we are so back
okay, i skipped some months. but we're back now.
it's a little bit funny that i'm getting back to blogging in the fall (almost 1year after my first blog entry??), but it's also innate in fall's nature (or my perception of it, at least). i never feel as inspired as i do in the fall, when i know i should be studying and/or nostalgically looking out my window like an old maid, and the inherent gloom that months like october and november carry with them always gets me in the mood to write (i have the affliction my mother would say most artists (though i obviously am not one) carry - that of binding my writing to my suffering) (which is a fancy way to say that i am full of words for turmoil, but have none for peace (but, at the end of the day, isn't peace kind of like being at a loss for words ?)).
so, since i haven't written in a while, this won't be a post about the interesting things i discovered, but more about some of the things that are living in my mind these days.
knowledge!! (vienna ?)
the theme for this period of my life is definitely curiosity. uni has started again (along with my ache to know things), and i've made so many cool knowledge-related discoveries.
the first and most important propeller for my curiosity has been my search for a university to do my master's at. my friends and i have been looking for places outside of italy, and i stumbled upon TU Wien. it was my second choice for the erasmus i'm technically supposed to be doing right now (except i refused it twice), but i had kind of forgotten about it. big mistake!! i discovered their "logics and computability" (now called "logics and ai" (lame)) course, and it sounds, bluntly, so fucking fire.
its curriculum has led me to consider so many aspects and fields of computer science i had never had the chance to and that i think i could absolutely love (wth are nonstandard deduction systems?? knowledge representation??? neurosymbolic reasoning ? automated deduction??), and, absurdly, it has been the catalyst to a series of events that have defined the last month of my life.
amongst the many, after / thanks to my finding out about it, i:
- had the chance to have extremely useful conversations about academia (one of my favourite topics), research in italy, vienna, tu wien itself (!!!) and more
- could appreciate a presentation for a paper that one of my professors organised with a friend of his out of the blue and which crazily mentioned concepts i was looking at just the day before (this paper) (i need to read the actual thing sooner or later)
- have found a lot of interesting material i'm excited to delve into (i have, at this point, read at least two introductions/first chapters of knowledge representation and formal methods books)
- am getting closer to finding a supervisor for my thesis ? (aaaaa) (by which i mean that i got from having absolutely no idea to having absolutely no idea, but in a more channeled way)
it's a huge step for my personal responsibility, too - deciding that this is what i want to do, and actually doing it. being ready to find a job, to leave everything behind to go someplace else. to walk new streets and speak new tongues, to find new bookstores to hide in when caught in the rain, new rooms to cram lectures in before a big exam. (to get lost swaying around brand new lampposts listening to the same old music). but it's a step i feel like i've been waiting for forever.
i still haven't fully processed the idea that i might be leaving (and i don't need to yet), and there are many aspects of myself that i'm probably not ready to let go of, but i've been feeling, like never before, like the life ahead of me is full of possibilities. and i can't wait to take advantage of them.
uni !
parallel to my looking forward to new courses for my master's, there's the fact that i've started the third year of my bachelor's degree! (finally getting to pick the courses !)
exploring new potentially interesting subjects has been very stimulating, and finally being able to steer my degree towards a more me-like shape has given me a chance to really think about how i view computer science. amongst the very cool courses i'm taking (shoutout mathematical logic that i got from the maths department), there's a small gem that i am the most excited to be following. it's this semantics-of-programming-languages-and-also-their-algebraic-foundations-sorta-?? course (succintly called "programming languages") that i had already spotted last year and knew i would love, and that i managed to sneak into the study plans of most of my friends despite their initial whining.
