The butterfly effect

Yesterday we've watched a fantastic, thrilling movie called the Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher. It's a terrific thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

It's about a young man (Ashton) who suffers from memory blackouts when he finds himself in harmful situations. Since he was seven he kept a diary about his blackouts and many years later he finds out how to remember what has happend back then and is able to kind of travel back in time and change the future. As he uses his powers to try to fix his past and present, the effect escalates, creating alternate realities, many of which are worse than the past that he is trying to change.
Although it is a fiction story it still has a lot of truth in it, which is simply creepy. The title "The butterfly effect" is out of a chaos theory. The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmpsphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or prevent a tornado from appearing).

It's one of the best movies I've watched lately and if you haven't seen it yet - go for it. We've watched it in English with English subtitels which was just fine to understand everything.

Little Britain

As I've mentioned in my last blog I'm absolutely keen on the serial "Little Britain. It's shown on ORF1 every Thursday at around 11 pm. Usually that's bed time for me, I'm not joking (I have to get up almost every day at 7), but Thursday is an exception.
They show exaggerated but hilarious scetches with the same characters every week.
I've just checked out the homepage:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/

My favourites are:

Daffyd - the only guy in the village, at least that's what he dreams of


Vicky: yes but, no but, yes but, no but.... It's hilarious, the only problem is you can hardly understand her (or him) because she/he is talking soooo fast. I can't even manage to read the subtitles (-:

And finally Sebastian and Michael. The prime minister Micheal with his guy aid Sebastian who adores him and is always jealous when another man approaches.

You can also watch some of the sketches online at the above address.
Enjoy some great laughters!

Week 16

• Grammar/Vocab: This week we had our first progress test, so I had a look at everything we've done during this semester so far. I studied vocabs from Jaywalking, "and now" text, ... Looked at the phrases and collocations in the script, the stereotypes of the Irish ect.
• Speaking: We met at Propeller for a funny, informative English evening (see entry)
• Reading: almost finished "Almost French". I hope then I will finally concentrate on Jaywalking, it's just that I don't really feel like it. But next week it's supposed to be another splendid week with lots of sunshine and I'll try to read the book in the park, maybe that helps (-:
• Listening: I forgot to mention that I watch "Little Britain" every Thursday evening. I just love it. If you like the British humour it will be the right thing for you, I promise!
  

Kleine Zeitung Crash-Kurs

I forgot to mention my morning crash-lessons in English (-:

We have a subscription of the "Kleine Zeitung" and in every release there is a sentence in German you have to translate in English. So my day already starts with tiny translation practice. Unfortunately almost every morning I'm very annoyed because I always think, oh that's so easy, and then when I look at the solution it's not quite right. But now, after having attended a few lectures about translation science, I know there is not only one trantslation and I'm happy again (-:

I will write down some morning examples here, when I come across some nice ones (-:

Here is one:

• Ich möchte einen Plan von der Umgebung.

solution:Could I have a map of the area.
"of" not "from" the area (-; In which of Rebecca's table does it fit? Maybe "Relation to"?

Another one:

• Ich hätte gerne einen Termin für Schneiden, Washen und Föhnen.

solution: Could I have an appointment for cut and blow-dry, please.

Would you have translated it like that? For my part blow-dry is really a bit strange, but never mind.
I know the sentences are always a bit weird but it's because they concern everyday life communication, I guess. Anyway, it's fun though.

girls "meeting"

On tuesday evening we (hot chicks from SUK4 (-: ) had a so called "meeting" at the propeller. We confinded ourselfs to only speaking English. At first, I feared that it might not work out, because in this bar we were not forced to speak English, but my doubts were unfounded. We were all eager to discuss the weirdest topics in English and tried to help each other when somebody was lost for words. I think it was a good practice for our oral in May and above all we had a real craig, blast or whatever.

I hope that we'll repeat such an evening asap.

Here are some words we (or I) weren't sure of, which I looked up at home:

• Betrug: fraud - She was found guilty of fraud.
• unverbindlich: without obligation, non binding - The industry has signed a non-binding agreement to reduce pollution.
• Bürstenschnitt: crew cut - without an "s" (-:
• to have a crush on someone: to have a feeling of romantic love for someone, especially someone you do not know well
• Blase: bladder (don't ask what we were talking about)
• Blasenentzündung: cystitis (see above)
  

That's all I can remember at the moment. Next time I will take a notebook and a pencil (-:

ROM TRIP

Ok folks, here comes a little description with some nice pictures of our unfortunately very short trip to the ancient, absolutely wonderful and fascinating city of Rome.



