Il mio Overseas a Sydney, Australia (Gen-Lug 2007)... e il mio periodo di Tesi all'Estero a Rotterdam/Utrecht, Olanda (Ott 2007-Mar 2008)!

4th September – The Doctor 3 – UTS 1

On 4th September I collected the official transcripts from UTS.
They confirmed the unofficial marks I got in the late July from the internet. I did not want to trust them too much since UTS made mistakes more than once, but luckily this time there was no error.
Three marks increased my Italian average, one of them decreased it.
48663(Engineering) - Advanced Manufacturing – 82 – DISTINCTION.
25746(Business) - Financial Management: Concepts and Applications – 81 – DISTINCTION.
35140(Science) - Operations Research Modelling – 98 – HIGH DISTINCTION.
21797(Business) - Strategic Supply Chain Management – 76 – DISTINCTION.
My Italian average was something around 77/78, so I can say that three of these marks have increased it, while one has decreased it. On overall I should be now in a better position.
This result is for all those who believed in me. My heart for all of them.
Especially for two of them... the two to whom I promised I would have done my best.
My heart for Eva, the girl I declared all my love to and who asked me to do my best for her. Hope it has been enough.
And my heart for Piero,the friend I lost on the other side of the world, the legend who taught me how to take University life.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 22:19 | link | commenti (2)
unibo, uts , the battle of sydney

16th July – Souvenirs

“God Forgives, I do not”, is a popular sentence from a movie.
I must admit that sometimes it applies to me as well.
Everytime someone did something wrong, I added this place, company, or whatsoever in my black list.
And since I am a non-violent one, the only way for me to have something back was what Homer Simpson called in one of the sketches, “souvenir”. Please note that all the items shown here are "borrowed".

February – 333 Club (George St.):
Bouncer: “Wait, you can’t go upstairs”
Me: “Why? My friends are there, what’s wrong with me?”
B: “You can’t go with those shoes”
M: “Is it a matter of how I look like or a matter of my behaviour, being drunk or so, which I am not? Are you seriously saying it’s for my shoes, paid much more than any flip-flop wore by many girls upstairs?”
B: “Okay, you can go, enjoy your time”
M: “Thanks mate”.
This time I did not get anything... I still was too much good.

April – La Cita Club (Darling Harbour):
Bouncer: “Sorry man, you can’t get in”
Me: “What’s wrong with me?”
B: “There is a dress code here”
M: “Really? Last week I had exactly the same clothes, but I could get in. How comes?”
B: “It’s management decision”
M: “Okay, I am just asking why last week yes and today no, since I have got exactly the same stuff on. Tell me what’s the real problem, if any, and I go away”
B: “I can’t do anything, it’s management decision”
M: “Okay, let me speak with the manager, who will change idea if he/she wants some customers next week”
B: “Okay, get in, but next time don’t put me in trouble”
M: “It’s not my fault”.
This time I did not forgive. A glass as a souvenir. Deserved.

Then how could I forgive UTS and their jokes against me? Mugs mugs mugs... souvenirs! More than ten. I could not accept the sentence " Please provide official documentation to support your case (i.e. Death Certificate) within 3 working days" which I found outrageous. Here you are a mug, but I offered them as gifts to some friends as well. Deserved.
Finally the 2hours delay in KL made me missing the MotoGP race live. A pillow and a cover from my plane. Deserved.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 12:25 | link | commenti (2)
party, bureaucracy, sydney, announcements, journey/flight, the battle of sydney

7th July – Goodbye great bike

The same night, after my (short and incomplete) walk, I had to meet my Financial Management team member, Anh from Vietnam.
We battled hard in our FM group project. She worked a lot on it and I added my knowledge. We were quite happy when we handed in the paper but when our teacher brought it back tha mark was 9 out of 20... so a FAIL! She could not believe it and did not want even to see the paper. I decided to act differently.
First of all I asked to see the paper with the solutions.
Then I took ours and compared the two of them. Once I spotted that the man who checked the papers was a ridiculously lazy one I claimed a further revision from the subject coordinator.
She warned me that doing this, we could even have had a worse mark. But I was sure we were right so I persisted in my complaint and after thirty minutes our mark magically changed from 9/20 to 13.5/20... 4.5 marks more, 50% of what we initially got!
I hoped that the “doctor” who checked our papers had been fired.
By the way, let’s go back to my goodbye to my friend. She wanted something mine to remember me after our winning battle, so I decided to sell my bike to her, even if someone else offered me more money. But it wasn’t a matter of money, it was a matter of friendship. Nevertheless if I consider all the money I saved using the bicycle I have to say it has been a great affair!

