Toe's Place: July 2009

Senigallia and Beyond

I am visiting my relatives in Senigallia now: Luciana, my grandfather's cousin, her daughter Angela, and her husband Alfredo and daughter Francesca. Angela knows a little English but we both spend a lot of time using an English-Italian dictionary in order to find the right words. I'm learning a lot of Italian.

They are very nice people. Actually they're too nice; I feel guilty for all the time they are spending with me. Yesterday we went to Camerino, where Angela's grandmother, Anna, and her family had lived. We went to an old cemetery and saw her tomb. I am continually reminded of the key line from "Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens.

The East coast of Italy is more beautiful than Pisa and Florence, in my experience. There are a lot of mountains and rolling hills here.

One of Camerino's churches

This is where Angela's grandmother had lived.

A view of the countryside from Camerino.

Summer Course Finale

Last Thursday, July 9th, I finished my course. It was an ordeal, with a lot of long hours in the final stretch. I thought I came up with a good idea for the problem I was assigned, but I have mixed feelings about it now. Still, I learned a lot. We had students from many subjects: music, physics, mathematics, and philosophy. It was overwhelming at times. It will take me some time to think through all the things I heard.

Thursday night I presented my project at a poster session. The next day, we went to an old church in Pisa to celebrate.

Poster session at CNR

Church reception. Some of you may recognize the CEO of the company that gave the course.

Katarina from Serbia/Boston and Michael from Vienna. Katarina's project was the most interesting: composing music by evolving cellular automata. Cellular automata are simple algorithms that the company's CEO studied a few decades ago.

Church dinner. I felt strange having such good food and drink in front of paintings of the crucifixion. But the Resurrection and Ascension were shown on other walls.