[Friends] JC and A for dinner and overnight

Yesterday, JC and A braved peak hour and trafic jams to visit me from the other side of the city. We had dinner at a restaurant and chatted at home in the night and at breakfast: it felt awesomely good, I hadn't chatted like this and about this kind if topics (e. g. game theory applied to religions, revisiting past history, arguing about very long term future for the human species) for ages!

Both contributed a drawing to my kitchen hall, and I love them four (the two drawings, and the two friends)!

[Art] Gigantic Glass for Renzo

Renzo was my Teaching Assistant for the course about "Pedagogical Animations", and got so involved in it (and in other projects where I was involved but not leading) that it affected his academic performance, to the point that he had to change department, and to "cut down" on extra-academic projects for a while.

Several times in the past he (apologized for this "cut back" and) manifested his gratitude (he offered me the first gold medal that he won in a swimming competition). A few months ago he announced that he would graduate soon, and commented that he had lost the glass that I had etched for him when he was a TA.

Last week he invited me to his graduation ceremony, which is this afternoon. It was hard finding both the time and a glass that I liked, but I finally did and etched this gigantic one (it is actually a jar ;)) with a victorious penguin on it, and I will bring my tools the event in the hope that others of his friends will want to sign it too!

The initial design:

The implementation:

The final version once signed by everybody, and used to drink champagne :)

Many thanks to Renzo for inviting me, and to all his friend for organizing the graduation party!!!

[Santiago] back to Santiasco

I was in Algarrobo this week-end, an improvised trip to escape to the pollution, to check if the change of air helps with the constant exhaustion and intermittent headache.

While in Algarrobo, I felt a bit better but still tired, and I started to think that maybe I was imagining things. I did not work to my full potential, but I did work well on some stuff, I did feel inspired and drew a nice penguin on a jar. I ran twice, helped at the house with stuff, cooked.

I took the bus back to Santiago this morning. I was fully awake in the bus and working, but when I arrived in Santiago (still in the bus, between pajarito and Alameda) I felt exhausted and my eyes were crying. I am in the appartment and I feel a headache again, and my eyes are sore, and I feel exhausted, I feel I wanna lie down and sleep forever untill I feel better.

The sky looks so grey here, it could be that it's just the clouds being low. I feel exhausted, it could be that I woke up early, or that I am depressed, overwhelmed with all that I have to do (I did not work too well last week because I felt sick). I do think that it plays a role but I don't think that this is all.

At some point I will have to trust my intuition, which Chileans told me to ignore for so many years: the air quality here is making ME sick, whether I am more sensitive to it than others or whether the others are lying to themselves. I have to leave this city. Just buying a house outside of the city and coming back during the day for classes and meetings will not be sufficient. I need to leave in a place with a better air.

[Sport] Paragliding

On Saturday I went para gliding with a new friend, Mike.

Here is a picture before:

Here is a picture after:

And here are some pictures of the flight, taken by a couple who was kind enough to send them to me by email, Rafael and Rafaela: :)

I loved the experience, it felt (and looked) like kayacking in the air :)

[Drawing] TNT has an identity crisis

A few weeks ago, the woman who inspired the TNT character was acting depressed and suicidal, crying and complaining of loneliness and asking desperately for an answer to the question "Who Am I?" 

I tried to make her feel better, by talking and listening. We talked almost every day for those  weeks, many times for one hour or more. She liked it and asked each times if "we would talk"  the next day.  

I  tried to get her not only to remember good memories, but rather to remember and relive how she felt at the time of those good memories: it looked as if it worked, she was smiling and laughing again, she said that she was going to the swimming pool and to the gym again, that she made her first new friend in 6 months, because she was not afraid to talk to another girl at a shop. 

I tried  to teach her what I have learned of positive Psychology. She asked me for three references of book for ger to buy, made me revise it to her taste, but in the end she didn't buy them because she "did not have the energy" to do it (I refrained to order it for  her on Amazon: the energy to read and act upon them being greater than that for buying them). 

I shared with her some youtube videos about the psychology of gifted children and adults, and  in particular about the asynchronicity between their intellectual and emotional development: 

In Erik Erikson's model of the emotional development of humans, the question "Who Am I?" rises between 12 and 18. TNT is way beyond 18, but as the studies show, many circumstances can stop or slow down one's emotional development. 

I tried to explain/convince that the question itself is badly defined, as the "I" in "Who am I" is changing at any time, both from the outside (circumstances) and from the inside (the choices we make, the habits we form), and that much more relevant questions could be "Who do I want to be?", or "What do I want to do?" (and "Who do I want to be doing it with?"). This didn't seem to convince her as she affirmed her unshakable belief that people could not change (which, of course, is contradicted by her memories of being different before), which brought us back to the theme of growth mindset versus fixed being mindset. 

Now she announced that she was not sure if she could talk again in the next two weeks, because a boyfriend that she used to (work and)  date with will be visiting her for two weeks. He is visiting her from quite far away and at quite great personal expenses, just because she told him that she was "feeling lonely". It felt a bit like a betrayal but then: I was 'only' trying to help, right? 

The theme of human's emotional development (my own and other's) is fascinating, but much more frustrating than mere Mathematics!