought as such is unbearable, from my point of view.

apparently, however, somebody truly believes that.
who on earth, now, still believe that a woman as such is not entitled to make a living by her own?
well, there's a lot of fathers who are convinced that the daughter would not have the honour to be their daughter anymore in the case they decide to live ALONE.

why I am talking about this subject?
because I'm one of these daughters....

so now you know something more about me...
let's say that this post is a"get to know each other better"type..

ehm...

let's hope that tomorrow will not be the same as today.

2007-02-13T23:19:00.000+01:00

It's already the beginning of a new year but I didn't get the time yet to boost this blog with new posts and pics.

But, at least, I'd like to put one nice picture.

Amsterdam is a very beautiful city, indeed. However there is another amazing place, a very small town, which is also in my heart. Its name is Cassino. This is a picture of a water source in this wonderful city of South Italy.

If it ever happen you to pass through Cassino, please also take a look at the Terme Varroniane. They are 1000 years old.

a rainbow to begin

2006-12-09T23:55:00.000+01:00

Well, so, now, ehm, is..ohhh yes...this is the first important note I have to, I must write here: English is not my mother tongue!!!! That means basically two things: that although I'll always try to spell words and write concepts clearly and grammaticaly correct, at a certain point I'll be fed up and I won't check anymore and mistakes will arrive but keep on reading anyway ...please....second- yes, the second thing is that my mother tongue is Italian and at the moment I leave in a place where inhabitants mother tongue is neither Italian neither English, but Dutch. So me myself I'm getting quite confused at the moment...In other words, the second reason involving that English is not my mother tongue is that as an Italian native speaker I'll write loooooooooong sentences without rest, without fullstop points, without...just as you can think at the typical Italian way to express oneself without building up a beginning nor an end within the conversation, and using the HANDS to help to clearify what he/she is talking about...

so, this is my first post, and today I saw a rainbow, which for me is something special: and I love to feel happy for small things that can happen in the everyday life. Because for me they are the most precious.

By the way..the city is Amsterdam, and this is a rainbow on the Amstel in Oud Zuid neighborhood