90% humidity 35C scattered clouds

25 May 2009
by Arnaldo Pellini
Diary

I arrive at the track and field track and am already sweating. The bicycle ride from home is just 10 minutes. The air seems cool at the sunset but is just an impression. As soon as you stop moving the sweat starts. I jump down. Pay the 10 Pesos offer at the entrance. Lock the bike. Fix my iPod Shuffle. Earplugs. Walk to the loop. For the first time in my life I find myself going jogging on areal 400m track and field loop in this small stadium in Dumaguete. And I am not alone. The opening times for this track to the public are 04:30am to 09:00am and from 04:00pm to 07:00pm. I did not tired yet the 4:30 in the morning and I am not sure I ever will. But I like to arrive here in the late afternoon before the quick sunset of the tropics sets in. The has a warmer tone but the sun is not so hot anymore.  People come here stretch, to walk, jog, and practice. All walk anticlockwise with the slower on the outer lanes and the runner in the inner lanes. The impression is that people seem to talk at a lower tone or in whispers when walking next to each other. But it is just an impression. the place is quite open, there are no high building around the stadium. The breeze at times form the sea and at times form the nearby mountains carries the words away.

I stretch a little bit the legs which are already quite warm for the bicycle ride. Then stand up and start to walk with the flow. Select ‘Message in a Bottle’ and start to run at an easy pace in lane 5. I have not been running for some time. First I have been in Ha Noi alone while Katja was already here in the Philippines. The moving here. Looking for a house. The school. The work. A lot going on the last couple of months.

I reach the second turn and feel good. The knees are doing fine and Sting is singing in alive version of So Lonely. Somebody in lane 2 is doing 200m series. The recovers for 200m then again a sprint for 200m. I am tempted but better to leave it for in a month or so, depending how I can keep up with running between the trips for the work. The sun is setting behind the mountains its rays are spreading all over the blue sky. How strange to be here. Running on this track in a town that 6 months ago we never heard of. In the last few days I have felt more a sense of routine and normality. The fact that we now get our Guardian Weekly has of course helped. We are connected again!

Keep up my pace. Will do 14 loops today. Listening music. Breathing clean air. With the company of unknown fellow runners. The night will come quickly but for the time being we are ok. It is 90% humidity, 35C, and scattered clouds which are turning form white to orange hide the top of the vulcano which towers over the mountain range behind Dumaguete.

On working remotely

20 April 2009
by Arnaldo Pellini
Diary

Here is my contribution on working remotely in the last issue of ODEye, the internal newsletter of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

Far away, but still so close (with a little help from IT and PRINCE2)

The Wim Wenders movie Der Himmel über Berlin is– the story of two angels who comfort mortals, but cannot be seen by them. Images from that movie came to mind when I was asked to contribute to ODEye and share thoughts on my work in RAPID and on the fact that I live overseas with my family, in Ha Noi for the last two years and soon in the Philippines. In one sequence, angels wander among the readers in a library, ‘hearing’ the minds of the people reading, but unable to speak to them or be seen. They are very close, but also very far away. I find it similar to my work with RAPID: I am a long way from my colleagues (seven hours ahead of GMT and 9.600 km from London), but feel quite close to them, thanks to the communication possibilities provided by our IT system, and the management processes that we are developing.

I joined RAPID in June 2008 after working with UNDP in Ha Noi , researching the 20 years of the Doi Moi reform. Before that, I had finalised my PhD and worked on civil society and local governance issues in GTZ projects in rural Cambodia. During my first six months at ODI, there have been two possible destinations for my relocation: Europe and Asia. The first never materialised because of the difficulties in finding relevant employment opportunities for my wife, Katja, who has now found a position in the Philippines. So I will manage my work for RAPID from there. One point from RAPID’s five year strategy grabbed my attention in summer 2008: the medium term goal of having RAPID staff relocated or seconded in the South and have staff from Southern institutes working in London I interpret ODI’s acceptance of my life overseas as a step towards that goal.

