e-mail and mobile

There are two things that, when you’re looking for a job, are able to keep on your mind: mobile phone and e-mail. Every morning I wake up with a hope, and the first move is to turn the phone on: maybe somebody is going to call me for an interview, for a job, for a work. Usually nothing happens, the phone is silent.
But then there’s the second tool, the second trick: internet. A short breakfast, and the mind is already there: switching on the laptop, there’s this new hope: to find the great words “1 new message”. Wow. Great emotions, with the most thrilling time during the slow downloading: maybe there’s something up, maybe someone is looking for me..
Usually nothing happens, the mail is empty.
Oooook.. I just have to wait, I know.. anyway, it’s frustrating.
But every morning there’s always the same hope, and we’ll never give up, man!

I'm back...

Last week, I got my final degree. So I’m sorry about this long absence from any blog (mine and yours), but I was a little busy for a while…
Anyway, I’m back, trying to keep it up, with my horrible English, my low-interesting papers, and, finally, my low-power scooter.
But this scooter, sometimes struggling, panting, gasping, will continue to ride the streets and the alleys of America. With a glimpse also to the rest of the World.

Sooooooo cute..

When the front page of the Newspaper in Washington is a picture of a baby panda, something is wrong, and not in your mind, but in the editor’s one.
A couple of months ago, I was just arrived in DC, and I remember that one morning, taking a look at the Washington Post, I was surprised to find a cub giant Panda as first large imagine: no wars, no Presidents, no shooting Vice-Presidents... I mean, it was interesting, and also if I think a little over highlighted, anyway it was an original piece of niews.
And for this baby panda, there was a great show: thousands of free tickets sold in 1 day, to satisfy the curiosity of children, guys, men.
After few days, I forgot about it.
But last Monday, reading the Washington Post, I couldn’t believe to read a story about the fallen in love Panda: the paper started with “I was at the drugstore […] when I noticed another shopper intently pawing through the ‘For that Special One’ section. […] It was Tai Shan, the National Zoo’s giant panda.” And then the writer was reporting about this Panda in love, with a sort of moving tale because it was in love with a married woman.
The classic impossible love, with the classic Panda evolved.
Hehehe. Fuck the Panda! Yesterday was my last day in DC: I went to the zoo (I’ve never been in a real zoo before, so I was curious to see…) and I saw the baby Panda. Far away, it was sleeping on a tree, and it didn’t take a move.
After 10 seconds, it was really boring.

NYC

Chinatown NYC. Noon. My bus, coming from Washington DC, stops there, getting off all the people arrived to look New York City.
And the first impact in Manhattan is pretty tough, specially if you’re coming from a country-city like DC uses to be, with all its opened spaces, small houses, grey monuments, quiet people.
In New York’s Chinatown you have been like thrown up in a anthill, with all its ants walking and running, buying peanuts and oranges at the market area with the speed of thieves.
And you’re in Manhattan, so you suppose to see something “American”, at least stores, markets, skyscrapers: nothing like that, you feel like a foreigner in your own country. Then you start to walk through Canal Street, with its large sidewalks, elbowing to pass through the crowding people that come from everywhere. And nobody speaks your language, neither Italian (but that’s right, you’re in US) nor English (and this is crap..), so the only way to speak is by hands..
Then, subway station: people everywhere, a crowd where everyone is alone, that is a paradox but is real. Black guys dancing hip-hop, musicians playing their instruments, and some old hobo alone, sitting on the floor. This is New York, crazy city with its wonderful spaces, skyscrapers, shops; and with its contradictory loneliness.

A steak is better than a burger. And a burger is better than a steak. But only with French fries.

This is going to be a very simple post, no claims. Just to write something important but easy, because freedom is as great as steaks, at the right moment… What’s life without freedom? And what’s life without steaks? I mean, it doesn’t make sense.
The best steak? T-bone, of course.. medium-rare grilled, red and pulpy at the same time, awesome.
Or the rib-eye steak, as famous as the previous one, but without the bone: only with a bit of salt, nothing more. Wonderful, moving I guess..
But you know, sometimes the steak is huge, and as expensive as large. And I’ve personally tried that sometimes big burgers can give you a lot of satisfactions. If you had a nice day, a steak is perfect, but if for any kind of reason you’re a little tired, or sad, or upset, doesn’t matter why, a burger can be, for a little time, a great friend.
Santa Fe BBQ large Burger: that’s the best, that’s great. With French fries, of course, because a burger without fries is like a child without the mom. Burger needs fries, and beer.
And when you’re having the first bite to the Burger, you get that the reality is for you, and that you’re for the reality: you’re for the burger. I think this is part of what Giussani calls “realism”, but I don’t wanna go too far.
This “trip” was enough, I guess.

Fool's gold

“Only medal for Bode is fool’s gold” This is the title of Washington Post after the Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. And the first rows are about the Nike advertisement “Join Bode.” Join him where? At the bar?
Poor Miller.. everybody teasing him, treating as a boozer only because during the races he got the gates on his legs, after a beer-friendly night. And also the Italian newspapers were having Bode on their front page, as the most gossiped VIP.
Someone says he was every night in a different pub, at a different party, with a different girl.
And then, tired of all his pains, he said, at an interview: “It’s been an awesome two weeks. I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level”.
To socialize at an Olympic level.. hehe what the hell does it mean?

Human Freedom vs. Academic Freedom

University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Maybe the most famous catholic university of America.
There’s a little bickering now, over a tough argument: is the “Vagina Monologues” moral, so to be ethically correct, and so to be played in the university, or not?
That’s the great question that is traveling the American university’s world, not only Notre Dame.
On one side, there’s the Church, that can’t agree about this subject, maybe too hot, maybe too immoral.
And on the other side, there’s that big cloudy word, so easily confused, or manipulated: FREEDOM.
And if the universities are free, if are a place of learning, a place of ideas, “a place where you can say what you want” (Washington Post, February 18th), and learn from what others say and what others think, would be perfectly right to show on the Vagina Monologues.
Poor freedom… if also here, in US, people are thinking that Freedom is “whatever you want”: so let’s yell “fuck the College!” or “fuck the president!”, that we are free.
And then, like happened in Italy last week, if a professor gives to her students a book about the national-socialism as a deepening instrument for history subject, she’ll be branded as a Nazi. So where’s freedom?
There’s no freedom without education. And there’s no education without a way. So, Vagina Monologues maybe is immoral, or moral, or whatever it is, but is unreasonable to show it on because universities are for freedom. With all due respect to Vagina Monologues, to ban it is not an un-free act, but is only reasonable and educating, so for freedom.