The Intro: My Italian Gator Homies

When going to a new city, sometimes it helps to know some people already that remind you of home. Coming to Rome, I had my friend Vincenzo who worked at my Research Group in Gainesville as a familiar face. Going back to Florida is going to be very much like going to a new place. Nice thing is that I'll have plenty of familiar faces from Rome who can help the transition out. For all my friends in Jacksonville and Gainesville, this is a good thing for you, too. Just think...new friends (and friends who can cook Italian :) ). So I figured I'd give you a brief intro to all these people who'll be in Gainesville in the next year, in order of the time they'll be there.

So the first person who is pictured above is Anna. Anna is originally from Sicily and has actually been in Gainesville since about January. She actually already has her Ph.D and works in Sensors just like me and I think is contracted to work in Gainesville for a total of 2 years. She was one of the first people I met at Tor Vergata. We shared office space and when I didn't have internet connection yet on my comp, she always let me use her computer so I could communicate with people back home. One of the things I always remember Anna for is how she made sure I understood how to pronounce the double consonant in Italian for example the two "n"'s in her name. You see if you don't stress the double n it becomes Ana which is similar to the word ano which all you Italian speakers should know means ass.

"Yo check me out! I'm already a Gator"

The latest Gator is Francesco. Francesco is Roman through and through, living there all his life. Francesco actually arrived in Gainesville about a week ago and will be in there for about a year and a half working towards his Ph.D. He had already known he was coming to Gainesville for quite sometime now and not unlike many future UF students already had a bunch of Gator clothes. We actually have the same T-shirt, the Nike shirt that says simply "Orange and Blue" on the front. Mine is Orange and his is Blue. Luckily, we never wore it on the same day in Rome. I guess our situations are kind of similar with him being from Rome and me being from Florida. He has showed me a lot about Roman lifestyle (particularly how to talk in Roman slang) and I'm sure he'll be learning a lot about how to live life as a Floridian from me. Oh and most of the Italian recipes I know, I learned from him. He supposedly knows how to make Suppli. Yummy.

Next up is Danielle. I know it sounds like a girl name but in Italian, Danielle is the masculine form while Daniella is its feminine counterpart. Danielle is originally from Genova (in the north of Italy). For those of you wondering, Genova is also known for some quite good food, such as Pesto....mmmm. Believe it or not, Danielle is like 37. He's slated to leave for G-ville in July and will be there for about 2 years as a Ph.D researcher. Danielle is one of those guys that is simply brilliant. He can hold intelligent conversations about anything, particularly about traveling and culture. Ask my friends Nick and Danny. They have already had the pleasure of having one of those mind boggling conversations with him. Danielle is actually at this point not too excited about going to Gainesville. He kind of wishes he could have been put in a bigger city. I can't really blame him if he's used to places like Rome and Genova. I did tell him, "Dude, there are a lot of pretty girls in Gainesville". But he promptly reminded me that he was 37 and all of them would be a lot younger. I then responded "Sorry buddy, can't help you there". Oh one last thing. Danielle is one who commonly has a beer in the lab (which is totally ok here in Europe). He was shocked when I told him that it's usually frowned upon in the workplace in the US. Oh and I guess one more thing. Northern Italians are usually more purist about the Italian language, and Danielle doesn't like it when I talk in Roman :).

"Sorry Alessia. No Italian chest hair here."

Alessia is my buddy who comes from a nearby city (just outside of Rome) called Frascati. Ok, we should get this over with. Alessia is a Lazio fan. You see, Lazio is a bitter rival of AS Roma, who I of course (along with Francesco) root for. We won't hold that against her. Alessia is actually one of the newest Ph.D students in our research group in Rome, but she also did her Master's within the same group. She'll be coming to Gainesville about the same time I'm returning and she'll also probably spend about a year and a half there working towards her Ph.D. Alessia is kind of like the sweet girl next door type. She's almost always really positive and really cheerful. I recently discovered firsthand that she's pretty awesome at soccer too. I guess we'll have to be recruiting her for some intramural action.

