Super-Ego

Mid of July already! It's so hard to believe how fast days come and go without being noticed. I promise you, a while ago was summer 2004, and november 2004 was just yesterday. If time moves so fast, why not also my writing? Well, ok, let's not be too pessimistic. Writing has been gone well, since I decided to stop writing for others (conferences) and start writing for me (thesis). Having said that, I was accepted in ICHIM 2005 Selection sessions. This means that by 7th of August I need to send my full paper. Having to write 19 thousand words for my chapters 4 and 5 until 1st of August, the 3 thousand of ICHIM seem suddenly so few, yet equally demanding...

I have noticed that I have been blogging most about conferences, papers and chapters. I suppose because this is what my life is currently. Pretty boring you would say and I won't challenge that. Why does everyone else seem always to have a better life? A better Phd, a better work, a better house, a better vacation, and so on? Vaso was telling me the other day about Freud and the super-ego, that always tell us that we do not do enough, that there is always someone else that does better than us.

Watching yesterday 'Hide and Seek' on the computer, I realised better the small and large games that the mind plays. Sometimes then, the game is so powerful that the mind cannot distinguish between reality and game and the two are blurred into a different reality. Although doing a PhD is not a so intense transcendence into an imaginary world, nevertheless, it projects sometimes very vivid sensations.

From this point of view, I cannot blaim my super-ego that complains all the time: Some swim in a sea of untamed thoughts and ideas trying not to sink, and others just swim in beautiful blue water at a beach of a Greek island. It'd better be a good thesis, with minor changes, otherwise I will never forgive myself for not having proper holidays so many years...

Timing

Yes, I managed to submit Chapter 2 on time and, also, last Friday Chapter 3.

This gave me the privilege to take the weekend off. Valeria, a very good friend of Anna's and mine from Italy, visited us from Rome. We had a very nice time and today she left to go back to the eternal city.

Last week was probably the year's longer week: G8 concerts, G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Olympics 2012 award, the London attacks: everything packed in one week. London's attack created so many feelings and thoughts, but right now I feel drained from writing anything about it. There has been so much talking about it all these days, that there is nothing left to be said actually. Only sorrow.

Timing is everything. I wanted to write about two friends' vivas, but now they seem so old news. It is now more clear to me that blogging is more about the present tense than the past tense. It is about expressing feelings and thoughts while they are still on the surface. When they start to sink into the memory, they lose their spontaneity and they are no good for blogging.

I am amazed how Anne Galloway manages to produce all this writing almost every day, not to mention all the reading she does. I really enjoy reading her blog.

Tomorrow I am starting Chapter 4 and 5. This is going to be a tough one...