Staring at........

France, evening

.........at the toilet. This is how I spent my last night.
I came back home feeling very sick and in a couple of hours it went from bad to worse. I don't know if I got an intestinal flu or if I got a food intoxication. The result is that I spent my day today between the bathroom and laying in bed.....very exciting.

I called the doctor, because I can't leave home, as I would need to bring the toilet with me. She told me to take some medicament and let it pass........that was my plan, but I am not a very patient person, especially when I don't feel well...and now I also have fever (probably my body reacting to what it is going on inside).......

Awful night. I didn't eat anything in all day. Now I am going to try with some soup made it only of a bit of rice, water and onion for flavor......let's see how it goes....

I am definitively a wreak....

Save me from my neighbours!!!

France, evening

I spent the day (I am actually spending my weeks more than just a day) working on a presentation for a job interview....and the idea of risking to have another night without sleep makes me very anxious.

My neighbours must have a crazy life-style, totally incomprehensible to me, considering that when they have a party, they normally start not before 2.30-3am in the morning. What they do till then is unknown to me....I still can't get how someone can decide to have a party from 2.30-3am to 7-8 in the morning. Beside, they normally have the parties during the week, which means either they work on night shifts and not when they have the parties or they don't work at all....considering the French unemployment system, it seems the most probable explanation. However, I already wrote many times about having noisy neighbours. At least here, and here.

So, now I just read that if you use latex walls, this reduces a lot the noise coming from outside your apartment....should I call my landlady and propose it to her??? I don't think that she would be willing to take the walls of the apartment (and of course of the building too) down to just make me happy....I guess I have to find a way to just make my neighbours totally harmless....any suggestion on how to do that is very, very well appreciated!!!

This could explain something about me.....

France, morning

A few days ago I saw the movie Gladiator.

Parenthesis (Russell Crowe seems to have been born to play that role in the movie!!!).

While watching the movie I was thinking "wow, I am a descendant of the Romans...they have conquered half of the world. They were such an amazing culture". I a few words, I felt very proud of that...

Anyone who get to know a bit more about me, always wonder if I am 100% Italian, as I have some feature more typical of Asian people than of Italians, such as intolerance to alcohol (which makes me very sick) and allergy to cow milk products. One of my grandfather traced our roots back and even if it is true that apparently ages ago, one branch of my family lived in Venice (and so could have had some contact with Asian people thanks to the trips of Marco Polo), there was not clear explaination of where I got these considered not-Italian features from.

And then this morning I was just listening to a scientific podcast, like every sunday, when I heard the news that they found remaining of ancient Asian living during the Roman Empire in Italy........I can't help....I know that it may sound a bit weird, but anything to do with my ancestor and from where I come from, fascinated me immensely...so I like to speculate about it :-)

Is it really green what looks green?

France, evening

I just took a look at a cool graph published on the NewScientist on how "green" companies that we think as more or less "green" (in terms of good for the environment) actually are......so, if you live in the USA, you can really make a better choice when you buy something, if you want to support the "green economy"

PS. I have so much work to do in these weeks that I didn't have time to keep reading the book I started on greener economy.

A good day

France, evening

I have to say that when a lot of good things or nice news happen all at once, I can't believe that any of them happened for real.

I am just not used to have many good news, and two in a day certainly make it a big day. I am incredibly tired. I guess that feeling relieved that I can cross out some things from my "still in the process or to do list" resulted in me crashing a bit right now. It is only 7pm and I feel I could go straight to bed.....which I think I will do very soon.

My good news are all work news, something I was dealing with since either some years or some months. And I have to say that in the last months I had many good work news, after years of struggling and incredible misery. Nothing that would change my life, but some little good news that certainly improved my mood.

Today, when I got the first news, I was so happy that I even started dancing and jumping in the office, for the amusement of my office colleague. I couldn't restrain myself from being incredibly happy.

Sunday baking

France, morning

It is sunday. And on sunday when I have time, I love baking cakes or cookies. I bake them, taste a piece (or more), and then bring the rest to the office the next day for my colleagues (they all appreciate this a lot!!!!).

