By 16 o'clock I will have a dental implant stick in my mouth. Going to the dentist never scared me, but this time I am a bit worried (not too much anyway). Saturday it'll be a full day. I will have few minutes of free time from 10AM to 21PM. This is far more scary than the implant :p 

I can finally post again! The almighty Cyon has been working on a server move/improve/reinstall/recompile so we had a couple of days of downtime. This post is completely dedicated to him, to what he has done, is doing and will do for us. As Stu said, we owe him a lot of THANKS and a lot of MONEY. Unfortunately the latter, and maybe the one he would be more interested about, is lacking, so I will just stick with the BIG HUGE THANKS part. As what regards Uni, I am liking my new courses, the teachers, the subjects.

This is the end of a great day for me. I have been on stage 3 times today. No, I wasn't there to clean it, but to act! I was acting in a 3-acts-play that gave the setting to a local party. The acting group turned out to be a great group of friends. It is the end of something that last 3 months, but the feeling is just great (yes, I know it's the 3rd time I say "great", woops I did it again. Great!). A very satisfactory and self-improving experience I won't forget for long.

There is a pub here in Padua where you can have a pint of Guinness for 3.50 euros instead of 4.50 if it's thurdsay. Yesterday it was thrusday. I got some pints of Guinness. Veeeeeeery good.  My brother told me a friend of his in Scotland told him you need to get used to Guinness: you need to drink and drink it until you "get" it. I am still far in the path, mostly because I don't drink that much.

I kept studying Math 102 for the whole past week. The day before the oral exam a uni mate asks me why I didnt subscribe to the Physics 101 oral exam. I answered I kept studying Math 102. He invited me to join him and stay with him during the oral exam. I thought, "Why not? I’ll subscribe anyway and I will do my best to study as much as I can in the time remaining). 

I studied 2 hours that afternoon, and 1 hour while I was waiting for my turn at the exam. I had an average of 15 points from the written session. In Italy you pass the exam if you get 18 or more. I had no hope to pass the exam, I just went there to stay with my friend and to "see how it works", to be better prepared the next time. I got 20. I am happy and satisfied. No mourning about "if I studied more". One exam less.

... the dry and cold East wind sweeps away these barren moors, the moon is a big yellow plate in the sky, and everything looks so much closer ...

New priority task of the [year|month|life] as in the subject. Wondering how much money should you charge for a work? Check this proposal about fixing broken computers. I've just found through Findory an article at science.nasa.gov . What I liked most wasnt the article itself, but the possibility to listen to it. Unfortunately they havent equipped their site with a feed.

Yesterday it was my 20th birthday! And the funniest party I ever organized for my birthday is over. But I had a lot of fun both at my place during the first part of the evening and at a Laser-game during the second half. I was glad everyone enjoyed her stay and I had a lot of fun too. I usually dont like birthday parties ... expecially mines. But this one maybe changed my mind. Who knows? 

I have always been concerned about studying and teaching method. I sometimes felt the teaching method applied in my school (= in the Italian school) was (is) inadeguate. The target audience for the Italian teaching method is the Average. If your lesson's target is Average you have great probability you damage 2 so-callable "categories" (be aware I am just forcing terms now): the Stupids and the Clevers. Today I was randomly messing around with my newly installed Google Desktop. I had just did a search on my HD for "math pdf" when I clicked on the Google's Web tab. I mechanically opened the first result. I advice you to read it through. I think pages 13/14 summarize well the whole article. I wish I went to study in Japan. I wish I could apply that method to my studies. I'll try. [Scanning the result page, I also found a nice pdf called "The Wright Math"] This day I planned to study a lot. I didnt touch a book. On the other hand I fixed a lot of things in my house, but still I didnt study. Unfortunately when you do stuff, time goes faster. I am trying to focalize my python studies on wxPython. I guess it'll be my language of choice for any non-specifcally-web application requests instead of Java.

I have been chatting with a non-speaking/non-hearing (FIXME) girl for the whole evening. I learnt a lot of words, letters, fruits, months, days, colors, names of cities ... It was the first time for me, and I really enjoyed it. It's a little strange at the beginning, but after a while you start understanding that "what you are doing with hands" has a meaning for someone looking at you. I never spent such a long time, keeping silent even if I was in company of others speaking-hearing (FIXME) people. Thinking of it now, it's nice to see that there was an evolution during the evening: to make herself understood she used her cell phone to spell words we didnt catch at the first try, but after she taught us the alphabet, she didnt need her cell phone any more! Great! Today I have also been re-discovering the joy of studying. A feeling I was missing since 2001. My student life in this period has been just about "surviving". Now I changed my approach to it. It has become something more valuable for me. Good night.