I'll take a few minutes to resume what I'm doing with my life these days.

Till the end of February I'm working as Agenda coordinator at EN. In the meantime, I'm asked sometimes to do other things as well, since the Agenda job takes only 3 hours and a half a day. So, from tomorrow till Sunday I will also work as Le Mag coordinator. Basically, it means choosing images to propose to the producers who will use them for their stories. It's not just that, actually, but that is most of the work. 

Then I'll have a very busy month in March: on the 12th I'm going to Rome, where I'm staying at my uncle's house, at Albano Laziale. If someone happens to be there, let me know. On the 15th and 16th I'm taking part in the Italian SF convention. This year I have decided to stay only on Saturday and Sunday because of budget reasons. Which are the following: on the 17th (around 2 am) I'm leaving to Istanbul, and then to Diyarbakir, where I'll join the Italian delegation for the Newroz, the Kurdish (and not only Kurdish, but well...) New Year's Day, on March 21st.

My flight from Turkey back to Rome is scheduled for the 23rd at 23.59, which realistically means the 24th. I will be back on Christian ground on Easter Monday. I haven't booked the flight to Lyon because I'm flying with a low cost Turkish company which I don't know at all, and I prefer not to take chances. I mean, if my flight from Istanbul to Rome was cancelled, I would miss the flight from Rome to Lyon. Question: why don't I fly directly back to Lyon from Istanbul? Answer: because the Turkish low-cost company doesn't fly to France, at least for now.

So, I think I'll take the first train to Milan and spend a week at my parents' house. This means I will be back in Lyon by April. If I want to have a party for my birthday, it will have to be there.

But the adventure is not over. I'm planning to go to Cyprus in July, and, maybe in the first part of the month, again to Turkey, this time for a tour with my Turkish teacher to do some interviews and have a look around. I don't know the details yet, but my teacher seems willing to do it. And I really want to visit places like the Black Sea coast.

When I go back from there, I should have enough material to finish my book. My personal deadline is August, so that I'll be free to concentrate on the French SF convention, but I know it will be hard. I'm not giving up hope anyway: I have no plans for April, May and June, so I'll try to conciliate work with writing. AND sleep, of course. Right now, having a regular timetable is helping a lot. I wake up very early in the morning, full of energy. When I'm back home, I am tired, but I know it is because I have worked, and I'm satisfied.

I've also realised that the best way for me not to be frustrated is to be a little more realistic: it's useless to plan 5 things to do in a day when I know I'll be able to do at most 2 or 3. And then I'll be exhausted. I have seen when I'm in Milan I plan to do just one thing a day, and in the end it's much more rewarding because I actually manage to do all that I have planned to do!

So, for the near future, I think I'll slow down a bit. Which doesn't mean I'll be able to write here more often. But, who knows...

Actually, I got back yesterday, but I was too tired to write about it.

It was fun. Great. Fun. I had never lived Istanbul like that. I had always been there as a journalist, or as someone engaged in human rights issues and the Kurdish question, so I had always seen the city from a very peculiar point of view. This time I was a tourist, even if I had free entrance to places like Hagia Sophia or the Topkapi Palace thanks to my press card. And, yes, it was the first time in Turkey I didn't hide being a journalist. Except one morning, to a too curious young guy: I told him I was a student because "journalist" would have meant an increased curiosity, and I wasn't really in the mood for that.

Because I was just recovering from a wild night. I had been dancing with my colleagues and three other friends' friends, and had drank way too much beer. I admit I had never thought I could get drunk for beer. And it wasn't nice at all. Even worse than wine. But it was worth it. I danced like crazy, and like I hadn't done for years, I think. 

I will soon upload some photos on my Flickr page.

Well, in short I had fun. And I discovered a Turkish rock-ska-punk group, Athena. Wow! I can't stop listening to them.

But,  I also did something "serious". You can find something about it on my Turkish Diary blog.

I overslept again yesterday: after more than 8 hours in the night, I slept almost 3 more hours in the afternoon. And a walk was enough to suck out all my energies, so I came back home exhausted.

It is not unexpected: after nightshifts I need a few days of total rest before going back to normal life. And in the last days I didn't have all the rest that I needed, because I had things to do, so now it's taking me more time.

However, this morning I feel better. I woke up around 6 (a little earlier, actually) and I don't feel dizzy yet, or sick in any way. Actually, I'm in an excellent mood. I'm only a bit nervous - as usual - about the thousand things I have to do.

I wish I had the time to focus on Turkey these days, and work on my book. But I have so many things to do in the SF field (podcast, an article-interview to write down for an Italian review... I think I already said something about it here), that so far I haven't even been able to have a closer look to the presidential elections. *sigh*

I have some nostalgic feelings for last year, when I was excited for meeting *that special one*. This year I'm thinking almost exclusively of my professional future. But that too is exciting. And *he* made me a very nice present: a book with short excerpts from famous people's diaries, just where they say how unhappy, sick and lazy they are. It is very therapeutic to see that these great men and women had weaknesses so similar to mine, and encouraging.

I also wish I could be in Yokohama right now, but that's a different story.

Yes, I did it. I subscribed to the EN trip to Istanbul. It's for September 19 to 23.

On my Turkish Diary blog I usually do nothing more than copy and paste interesting articles, without any comment. I know it is not how a blog should work, but I usually don't have the time to do more than that, and besides, I tend to consider that blog more as an archive for personal use than as something aimed to be read by others.