This morning I am making brownies. I got this recipe from a German friend of mine, who used to make them either with melted chocolate or with cacao powder. I prefer this second option. A tip from an inexpert chef who loves anyway baking cakes: use the non-sweetened Dutch cacao powder. It is the best for me!!!! I don't like chocolate, I never eat it. But I do love the smell of the Dutch cacao powder and if I prepare my brownies with that, I like them a lot even if they contains cacao....and I love how my apartment smells while I am baking them!

Here the recipe:

- 1 cup (100 gr) butter (I use margarine with no milk, as I am allergic to cow milk products)
- 2 cups (200 gr) sugar
- 2 teaspoon (about 4 gr) vanilla extract
- 4 big eggs
- 3/4 cup (75 gr) cacao powder
- 1 level teaspoon (about 2 gr) of baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 cup (100 gr) flour
- 1cup (100 gr) of chopped walnuts if you like

Heat the oven at 180C. Oil a square cake tin. Melt the butter (margarine) in a pot, and add while mixing sugar, vanilla extract, eggs one after the other. Add the cacao powder, the salt, baking powder and finally the flour and if you want the walnuts. Transfer the dough in the tin, and bake it 30-35 minutes (try with a toothpick if the brownies are ready and not still humid or uncooked inside). Let the brownies cool down, cut them into pieces, and serve it, for example with vanilla ice-cream (but I like them just "natural" without adding anything).

Enjoy them and let me know how they came out. I read that someone even adds instant coffee to the recipe, but I don't know how it works.....

Like an old lady

France, evening

My dinner tonight has been boiled vegetables with some melted cheese. The vegetables were over-boiled so that I could smash them well. Still, it took me more than an hour to eat my dinner, having to stop every few minutes in pain and to put a small piece of cotton back in the right place.

I have no idea how many small pieces of cotton I ate in the last days.
It is not even biological cotton.

But let me go back to where all began.
Last week I started to have tooth pain. I didn't give any consideration to it, till after two days the pain was so strong that I couldn't eat without feeling a sharp pain. I saw a dentist who said that I had an infection in one tooth. The conversation went more or less like that:

-Him: This tooth has been devitalized.
-Me: Yes. In Germany, a few years ago. I had a long surgery to the nerve and the bone around the nerve because there was an infection.
- Him: ah, the Germans.....they never clean the infections!
- Me: I think they did. The surgery lasted quite longtime and I never had any problem after that.
- Him: until now.
- Me: until now, yes. But this happened in 2004, so almost 6 years ago. If the infection was still there, it would have bothered me earlier.
- Him: the Germans are the only ones who never think about cleaning the infection in the tooth too.
- Me: whatever. Can we do something for it?
- Him: sure. Let me make a hole in the tooth, till the bone, so that the anaerobic bacteria will die. If you get fever or your cheek starts to swell, then get an anti-inflammatory and an antibiotic. Otherwise, we meet in a week from now. If you eat, put some small piece of cotton to close the hole in the tooth and remove it after eating.

This is how it went. So, the Germans, who based on my experience are careful in anything they do, turned out according to my dentist to be much less careful than the French........OF COURSE!!! For a moment I forgot the French Dogma:

FRENCH ALWAYS DO IT BETTER!

Even when it comes to dentist, apparently.

Anyway. Have you ever tried to eat with a piece of cotton in one of your teeth? it keeps falling. And if you are like me, by the end of the meal you probably ingested at least two or three pieces of cotton. All this (putting the cotton in the hole in your tooth and putting the cotton back when after a few seconds after you started to eat it falls out of place) is especially unpleasant when you are eating with other people. Of course, my social life is generally flat, but exactly in this moment, I had plenty of invitations for dinners and lunches.
I have to admit that I felt quite embarrassed.
But no fever or swollen cheek.

Things were starting to get better and I was already dreaming of being able to eat properly again and being able to bite things without needing a cotton replacement every few seconds, when today I felt a strong pain again in my tooth and in my head too. Fortunately, the super-French dentist received me at the end of the afternoon.
He did something to fix the problem and when I almost vomited for the disgusting thing that he put in my mouth he said:

-There is nothing better than injecting some bleach into the place where the infection is.

-Me: did you say bleach? In my mouth? so is this thing that I am swallowing now with my saliva a bleach.......????