Last but not least, is Emilianna. Emilianna is also from Frascati and happens to be almost attached at the hip with Alessia. The two of them actually grew up together. That probably explains why she is also a Lazio fan (blah). She'll only be in Gainesville for about 6 months on a Fulbright Scholarship. She actually had the choice of going to MIT but I think the fact Alessia was going to Florida influenced her a little too. I was also like "good luck trying to have more fun at MIT than at UF". I think that scared her off from MIT a lil...heh heh. I should first get this out there. Emilianna makes some outrageously good Tiramisu. Hopefully she can replicate that in Gainesville. Emilianna and Alessia have also already had a taste of life in Gainesville. After going to a conference in Chicago, they made a stop in Gainesville. When I asked her how was it, she preceded to tell me about all the clubs they went to and all the boys she met. I kind of just shook my head with a sarcastic disgust. Emilianna seemingly really likes it when Americans say things like "Exactly" or "Obviously". So she'll have me say those things and will giggle when I do say them.


So this last photo is simply a photo of who will most likely be my future roommates when I come back to Gainesville. All my old roommates (sad face) will be gone when I return. So it made a lot of sense to stay with the Italians. We still got to work out the kinks but it seems like it'll work out. I still very much want to keep learning Italian, so I was like "if we do live together....no English in the apartment". Anyways, that's about it. One great thing about having these friends over in Florida is that I hope I get to share a little bit of the culture I experienced with all of you out there reading this. Ciao for now!

The Rest of Berlin

Well I'm back from Berlin and now have a little time to write about it. I guess the first place is to start off is with the conference part of it. What I get to say is that I felt my presentation went really well. I think giving presentations is something that you just get better at as you do more of them. This was my 3rd presentation at a major conference and on top of that I've given presentations a lot in front of my research groups in Florida and Rome. I didn't think there would be too many people who were experts in my field at the talk so that took off a little pressure from me. For some reason I even just got more of a jolt of confidence. I reminded myself that this time last year I was leading praise and worship for Summer Crusade for Christ. This just means that I played guitar and led in the worship for our weekly meetings (all by myself). If anything I thought that that experience was the best in terms of prepping for presentations. I don't think I was ever more nervous than doing Praise and Worship. When it comes to Praise and Worship, Christians can be pretty critical. So I figured, if I can do that giving a scientific talk is no problem.

So I gave my talk and in a cool collected way and my talk was right on time (lasting 17 minutes just as requested). There weren't too many difficult questions asked, and when I was getting off the stage, this guy approached me and gave me his card. I realized he was an engineer from the Bosch company in the sensors division. That's a pretty well respected company in the engineering field if you didn't know. In my head, I was thinking "SWEET!". He requested that I send him a copy of my powerpoint (which means it must've been good). Although I told him it's unlikely that I will be able to, he told me to contact him anyways. So hopefully that will pay off once I actually do start looking for a job.

Being at the conference, I started to think ahead to life after grad school and academics. I've been losing some confidence in my ability to be a good researcher and have begun to wonder if I'm really cut out for this stuff. However, it was good to be around US students again who are in my same boat. I guess they reminded me that when it comes to that sort of thing, we are our own biggest critic. I did meet this one guy my age who has been working for an engineering company doing materials engineering stuff after getting a degree in Business. He explained to me at this stage of our lives, we can work in many places regardless of our background and even our successes. Our degrees just show that we have the ability to be trained and sometimes it takes the right connections to get ahead. That was quite eye opening. I guess it also gave me a lot confidence that many people even reminded me about how my time abroad will exemplify my ability to adjust to different situations.

The rest of my time in Berlin was spent just hanging out with some of the American students I met that were there on a special program. I honestly didn't see any sights. There were a group of Germany students who were also helping out with the conference so they offered to take us out to dinner one night. Oh it was good. We had plenty of beer and I ate this great dish of Pork with Potato Dumplings.

