TWIST AND LEARNING

For completeness I have to finish the Garmin story. I finish my first run with the new 735XT. As I walk home, I naturally look at the race data (minutes / km, bpm, etc.). The gps-stopwatch seems to me really functional, light and also beautiful. After taking a shower, I unload the data from the Garmin and report them on an Excel sheet (now arrived at 1564th row): 1 row with the main data of each run. I remove the Garmin from the computer and I wear it ... I start to sweat cold: it does not show the bpm anymore. Ok, I say to myself: do not panic! I begin to search on the internet how to reset the function to display the beats. I can not find anything, in fact I read that the reading of the beats is automatic. Heck, I think: it's broken! Yes, of course, it is under warranty, but it also annoys me to return this too. It's karma, I think. Maybe it's the right punishment for having returned the first Garmin that surely would work very well now. I go to bed a little depressed.

To be born a male in a patriarchal and sexist system is a bit like being a male child of a mafia boss: to benefit from criminal activity you do not need to commit it in the first person. I hope you understand the meaning of Michela Murgia's tweet (even if my translation sucks). She is a combative and talented Italian writer. This tweet did discuss. it has been criticized by men and women (really funny). I do not know why it was misunderstood or not understood: it is obvious that being born males is a privilege on many occasions. On the contrary, the birth of a woman represents a handicap on as many occasions. Of course there are many differences from country to country, well 'in some countries born woman is not a handicap, it is a tragedy. Many men would prefer not to enjoy this privilege, but - in fact - as Michela Murgia says, they benefit from the advantages of being male even when these advantages are not sought. Men who do not oppose machismo are accomplices of his perp

I downloaded the data from the Garmin ... and the Garmin (without apparent reason) has deleted all the data of the race! I had the impulse to make it fly through the window, but I resisted and I tried and tried again: all the data was erased! So I continued to use it, but I counted the days missing on Black Friday hoping that the price of some GPS-chronometer would drop a little. The Monday before the Black Friday Amazon warns me of the beginning of the discounts and finally I see some of these devices at a lower price. I am undecided between two models and resist impulse buying. I ask for information and details to my friends in the sports group: I wanted to make a reasoned purchase. After taking adequate information, purchase a Garmin 735XT. This happened on the Thursday before Black Friday. In the evening the president of my sports group warns me that the Garmin I wanted to buy is on sale on another site at a lower price. I try to block the purchase on Amazon, but it'

Paraphrasing the title of the film by Jim Carrey I could also have articulated this short text “I, me and Amazon” or “I, me and Black Friday”. But let's go in order. A few months ago, my Garmin 310XT started to show signs of insanity: it did not record some races, or it canceled data instead of downloading them. It had become really slow to connect to satellites and, it must be said, it is really boring to wait (under the sun or cold) that the GPS is operational. So a few months ago I started to follow the price trends of GPS-stopwatches with camelcamelcamel. After a long time I have seen that some models have started to have variations on the downside, but these variations were still little thing and now the Black Friday was approaching ... In the meantime something really bad happened. I ran the half marathon of Lake Vico. It was a bad day and it rained for all 21 km. It always rained, but there were also many puddles and wind. The race was very tiring, but getting to the

I know very little of English (certainly also of many other things): I confuse the verbs (still struggling to distinguish forget to forgive), I forget words, prepositions ... At what point in the sentence should be "always"? Even in today's title I struggled to decide between "I used doing this way" and "I usually do it like that". However (I really like using "anyway") when I start I clear what I mean: something clear and easy to express, never complicated speeches. I think of the verb I'm going to use, I try to combine it in the right way, I write the sentence in English and then I open Google translator and write the sentence in Italian, then check the result ... I usually agree to have the verb wrong or the verbal time, I have confused the noun, I have reversed the conjunctions ... ok, yes, not all these mistakes together, but these errors are scattered abundantly on the page. I go back to my text in English and correct th

I do not know what the best translation for the campaign is "Non è normale che sia normale". However it makes me sick that he uses violence and coercion on women or children, I mean it makes me sick anyone who uses violence and coercion on any person in conditions of weakness or inferiority. Always. I believe that each of us carries within himself a certain predisposition to violence, but we must learn to control this predisposition. When I was little (a thousand years ago) it was common habit to beat children and I can imagine that it was common habit (even if I do not quantify) to use violence against wives. My father beat us children but I have never seen him beat up my mother. When I was 7 years old I was beaten once by my school teacher in class. But I was a good student, bad students often happened. I spanked my first-born daughter in the first years of her life. This thing makes me still ashamed, even after so many years. One day I realized wha

I read conflicting news about Italians in the world. These news provoked different reaction in the internet people. I say “internet people” with the maximum possible sarcasm. The abduction of Silvia Romano, a young woman who worked as a cooperating somewhere in Kenya, this is the first news that sparked the shitstorm on the web, I imagine it happened above all the Italian side of the facebook and twitter.  Because someone wants to cover this girl with shit, a girl who works thousands of miles from home and its comforts I just can not understand it. Perhaps this happens because NGO volunteers remind us that we could do much more for   those born in the wrong side of the world. This fact disturbs many of us and drives us to cowardly and truly deplorable reactions. The incident (if I say so) od Dolce & Gabbana made the whole world laugh and they made us ashamed to be Italian. Some of us have been ashamed and maybe some of us have hated the Chinese even more. I sa

Few years ago I read the simplified version of “Three men in a boat”: I spent a lot of time browsing the English-Italian vocabulary. The version of this book used a limited number of word that I should have known but (as I said) when I needed the right words they did not come out! However, at the second reading of the book (I could often do without flipping through the vocabulary) I managed to capture its comic aspect: but at that time, to get to work, I took the bus and I'm sure it was not a good show to see an adult man laughing alone on the bus. For this reason I always read with a pencil in my hand and I used to underline here and there random words because I wanted to give myself a gesture, especially when I could hardly hold back my laughter.   I was not in danger of laughing when I read “The old man and the sea”, but that's another story .

Today I saw on Instagram the photograph of girl hugging the statue of Hannibal Lecter(I think in the Madame Tussauds wax museum). I left a joking   comment like this: have dinner with Hannibal Lecter is better than being his dinner. I wanted to refer to the last scene in the film where Hannibal Lecter, on the phone with Clarice Starling, says: I’m having an old friend for dinner.  Then I asked myself if was better to write “dining with” o “having dinner”. Google translator does not help much, I write and rewrite the sentence   but I always get different results. I think I will ask for help on hinative.com. Every time I write a sentence (also very simple) I have a lot of doubt.

I do not have high expectations. I would like to read books and newspaper, also helping me with a dictionary. Of course I would also to follow (at least a little) film and tv series. Ok. Now I have to say it: the next year I would like run the half marathon in Edinburgh. You tell me: you do not need to know English for run. Quite right! However I will need to speak English to order a burger at the pub or buy a bus or train ticket for a ride in Edinburgh. I learned thousands of English words that I forget when I need them. I know that nobody will ever read this blog but if this happens I will be happy to receive correction to these phases: because I do not have much empathy with my (precious but detached) google translator friend.