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| Inaugural Speech of the new academic year |
The rise in chinese tourists has been a big help this week. Not only to the economy but to the poor christians living here. They bring medicines, toiletries and money to help the various institutes that support the poor with care, food and medicine. Of course there are also those who simply come for tourism sake ... spending thousands of dollars on diamonds and snob appeal goods.
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| Honoring Prof. Buscemi (white haired franciscan in the middle) |
Today the Dominican biblical school and the Franciscan university in Jerusalem held their combined "Inaugural Speech" (Proluzione in italian) for the new academic year. It was packed as usual not only by the students of both institutes but also by members of other academic institutions. Notably missing though were the bishops and Custos who were away for a serious meeting. It was also an occasion to honor Prof. Buscemi on his 70th birthday and 40 years of academic service in our university. He is now retired in Sicily. Buscemi is one of my best friends and we walk 4 km every Sunday ... partly to exercise and partly to shop for weekly necessities.
At the same time our library organized a 3 day exhibition on the Incunabuli held in our ancient books section. It's an interesting collection of the 1st printed books in Europe. Though there were others who did most of the work, my little contribution in organisation has left me exhausted. in fact the pressure was quite hard and due to lack of sleep, I almost fainted again during the precview. Went to my office to rest for a couple of hours. Still feeling dizzy.
Meantime the water crisis in Palestine is worsening by the day. The fact that the Palestinian govt refuses to meet Israeli officials (who hold the water sources) only makes the fate of poor arabs even more dire. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4876000,00.html
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