Berlin

I think this may be the first post that I've actually made outside of Rome. I'm currently in Berlin at a European Ceramics Society Conference. Ok that sounds nerdy, but just remind yourself that I'm in Berlin. Conferences are always cool...I mean they usually provide you a fair share of free food and booze (ok not really free considering that the registration fee for this one was 250 euro...I don't even want to think of the conversion). Anyways, at this point of my "academic career" I'm starting to run into the same people at these conferences. One person I didn't realize would be here also until a few weeks ago is my friend Vasana. Vasana and I have both done our undergraduate and graduate studies in the Materials Department at UF. She's a few years older than me, but having known her so long she's kind of become my Material's big sister. So being at this conference has kind of helped us reminisce about conferences past (they are all starting to blend in together). Before I left Rome for Berlin, Vasana sent me this picture that she took of me at an American Ceramics Society Conference in Baltimore almost 3 years ago. One of the crazy things about these conferences is seeing how some people in the scientific world dress up. For some reason this kid from Alfred University wore a purple head band everywhere (even in his dress clothes). Weird. I was like "Vasana, we have to take a picture of this guy". Since Vasana told me to get in the picture I had to attempt to make it a little funny.


I wasn't expecting too many Americans to be here at this conference but they are actually plenty. One of my professors (Vasana's advisor) is also here. It's kind of reassuring to know that many professors that I know here kind of understand and already know how my progress in research can be vastly different here than in the States. On another note, I'm really looking forward to giving my talk because (beyond my dashing good looks) I have the advantage that I'm a native english speaker. That should make my presentation just that extra more dapper.

"Bummed Out"

Well today is the last day for Francesco in the lab in Rome before he embarks on his American adventure in Gainesville. He seems really excited but at the same time I understand that it's a little difficult to say goodbye to everything that is familiar to you for a whole year. This includes saying goodbye to your family, friends, sights of your city, and simply the habits that you're used to. It reminded me of how I had to say goodbye to everyone last September. And even worse, it's making me think of how hard it's going to be to say goodbye to everyone when I leave Rome this upcoming September. For the last few weeks we've been talking up all the great things about Florida, particularly Gainesville and my hometown of Jacksonville. Francesco will be living with my old roommates, Tim and Ethan, for two months until I arrive and then we'll live together along with Alessia and Emilianna (more on them later). I'm really thankful for Ethan and Tim helping Francesco out, and I'm really glad that I can do a little bit to help Francesco transition to Florida life. Having some help with Rome definitely helped my experience along. Since my family has gotten to know Francesco really well, they are even really excited to have him in Florida. They are even already inviting Francesco to J-ville this weekend to go to the beach and stuff (I can't say that I'm not jealous).


I told Francesco that I didn't realize I'd be so "bummed out" that he was leaving. I had to explain that "bummed out" meant sad. I kept thinking that we'll see each other in two months and start hanging out again. One thing I didn't think about was how much more fun Rome was having someone from there showing you stuff around. And it again reminded me about leaving and how I'm kind of torn about having to go back to Florida. I told Francesco and some of the Italians that part of me wants to go back to Florida right now and another part of me can't imagine leaving Italy. When they asked which part doesn't want to leave Italy, I jokingly (and seriously) responded "my stomach". Anyhow, come Wednesday start looking out for Francesco in Gainesville and don't be afraid to give him a "What's Up?" or a "Ciao Bello".

Cultural Week in Rome

During the week of May 13-19, it was cultural week in many of the major cities around Italy. This included Florence, Naples, and Rome. During this week, most of the cities public museums and sites were open free of charge. This was really convenient because this was the week that my family was in town (again). So we got to go to many museums and sites such as the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, and the Capitoline Museum. All together, the normal entrance fee would cost around 18 euros. There were many other museums to go to, but we were kind of limited to time.

My favorite of this time was going to the Capitoline Museum atop the Capitoline Hill. This was one thing I hadn't gone to yet. This museum (which is the oldest in the world) housed the pieces of Michelangelo's large statue of Constantine (that's my sister smelling the foot) as well as the original She-Wolf which has been Rome's city symbol for quite some time now. The rest of the pictures can be seen on Flickr.