-Him: Everyone cures infections like that. Of course, not the Germans.

Right....not the Germans......and maybe there is a reason for that.....Now I am going to have a very white throat, teeth (that would be nice), and stomach. Lovely!

Anyway, back to long lasting dinners with soft food and a lot of cotton pieces digested. Plus, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory. French, Germans.....I don't really care who is doing things better at this point....

CAN JUST THIS INFECTION GO AWAY SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO FEEL LIKE AN OLD LADY ALREADY?????

Fortunately, I love completely destroyed/wet cookies in my tea or coffee....that is perfect now (I can see the faces of at least two people who were going like "uhhhh, disgusting!" every time they would see me doing that :-))

PS. While looking for images of old ladies on google, I got on the blog from where I took the image that you can see with this post. Check out this blog. It has a lot of very nice sketches.

Dancing routine

France, morning

I love the week end. I especially love it because I can indulge in doing absolutely only what I feel like according to my own time.
This includes, almost every saturday and sunday, a bit of dancing/jumping around. I am 100% sure that the old guy who lives in front of me finds this habit very amusing, considering that from his windows he can easily watch into my apartment and that I am jumping around looking totally crazy and shaking my butt as much as I can. I am not sure that it works well as a workout, but for sure it makes my heart going like crazy and it makes my mood, whatever it is, improving a lot.

Lately my jumping/dancing play list includes:

- B. Spears- womanizer 3:44 minutes
- Madonna- celebration 3:35 minutes
- Ke$ha- Tik Tok 3:20 minutes
- Shakira- La Tortura 3:12 minutes
- Dr. Dre & Snoop- still D. R. E. 4:35 minutes
- Editors- Papillon 5:24 minutes

after that shower and I am ready to go out and face the world! Try it, there are no rules, just move and shake well. If you know any other good tune that would work well, let me know!

Never find a man like him

France, night

I hope that none will ever experience meeting and being with a man like Gregory Anton. Who is Gregory Anton? one of the main characters of the movie Gaslight. A character able to play with the mind of Paula, a great frightened Ingrid Bergman.

I have always been very, very afraid of mentally abusive men. I always thought that mentally abusive men are very difficult to spot, especially at first. I fortunately never met someone like the main character of this movie, but I did meet abusive men, two at least. Those kind of men who need to make you feel so little and so wrong in anything you do, that you start to wonder how you could have lived so far doing and thinking so many wrong things. And before you can realize, you think what they think, even better, if they can, when someone ask you something, they will answer for you. When you have a decision to take, they will take it for you. Again, fortunately none of the men who played a role in my life have been so bad as this Gregory, but I do know that there are insecure men out there who would turn to be mentally abusive with someone who would let them doing so because she is in love.

This kind of man scares me a lot, because it makes you feel (or at least it made me feel) that you don't know anymore where it is up and where it is down, what it is right and what it is wrong. And one of the things this kind of man would say often would be that what they say to you or suggest you to do, or push you to do, it is for your own good........................and unfortunately, this kind of man can be pretty convincing, especially if you are close to him.

I had someone in my life, a man, very close to me telling me that I was mad and trying to convince me that I was going out of my mind.
And I had a man in my life, actually my first serious relationship, for whom anything I was doing, saying or thinking was a sign that I was a whore. Both cases affected me a lot. And I can say that in this second case, he brainwashed me so much, or at least he tried so hard, that I was afraid of dancing or talking to any guy or having fun when he was around to avoid him to get angry at me and tell me all those things.

It took me quite long after my first relationship to be able to have any confidence and trust in a man again. Fortunately, from that experience on I only had in my life wonderful men, even if unfortunately things didn't work out anyway. But I keep well in my mind the memory of how I can allow people I love to mentally abuse of me, to avoid that something like that could happen again.

are we really so much happier???

France, evening

I went to a doctor this morning. For my new contract I have to get checked by a physician. I know the doctor since a year and half by now, and she has been very helpful during all the story of my arsenic intoxication. Anyway, we were chatting and she told me that a few days ago, she had a patient like me: foreigner, around my age (34), far from her family and long term friends, with a short term contract, who keeps moving from one place to the other to hopefully find some kind of stability and keep doing scientific research. The doctor asked me how we manage to not collapse and get crazy. I easily answered her that I don't know about this girl, but I am quite sick of this life and that if it was not because I like what I am doing so much, I would seriously think of changing to find something else (not that it would be easy with such a specific skills like mine).

