what aryanhwy has been up to lately

Those of you on FB have seen that the last few days I've been city hopping across Europe. Friday morning I took the train to Hamburg, arriving at Volker's place (where I, though not him, would be spending the weekend) a little before 1:00pm, where he greeted me, handed me keys to the apartment, gave me a cold beverage, and told me that the antiquarian bookseller over by Stephansplatz had heraldry books in the window. I love friends with their priorities in the right place. :) He fed me and we chatted a bit and then I headed out to campus to stop at said bookstore (and buy one of said books) before the uneuphoniously named MoFPILE workshop started. I'd spent the previous two days angsting over my slides, knowing that I had either way too much information for an hour and fifteen minute talk, or way too little, or, more likely both. The audience was everything from die-hard Indologists doing philology to hard-core mathematical logicians, so finding the right pitch for the talk was causing me some grief -- especially since I wouldn't really be saying that much about Indian logic, since what I know about Indian logic fills up only about four pages. So I ended up being really quite surprised when my talk, the second Saturday morning, went over really well. It garnered me: (a) one audience member who came up afterwards, and again on Sunday, to tell me how exciting and inspiring he found it; (b) an invitation to come to Heidelberg for a week or so in fall and try to teach all the logical techniques I mentioned to a group of Indologists and Sinologists; and (c) an invitation to say some summing up remarks at the end of the workshop (with no warning: Jonardon was chairing the final roundtable discussion, and he opened it up by asking Benedikt to say something about what he'd hoped for the workshop and how well those hopes had been met; me to say something more about faithfulness in logical modeling; and Harunaga to say something about what the Indologists would be most interested in, in terms of collaboration with the logicians. Luckily, since Benedikt spoke first, that gave me a few minutes to pull together some useful things to say; and I'm glad I was asked to articulate on this question, since it's something I've found myself thinking more and more about lately, esp. given some referee reports I got earlier in spring, and then on the train to Münich Sunday afternoon I spent some time writing up these thoughts. And now I know what I'll be submitting on to SILFS next week.

I also had an interesting experience Saturday evening, after the last talk. The speaker made some claim that I completely disagreed with; he was reporting on an impossibility claim that someone else had proven, to the effect that Aristotelian syllogistics with existential import cannot be formalized in first order logic. Of course I had to put my hand in the air as soon as things were open for question, because I know that that's false -- I've done it. In multiple different guises. Read and refereed by a number of different people who never commented on it. The trick is that you can only have existential import for affirmative claims, and not negative claims, which is fine, because Aristotle only ever espouses it for affirmative claims. I tried to explain this, and the speaker simply refused to believe me. Since he had an impossibility result, clearly my route (or rather, Abelard's route, or Avicenna's) wouldn't work. A number of other people in the audience, though, seemed to have some sympathy for my claim, and said they were interested in details, esp. when I said "But I can prove that Abelardian truth conditions work, saving all the relations in the SoO and validating all of the rules of conversion needed to prove all the assertoric syllogistics". So in the hour I had before meeting Volker and Julia for supper, I went to Planten und Blomen, sat in the rose garden, and typed up my proof, which I then was able to distribute Sunday morning to those who were interested.