I am managing two main projects. First, a three year project funded by UNDP, providing support to evidence based policy development at the Vietnam Academy of Social Science (VASS). I am also facilitating the attempt to establish a South East Asia evidence-based policy in development network (ebpdn), as well as providing support to the existing South Asia network.

In my opinion, two elements are required to close the distance between Asia and London and allow good communication between myself and the team as well as the smooth running of projects where team members are based in different parts of the world.

First, a good IT infrastructure. Despite the effort required to learn to use and tailor SharePoint, I think it is a very useful tools. It always amazes me being, as I am now, at the Highland Coffee bar in Ha Noi typing these words, and being able to access my emails, upload and share files in the server in London. It is because of our IT infrastructure that, for example, I have been able to work with RAPID colleagues to coordinate a three day training session at ODI in London for economists from the Middle East and North Africa. In doing so, I have been able to exchange documents to describe roles, tasks and deadlines, discuss them through Messenger and organise Skype calls that often take place late in the evening for me, but reduces the number of short messages and emails back and forth.

Second, a structured management system that defines roles and responsibilities for project governance. I have been working with PRINCE2 for the last two years with UNDP, based on two main principles: product-based planning and regular reviews of project performance and product delivery. All UNDP staff must complete an official test and become certified in PRINCE2.

I remember looking at the boxes, arrows and lists in the manual and thinking: ‘Oh no, more bureaucracy!’, but my experience with PRINCE2 is now proving useful in my work with RAPID. For example, every week I prepare a highlight report for John Young, my Director and line manager, with a bullet list of the week’s activities and any comments or concerns. Every fortnight, I speak to John on Skype, using this report as an agenda. Another example concerns the governance of projects that involve a number of team members, as in my work with VASS. I have prepared a plan based on deliverables and products for the three years with inputs by team members so that they can plan ahead for missions to Ha Noi or home-based work. I have divided the project into six main activities and am preparing work packages for each to describe background, objective, products to be delivered (e.g. working paper or a training), and roles of team members. The aim is a standard approach to help all team members stay up to date with the project progress, and allow them to take up management responsibilities without too much effort.

None of this would be possible without ODI’s understanding of my family situation. I am close to my family and able to foster closer cooperation with partners in the region, reducing the time and cost of travel. However, I cannot access all the learning opportunities provided by ODI and I have fewer opportunities to get to know colleagues from other research groups. Nonetheless, I hope that the benefits of this experiment will outweigh the costs and that my colleagues will feel, with a bit of help from IT and PRINCE2, that I am even closer than an angel in a library.

On working remotely

20 April 2009
by Arnaldo Pellini
Diary

 

Here is my contribution on working remotely in the last issue of ODEye, the internal newsletter of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

Far away, but still so close (with a little help from IT and PRINCE2)

The Wim Wenders movie Der Himmel über Berlin is– the story of two angels who comfort mortals, but cannot be seen by them. Images from that movie came to mind when I was asked to contribute to ODEye and share thoughts on my work in RAPID and on the fact that I live overseas with my family, in Ha Noi for the last two years and soon in the Philippines. In one sequence, angels wander among the readers in a library, ‘hearing’ the minds of the people reading, but unable to speak to them or be seen. They are very close, but also very far away. I find it similar to my work with RAPID: I am a long way from my colleagues (seven hours ahead of GMT and 9.600 km from London), but feel quite close to them, thanks to the communication possibilities provided by our IT system, and the management processes that we are developing.

I joined RAPID in June 2008 after working with UNDP in Ha Noi , researching the 20 years of the Doi Moi reform. Before that, I had finalised my PhD and worked on civil society and local governance issues in GTZ projects in rural Cambodia. During my first six months at ODI, there have been two possible destinations for my relocation: Europe and Asia. The first never materialised because of the difficulties in finding relevant employment opportunities for my wife, Katja, who has now found a position in the Philippines. So I will manage my work for RAPID from there. One point from RAPID’s five year strategy grabbed my attention in summer 2008: the medium term goal of having RAPID staff relocated or seconded in the South and have staff from Southern institutes working in London I interpret ODI’s acceptance of my life overseas as a step towards that goal.

