Christmas 2011

Another year goes by and probably we don’t look the same; as the song says, another grey hair and more smile lines show up how we drift away from youth, but this doesn’t necessarily mean giving up our hopes and dreams.

Near the end of the year, I think it is a healthy habitude to review what happened during these twelve months.

The year 2011 started with a lot of things that were near to reach the goal. My daughter, who has been studying in Sicily (Italy) for three years, was near to finish her studies. My son was finishing at the high-school (in fact, in a semi-boarding school) and he was thinking of studying at the University of Navarra –800 km /500 miles – up to the north from Granada. He thought to study law and this university has got one of the most reputed faculties in Spain. On my side, I started having problems getting financing for research projects from the Regional Government and the second try for a collaborative project on “Systems Biology” with MSU/UCL/Purdue colleagues wasn’t successful. I assume that this hideous name: “crisis” is everywhere and started to affect research funds too.

Spain has gone through troubling times, especially during the last summer, in which it was at the verge of being intervened by EU in order to prevent from a defaulting that could make the Euro fall apart. Spain is the fourth economy in the EU (1380 billions of US dollars of National Product), and thus a failure to pay the debts would be a huge problem for the rest of European economies.

Regarding academic issues, as of January 2011, I thought that things couldn’t get worse, and thus they should start to improve --a little bit, at least-- in the following months –very optimistic as usual, I didn’t realize that Mr. Rodriguez-Zapatero had more “brilliant ideas” in the oven to make Spain get out of the crisis. The next “measure” was to lower the salaries of functionaries, which also includes university professors in Spain. In consequence, we started the new year 2011 earning 7% less than the preceding one. Don’t ever say “things couldn’t get worse”, since they actually can!

My daughter finally finished her studies and by the end of July she succeeded the “Laurea” and earned the diploma of “doctoressa ingeniera” at the Technical University of Palermo. The equivalent in US universities could be a M.S. in Civil Engineering degree. After some hesitations during the summer she decided to return to Palermo, where she has recently found a job in an Italian company dedicated to terrain evaluation. She and her Italian boyfriend have settled in Palermo and they are planning to get married next year. I must say at this point, as "a pedantic citation" of Prince Salina in the Lampedusian’s Gato Pardo: “a man at mi age, who think of him as to be still young…”, has to realize that he’s no more and never will be, when he sees the children leaving him and starting lives on themselves.

Regarding my son, he got a “not bad” grade in the regional examination to get admitted in the University, but –because he’s a lucky pal in this world— he managed to get a student seat on “Business Administration and Law” at the University of Granada. You need an “A” grade to have a chance to get admitted in these studies, but he managed to get in with only a “B”. I can’t imagine what he said in the interview, but surely we will know about the adventures and life of the “famous writer to be” when he will finish the book of “memories” that he’s writing in secrecy in his room.

At last, but not least, my life has been plenty of unexpected happenings during this year. I had one trial that I won and new professional expectations that will probably mean moving to the University Complutense of Madrid. People around say that the actual reason of my decision to change to another university in Madrid it’s because I'm looking for getting closer to the famous “Santiago Bernabeu”, the home stadium of Real Madrid. I can make sure to you all that this is not the main reason of my desire to move to the capital of Spain –but, anyway, the latter one has been a good guess!

With the new Government in Spain, the Science and Innovation Ministry has disappeared, and thus the issues related to science funding and new research projects are now managed by the Ministry of Economy. Therefore, might it make sense to live where the money is?

I don’t want to finish this twelve-months-life-briefing without mentioning a short and pleasant stay at the University of Koblenz, kindly invited by my friend and colleague professor Dieter Zöebel. I was accommodated in a typical German “guest-house” looking into the Mossel river; in the morning I could see the beavers and wild ducks swimming in the cold and clean waters of this magnificent river, which produces in its banks one of the best white wines of the world!

As usual, I’m writing this in the very last minute, on my way to home from Barcelona, during the Christmas eve. There is one good thing in that: this writing comes directly from my heart -–there is no make-up in it.

And from my heart too, dear friends, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and that the best of your desires and dreams could made true in the new year 2012.



New Year wish: May 2012 brings the freedom to the tough people that the anthem sings: