September 2003

Travelling India in Luxury… and Out

September 25, 2003

In 1998, I visited India twice. The first trip, around May I think, was to fulfill a promise made in 1996 to Woodstock School, that when they got Internet access I would come and help train the staff in using the Internet. Which I did, and it was both fun and funny, but that’s another story. [...]

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Scuola Guida: Learning to Drive in Italy

September 25, 2003

One side effect of living in Lecco is that I need to drive. Not so much to get around Lecco itself, nor even into Milan, but because our fourth family member, Hamish the horse, now lives in a place not easily reached by public transport. (Yes, there are buses, but they don’t run very often.) [...]

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Benares: The Distilled Essence of India

September 21, 2003

I spent the academic year 1985-86 in Benares, India’s holy city on the Ganges, on the University of Wisconsin’s study abroad program. I was the only one of the group of twelve students who had previously been to India, but I was wrong in thinking that that prepared me for Benares. Benares is the concentrated [...]

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Firefly: Joss Whedon’s Space Opera

September 21, 2003

If you never saw Joss Whedon‘s short-lived series “Firefly” when it was running on US television last fall, now’s your chance. It’s, um, well, hard to explain… a science-fiction western? It takes place 500 years in the future, in a universe populated only by human beings (so far as we know), just after a civil [...]

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Seeing Beauty

September 21, 2003

Even in Places Not Famous for It (Like Milan) Rossella started high school last week, she’s going to liceo artistico (art high school). Monday was the first day of regular classes, so they’re moving through the timetable and meeting their teachers one by one. For religion class they have a Catholic priest, who nonetheless explained that his class [...]

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Living in Italy Isn’t Everything

September 11, 2003

Many people would consider me to have the best of all possible worlds: I live in Italy, after all. In 1995, Adaptec bought Incat Systems, the small Italian software company I was working for, and I was part of the package. I wanted to become a regular employee of Adaptec, though at a distance, since [...]

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Pirating Music

September 11, 2003

“When I was a kid, we used to tape music off the radio. You never heard of record companies suing people for that.” New York Times, Sept 10, 2003 Okay, I admit it: I’ve been pirating music for a long time. The earliest copyright infringement I can recall perpetrating myself occurred in Bangladesh. I was [...]

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Alienation

September 11, 2003

It’s 4:00 am. I’ve been awake since 2:00, thinking, and writing didn’t quite get everything off my chest. It’s partly about the concept of “home.” I don’t have one, you see. Well, yes, I have the type that you live in, and a very nice one it is; I’m very happy in it. But I don’t [...]

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Changing Names: Italian Women Keep Their Own Upon Marriage

September 8, 2003

Women in Italy don’t change their names when they marry. In the US this is the norm; most women when they marry change their surname to their husband’s, and there are simple, routine procedures in place for them to do so. It’s so usual that Americans are confused if you don’t do it. Years ago [...]

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Another Rite of Passage Completed

September 8, 2003

Italian Middle School Exams The Italian education system is big on exams. Ross did pass her middle school exam, with a grade of Buono (on a scale of Ottimo, Distinto, Buono, Sufficiente, Insufficiente – outstanding, distinguished, good, sufficient, insufficient). This was better than I’d expected, since most of her grades this year have been merely [...]

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