Again, as I wrote already, I like my work and I generally like my life. I traveled a lot, lived in a lot of cool places, seeing many things, done a lot of cool other things, etc. What I have every year more and more difficulties to deal with is the instability in any single part of my life. Apparently this girl had the same problem, since she got into a depression. And I know many other scientists with a temporary contract, especially the ones who find themselves living in a foreign country, experiencing depression at a certain point of their lives because of all this instability. To make short what it could be too long, our situation is to pass from one short contract to another short contract or a grant till the day we hopefully get a permanent position. However, since there are not that many permanent positions, someone is going for sure to be left out and everyone in this business is aware of that. How to try to not be one of those left out? working like crazy, forgetting the meaning of week ends, holidays, etc. On top of this, if you add that in some countries, like Italy, it is almost impossible to find a job in a fair way (read without knowing someone who knows someone, who knows someone else who is very very important in the system), you have an even clearer picture. Let's add the fact that if you are a woman, and you have passed your 30th, it is not a good idea to hire you, because probably once you will have that permanent position that you were waiting for, you will start to procreate or around those lines.

I got a job interview this summer for a permanent position. One of the guy in the commission asked me if I was married, if I was living with someone, etc. Of course, he was technically not allowed to ask me that. But he did it anyway.

Consequence of this type of life is that either you find someone who doesn't mind to follow you during all the movements from one country to another to gain more experience or go where the funds to keep working are (and this if you are a woman let me tell you is very, very difficult to happen, as men often expect a woman to invest on them and not on the other way around), or you try the long distance relationship (which after a while can became a nightmare because all what the relationship is based on became an idea of a future together and long talks in the present, but very little of anything else), or you just decide to stay alone till the day you will settle in some place (which may happen when you are around 40), or you decide that since you will very likely end up suffering becoming attached to people and things since you probably will have to move again, you may just have fun trying out different guys that you may like and not allowing yourself to actually feel any bond to anything and anyone.

I have met any kind of the above mentioned people and none of them for one reason or the other is happy. If someone invest everything on you and then he is not happy too, you will feel always responsible. Distance relationship, especially for long time are just a nightmare for me, more painful than anything else. Not getting attached to anything and anyone may be ok for a while, but at the end makes you feel very lonely.

Why did I get into this kind of thinking today? for various reasons. The chat I had with the doctor, some of the people I spoke to in these days, and a book I started to read. The title is "deep economy" by Bill McKibben. I just started, so I can't write too much about it. But the point is that we live in a society based on growth, and income, and while this some time ago helped us to have a better life, now these same things do not necessarily make us happier. The economy is based on what "produces" and so people have to adapt to do something useful and that would give the highest production in the shorter time as possible, in a way to have a good profit. This fact doesn't take into account a lot of other small things that we would need (for sure I do) in our daily life.

For me there is not such a thing as valuable as family and friends close by, the possibility to have green spaces (and not artificially made green spaces) to walk or bike around, the chances to grow my own vegetables (even if for sure I would kill all of them considering that I am not able to keep any plant)....I am very much for small daily things. I loved the familiar nucleus in which I grew up for example, with grandparents, parents, parents of my friends, friends, relatives etc. all being part of my life. Instead, now everyone has to be scattered around to increase the chances to find a job, which would allow to possibly have a decent life.

Does all this growing makes the quality of our lives better? I don't think so. Of course, our life style is better than in other countries, where people are actually poor. But when I was a child we were not poor, but we were not rich either, we were part of that middle class that now is disappearing. We had less material things that I could have now, but for sure life looked simpler (maybe also because I was looking at it as a child....)....

Anyway, I will keep posting about the book, as it is a topic that really interests me. Any thought is more than welcomed!!!

