Change of plan

Change of plan

Yes, eventually I decided to go back to Italy to spend some weeks at home. In fact, not only was the research of the new accommodation unsuccessful, but it was further “flavored” by a series of frustrating events (I will write the details in a book, I swear!) which, added to the problems that I had already been experiencing, made me decide to take a period off.

In this sense, it was really providential to have sent an abstract to the European conference of the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE), to be held in Vienna at the beginning of September. I had sent the abstract in April, when I was not sure yet about my schedule after July. Indeed, I thought I would be very unlikely to participate, but the conference seemed really interesting and useful, so I said to myself: “Why not? Sending an abstract doesn’t take much; after all, you can never know…” And the funny thing is that no more than a couple of weeks ago I was about to write to the conference organizers to have them withdraw my paper that had been accepted in the meantime…

First of all, I will spend a week of holiday at home, and precisely in the mountains near my hometown, Bergamo. After all, I had a vague plan to take one week off in Berkeley around August or September, but I had no detailed plan and there was the concrete risk that I would end up with doing nothing at all… So, also considering all the hitches of this period, this is a good opportunity to spend some really appreciated days of relax.

The following week I am going to Rimini (located in the Italian Emilia-Romagna region) to take part in the “Meeting for friendship among peoples”, organized by Communion and Liberation, an Italian Catholic movement. This is a multi-event festival which features high-level debates concerning politics, economics, culture, and society. These are topics which interest me a lot and that I consider very useful for my training.

Before going to Vienna, I will spend a week working at FEEM. This will allow me to dedicate some time to the bureaucratic aspects of the project (which is often really demanding!) and to the project itself. I will also have the occasion to meet in person with Marco and Simone, the two students from the Polytechnic of Milan who have been developing their MSc final project on the same topics considered in MERCURY.

Bottom line, I will be back to the US in one month!

PS. I already have an agreement for the new accommodation from September onwards… hoping that this time I won’t have any bad surprises!

PPS. Here’s what you can find in the restrooms in Gatwick. I had already seen a similar thing in Stansted some years ago, so I might argue that it is typical of British airports: so, do Tic-Tac’s have “special” properties that are not very well known??“ 🙂

I’d say that this work, exposed in Gatwick and realized with paper sheets taken from magazines, undoubtedly deserves greater attention!

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