Friday, November 14, 2008

Bad news

Dear readers, I love you all but one but I must disappoint you. I have a stalker (the reader I love not) and I'm going into hiding. I'll start another blog and I'll let you whom I know by word of mouth so that you can pass the word to your friends
I'll disable comments here so yours will disappear. Do not link this or my future blog from your websites - at least for some time.
I intended to start a political blog anyway so it will be more political than this one but there will be enough sarcasm, crazy cat lady and travel stuff, don't worry.
I admit, I may be a paranoiac but I've already had one stalker experience and it was awful so I decided to rather err on the safe side. I apologize for any inconveniences I've caused.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Information jnkie

I decided that it was the high time to actually do something.
Yesterday I talked to my paleography professor and promised her the darn ms. IV.H.10 NKP (1). Well, manuscript. It's digitalized but the free version just shows that the scanned pages are. Since profesoressa apparently never heard about manuscriptorium.com, I guessed that no institution in this goddamn town offers the paid access.
I thus mailed to the guy who stands behind the digitalization thing in the National Library (I know many people, you know) and I got an automatic response that he's elsewhere until November 11. Fine, I thought, he'll read it when he's back, I'll be in Prague the 20-ish, the bills have to be done before the 30th, time enough, no need to bother the manuscriptorium guy.
I came back today, for a lunch or something, to find a mail from the grant office that everything that has an evidence number has to be in evidence before November 15 with all the due paperwork. I uttered something inpublicable a and mailed the manuscriptorium guy to pretty please manage somehow, mailed the grant guy asking what is the due paperwork and how to manage it logistically from abroad, then mailed the director of the university library and discovered that it's Friday lunchtime, everybody is thinking of their weekend but for me who goes to school on Sundays.

Speaking of libraries, the Central National Library of Florence gives me creeps. It's not a library, it's a Shrine of Knowledge. I read somewhere that it was one of the first buildings in modern architecture history that was actually built as a public library. So, there are columns, various statues - I'll check for Muses and other paraphernalia when I feel like it (2). The online catalog is however awful and I disliked it ever since.
I went there to get some stuff. Found that the National has common catalog with Marucelliana, Riccardiana and probably something else and that my books are in a great part in the other libraries. Been to Riccardiana with the abovementioned professor DeRobertis for an excursion years ago, been to Laurenziana in the same way. To see manuscripts, not to function normally. Eeeeek. (3)
Wanted to get my books present in the building. Found out that the library card is not enough, that I have to have an ID which I do not carry around, the hell, because in any library I've been to the library card is good enough since it's issued based on an ID.
Went home to get some lunch, my passport and my paleography notes (have a class later).
Checked mail and started panicking due to the digital copy deadline.
On the bus, I knitted. I took my grey sweater with me, the lecture on Neoplatonism demonstrated in ...........................and now what's the name of the guy we've been discussing since the beginning of October? The burial chapel of cardinal Prince of Portugal, the hell. Why the name of Baccio Bandinelli appears in my head when it's someone who lived later and elsewhere? Bernardo Rosellino, heureca. Well, the lectures are tough and complicated and knitting keeps me awake. And, I need my 5mm needles to start the sweater for Susan i want to get done before I leave. so, I knitted and found out why la Nazionale irks me so much. They use OPAC as their cataloging software. I hate it. All normal libraries elsewhere use Aleph. I'll ask some librarian to explain the difference since I get only the irk factor of it.

Off to my pea soup, post office, paleography, library, early death of exhaustion and some food shopping.
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(1) ms. means manuscript. NKP stands for National Library in Prague. The rest is the shelf mark. Nerdy thing, no need to worry.
(2) When I'm not pissed at them.
(3) Social phobia, remember?

Just so - belated post.

Written some three days ago. Not published for unknown reason.


I've been somewhat lazy lately. Not actually lazy in the full sense of the word, rather unproductive. I followed too much of the U. S. presidential elections, browsed too much of eBay, read too much on the internetz or elsewhere. The results: no work done, too much money spent.

Speaking of eBay, some dearie seems to have sent my yarn to my other address (although I specifically ask them to disregard the PayPal address and mail the stuff to Italy all the time) so my mom freaked out that I'm getting mail from the U.S. and it may be something important, who the hell mails you from the U.S. and it must be important when they didn't just toss it in the mailbox and I have to go to the post office. I lied that it may be an early Christmas gift from a friend. Lying online is much easier than lying face to face although I've mastered even that due to some pecularities in my parents' personalities.

Speaking of eBay, I got two pairs of jeans that should be theoretically my size but are somewhat smaller. Damn. Just after I ran out of my hunger-surpressing pills.

*wanders off to put the cookie bag in the pantry*

Olga will resell them in case things don't change until I see her to retrieve the hidden yarn Jean sent me to her place (after my mom's great tantrum of September), I'm going to see her, get drunk and bring her the stuff of hers, such as the sweater from the previous post. I have not finished it yet, sleeves are almost redne but meantime I ripped the other sweater and I'm knitting from the yarn heaps on the floor which may not be moved and the Olga's sweater is just under them.

And, then the sweater for Susan and the mittens and cap for Elisabeth. I guess I need to go and work.