Postato da: DexterH46 a 09:28 | link | commenti
holiday, sydney, uts , the battle of sydney

5th July – BoS/14: Remember Tomorrow

After a day spent nearly entirely at home because I was sick (only this was missing to my badluck collection...) I was forced to change my holiday plans one more time.
I had to renounce to the Fraser Island tour. Flights went up to something like $500 return (normally it could be around $100) and I was not in the physical condition to go there and stay on a bed for three days.
But the guilty one was UTS because on these days I had already to be on holiday. I did not forgive them, and with the help of someone (not specified) I made them appear on a newspaper and on the internet
http://www.news.com.au/sundaytelegraph/story/0,,22018723-5007132,00.html

Uni exam theft shock

THE prestigious University of Technology Sydney has been rocked by the theft of completed exam papers from the office of a senior lecturer.

<<The Daily Telegraph can reveal four papers were stolen and others possibly tampered with during the 15th-floor break-in at the Department of Mathematical Sciences last Tuesday night.

Senior lecturer and respected mathematician Layna Groen said yesterday her door was forced open and the completed papers stolen before the final scores of 90 students could be tallied.

"Mine was the only office broken into," Dr Groen told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

"There have been break-ins before but usually it is more than one office and they are looking for computer equipment. It is suspicious that papers were taken.

"The four students concerned were not friends, I have checked that – they were unrelated.

"It was possibly a student who was unhappy with their results has taken them. It's also possible they broke in to change the results, to tamper with them."

She said police were called and her office dusted for fingerprints after a colleague noticed her badly damaged office door about 11pm last Tuesday. No arrests have been made or charges laid.

The final exam on operations research modelling was completed by first-year UTS Bachelor of Science students on June 19.

The paper asked students to complete six detailed mathematical problems over three hours.

The theft left academics with no choice but to force the four students whose papers disappeared to sit a different exam.

The prospect of re-sitting the exams has left students furious, including some from overseas who are now questioning the university's credibility.

One foreign student sent a chain email accusing the thief of ruining his stay in Australia.

"If you are one of the three and you don't reply back to me then don't be surprised if I'll conduct further private investigation on you (I will get the names anyway in some way)," he wrote.

"Whoever it has been, if it has been a student, man you have been really ridiculous, and be sure it does not finish here."

Dr Groen said her office had been broken into before, but never for exam papers.

"It's bizarre, I had the papers sitting on my desk and had not finished marking them," she said.

"They were the only thing of value – I don't keep a laptop in my office or anything like that."

"I had marked the papers but I had not yet tallied up the marks."

"I can't speculate. It's the first time anything like this has happened. It's certainly not something we would want to advertise."

Despite being shocked by the theft, Dr Groen said she did not believe any of her students were capable of stealing back their exams to achieve a better result.>>

My PIN Number (86XXXXX), just to add something on the already full plate, never worked during my time at UTS. Once I had even been kicked out by the security for this reason, despite I could show them my student card. And the security let the theft happen and destroy my holiday plans. God forgives, I DO NOT.

 

Postato da: DexterH46 a 12:35 | link | commenti
bureaucracy, uts , the battle of sydney

2nd July – BoS/13: No more exams

On Monday 2nd July I was taking my final exam. Well, actually “I was retaking what I hoped would have finally been my final exam”... at that stage I was not trusting UTS anymore, so I was expecting any kind of things to happen again.
I was very nervous... I arrived in the room of the exam at the exact time I was supposed to be there, not a minute earlier. Another guy was there to retake the exam, while the other two (four were the victims of this incredible stuff!) would have retaken it another time.
After the first hour I was quite late, and I had serious troubles within a couple of exercises. Similar ones created no problems at all while I was attempting them at home.
So I stopped, bent my head down and breathed deeply. I turned my electronic calculator upside down and looked to a picture of a winning Valentino Rossi. I had to do my best, and take a revenge on UTS as well.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 11:09 | link | commenti
bureaucracy, uts , the battle of sydney

25th June – BoS/12: Australian Quarantine

During this adventure I have had some troubles with the Australian Quarantine as well. I received a pack from some friends in Italy with a lot of presents to cheer me up but something was missing. And the box arrived to me tremendously late. It was because the Quarantine Office stopped it and removed something. So I wrote them...
<<Good day, I am an International student from Italy now in Sydney, NSW, and I've received a pack from Italy containing some presents from my friends. I've seen that one of these items, described as "2 pkts pasta with egg" did not meet your requirements. Firstly I'd like to apologise for this, my friends haven't been careful enough, I guess they did it knowing that same products are imported here by big companies. Secondly I've read that "the items will be seized and destroyed unless the items are exported from Australia within 30 days from the date of this notice [...]". Since I will leave the country, departing from Sydney International Airport on 12th July (so within 30 days) I was wondering how can I collect the items and re-export them. In the form you sent me there is the opportunity for me to pay you to send them back ($40 for something worth $5 will probably not convince me to do that), to treat them (but in the first page you say treatment is not possible in this case) or to destroy them... so I couldn't find the way to re-export them! Any answer with indications from you will be really appreciated.>>

