[Art] TNT "I like Smiling People"

For a very smiling lady :)

A tee-shirt, the front

and the back:

And the carricature of the person wearing the tee-shirt, engraved on a glass:

[Art] TNT "Citizen of the World"

One of my best student and teaching assistant will be leaving for Sweden next year, and has his birthday anniversary this week, so I did this glass for him:

I had it signed by some of his friends too:

I hope he will like it!

[Art] Coffee Cups for Carlos and Javiel

I have two amazing graduate students, Carlos and Javiel.
I did some glasses for them in the past, but I wanted for a long time to etch some coffee mugs.
I found some cups one year ago, and confirmed with them that they were the adequate size for their coffee intakes.
And then I did nothing, because I did not have the time, because I did not feel inspired (the cups are smallish, which makes challenging to try to draw something more interesting than just their name), because I was waiting for them to get their first publication...

But finally I made them, and I am quite happy of the result:

That will be their Christmas present, I hope they will like it!

[Art] Engraved Glasses for Equipo TiL

I made a glass for each member of the team for TiL 2016. Each of the glass figures the name of the project, "Teaching is Learning", and the year, 2016:

There were Yarka and Milan, the two siblings who did the heavy work for interacting with the high schools and organizing the final event:

There were Jocelyn and Gustavo, my co-directors, to whom I delegated a lot of work, and who replaced me when I was travelling:

There were Jorge and Andrea, my two chief auxiliares and software developpers:

There were Anita and Melina, who took charge for the pedagogical validation (and took extra some follow-up with professors!)L

There was Damir, who is realizing the video documental of the project, which I hope to be key to future iterations of the project, to convince other high schools to participate, pedagogues to join, and funding agencies to fund!

And there was Blanca, the one who had the real power on the project all along, who managed the accounting, put me in contact with providers, gave me advice, and without whom the project would have "fracassed" several times over:

Of course, such presents does not make up for all the times that those people had to work over-time because of problems in the project, but I hope that it shows my appreciation of their hard work!

[Art] Two glasses with "Le Petit Prince"

Lastly, I etched to glasses with drawings of "Le Petit Prince".

The first one, I made for A., who helps me to clean the appartment when I want it extra-clean:

(I had made for her previously a plate with a carricature of "Ana Gabriela", her favorite singer.)

The second one, I made for Lissette, a friend from the university:

Both drawings and the quote are from "Le Petit Prince" (of course).

• The first drawing figures the little Prince discovering other roses than his own, and what makes his own rose more important.
• The second drawing figures the little Prince on the top of an old wall, while discussing with the snake, arguing that this was not exactly the place, nor the time, to die.
• The quote is from the aviator, after recovering the little Prince from the wall. The aviator, recovering from his fright and seeing the little Prince also white faced, says "And now, I did not dare to ask him anything anymore" (more exactly, "Et maintenant, je n'osais plus rien lui demander.").

I had not engraved glasses for a while, and suddenly I do many (for Christmas, for end of year events). I should do it more regularly, it is a kind of meditation!

[TiL] Award Ceremony Liceo Manuel de Salas

I just came back from the award ceremony at the high school "Manuel de Salas": the children were very happy!

The professors too:

Each of the winner got a diploma at their name, and each group got an engraved glass:

And the children whom video did not win a prize were cheering for the others, and cheering even more for their professors when they got their own diploma:

It was very fun!

[Pollution] Difference between Chilean measures and international ones

As I was cleaning my bookmarks, I found one that I did not use for a long time, to the website from the Chilean government about the air quality. It was the occasion to compare the information it provides (based on the same data, from the same captors) to the website that I now use, aqicn.org:

The air, if not as bad as other times (the peaks of pollution in Santiago are from June to August, when it is winter in the South Hemisphere) is bad currently (there are fires in various communes), but the difference is already striking (see here for a comparison for all cities of Chile):

• On Wednesday, the air quality was "Moderate" by international standards, while completely "Good"by Chilean standard;
• on Thursday morning, the air was "Unhealthy for some" by international standards, while still "Good" by the standards of Santiago's administration; and 
  
• on Thursday evening, the air was "Unhealthy" by international standards, while still mostly "regular" by Chilean standard:
  
  

There is no way to know how much of this gap is due to ignorance, and how much is due to political scheming, but in the end the Chilean government is twice less demanding in air quality than international websites, judging one day's air as "good" when internationally it already one pr too levels worse than good, i.e. "moderate" or "Unhealthy for some" (the fact that "regular" is not "bueno" on the Chilean website would make for an another debate: on the international website it is only "moderate", not "regular", after "good").

And the gap between the two reports is increasing as the pollution gets worse...

[Glass Etching] Premiacion Manuel de Salas

Today is the award ceremony at the "Liceo experimental Manuel de Salas" which participated in my project "Teaching is Learning".
I etched some glasses for the winning teams, on the central theme of the logo of the project, a parrot:

Team A:

Team B:

Team C:

I wish I could have made a glass for each student, but they were (4+4+5) 13 in total!