First day of school

France, morning

I can't remember how I felt the first day of school. For sure I was not too happy and for sure I was a bit nervous...at least.
I feel the same today. It is not my first day of school, of course, but it is my first day under a new contract and a new boss. Why is this that different from the past? Because until today I always had a very precious thing characterizing my work: INDEPENDENCE! which I love.

Independence to work on what I like, on a project that I wrote and thought and for which I found the money. Now, I will be working on something someone else designed, about which I know nothing and he will pay me for that. Of course, it is in some way less stressful, but I value independence a lot and I consider it one of the best parts of my work. It doesn't matter how much I have to work (well, lately it matters more to me), if it is me to decide. Until now, I liked to sleep in in the morning to get to work not before 10- 10.30am. None had anything to say. This morning I had to put an alarm to get there at a decent time.....I hate alarms.

Of course, most people have a normal job, with a normal daily schedule, for which they get paid by someone else. But my work, until now, has been different and I feel this as a big change. I really hope to like what I will work on. My future, actually current, boss fortunately seems very very good and very very nice.

My mom told me that on my first day of school, my father walked with me to the school.....today I am alone, but still quite nervous :-(

Cool science

France, morning

I was just listening to the 60-second Science podcast and I heard the news that two students of a New York High College, together with other scientists, used DNA techniques to test the food composition and food labeling. They tested 100 food and found 11 cases of food infringement in food labeling. They found cow milk in a cheese labeled as pure sheep milk, while caviar was instead constituted of cheap fish eggs. Which means....never fully believe what it is written on a food package, unfortunately.....which of course could be dangerous if you have a food allergy, as in my case I would get sick eating a labeled sheep cheese actually made only with cow milk......

The other cool news that I heard is about using or not running shoes for running. The scientists found that running shoes increase the pressure on hips, ankles and knees, more than high heels do while walking. Basically, if the pavement would be cleaner than it is (here is France is covered with dog shit and crashed glass bottles almost everywhere), it would be better for our joints to run barefoot......so, the sandy beaches could be an ideal place to hit for a run.

A tea and a chat

France, afternoon

After surviving a snow storm in Germany (I got back on thursday from Frankfurt) and getting back home in France, I got a bit of homesick feeling, after almost a month spent in Italy with family and close friends.

So today, before going food shopping and to Ikea, I sent a sms to a friend if she wanted to meet for a tea and to catch up. We met and sat in the sun at a cafe', drinking tea and chatting for hours, till it got too cold to stay outside. It was nice and it made me feel a connection with here again. She is quite different than me, but she is very open mind and she has traveled around the world because of her work (and lived in many different places) like me, so in some way, it was easier for me to bond with her than with other people I met since I moved here. I like to be alone and I am very independent. I don't mind doing my things and doing things I like alone. But sometimes I really need a contact with the outside world that goes beyond the "bonjour" or "bonsoir" that I can say to the lady at the cash-register when I go food shopping. Drinking tea with a friend for me is relaxing, highly enjoyable, and therapeutic when I start to feel a bit blue.......

People to whom you can connect to make a very big difference in my life when I move to a new place. They can make a difference between having a crap time where I am or enjoying the place where I get to live. So, I am very happy that I have met her a few months ago.

P.S. Yesterday I went again for a tea and a chat with a kind of family relative who lives here and I didn't manage to meet in a long time. Again, it was very nice and very enjoyable. And I tried a very good green tea. It had ginger in there....very good!!! I am not a tea-freak, not a tea-connoisseur, but I like tea (including herbal tea) a lot and I like to try different tea types. Today I just got a plain Jasmine tea.

Si chiude una porta, si apre un portone

Italy, night

I am not sure from where to start...My month is Italy is almost over, and I am trying to psychologically get ready to go back to France. I love living there, but it is never like being at home here in Italy where I grew up, where I can always be pampered by my mom (no comparison in having a flu alone in France, or here at my mom's place :-)), and where I have all my old time friends, the same since I was little. It feels like I can't fall, and even if I do fall, nothing bad is going to happen to me. It is comfortable, and this time I really recharged my batteries here. So, I guess going back home to France will be not easy, especially because the day after I will get there, I will have to leave again for Frankfurt....I would need to hide in my bed with a book to just get comfortable there again....But I will survive, as always, and I will get used to the different life style again. Not better, not worst, just different.