I am managing two main projects. First, a three year project funded by UNDP, providing support to evidence based policy development at the Vietnam Academy of Social Science (VASS). I am also facilitating the attempt to establish a South East Asia evidence-based policy in development network (ebpdn), as well as providing support to the existing South Asia network.

In my opinion, two elements are required to close the distance between Asia and London and allow good communication between myself and the team as well as the smooth running of projects where team members are based in different parts of the world.

First, a good IT infrastructure. Despite the effort required to learn to use and tailor SharePoint, I think it is a very useful tools. It always amazes me being, as I am now, at the Highland Coffee bar in Ha Noi typing these words, and being able to access my emails, upload and share files in the server in London. It is because of our IT infrastructure that, for example, I have been able to work with RAPID colleagues to coordinate a three day training session at ODI in London for economists from the Middle East and North Africa. In doing so, I have been able to exchange documents to describe roles, tasks and deadlines, discuss them through Messenger and organise Skype calls that often take place late in the evening for me, but reduces the number of short messages and emails back and forth.

Second, a structured management system that defines roles and responsibilities for project governance. I have been working with PRINCE2 for the last two years with UNDP, based on two main principles: product-based planning and regular reviews of project performance and product delivery. All UNDP staff must complete an official test and become certified in PRINCE2.

I remember looking at the boxes, arrows and lists in the manual and thinking: ‘Oh no, more bureaucracy!’, but my experience with PRINCE2 is now proving useful in my work with RAPID. For example, every week I prepare a highlight report for John Young, my Director and line manager, with a bullet list of the week’s activities and any comments or concerns. Every fortnight, I speak to John on Skype, using this report as an agenda. Another example concerns the governance of projects that involve a number of team members, as in my work with VASS. I have prepared a plan based on deliverables and products for the three years with inputs by team members so that they can plan ahead for missions to Ha Noi or home-based work. I have divided the project into six main activities and am preparing work packages for each to describe background, objective, products to be delivered (e.g. working paper or a training), and roles of team members. The aim is a standard approach to help all team members stay up to date with the project progress, and allow them to take up management responsibilities without too much effort.

None of this would be possible without ODI’s understanding of my family situation. I am close to my family and able to foster closer cooperation with partners in the region, reducing the time and cost of travel. However, I cannot access all the learning opportunities provided by ODI and I have fewer opportunities to get to know colleagues from other research groups. Nonetheless, I hope that the benefits of this experiment will outweigh the costs and that my colleagues will feel, with a bit of help from IT and PRINCE2, that I am even closer than an angel in a library.

Good bye Ha Noi

5 April 2009
by Arnaldo Pellini
Diary

Almost midnight. Quiet evening. House is almost empty of furniture. Luggage are ready upstairs. In few hours we will leave from Ha Noi.

We have been living here for two years and three months.  This afternoon I was sitting in the garden in front of our house at the Swedish Camp in Ha Noi. It just stopped to rain. Drops where falling from the leaves of the bushes. Gray clouds and a nice breeze. I sipped my tea and looked at the big tree which overshadows the playground for the kids. I remember that tree few weeks ago when the temperature was right, or maybe the humidity,  starting to pop its seeds. Brown, round and flat seeds as big as a 50 cents Euro coin, falling from the tree after a little pop, pop, pop, pop, pop….pop.  What a nice, trees at this time of the year, with so many new and bright green leaves.

What are the images of Ha Noi that I will bring with me? Two come to my mind in this moment. The streets of Ha Noi and its traffic. The number of cars and motorbikes that has certainly increase in the last two years putting more and more pressure on the streets of this town which cannot grow more as they constrained by the many lakes of the city. The traffic and the noise as a sign of development and progress, but also the polluted air and me not giving up on my bicycle and feeling rather like a species into extinction.

The second image is the green of this island of peace which is where we live, the Swedish Camp. Just 200 hundred meters north of Ki Ma , one of the busiest streets of the town, we have had the luck of living in a green compound where in the morning is possible to listen to birds singing. Where I can sit, as I did today. Watching the drops from the rain falling one by on from the leaves of the bushes and trees of this compound. I do not know how long will it take before this compound will make place to a high rising building. I hope not too soon. Anyhow this has been our island  in this town Ha Noi, where we have leave two years of our lives and where we have seen Olga and Venla grow and play wit our Swedish friends .

