I would be interested to see the final thesis as that sounds very interesting. I am assuming that includes city planning as well?
What role do green spaces play in your thinking? Also the use of gardens in building design?
No doubt you are aware of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Urban_planning which from what I understand is pretty cool 
Hi John, I’d be glad to show you the end result. My goal is to try a publisher after I am finished, so I hope I will also have the pleasure of sending you a book with an ISBN on it
City planning belongs more to the ‘spatial planning’ department, where my specialty deals more with ‘urban and architectural design’. The major difference is that planners deal with numbers, statistics, data, etc, while we deal with drawings and maps
As for green spaces, they are important. :oHehe… Wow John, this is a great subject, and in my school (here in Milan), there is a whole tradition of NOT generalizing to ‘green spaces’, as there are all kinds of green spaces, and each should be put where fit. (a poor designer will name any open green space; ‘green’; but there are hundreds of things that one can do with a ‘green’ space… if you know what I mean). Gardens are also important :o In fact there is a section in my thesis devoted to ‘garden forms’.
Enough with that!! I thought I came to this journal to take a break from my work 
Sunday, Nov.7th, 2010
Rain… .rain … rain … rain… This city pretty much stinks weather-wise !!! I might as well have chosen the U.K., where people at least speak English… ?? :o
I trained in the rain. It was almost pouring.
> 30min on grass
> dynamic stretching
(the following were done on playground tartan… softest thing in the world… so nice!)
> 5 x 25m A skips
5 x 25m B skips
5 x 50m running A’s (tiring)
5 x 5x imaginary hurdle hops
(then I proceeded to the short grass hill - about 40m - still pouring)
> 3 x 40m hills (walk back recoveries)
I wanted to do more, but then an annoying man started climbing my hill, (no one else was around with that rain), staring and smiling at me rudely, so I jogged down the hill and vanished home, before anything could make me upset…
Sometimes I hate being a girl and training alone in a foreign city.
God bless the EMS:
> 20min explosive strength on hamstrings
> 25min active recovery on hamstrings
> 40min strength on quads
> 2 x 20min relaxing massage on calves (both were REALLY tight… that my left knee started hurting)
you have a history of attracting Mr Creepy Creeperson when you train :mad::mad:
So your calf coped ok with all that?
Stef,
that is an interesting subject and sorry for talking shop
Calf seems 100% with what I’m doing these days, but it just gets extra tight very easily ( Nikoluski was so right about stretching :o) and it bothers my knee, in a way that I haven’t felt in ages, so yesterday I didn’t train, in order to figure it out. I EMS’ed (relaxing massage program) the calves, and the knee immediately felt better, so I kinda know what’s wrong now (and I’m right )
so…
Monday, Nov. 8th, 2010
off
EMS relaxing massage calves
(pretty tiring day anyway, I was teaching in the morning and spent all the afternoon in the library, and then more research at home)
Tuesday, Nov. 9th, 2010
EMS: 2 x 20min relaxing massage on calves
30min warm up on the grass of “my” park
8 x 180m tempo (nothing bothered me)
3 x 8 pull ups at the monkey bars
3 x 8 chin ups (monkey bars)
3 x 25min running A skips
10 push ups
(embrace yourselves…) p.s. I did work during the following, as always :o
Notes of the day:
> I’m really happy I met this Greek researcher in July, who lives on the fourth floor… He’s fourty something years old, and we have become great friends; the intelligence and insight of some people is so rare, that when one finds clues of this sort, should take a moment to appreciate =)))
> Fall is really pretty, especially at my park. I was thinking, while admiring the scenery, that if I wrote about it later on in my journal, it wouldn’t be the same, because the senses would then not be real, but only a memory. Which makes me crave on some landscape painting on the site, which won’t happen for a WHILE from now.
> Dejan comes to visit on Thursday =)
> I need water-proof socks. IMMEDIATELY. My park is always wet now. I hate getting my feet wet every single day. Do water-proof socks even exist?
Calf seems 100% with what I’m doing these days, but it just gets extra tight very easily ( Nikoluski was so right about stretching :o) and it bothers my knee, in a way that I haven’t felt in ages, so yesterday I didn’t train, in order to figure it out. I EMS’ed (relaxing massage program) the calves, and the knee immediately felt better, so I kinda know what’s wrong now (and I’m right )
so…
Monday, Nov. 8th, 2010
off
EMS relaxing massage calves
(pretty tiring day anyway, I was teaching in the morning and spent all the afternoon in the library, and then more research at home)
Tuesday, Nov. 9th, 2010
EMS: 2 x 20min relaxing massage on calves
30min warm up on the grass of “my” park
8 x 180m tempo (nothing bothered me)
3 x 8 pull ups at the monkey bars
3 x 8 chin ups (monkey bars)
3 x 25m running A skips
10 push ups
(embrace yourselves…) p.s. I did work during the following, as always :o
Notes of the day:
> I’m really happy I met this Greek researcher in July, who lives on the fourth floor… He’s fourty something years old, and we have become great friends; the intelligence and insight of some people is so rare, that when one finds clues of this sort, should take a moment to appreciate =)))
> Fall is really pretty, especially at my park. I was thinking, while admiring the scenery, that if I wrote about it later on in my journal, it wouldn’t be the same, because the senses would then not be real, but only a memory. Which makes me crave on some landscape painting on the site, which won’t happen for a WHILE from now.