In Italy we say "quando si chiude una porta, si apre un portone", which translates to "when a door closes, a gate opens"......I am someone who doesn't care about the bigger door or gate that can open, if I like the small door that just closed. I never want to close a door. Every door that closes in my life, takes away a part of me. Closing doors can be a lot of different things, places where I have been living, apartments that I loved and had to leave, friends that I left in other countries, people who meant a lot to me who decided to follow their ways without me. It takes me very long time to cope with the changes.

Everyone who knows me thinks that because I travel all the time, because I have been living in so many different places, and started my life over so many times, I can easily adapt. But the older I get, the more attached I became to things, and I have always been very attached to the people who mean something in my life. So, when I have to leave or someone leaves me, it breaks my heart every time.

But I never had to experience what I experienced in the last months. Seeing someone who means immensely to me who not only decided to leave me and my life, but also slowly decided over the past months that there is nothing more worth to fight for, that there is nothing more to dream of, that there is nothing for which to smile again. This person broke my heart not only by deciding to leave my life, which at the end one way or the other I would accept for his happiness, but he did it much more by slowly destroying the person I adore so much and that he was.

The causes of his decision are too long to be explained here, and I understand the frustration and fear of having health problems and not being able to know what it is going on, after months spent seeing doctors and taking different analyses. I understand the anger, the feeling that life can be very unfair sometimes, the feeling of loneliness. I understand all this. And I understand that being far from him, I may not be the best person to support him, that my independent character is not ideal for someone who would need more attentions than if things were normal, I understand the reasons for desiring some distance from me, but what I can't stand and witness and breaks my heart is to see him falling into a deep dark hole every day more and more.
I never experienced the sense of impotence that I am experiencing now. I can listen to him, but I can't actually do anything, because he wouldn't listen to me, and he doesn't see a reason to react.

Every day when I wake up, I think of the person he was and I miss him. I miss his laughs and his smile. Because when I talk to him, all these wonderful things are replaced by sadness and lack of any hope for the present and the future. And it hurts me to see every day passing by without any improvement. I deal very very badly with other people's sufferance, especially if who is suffering is someone important to me. My first reaction is to escape, which I know doesn't help anyone, especially the person who is suffering and feels left alone. But after my first instinct, I force myself to try my best to be there, to offer my help.

I always thought that you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved, and in this case it is especially painful, because not only I feel that I don't help at all, no matter how much I try, but I also feel that he stopped to consider me as the person I am long time ago, seeing me now, depending on his mood, more as someone who could take him out of the place where is falling into or as someone who could have helped him, but decided to not do so. In both case, he makes me feel incredibly responsible of his situation, which I don't think it is fair to anyone. Furthermore, none else of the ones close to him can do anything at all, because he just doesn't listen to anyone. Again, maybe I am made in the wrong way, but I feel that I can help as much as I can if I see that he is fighting to get back in mental shape again.

Not really a topic for a week end, but it is now four months that I am living this, and it is four months that any single day I hope that it would be a better day for him, and I realized that I am living in a dream world, as I often do, and that the reality is different than my dreams.
However, when a friend of mine today, after seeing me getting every day more and more sad and worried for this person, told me as a joke (quite crappy I have to say) that maybe now that he left my life I can start to live again, I could only feel the loss and think of all the nice things I shared with him. Sometimes they are really the little things that make someone so special to me and to my life.

Cheer up mood

Italy, evening

When I am not in my best mood there are two things that work perfectly to cheer me up. One is "doing a bit of boarding", which means standing trying to keep the balance on a wood board, like you would do if you were surfing. This is so challenging that makes me forgetting for a minute about my worries or anything that made me sad.

The other thing of course, as I wrote it hundred of times probably (if not more), is dancing like crazy. What I am doing is not actually a real dance, it is more of a mixture of jumping around with the music pumping in my hears like crazy (no worries for the neighbors, I normally use my IPod, maybe worry for my hears...) with here and there some dance moves. I dance so fast and so much in a crazy way, that again, I have no time to think.....

I suggest one of these two therapies to anyone who is a bit down.

And even if I don't like Britney Spears, Womanizer is great for shaking my butt like crazy....