Dedicated to Troy Davis

Another man was killed by the American penalty system. We're talking about Troy Davis, convincted  of murder with aggravating factor and executed at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison yesterday morning.

I must admit that I'm not well informed about his story, even though his name was pretty popular and I sometimes received emails about him and all the different petitions and demonstrations carried out by people in order to get a commutation of death penalty in life sentence.

Anyway, lots of information can be found on the Net, as for example, here (Wikipedia).

There are just a couple of things I'd like to highlight.
I don't want to be too trite, but first of all we should never stop asking ourselves wheter it is legitimate for a State to decide to execute somebody - and pay death back with death - .
After that, Troy Davis was arrested in 1989, which means 22 long years spent in prison, from his adolescence  to his death, at the age of 42. Is it a human behaviour to torture a man in this way, keeping him alive for all this time, when the most probable end of the story will be "execution"? Moreover, Troy Davis had 3 previous execution dates set, before the fourth, last one. How would you call that? I'd suggest "psychological torture".





'Till the end Davis maintaned his innocence. Of course, I don't know if this is true, and I really don't know wheter I'd wish he was guilty, right now. That will not justify death penalty, of course. But can you imagine the embarrassment and sufferings that will be caused if they find out that an innocent was killed? And that wouldn't be the first -and nor the last - time, I'm afraid.

Organic chemistry...

...is not so much fun. It might be interesting of course, but since I've been spending more than two weeks preparing my exam and studying by heart names, formulae and reactions, I must admit that organic chemistry and I don't get along very well together.

Anyway, while surfing the Net for some help / support / suggestions / an escape from reality probably (!) I've found something very interesting and useful.
It's a program called ChemSketch, devoloped by ACDLABS, that can be downloaded for free from HERE .
With it, you can draw all the different molecules and then it can generate the IUPAC name for them (which is very useful when you have to practice IUPAC names). Of course it can do lots of other amazing things that I don't have the time to learn right now.

Another great help is Jmol, an opensourse java viewer for 3D molecules.

Wow, we're so lucky to leave in an era of technology! ;)

Leica 24 x 36 photo contest!

Hello everybody!
How are you doing in this end of summer?

Today I'll use my blog to have some "self advertisement", we can say.
In fact, I'm taking part in a photo contest by Leica Italy. Of course I'm just an amateur and I take pictures for fun in my (not much) free time. Moreover I use a Panasonic Lumix camera, which is not bad at all, but of course it's far from being a professional equipment.

Anyway, this contest could be a great opportunity to get known and learn a bit more about the amazing art of Photography, soooo.. what I ask you to do is: if you have a Facebook or Twitter account, please visit this page: My photos for Leica 24 x 36 and if you like my pictures just "Like" or "Tweet" them.

Of course, if you have a little spare time, it will be worth having a look to the pictures of the other participants. There are lots of great works! Just click on the word "GALLERIA".

Thank you so much! I'd really appreciate your support :)

BookCrossing Time!

I released a book on the train this morning!

It was my first time after ages and I'm happy to feel again this sensation of joy and a little bit of anxiety while wating for my book to be registered on the site by his new, lucky owner.

And you?? Have you ever tried Bookcrossing? If not, you really should!!!

What is it?

It's a funny and free way to share your books with other "Bookcrossers". You register your books on the website and you get a code called BCID. Then you can choose to give the book to a person you know, or to leave in "into the wild" ( = "to release" it). But before you do that, don't forget to write a release note on the site and the BCID together with some instructions in your book! In this way the person who finds it, will be able to register the book in the site again, so that you can keep track of its journey.

If you don't like this way of sharing books you can send them to people who wish to read them (in this case we're talking about a "controlled release", since you altready know your book's destination).

And keep your eyes open!!! Who knows, maybe you'll meet a released book to take with you soon!

To learn more:  click here

ENJOY!

Back to Reality

Hello surfers!

I'm sorry I haven't updated this blog in a while.
Actually nothing too interesting happened during my exams season and then I left for holidays. Lack of visitors to the blog is not a fillip for me, but I'm aware of the fact that if I don't post anything, things won't get better for sure. Do you have any tips to increase the number of visitors to a blog?

My holidays were great. I had a volunteering experience in EKPAZ, which is the Hellenic Wildlife Hospital, on the Island of Aegina, south of Athens. There, injured and poisoned wild animals are sent and can find a shelter where they are treated and fed in order to be released once they're better. It was a "real life experience", we can say. Hard work and not much food. Unfortunately something very bad happened 3 days after my departure and the bad news put a shade on the memories I'll have of this holiday.
Anyway, volunteering with animals was such a great experience! I would like to repeat it soon.
it's not easy to get back to my books and my daily routine right now. Once you try what's beyond your normal life of student, it's not painless trying to fit again into something that feels too tight for you.

Travelling Journal Project and random stuff

Hello Surfers!

What are you up to these days?
First of all, I'm sorry to tell you that I decided to remove the chat tool from the blog, since it was full of spam and no other comments :( That's sad!

Then, Travelling Journal Project time: I've just found out that it arrived safely to Ukraine yesterday! Sooo happy! There's still a long way to go; anyway, once the first copybook is full, I think I'll ask for it to be headed back to me, while a new copybook will be used by the next participant. In this way, we'll reduce the possibility of the first part of the TJ to get lost in the mail, and I'll also start to scan it and share itwith you! I'm so excited!!!

Alright, change of topic! Daily life :) Exams are coming!!! I'm a bit nervous... So many things to learn and time is never enough! But I'm not alone right? :D
And then this weekend is going to be very important for my country: we're voting for some important decisions about nuclear energy, private water and parlimentary privilege.
So please, I'd like to understand what is your personal opinion about nuclear energy. What do foreign countries do about that? Do you think that it is more usufeul than dangerous? let me know!

This is it! Back to work!

General Updates

Hello Surfers :)

I know that it's been a while since I wrote my last post, but actually nothing really new or exciting has happened recently.

I know I had promised to let you know about the Loud and Proud Festival and that's what I'm going to do right now. It was simply... GREAT, AMAZING, FANTASTIC, EXCITING... but most of all... LOUD AND PROUD!!! ;) Ahah, well I think that's the way people normally feel after a concert of their favourite singer/band, so I'm pretty sure there's no need to describe this sensation any further. But you have to know that I'm not really used to go to concerts, so it was something pretty new to me. And beside that, well... Dropkick Murphys are not exactly the same as a classical music concert (with due respect to classical music of course!!!), if you get what I mean...! Sooo... we can say I really loved that. Moreover their new album is so good and I liked the way they mingled new songs with the older ones during the concert.
Unfortunately it was too crowded and... messy! so the few pictures I took in there were really bad :/

Alright. As for the rest, I'm pretty happy these days. The sun is shining almost everyday and there's light until 9 p.m.!!! Thank God, everything's fine, even if approaching exams are staring to smell bad!!! But I feel lucky, so long as my biggest problem is exams :)

Change of topic! My  "Lyrics TN" has started!!! ( http://seequando.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-lyrics-travelling-notebook.html ). So I'm waiting for your sheets, Postcrossers!!! (well, of course, if other surfers would like to participate, just leave a comment under this post!).

That's it!

Please, drop a line in the chat box if you visit this blog (not just for spam, as somebody's doing)! That would be very welcome :)

Good night!