Well, for all those who don't know my boyfriend yet: that's Grex, Gregor, Has (only I'm allowed to say that (-: )

Where should I start? Let's say I was absolutely fascinated from the very beginning on, altough at the beginning we were walking around like zombies, since we haven't really slept the first night. We went by night train from Bruck directly to Rom and didn't have a sleeper car and as if that wouldn't be enough, there were not 6 people in our compartment but 8, cause there were 2 children sitting on the lap of there adults. Well, to cut a long story short, we didn't get much sleep on this train.

But now let's move on to the sights of the city. Grex gave us the nice title of "sightseeing warriors", which wasn't really justified, since we actually avoided the crowds of tourists. If you're one of those crazy people who love mass tourism then go to Rom between Easter and the 80th's birthday of the Pope and I promise you, you won't be disappointed by too less people. No, honestly I've never seen so many tourist in one place and the queue were so long that you always thought there is something great for free - but as you can imagine there wasn't.

Anyway, I still enjoyed it a lot and here are now some pics:


It's a puzzle picture of the Spanish steps - where am I? Found me?
















The Peter's quere taken from the cupula. And in case you wonder: no, there are chairs in the middle of the square not people.



This is the Colloseum which was one of my highlights. We shared an audio guide and so it was even more interesting since we were informed about the background of this phenomenal building.


And may I introduce you the emperor Gregor the great. (-:



This was the only beer you could afford buying in Rom. Peroni, the great Italian beer since 1846. If you just ordered a draught beer you paid Eur 5,-- for a pint.
As you can imagine the big one was for the great emperor and the small for his little girlfriend.

And here am I throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain to make sure to return one time to Rome.

All in all, I was not only fascinated by the unbelievable historical sights of Rome but. above all, by the life style of the city. I liked the bustling squares and the vivid manner of the Romans. I tried whenever it was possible to comunicate in Italien and they appreciated it a lot. When I was not trying to stammer Italian phrases, I spoke English, even with Grex. So at this trip I practiced my Italian as well as my English. How wonderful (-;

other blogs I'm checking out

I've added now a list of other blogs I'm checking out regularely (see blog links on the left hand). Two of them, the ones about Ireland, are compulsory, the other ones are blogs of my frieds etc.

I've choses Georg's blog since in my opinion it's a very interesting, varied, vivid and good written blog, I can learn a lot from. On his website i also found the blog-link of an American woman who is living in Italy. Since I'm very interested in the Italian culture, I'm glad I came across this interesting blog. I will add some more blog links asap.

Week 15

Since I've been in Rome this week there is not a lot I've done for improving my English this week. Well, actually that's not totally true:

• Speaking:

Given the fact that Grex doesn't speak a word of Italian, except for ordering cappuccino, we decided to speak English instead for our whole stay. We got used to it very quickly and after a while it was nothing special anymore. It was even strange when, on our train back to Bruck, people started talking German (Vienna dialect - even worse) to us.

• Reading:

I continued reading Almost French on the train. Until now I've read about three quaters of the book. I hope I find time to finish it soon, so that I can concentrate on Jaywalking. However, it's going to be quite hard, since I've bought a lot of Italian book, newspapers and so on, I'm very eager to read (-:

stereotypes Austria

Since I only copied the interview last time I will comment it now.

For me, everything Pam claimes in her interview is true in some way. I too, hold the opinion that the formality in Austria is not bearable. I mean this title madness and also the formal way of greeting doen't cast a positive light on Austria. It's even horrible for us not knowing how to greet remote acquaintances, isnt't it? How bad must the situation be for foreigners?

The point that Austrians can be xenophobic at times, I agree with, too. It's a shame, but that's unfortunately how the situation is. And parties like the FPÖ for instance don't help either to improve this outdated attitude of some patriotic, stubborn Austrians. - sorry, but this is something that annoys me a lot. I experienced that Austria isn't really a travel country . I've never met any Austrians on my journies. Well, this could naturally also be due the shape of my small hometown (-: . But still, I think some Austrians are not interested in other cultures and are therefor not open-minded. What's a pitty, since you miss a lot when you do not explore the world.