the thing about this course is not inherently its content (which i do find very very interesting and would love to know more about!!), but the wide-ranging mentions of related topics and fields that come up during the lectures. from category theory to epistemic logic to logical frameworks (to how recycling is used as a green-washing gimmick ?), the professor holding the lectures (whom i have decided that i want to become at 60 - if by then i'm not a messy shoulder-bag-wearing, in-his-own-world-man who doesn't believe in instant communication, please unplug my cables) is exactly the type i think unis should be full of: clearly passionate about his field (which is my favourite thing in the world, i could listen to passionate people talk about their fields forever), a little bit crazy, and throwing references and potentially interesting concepts around!! i think that academia could absolutely benefit from getting messier, and that if all professors could talk a little bit about the things they care about, not only would their lessons become twice as engaging, but maybe they'd be a lot more satisfied.
overall, this has been a period of intense interest towards so many things and of big discoveries, and i hope i'll be able keep my curiosity as up as it is right now, even if it might mean running a little behind on some coursework.
music !!
i discovered A LOT of interesting music since the last time i posted on here. i would really really like to be able to talk about all of it in depth, but i'm going to stick to the things that resonate with the recent me. hopefully i'll get more consistent with the blog and won't need to catch up on these many months of music again.moodiness, or two playlists i love
this summer (on the same day, actually, july 24th), i made two of my favourite playlists ever: "you are raining in" and "ripples on a blank shore". though they have different vibes, in my head (probably because of the birthday they share) they exist in relation to each other. in some way, they represent a sort of duality of moodiness.
"you are raining in" is getting on a bus late at night, looking through the window at the road that leads you back to the hometown you left behind you years ago and never hoped to see again. it's realising you're imperfect and always will be, the tension between the comfort of falling back into old patterns and the frustration of the empty hope of being capable of saving yourself. it's dark-toned music, guitars and drawn-out voices.
on the other hand, "ripples on a blank shore" is the call of the eerily unknown. it's standing in a field just outside of rotterdam, mist gathering on your glasses, nothing but green and grey in sight. it's abandoning yourself to the noises and the flow of life running circles around you, getting high off being aware of just how unaware you are. it's men whining in high-pitched voices, repeating words like mantras to a madman while the everything crumbles down. it's the yellow-white light scattered by shards of an old window.
they're both playlists i keep coming back to, and it's as if i had made them just yesterday. also, they're very inspired by my discovery of panchiko! this year i got more into shoegaze-ish bands, and i am extremely grateful to spotify for recommending them to me. i love the way they became known (and think it's extremely fitting for their music), and "Florida", "Ginkgo", and "Until i know" are now amongst some of my favourite songs.
some other feelings i felt and wanted to capture:
- excited about the world, getting home feet hurting drunk off laughs and yet surprisingly lucid in a city with lights that bleed and stars that shine twice as bright, remembering that you are alive and yourself is a great place to get lost in
- resigned, mourning the loss of something that's still in your hands, smiling wistfully at the warmth of an old memory you know will fade soon - 'i was only falling in love'
- (this month in songs) an october that feels like november, angry french spoken word and running behind on your coursework even though it has barely started, but still stopping to get a donut and a look at the sky (fiore mio fiore della mia anima) (i'm moving to america, you won't see me for a while / if I get the ferry over, will the fairies follow me?)
- moving on to a new phase in your life, realising you actually might be leaving ??
big (style) changes?
- i no longer have blue hair !! i never thought this day would come, but i actually feel like more of myself in my natural 'dirty/ash blonde' these days. maybe it's the fact that i'm getting closer to my degree, maybe it's the looking around at prices for student housing, or maybe it's the tiredness i feel at the end of the day, but i think something has made me 'grow up' a little, leaving the scared 15 year old who needed blue in her hair to not feel at the center of every room behind
- also, i got a coat !!!!!!! and it's freaking awesome !!!! and i never want to stop wearing it!!!! i feel like i'm getting closer to the '50-yo-about-to-be-divorced-dad-professor' slash 'busy-doctoral-student-always-running-behind' image i would love to embody, and the blonde fits it like a glove
- and i also got glasses ?? the oval type, in black, which not only perfectly suit the theme, but are allowing me to see the world at 4k for the first time in a while (absurd how many details there are in people's hair), and are sparing me a lot of headaches, so big up for me
some moments i caught