They replied me after a few days...
International Mail - AQISACT  wrote:
<<Thank you for contacting the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service concerning NM07039727.
Unfortunately, the item concerned is not to leave the custody of AQIS.
The only options open to you are:
a)         Return to Sender at a cost of $42.50 or
b)         Destroyed free of charge.
Regards,
Peter Dwyer
International Mail Program>>

At this stage, I felt that their bureaucracy was a bit crappy... okay, you don't want "dangerous" food in your country and in your land. But I cannot understand what can be harmful if I eat all the food. Furthermore it's so stupid to ask me to pay 10times the value of an item to send it back... who is the idiot who will accept such an offer when we are talking about food you can buy at the supermarket? Come on...
So I replied them. First of all very seriously, because I always like to cooperate to reduce wastes of resources (including time) by anybody. Then in a funny (but with a hidden criticism in it) way, to remark that something was a bit ridiculous in my opinion... even if I was talking to an official organisation in a foreign country. Fear of no one.
<<G'day Peter, thank you for your e-mail.
Since there are not many opportunities to me, and since being a Management Engineering student I know what storage implies, I can tell you from now, without waiting longer, that I will go for the option b.
I will definitely NOT pay $42,50 to send to Italy something that can be found there at, say, $5.
So I give you my word, you can proceed with the destruction of the item, eliminating one item from the queue of the pending ones, and freeing some storage room. Mine is a promise, even if by e-mail please consider it, no worries I'll not claim anything back.
Yours sincerely, [Name Surname]
Ps:to make a laugh on it, I anyway suggest you to open the package and have the tortellini as soon as possible, without leaving anything uneaten in the environment. Believe me, they are delicious, and they'll be one of the first things I'll have as soon as I come back to Italy ;-) >>

Postato da: DexterH46 a 12:38 | link | commenti
bureaucracy, the battle of sydney

12-26th June – BoS/11: The Doctor vs UTS - Part I

It may seem impossible, but the battle between me and UTS wasn’t finished yet. It already happen that I went complaining about my marks in mid-semester exams and assignments four time. Three of these four times I was right, but for the final exam papers my International Exchange Officer told me that if the teachers had said I could not see the papers, then there was no way to do it. Absurde.
Anyway this time I was supposed to work on an assignment through the use of a remote desktop connection. Unfortunately my log-in details were not working, so I could NOT use anything at all. I tried and tried many times, no way. At the beginning the tutor said it could have been a “traffic” problem because all the students were trying to access the remote desktop in those days at the same time. So I waited, then tried back again a few times, no way. At this stage I realised that maybe it wasn’t a traffic problem, but an IT problem in the UTS network with my username and password (and it would have not been the first time). So I informed the tutor again and... what was his answer? Here we go, copied and pasted for you: [...]You need to realize that this weekend is a long weekend, and that you should have tried before. Do not leave everything to the last minute.
Good luck,
Dikai
He would have forwarded my mails to the IT center but he said that I had to work on the assignment earlier without leaving it to the last minute! Fucksake! If the deadline is Tuesday I can even do it on Tuesday at 11.55 pm for my understanding of rules and English language... I don’t accept this kind of lessons from him. And anyway... I had started one week before but at that time someone (=he himself) said that the problem was the traffic! Another example of how UTS sometimes tries to go further than its capabilities... and it was in the best 100 in the world? C’mon... don’t be silly...
His reply to my message was interpreted by me like a kind of challenge. I said: “Okay, if he plays hard, I will do the same”. I went to a counsellor, and I required to speak with a specific one, the one who in the past had been president of the counselling service. I explained him everything, bringing the proofs to support my request, and he sent an e-mail to the tutor, Dr. Dikai. Here you are just a line from it: [...]he has made numerous attempts to log in to the remote desktop to do the assignment. His first attempt was on 31st May.
What a strange world... Dr.Dikai didn’t reply to my e-mail for the previous week but after he got the mail from the counsellor he replied in less than 30 minutes! He chose the wrong person not to reply to... and this is what I wrote him in my mail: [...] losing marks because of an IT fault on my account is not my favourite job.
All of this happened around 15th June, but the hardest and most important times of my battle against UTS started three days before with the first exam, Strategic Supply Chain Management, on Tuesday 12th.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 16:35 | link | commenti (2)
uts , the battle of sydney

7th June – BoS/10: “See you Lida” at Nude

One of the last Thursdays at Nude Bar was the same day that Lida, the Canadian girl, would have been with us since she had her flight back to Canada the day after.
It was also the opportunity to take the last pictures and see for the last time some other boys and girls met in Sydney.