> Dejan comes to visit on Thursday =)
> I need water-proof socks. IMMEDIATELY. My park is always wet now. I hate getting my feet wet every single day. Do water-proof socks even exist?
Yep, I agree.
Just remember to come back to this post frequently… Good times! 
I will keep that in mind.
Wednesday, Nov.10th, 2010
Is this migraine age??? My mom has had them, and my middle sister also (she started getting them around my age). But I really think that the reason my head started to hurt so sharply at the end of the day, is because I hadn’t fed myself properly, and then I went training.
Today was one of those days when I realized how MUCH I still have to read, which, if not faced by deadlines, would be a pleasure thought, but now kinda stresses me out. Or just a little bit. I’m thankful to Christos, my highly-intelligent-upstairs-researcher-friend, who sometimes sleeps at weird hours, and works extensively to get things done, and when I asked him “are you stressed at the moment” (during a very tense and dense period of work) and he said “no… I never let things like this worry me”. He is actually worried because back home, (in Greece), as he says, he cannot find young researchers motivated enough to work on his projects enthusiastically, and he compares them to me, and he wishes there were more like me. Which is nice… One remark that really enlightened my stress: “the young people I work with, don’t feel like writing… but researchers should be pondering on things all the time… not to the point of torture, of course, but for the sake of insight”. Sometimes, I torture myself. But now I can see more clearly. In theory, at least…
So I decided… enough studying today… I will watch Grey’s Anatomy on youtube tonight If I don’t fall asleep…
Training:
Then the headache… which might not be a hunger headache after all because three hours later and a LOT of food, it still kind hurts… 
Is the knee OK then? Easy on plyos…
Excellent !!!
watching Greys Anatomy would give me a migraine
Oh come on now =)) It’s highly scientific and intellectual (hence the migraine 
)
Although the weather was 6 degrees (COLD) today, the sun finally peaked out, and I found company for my warm up (Iranian friend =D ) , which brought up my spirits. Company (training company) is so important !!! And then I was expecting Dejan too, so double the good…
Thursday, Nov. 11th, 2010
(all on grass, like all the other days since I came to Milan)
EMS:
I had red wine today. And now I’m eating sausages. With Dejan =)
Friday, Nov. 12th, 2010
> 40min + 40min walking
> 30min warm up jog (grass)
> 10min dynamic/static stretching
> 12 x 40m hills (maybe the hill is a little less, 37+m, but I’ll call it 40), walk back recoveries
> 4 x 70min right-right-left-left plyos (on grass)
> 40 total chin ups/pull ups
> 80 reps with resistance band (arms)
> 650 abs (some were done with a thick library book, instead of a MB, which I don’t have here :p)
I LOVE training with company (Dejan is here…)
Friday, Nov. 12th, 2010
> 40min + 40min walking
> 30min warm up jog (grass)
> 10min dynamic/static stretching
> 12 x 40m hills (maybe the hill is a little less, 37+m, but I’ll call it 40), walk back recoveries
> 4 x 70min right-right-left-left plyos (on grass)
> 40 total chin ups/pull ups
> 80 reps with resistance band (arms)
> 650 abs (some were done with a thick library book, instead of a MB, which I don’t have here :p)
I LOVE training with company (Dejan is here…)
Saturday, Nov.13th, 2010
6hours of walking :o
Sunday, Nov.14th, 2010
1 hour of running (no comment, please :o)
(>> raining raining all day long)
Tomorrow I have an important presentation.
Tuesday will most likely take a day trip to Vicenza, with Dejan =) Although it will be raining …
This part of Italy is too wet for me.
I can’t help it, but I’ll save it after your presentation…
I’ll give you a head start Nick:
hahaha shut up the both of you I’m going through a phase :o
Presentation went fine. My adviser said that I have a vast enough of material gathered and studied, “enough for three PhD thesis’”, and that I should sell the two…
:o Oh boy.
Training is looking like CRAP these days (like Silencer’s picture). Today was pouring all day long. I will EMS soon and do plyos on the carpet in the hall, for real. Tomorrow is a trip to Vicenza, and then I start training like a sprinter, I promise !!! I swear. :mad:
ummm… so far today: 90min walking (under the umbrella)
Tuesday, Nov. 16h, 2010
(Vicenza got postponed for tomorrow, due to rain)
What was the rest between these times?