First with the head then with the heart

"The power of one" by Brice Courtenay is a book everyone should have in his/her MUST READ list: it's not just about growing up, it's not just about constant learning and challanges, it's not just about South Africa...

3 quotes from this masterpiece:

As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one that is molded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance.

I was a child of Africa, a white child to be sure, but nevertheless Africa's child. The black breasts that had suckled me and the dark hands that had bathed and rocked me had left me with a burden of obligation to resist the white power that would be the ultimate gift from those who now trained me.

"The music of Africa is too wild, too free, too accustomed to death for romance. Africa is too crude a stage for the small scratching of the violin, too majestic for the piano. Africa is only right for drums. The drum carries its rhythm but does not steal its music. Timpani is the background, the music of Africa is in the voices of the people. They are its instruments, more subtle, more beautiful, infinitely more noble than the scratching, thumping, banging, and blowing of brass and vellum, strings and keyboard."

Late wishes

I sent the email below (a New Year wishes email) last 1st of January to a special group of people: the Congress Committee of IC 2005, the conference we organized in India.

Somebody actually liked it: now it's time to share with everyone brave enough to read this blog from time to time...

Stop it!!

Seriously, stop it... how could you possibly wish me a 2006 better than 2005?!
You know what?.. I wish you something different...

I mean... look at my year just passed:
In 2005 I have been travelling in 10 countries and living in 3 of them; I discovered new cultures and new things I could never suspect... I visited places full of history and natural beauties... I have seen rich and poor living together... However I got depressed because sometime people just could not understand me, I got frustrated because things didn't work MY way, because the world is so unjust...

How many new friends can I count in 2005? Oh many... I met hundreds of people, wonderful people: I had enriching chats and learned so much from them all... and as it happens with every person I really care of, they also have irritated me and made me suffer... they are friends! Often it has been time to say "See you later" secretly hoping that isn't a goodbye... I miss them all...

Travelling and meeting people has made me revaluate once again the beauty of the place I come from, made me proud of it... The more I dream of travelling the more I miss home, my family and the friends I grew up with!

Love... I met some girls this year too: couple of them have been dismissed and have cried for me... couple have dismissed me, but I never cried for them! In some case platonic long distance relations have existed and maybe perished on the way... Oh, yeah, Love with capital L has baffled me this year... God knows how much pain that has saved me... and I know how much pain that has caused me!

In 2005 I saw my father crying: it was when I left home last time... I kept missing my sisters (for whom I would kill!) and thinking of the relation with my mother, to whom I wanted to be so close when she lost her brother... but why the other Love, the one that lasts a lifetime and after, is so difficult to express?

In 2005 I have changed work... from HR to Finance: so much learning, both so interesting... but I still wonder and worry what the heck I want to do in my future career!

I have been doing new activities, re-started old habits... I read new books... but I could have done more activities, read more... or I could have spent more time with people and real life rather than novels!

And, in an experience including almost the whole above, 56 people from all over the world, a huge project, and incredible country have been the outstanding event of my 2005!!

You see my point, I hope... how could you possibly wish me a better year for the one to come?!

You know what?... here is what 2006 should be all about: joy and sadness, challenges with solutions and problems without, love and suffering, decisions and regrets, laugh and tears, smiles and depression, learning and mistakes, kisses and slaps... anything, for better or for worse, which would simply make you feel alive...

Yeah, that's all I wish you!

Dead Nature

The visit of a nice, pretty and funny girl has been the highlight of my weekend.
Yat Wan has been travelling in Australia for 3 weeks and concluded her visit in Sydney from where she flew back to New Zealand... and on Saturday in Sydney she was, as I would say to her, lucky enough to meet me!!

There are places I've lived in less than 3 months but which I have shown around with more confidence: this time, strong of her previous short and only visit in Sydney back in May, Yat Wan was actually my cicerone: we walked the Darling Harbour, had a closer looked at the Opera House, performed on the street and at the museum (I liked contemporary art where the spectator becomes, as I did, part of the sculpture!)... We saw some photos show and quickly entered the Museum of New South West (the Australian's state with Sydney as capital)...

I found out that Still Life (kind of painting where you see a basket of fruit on the table) is known to me as Dead Nature... in fact, that's what you get if you literally translate from Italian to English.
So I did my small homework: the origins of Still Life are from the Italian Caravaggio... I have no clue who first named the style but Italian art was quite relevant at those times (back to 16th and 17th century)... probably earlier than English, Dead Nature was, I guess, translated in Dutch/German, maybe French... guess it took a while to get to the English version.

Anyway, I just like the idea of the strong contrast two language use to describe the same thing: dead vs life... I wonder how much of a culture meaning this small thing carries on it: are Italians more pessimists? Or realist?.. And why am I so fascinated particularly by this contrast of life and death? Ages ago I read "Pereira Declares" by Antonio Tabucchi were a simple, but still striking, concept was express: that death is the limit of life, and giving life a limit means giving it a meaning!
Well, back to some life: my Saturday night: the view from the Opera bar is one of the best you can get in Sydney... with Yat Wan and other people we spent a couple of hours there and then moved to another pub, where the live singer was too good to last enough (we actually got there too late!)... at 2am I sailed off and left a really good Saturday behind: in a few hours a sunburning morning was to be the frame of my re-starting of some tennis after years since last time I played!

Goal or Style?

New-year days mean 3 things to me... The first has grown of importance, I suspect, during my teen age: the New Year Eve celebration. The second is a new resolution: to keep track of my year's resolutions! The third is as old as me and its importance may decrease with the years passing by: my Birthday.

.Why shouldn't I start with telling you that the first of January 2006 was such an hot day in Sydney that deserved the title of hottest since 1939?!?!
Wow... what news... I bet you are all excited! Oh right... but ehy, that's my first New Year down under: let me enjoy the difference! By the way: it was 44 degrees: these Australian should come to Sicily more often during August!
But before this hot day quietly spent between movie and pub, it's the New Year Eve to deserve some more lines.

It took us around a couple of hours to cross the city and then the park to eventually end up in Cremorne point, a park on the edge of the water and an excellent point to watch the famous Sydney firework... without any countdown, I believe I have been into 2006 for around 10 seconds without even knowing that... eventually the firework started their show: it was the news I was into a new year, and the coloured lights paid back the long walk: they went on for around 10 mins, shot from 4 different points and all synchronized... wonderful show with the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in the midst of the scene!

After chatting and congratulating with everyone around (and after welcoming, this time with proper countdown, the New Year in Brisbane, which is one hour behind) we eventually moved to Alan's place where a party was supposed to be, and to my knowledge it may have happened... but it took us another two hours to reach the place walking through Sydney and trying to get into some crowed bus!
After spending some time there, the enlarge Bondi gang (including our German and French guests) moved back home and then to the beach: neither the swimming with the sunrise or the new year wait till early morning were new to me, but the combination of the two gave a wonderful conclusion to my New Year night!

.And here you go... New Year, new resolution... no that I had ever had one, but it's a good moment to start!
I believe this blog can help me to keep track of them: writing in here (and therefore potentially sharing them with the whole world) is already a commitment and a good push to fulfil them. I doubt in 2007 someone will come to me and ask "So how about your previous year resolutions?!" but what if it then happens?

1. Stay more in contact with my friends and family (those back to Sicily and those spread all over the world). How: make more use of the really cheap phone card to call from Australia to Europe; track down friends met in Switz, Estonia, India and others by asking other people and create a small database;
2. Take a decision for my career... what comes after GE? Will it still be Finance?
3. Do some volunteer work, something that could, even in small doses have a positive impact of less lucky people!
4. Keep doing sports as in the end of 2005! Rule: don't use the travelling/moving as an excuse for stopping!
5. Out of the box activities, at least 2 of them (Creative writing course and Salsa lessons)
6. Reading at least 12 books. Rules: think twice before choosing a book over a social event of any kind, (chose the book of life... bla, bla...)

That's should be all... for the moment at least... finding the true love and getting rich can't really get into the list... or can they?!

In Italy we say: those who will live, we'll see!..

.Birthdays are personal new years! You have your own number, which many have had before or will have soon or later... and even now there are plenty of people carrying that same number with them... but yours is yours: it's your age and it carries all you have been before and the whole made you that particular person with first, sadly short, 1 digit, much later aiming to 3 but in between 2 digits attached... mine are 2 and 7, in a row and in that order: I just turned 27 years old!

How old are you?.. 27.. This answer is on the past tense!!! Why? Why do we answer that question mentioning the years we have been completed? I'm 27: I have lived for 27 years, I have experienced 27 years of life... yeap, maybe experience is the key word... but how about, in my case for example, 28?! I just entered the 28th year of my life... How does that sound? Older? More mature? I'm about to discover what I'm going to learn in the 28th year of my life... does it sounds better? Hmm... too long answer, isn't: "Oh, and are you planning to stay drunk all year long?" is the question we could get back...

Oh right oh right... I have 27 years of experience, and I'm about to enjoy my 28th year of life!

And to start with that, for my birthday on Jan 2nd , I invited some people over... Ruth, my dear Australian mate I had met in India, came to Sydney for NY celebration and stayed at my place on the 1st Jan's night: she was the first to congratulate with me at midnight :) Thank you Ruth.
Then since she was leaving on the 2nd itself she invited some friends over as well... due to her departure schedule, her friends were at my place earlier in the afternoon, after my morning had spent between supermarket and preparing some appetizers...

I like meeting new people and I would consider myself no a shy person in most of the situations... but this time I had a bit of weird feeling: my birthday has always meant being surrounded by people I know fairly well if not too well: family and friends of my life in Sicily... I got a bit depress... but then more people started to come and by the time we moved to the beach, set up the net and started playing beach volley, my good mood was back and I really enjoyed such a different birthday with, more or less, new people in my life!.. Shouting, counting the points, trying to cheat and mainly having a lot of fun, we even managed to win the volley challenge that was, of course, turned (by the Losers!!) into a birthday present!

Among the people there, there were Ilker (referee), Geida, Alenka and Thomas (all in my team together with a Dutch guy!)... Kamila, Kasia, Sergey, Emy and one more Dutch guy on the other side of the net... Sid and Kunal enjoying the relaxing effect of laying on the sand and Jerry and his French guest Sophy playing rackets! Some people from AIESEC Sydney also showed up... Lucy brought me some cake on the beach... lovely!

Many left after the game, but ten of us eventually ended up in a really good Thai restaurant where also Rajat and Emma joined and I finally I got, after a speech delivered to the whole small restaurant and its guests, birthday candles... but without cake... earlier in the afternoon the cake Ruth had prepared for me was accompanied by a lighter to blow on... well, one thing at the time!

And here you go: new year, new age, new resolutions... coming to my mind is a quote I once read and then modified in perfect AIESEC branding style: Is happiness your life goal or your life style?