Good bye Lang Thuy Dien. Good bye Ha Noi.

Greg Mankiw’s Blog – How to Write Well

17 March 2009
by Arnaldo Pellini
Quotes

When I was CEA chair, I sent the following guidelines to my staff as they started drafting the Economic Report of the President. A friend recently emailed me a copy, and I thought I would share them with blog readers. They are good rules of thumb, especially for economists writing for a general audience.

ERP Writing Guidelines

  • Stay focused. Remember the take-away points you want the reader to remember. If some material is irrelevant to these points, it should probably be cut.
  • Keep sentences short. Short words are better than long words. Monosyllabic words are best.
  • The passive voice is avoided by good writers.
  • Positive statements are more persuasive than normative statements.
  • Use adverbs sparingly.
  • Avoid jargon. Any word you don’t read regularly in a newspaper is suspect.
  • Never make up your own acronyms.
  • Avoid unnecessary words. For instance, in most cases, change
    o “in order to” to “to”
    o “whether or not” to “whether”
    o “is equal to” to “equals”
  • Avoid “of course, “clearly,” and “obviously.” Clearly, if something is obvious, that fact will, of course, be obvious to the reader.
  • The word “very” is very often very unnecessary.
  • Keep your writing self-contained. Frequent references to other works, or to things that have come before or will come later, can be distracting.
  • Put details and digressions in footnotes. Then delete the footnotes.
  • To mere mortals, a graphic metaphor, a compelling anecdote, or a striking fact is worth a thousand articles in Econometrica.
  • Keep your writing personal. Remind readers how economics affects their lives.
  • Remember two basic rules of economic usage:
    o “Long run” (without a hyphen) is a noun. “Long-run” (with a hyphen) is an adjective. Same with “short(-)run.”
    o “Saving” (without a terminal s) is a flow. “Savings” (with a terminal s) is a stock.
  • Buy a copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. Also, William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. Read them—again and again and again.
  • Keep it simple. Think of your reader as being your college roommate who majored in English literature. Assume he has never taken an economics course, or if he did, he used the wrong textbook.

Paul Krugman on writing

17 March 2009
by Arnaldo Pellini
Quotes

“As an economist in good standing, I am quite capable of writing things nobody can read. Indeed, unreadable writing – my own and others’ – played a key role in helping me arrive at the views presented here [i.e. in this book]. But what the world needs now is informed action; and to get that kind of action, ideas must be presented in a way that is accessible to concerned people at large, not just those with economics Ph.D.’s”

Return to Depression Economics (Penguin, 2008: p.6)

Quotes from Haruki Murakami’s, What I Talk about when I Talk about Running

15 December 2008
by Arnaldo Pellini
Quotes

‘Thus the seasons come and go, and the years pass by. I’ll age one more year, and probably finish another novel. One by one, I will face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the horizon as far ahead as I can. I am, after all, a long-distance runner’

‘The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just because there is an end does not mean existence has meaning.’

Quotes from Haruki Murakami’s, What I Talk about when I Talk about Running

15 December 2008
by Arnaldo Pellini
Quotes

‘Thus the seasons come and go, and the years pass by. I’ll age one more year, and probably finish another novel. One by one, I will face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the horizon as far ahead as I can. I am, after all, a long-distance runner’

‘The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just because there is an end does not mean existence has meaning.’

South of the Equator

29 November 2008
by Arnaldo Pellini
Diary

First thing I check when in my room at the Cemara Hotel here in Jakarta is to check whether the water whirls clockwise or any clockwise when I pull the tap in the bathroom sink. This time I checked before leaving Ha Noi. Checked carefully in the kitchen sink and the whirl was definitely clockwise. I checked here in Jakarta, first time the water left to the pipes without any whirl (too much water or maybe too large tap). Try a second time, put some foam in the water to better detect small whirls. An undetectable whirls. I start to think that maybe next to the equator the water actually whirls, up to zero-whirls on the equator itself. Just stone heavy water disappearing into the pipes. Try a third time, just lift a little bit the tap. See small whirls disappearing into the thin tap. Something wrong, they are all clockwise! How is that? What is the physics behind this? Can anybody explain?