I tend to forget how unreliable Deutsche Bahn trains are, so I was rather peeved when my train to Münich Sunday afternoon was delayed by about half an hour, and then, when we came to a complete stop in the middle of some fields during the middle of the first leg, by an hour. Luckily, the problem causing the delays was effecting almost the entire western/northern quarter of Germany, which meant that I didn't miss my connection at Hannover, as it was also delayed by an hour. And since I was traveling first class (when I finally got around to booking the trip, all the cheap second class specials were gone, but there was a first class special that was cheaper than the cheapest remaining second class, so I went with that), I got vouchers for both legs which I can fill out and I should get 25% of my ticket refunded because the delay was more then 60 minutes. Conrad met me at the train station and soon after we got back to his and Ælfwynn's place they had dinner ready for me, which was lovely as I was pretty hungry by then. Monday I spent the morning calligraphing two scrolls for coronation, on blanks done by the Isengau scriptorium, as I hadn't gotten any bites for these assignments yet, and I knew if I did them after I got back next week, there'd be no way I could get them to the event on time. But that only took the morning and part of the afternoon, after which we went to their garden (and I got the largest, purplest radish I've ever seen), and then just lazed around. I left around 8pm to get to the train station around 8:30, and soon after that the night train to Bologna pulled up (it left a little after 9pm). I was in one of the sleeping rooms with six bunks; two of the bunks were a couple from Indiana who were on their second honeymoon, the other three were German businessmen. I had one of the top bunks; it's really quite high up when there's three. I drifted off to sleep pretty quickly, having still been pretty tired from the weekend, and also knowing that the train was getting in to Bologna around 4:30am, and thus I had to get as much sleep as I could in order to make it through the day. The steward for my car came by around 4:00am to wake me up, and then after we arrived I had 4.5 hours to kill before the symposium opened for registration. I was pleased when leaving the station to find that even though it was still dark, it was not cold at all; I didn't need to dig out my jacket. Because it was dark, I just headed to one of the bus stalls, which were all well lit, and sat down on the bench and dozed on and off until about 6:15. Then I figured it was late enough in the day to go to the park nearby that I'd seen on the map, where I found another bench, lay down, and again dozed on and off for another two hours. I figured by then the building where the symposium was would at least be open and I could find a bathroom to change clothes and freshen up. However, I'd only written down the name of the building not the street number (though I had a google map), and I walked past it without realizing it; however, while doing so, I also walked past the organizer and three others walking the other direction, so I turned around and caught up with them. Costantino, the organizer, recognized me and even remembered my name, which was surprising, since we'd last seen each other two years ago and we didn't talk much then. The building wasn't open yet so they were going to get coffee, and I joined them for a good strong tea which helped wake me up a bit. I've made it through most of the day pretty well so far, with only dozing off a bit during some of the afternoon talks (the room we're in is pretty warm), and I'm going to try to stick it out long enough to join people for dinner in about 20 min., though I won't stay out late. Two more days of symposium here, and then Friday morning I take the train to Genova for the final leg of my journey. This journey, that is.

I adore Italy

The first time I came to Europe, I came to Rome, and then Florence, and Pisa, and Venice. Italy will always be engrained in my mind as my first taste of Europe.

This is not to say that I don't still have in my sights becoming a fellow at Oxford someday. But if in the interim, I end up in Italy, I will not be unhappy. It's only this trip that I have realized how happy I am when I come to Italy. It is sunny. It is warm. I soak in all of this and it makes me energized. Solar powered Ary is solar powered, and when the some comes out, and it gets above 25C, I come alive. The feeling of sheer satisfaction, like a cat with its paws curled up underneath it in smugness, that I have while I am in Italy I'd never really noticed before now, but I have been happy ever since arriving here 19 hours ago.

Yup, I'm still awake, made it through dinner and plenty of glasses of wine (including sparkling red wine, which I've never had before, and can't say I recommend), dinner of fantastic coniglio arrosto (roast rabbit), tender, and succulent, and flavorful. I love that coming to live in Europe has allowed me to discover my love of rabbit.

It's funny, I feel like I should have expected to enjoy Italy as much as I do, given all it has going for it, but I've always had this prejudice against it. The stereotypical Italian is boisterous and greasy. I'm not a fan of oversocialization, and I can't stand grease, especially greasy hair. And yet, every time I come to Italy, even though it is, in many parts, clearly poor and clearly dirty, I am happy here. And all of the Italians I know -- who are not over boisterous, and in fact are often quite shy, and are not greasy at all -- they love their country more than any other nationality I know, including the French, which says a lot, given the French's view that there is no country other than France, there is no language other than French. (Of course, I am exaggerating. Wine allows for that.) But no other nationality I know of speaks of their country with such affection as the Italians do, or, I should say, their own region more than their country. It is hard not to love a country who has been spoken of with as much love as Italy has been among people I know. Part of what makes me appreciate being here is knowing that there are people back home who are envying me, Pietro me being in Bologna, Daniele me being in Genova. Their love for their hometowns makes me want to appreciate the opportunity that I have to be where I am, because I know that there are others who would cheerfully swap places with me. I hope that I can return home (and funny, home really is Amsterdam. In both this conference and the last, I have had people speak with surprise when they find out I am American. I guess I really have begun to lose the accent; fosveny and amkyb both commented, when we were in Australia, that I've lost the American accent some, that it's become muddled. But someone commented today when they heard me talk with love and affection of my home institute they assumed that I must be Dutch. Home is definitely not in the US any more, hasn't been for awhile.) and do justice to the opportunity that I have had to be here, in Bologna, and, later, in Genova.

It'd be worth putting up with the dirty cities and learning Italian (something which I have become convinced I need to do anyway, as lately all of the neat resources I have come across have been in Italian) and Joel's complaining about heat and humidity if I could live here. I never thought I'd end up feeling this way, but, yeah, I adore Italy.

and sometimes...

...even if you really want to hear a song that you haven't heard in ages, you still shouldn't look it up on youtube, because you'll find a live version and realize that that's what Dire Straits looks like, and it will crush your dreams with reality in the most disappointing way. That headband. It's imagine is burned into my mind in association with this song now.