In the first picture you can see what Andreas called “the Italian-German alliance”, with me on the left, Andreas himself in the middle, and Daniele on the right.
In the second one you can see, from left to right, Teresa, Dominic, Pachi and me. The first two are from Germany (I told you that there had been an invasion from Germany in Sydney!), then you should already know that Pachi is from Chile and. Ok, you know I am Italian, even my surname says that!
In the third picture I am together with people from all over the world again ...Mexico, France, Chile... good company again, don’t you agree?
But where was Lida? Finally here she is, in the final picture, which had been taken in Side Bar when we moved there after the Nude Bar closed at midnight.
Anyway I stayed only 20 minutes in the Side Bar. I went there to see goodbye to Lida, but I could not stay any longer seeing everybody enjoying their time.
In fact, before going out, I received a terrible news from Italy, and if you look carefully to the pictures you may notice that I was not smiling properly.
I had lost one of my best friends in Italy. The first one who went abroad with an exchange programme before convincing me and others that it was what we had to do as well. The legendary one of “Italy 5 – Rest of the World 0”. A road accident in Rome had taken him away from us forever, and I was on the other side of the world.
I could only try to look for some consolation from my friends there, then I had to go home, thinking that I had to do my best for two people: the girl I loved and who would have never been mine since anyway I promised her, and the friend who taught me a lot of things, the one I would have never seen again in my life, the one who always fought for equity, fairness and justice for the poorest people.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 09:17 | link | commenti
party, sydney, the battle of sydney

4th June – BoS/9: “I Love You”

We left not in the best mood on Saturday, and on Monday things didn’t start properly. I went to Eva’s place and we started to talk again. She wanted to know what was going on, I never saw her so angry... I didn’t want to have an argument with her.
That was the last thing I wanted to happen, everything seemed to be so unreal... I was alone trying to recover from a desperate situation.

I managed in some way to bring back our chat to a quiet one, but it was clear that only a few minutes would have given the “official” end to all my hopes.
I told her it was sad that everything was coming to an end, and that I would have wanted to spend some more time with her, as we were doing in the first months, at least to see her again in those few days she was supposed to come back in Sydney at the end of June.
Then we walked for two more minutes and I stopped before we could leave the park where we were chatting.
Everything was clear, she asked me what was wrong with me, and if I was seeing her as more than a friend. My answer, was “yes”. She replied that she had a boyfriend and that I knew. My answer was “Now I know. I didn’t know when I understood you were so special for me”. Then she told me that in May her boyfriend was there to celebrate their anniversary. Their ninth anniversary. 9 years together. Then she added “And I love him”.
Eva tried to convince me she was much worse than what I thought, that I didn’t know her bad sides, and that I should have asked to her boyfriend. My answer was simple: if her boyfriend was still with her after 9 years it meant that her good sides were many more than the bad ones (if any). It was very hard to reply to this statement, so we went home. For the last time I could have her next to me, I embraced her as hard as I could, I didn’t want those moments to finish. I repeated many times that she was special for me, that I loved her, that she was great and I would have always missed her.
Before leaving, when I said that at that point I would have had to do my exams completely lost she asked me to do my best for her. But she asked it with a sweet and honest expression that I wanted to cry while I was looking to her beautiful eyes. I promised it to her, called his boyfriend the “luckiest boy in the world”, kissed her on her cheek, and finally we gave each other our goodnight wishes.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 08:49 | link | commenti
sydney, the battle of sydney

2nd June – BoS/8: “Let’s have a coffee”

On 2nd June a group like the one of the Blue Mountains had to go to Canberra, for another great trip, but exams were coming closer (especially for the others) and we could not find an agreement to make everyone happy.
Furthermore after the Blue Mountains trip Eva called me to have a coffee together and to clarify the last messages we sent each other, quite different from those funny we used to send the previous months.
I had to go, it was the time to say everything, the moment of truth.
We met in the UTS Tower and then went for a tea (none of us drinks coffee, as well as none of us eats spicy food... even these odd coincidences!). After one month we didn't see each other the harmony between the two of us was not the same anymore, but for stupid reasons.
I thought that when she was with her boyfriend she avoided me, going to another direction if she had seen me. She thought that after the Blue Mountains trip I wanted to challenge her saying my trip had been better than hers. Apparently both of us were wrong in our ideas, but our understanding each other, which had always been great, had some problems that day.
I was also a bit disappointed by knowing that she was going on holiday to Melbourne with some of the others but none of them told me anything at all before deciding it.
When we met she was smiling and gave me a strong hug while I didn’t. When we left the situation was overturned. I didn’t want her to go away but she was not smiling anymore. I didn’t confess my love for her but at least we agreed we would have seen again on Monday night. Anyway something was broken, I was slipping down to the end of my dreams.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 13:58 | link | commenti
the battle of sydney