36009ft and the time I saw my daughter as a grown up

29 November 2008
by Arnaldo Pellini
Diary / Landscapes

I have two daughters. Olga age four. Venla age two. I look at their pictures on the whole of my room in Southwark (London). It is evening. Maybe ten o’clock. I have finished packing my two bags for today’s flight back to Ha Noi via Singapore. I have cleaned the room. Thrown paper away. Folded the jumpers I will not need during the next two months. Put them in a box. Took plastic bags to wrap my Ikea pillows. Put my Asics runners away. The room is still. The bed lamp on, warm white light. Even Woolworth Rd where I live seems quieter. I have just talked on the phone with my friend Omar who is teaching economics in Chemnitz (ex Karl Marx Stadt). Inevitably our conversation went on our home town, our lives abroad and the decision to leave Italy. Our current lives which have the same concerns as if we would still live in Cremona but at the same seem freer, at least to me.

Sitting at the edge of the futon bed. Sip Roibos tea. Enjoy the stillness that follow the end of packing and marks the beginning of the waiting time until the departure. The wall I am watching at is full of pictures. They are my links to Katja and the girls while I am away for work. Almost all of them are about our family and the life in various countries during last five to six years: Finland, Nepal, Finland, Cambodia, Finland, Vietnam.

I slowly fly over the pictures. Up and down. Left to right. North to South. East to West. Europe to Asia. Asia to Europe. Look ay Venla as a baby. Olga in the lap of Chan when we left Phnom Penh, Venla in Finland at the mökki, me and Olga the terasse of a Greek restaurant in Tampere. Look at Olga, at her smile and my mind starts to wonder off. My eyes still looking at this wall of pictures buy my mind sees a memory of few weeks ago. We are in Ha Noi. It is evening. We have been out for dinner to a Japanese restaurant. Four adults and five children of various ages. We just left the taxi at the parking lot of the Swedish Camp where we all live. The children are running around. The four of us walk and soon will to say good night to each other. Olga is walking few meters behind me talking to her friend Emma. Emma starts to run towards her house across the garden, Olga is on the path with us. I hear them saying good night to each other. I stop and turn around to observe. ‘Good night Emma’. ‘Good night Olga’. Emma runs away. Stops. Seem not sure about what to do. Turns back and calls for Olga. I see Olga on the path. Waiting for her friend running towards her. It is almost like seeing the scene frame after frame. As pictures on a PC slideshow. Olga waits for Emma. Looking at her running across the garden. She is really in the moment. Going to bed can wait, there is this moment just now.

They reach. They whisper something to each other which I cannot hear. It is their secret. Maybe a plan for the next day. Or a story for later. Or again the discussion to ask to us if they can still play for just half an hour before going to sleep. I see the two of them standing on the foot path, under the warm light in the garden. Olga holds Emma hand. And it comes as a sudden realisation to me, in that very split second, that very frame that she has an own world, own thoughts, own talks with friend from which I am rightly excluded. That she has grown up.

The picture in my memory fades and I return on the pictures on the wall. My room. London. Departure. Home. Where is home? What is home? Home is the family. I would so much like to have that frame of Olga and Emma among these pictures, so strong are my feelings for that moment. I wish we had the ability to take pictures with our own eyes, just a blink…click! Store them in the mind and download them to a PC. The problem I see with it is that we would be able to re-live constantly our life which may not be so good after all. Like this Monty Payton character in a show I just saw in the plane screen, who was walking to God: … woosh, that was your life. So short? Can I have another one? No, you can’t. So b make of that …. woosh the best we can.

Well, at least I have this picture in my mind and can try to put it in words as I am doing now on this plane at 36009ft over the Caspian Sea, en route to Singapore and Ha Noi … en route home.

SQ317 London – Singapore