Tuesday's Image

Things

Yes, I am still here! It's been a while since the last post on kleidarotrypa. I've been busy with things, you know, things...(another way to say 'I've been lazy')

Μεγάλη Τρίτη (Good Tuesday) today for the Orthodox Christians. I am getting ready for Easter, which as you know, I am going to spend in Leicester. I received the powder to dye the eggs on Thusday. It's the fourth (I think) time I am doing it, so I am particularly confident for the result (but, please, do keep your fingers crossed). I am looking forward, also, to check the weather forecast for Sunday. BBC has a five day forecast, so I need to wait until tomorrow. This will define whether I am doing a big barbecue with a lot of friends, or just a nice indoor lunch. Hopefully the weather will be just right for outdoors. Although we are not going to have a whole barbecued lamb, I have planned various goodies for the day. Cheesepie, pasta al forno, cakes, salads and of course barbecued meat. Looking forward!!!

I did the corrections to the Malta's paper, sent it to Ross to review it and I am sending it off on Friday...and I did not manage to resist to the opportunity to go to Paris; so I submitted an abstract to the ICHIM as well. Oh, by the way, I changed my website. Do have a look.

Next week we start our advanced dance lessons (10 lessons in this class). Another thing to look forward to. Speaking of things, we need to find two new housemates for the summer (at least) if we want to stay in this place. I like this house very much; I would hate to leave it, just for things like this.

Tuesday's Image

July 1993. Me and Nektarios in our first ever trench in the Agora of Pella. At last, your dream comes true, my old friend.

Tuesday's News

So, Cardinal Ratzinger is the new Pope, who will be known as Pope Benedict XVI. No surprise here; the bookmakers were having him and Cardinal Ruini as the favourites. If Jean Paul II was the first Pope with a globalised funeral, Benedict XVI is the first with a globalised election. It is amazing, though, how important moments like this seem so cheap, when seen from the globalised mass media (the same way that media gives away importance to cheap things).

I got the feedback from the Mobile Learning conference. They accepted the paper, which is excellent news...Well, then I calculated the cost of registering, flying, staying and attending the conference in Malta and my smile faded...Anyone willing to sponsor me?

Speaking of good news, today I had some excellent news: Nektarios and Michalis passed the exams for archaeologists and they were accepted in the Archaeological Service of Greece!!! I am very happy for you guys, many congratulations!

Now, I am supposed to be writing my thesis, aren't I? Why, then, am I flirting with more conference contributions? ICHIM or MobileHCI05? Or both? More importantly, do I have anything more to say?

Anna is in Durham for some AHRB training. Pia (the sister) is visiting us for the weekend, so this will be fun. Apart from that I am looking forward to watch tonight the next episode of Hustle; brilliant series. Don't miss it if you receive BBC One; at 9pm.

Tuesday's Image

The beauty behind glass

Cities & Signs 5

At last I finished the CIDOC paper. Anna reviewed it, I put the bibliography, formatted it, ready to be sent tomorrow, at the last dot of the deadline.

I was reading the other day the Invisible Cities of Italo Calvino. Here is one of my favourite extracts (nicked from http://www.documentedlife.com/quoted.htm)

Cities and Signs 5
'No one, wise Kublai, knows better than you that the city must never be confused with the words that describe it. And yet between the one and the other there is a connection. If I describe to you Olivia, a city rich in products and in profits, I can indicate its prosperity only by speaking of filigree palaces with fringed cushions on the seats by the mullioned windows. Beyond the screen of a patio, spinning jets water a lawn where a white peacock spreads its tail. But from these words you realize at once how Olivia is shrouded in a cloud of soot and grease that sticks to the houses, that in the brawling streets, the shifting trailers crush pedestrians against the walls. If I must speak to you of the inhabitants' industry, I speak of the saddlers' shops smelling of leather, of the women chattering as they weave raffia rugs, of the hanging canals whose cascades move the paddles of the mills; but the image these words evoke in your enlightened mind is of the mandrel set against the teeth of the lathe, an action repeated by thousands of hands thousands of times at the pace established for each shift. If I must explain to you how Olivia's spirit tends towards a free life and a refined civilization, I will tell you of ladies who glide at night in illuminated canoes between the banks of a green estuary; but it is only to remind you that on the outskirts where men and women land every evening like lines of sleepwalkers, there is always someone who bursts out laughing in the darkness, releasing the flow of jokes and sarcasm.

This perhaps you do not know: that to talk of Olivia, I could not use different words. If there really were an Olivia of mullioned windows and peacocks, of saddler and rug-weavers and canoes and estuaries, it would be a wretched, black, fly-ridden hole, and to describe it, I would have to fall back on the metaphors of soot, the creaking of wheels, repeated actions, sarcasm. Falsehood is never in words; it is in things'.

Fresh Connection

Another long day. I finished the review of Collection Management Systems for Museums and sent it. Maybe I should have kept it to see it with a 'fresh eye' tomorrow morning, but did I want to that? No, I didn't. One thing less for Friday.

I am into fish this period. I never bought fresh fish before, but now whenever I go to the supermarket I make sure I pay a visit to the fishery. For the moment I have tried salmon and sardines, but I am planning to expand my taste variety.

Was it today in any country/galaxy/universe a day related to maternity? I met on the street one of our department's lecturer who is pregnant; then one fellow student came in the office with fresh news that has recently become an aunty; and finally, one colleague from a museum e-mailed me that she is going on maternity leave soon. What was the universe trying to tell me? I wonder...

There is a rumour among new phd students that I hold the secrets of (the phd) life. This is the price of the phd getting older along with me. I wish I was again a fresher.

Cold, fresh, air sneeks from the (closed) windows encouraging me to take coverage for the night...

Fresh start tomorrow then...

Early coffees, Late thoughts

Today, I had a morning espresso at Piazza Cafe in the campus. Long time since I have heard the morning sounds of the campus. Mornings at the campus remind me the year of the Master. The then sense of exploration and discovery I smell in the moisture of the morning air. I may go back tomorrow as well...

The Leicester Spring School in New Media and the following UK Museums and the Web Conference are on their preparation, but this year I am not involved. It's good fun, but no fun time left these thesis' days...

The CIDOC paper is not yet ready; its introduction is though. I've just finished it and I like it (that's a change)...well I'd better like it anyway, it took me days to write it! Two days more...that's my current time estimation.

But, tomorrow is not one of the two. Tomorrow I am doing 'other' things...these other things that build my future, but delay my present. Tomorrow I am looking at documentation systems...

And let's not forget, tomorrow is our 5th (and last) dancing lesson. Last time we did well. We are really confident now in Foxtrot, we enjoy it very much; Merengue is ok, we still need to work on the rhythm. Walse, we have it, but synchronisation needs improvement. And Rock&Roll, well, that's another story...

I got an e-mail from Roy (old flatmate) from Trinidad. We used to make fun of the 'monumental' phrase 'They will all die', of the then Iraqui Minister of Information during the first days of the Iraq Wars II. Long time now, it does not bring me laugh anymore, but long face and sad thoughts.

Joyce has just signed in the MSN Messenger, which means that it is quite late here and quite early in Taiwan. Wednesday has just started for her, Tuesday hasn't yet finished for me.

So, let's call it a day.