However, the current crisis in Turkey has pushed me to make a small effort. It is not really a revolution, it is always copy-and-paste, but in a more "personal" and logical way. In this post, I think I treated all the main issues at stakes in this moment. Since I have seen a growing interest in what's going on among my friends and colleagues, I think you too might be interested.

I have also added a shorter post about Eurovision.

Please, feel free to comment and tell me your opinion on these small changes. And if you have more questions about Turkey, don't be shy and ask!

You scored as Turkish. Turkish 75% Belgian 63% Dutch 63% Irish 63% Danish 63% Polish 63% Italian 50% German 50% French 38% British 38% Spanish 38% Swiss 25% Molvanian 13% Russian 13% Which European nationality should you have created with QuizFarm.com

(from sciamanna and annafdd)

Yesterday, as I often do when I'm in Milan, I was wandering through libraries, just to have a look at the books. Suddenly, I found myself oddly driven by a compulsory need to buy, which rarely happens to me, so I bought a few books (AND The Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD!).

But what is most important here, is that, while roaming around through all these books, and seeing - oh my goodness! - so many of them, I couldn't help but thinking: when do they find the time to write them? I don't mean novelists, who may in many cases just write following their own imagination, though it's not always the case, but researchers, and journalists, and politicians, who write books about real life, and have to make researches to write even the worst of those books.
I said to myself: is it possible that people like Veltroni (Rome's mayor, and a major politician) or Vespa (a very popular journalist... well, more of an anchorman, I should say) have more time to write than I do? Ok, they must have housemaids or someone who makes all the dirty work at home for them, and actually I might have one too, I can afford one. But it's not only that, which eats up all my free time.

So, I took my resolution: as soon as I go back to Lyon, I'll start writing my book about Turkey, one hour a day. It can be done, I just have to impose a discipline on myself, I know I can do it. Yes, I know, I have already said the same thing to myself a thousand times, but if I don't say it, I'll never do it, so it's a start. I know I won't be able to write when I work 9 or 11 hours in a day, but I'll try to when I have shorter shifts.

Also because, in all this going through library shelves, I found exactly the book I want to write: The New Turkey by Chris Morris. I know, I know: "if it has already been written, why do you want to do it?". Well, there are reasons: first of all, it's not translated in Italian, as far as I know. And I don't think it's going to be: it was published in 2006, but written in 2005. So, much of what is in there is already old. I realized it fully while reading the introduction, where I found much of what I might have said more or less a year and a half ago. This is another good reason to write a new book: to update the old one.

But the old one can be a good starting point to write the new one, so I bought it, of course. 18.10 euros. I hope it's worth it. I have read a few pages, and I haven't been disappointed so far. Actually, it's excitingly the same style I want to use. And it excites me because, if a BBC correspondent did it, maybe my idea is not so crazy as I feared.

See here.

Ok, I'm a complete fool: I've always told myself I'd read his books once I'd learn Turkish. Here I am. As if I hadn't known he would win it finally (rumours were insistent last year, when Pinter finally got the prize). Now I will have to buy books twice as expensive as they used to be *sigh*

In italiano
En français

Kebab, sex and Star Trek.

No, it just doesn't fit in. I've been in Baglar: it's one of the poorest areas in Diyarbakir. Only Kurds live there. Why should Kurdish separatist hit there? It's as if a Palestinian kamikaze blew himself up in Gaza. It simply doesn't make sense.
And yesterday DTP, the Kurdish party, hours before the attack, had called PKK for a ceasefire. Lately, PKK had proposed a sort of roadmap to peace.
There ARE other forces who might be interested in messing things up. Let's not forget last year, in November, it was the Turkish security forces that throw a grenade to a bookshop in Semdinli, with the aim of blaming it to the Kurds.
Next year there are presidential and general elections.
Things in Turkey are always more complicated than they seem.
I simply don't believe it.

Rhythms are slowing down. For now.
I wish I had the time to write about Hasankeyf on my French travel blog. I'm afraid I'll be able to write about it only once it will be completely flooded.

 

Anyway, it's getting better. Tomorrow it's my last day under a contract. Then I'll start to work as a free lance again. Just thinking of it is enough to make me feel better

Are you interested in Kurdish issues, Turkish politics and EU-Turkey relationships? Then this interview on my Turkish Diary blog is for you.

Do you prefer soccer instead and are being rather nostalgic of the World Cup? Here you will find a compilation of funny videos about Zidane's best strike.

Nothing better than a nice porn movie? Ok, then this is for you.

Tonight I want to share with you this post I sent on my newsletter Turkish Diary.

I've triumphantly reached my hosts' house. Everything is so fine I just can't believe it.
I'm going to tell more about my trip to Turkey on my Turkish Diary newsletter, after I have slept to get rid of this mild but persistent headache.
If someone wishes to subscribe to the newsletter, just ask.

But everything goes fine.
I'm in Rome, tomorrow I'll be in Istanbul, and on Sunday in Ankara. Hopefully.

In Fiuggi, at the Italcon, I spent hours talking with Jeffrey Willerth, who is much more talkative (and nice) than the character he plays in Babylon 5: Ambassador Kosh :-)

Veeeeery nice also his wife, Patricia Tallman, B5's Lyta.

It was a great Italcon.

I'm afraid I won't be able to upload my photos sooner than May. Just wait and hope.