The positive aspects she mentions are food, art and nature and all of them are definitely the treasures of Austria. I think this is something we can really be proud of or at least we should be thankful to live in such a safe and secure country. When friends from overseas visited me on the countryside in upper styria they were highly impressed and jelaous by the breathtaking beauty of my homeland. They simply loved it - and I love it too. Just yesterday I was hiking with a couple of friends in the area around the Hochschwab where I live. It was absolutely beautiful and I can recommend this to everybody who loves our nature because it's good for body and soul.
Okay, enough for today. (-:

Nerd's eye view - next try

To be honest I'm not really fond of this blog, but we have to check it out, though. I couldn't really find any entries which were remotely interesting for me. The only thing I found worth reading I want to share with you now. It's an interview about expats Pam recently took part in. I picked out the most interesting aspacts concerning culture and oppinions about Austria. I have to appologize for copying this part, but I don't have too much time today - it's Easter sunday and the Easter meal is waiting (-:

Here we go - enjoy:

-What do you think about the Austrians?
I find Austrians are friendly in a formal sort of way. They are absolutely willing to make the effort to communicate with you, and they can be quite a cheerful lot. But I also find their formality stifling. One doesn’t just drop by an Austrian’s home, one is invited. I also find them a bit disinterested in the new, and if you’re a foreigner, that means you. They can be very hierarchical and bogged down in titles – I find it odd that my mother-in-law will say hello from her front gate to Mrs. Lady with Dog even though they have known each other for 50 years. I am sometimes introduced as “Mrs. Husband’s Name” and I never get used to it. I don’t even use my husband’s name, so I have to look around and see who they’re talking about!
I once met a baker who had traveled a lot in the US. He said that he was stunned by how the people he met would invite him home to stay and MEAN it. Strangers he’d met in campgrounds would open their homes to him, let him sleep in their spare room, feed him, and show him around. “It takes an Austrian 10 years to invite you to stay in their home!” he said.

-What are the positive and negative aspects of living in Austria?
Ah, the nature (where we live) in Austria is stunning. The snowy winters, the clean sparkling rivers, it is an outdoor lover’s playground almost all of the year. The food is outstanding, not just the meals you get in restaurants, but the quality of the ingredients you can get in the markets – there is so much less weird chemical stuff in the food. Austria isn’t a particularly challenging place to live, there are no deprivations, and it’s clean and stable and very safe. Austria is the land of Mozart, opera, high culture and art, and there’s plenty to enjoy.
On the downside, in spite of its updated appearance, Austria is old Europe. It’s bureaucratic, painfully slow to adapt to change, xenophobic at times. I dislike the cultural homogeneity and the isolation of nonwhite, non-Christian populations. Austrians dislike change and for this American, accustomed to embracing the new, it’s very frustrating at times.

-Do you have any tips for our readers about living in Austria?
Learn the language, learn the language, learn the language. That’s huge. Embrace nature – it’s one of Austria’s finest resources – I learned to XC ski there and love it. Expect bureaucracy and be patient with it. Things will get done even if it takes nine times as long as you’d expect. Eat cake and plenty of it because cake is high art in Austria. Traditionalists are likely to feel very much at home almost anywhere in Austria – less conventional types should make a beeline for Vienna.

Week 14

This is always an overview what I've done every single week. The longer, more detailed entries can be found under the various labels.

READING:

• other student's blogs
• Krystian's blog (Polish guy)
• NY-times article
• text "and now"
• Jaywalking (until chapter 7)
• Almost French

WRITING:

• text about our fair we had in Rebecca's last class (homework)

GRAMMAR/VOCAB:

• I worked through the chapter "Developing an argument" of our script
• I went through the exercises "do - make" once more and created my own sentences etc.
• vocab work: Jaywalking, Almost French, "and now..."

Gaelic as official language of Ireland

Today I checked out the blog of the Polish expat who moved to Ireland (Krystian Kozerawski)

http://www.drakkart.com/eire2/


The most interesting entry I could find is called: Language as a national identity.

http://www.drakkart.com/eire2/2006/07/18/language-as-a-national-identity/

Since I'm very interested in language related facts and figures I was captivated by this enty.


Last time in class when we discussed the Irish identity I was wondering why only a few per cent in Irland are able to communicate in their official language, Irish (Gaeilge). Well, he has an explanation for this phenomenon.

Given the fact that Ireland faced many invasions, it was very hard to keep their own language alive. Besides, the famine and the emigration didn't help either. Only because of the symbolic meaning Irish has become the official language.

It is still told in school, but hardly anybody is really capable of speaking it. Only in the remotest areas of Irland Gaelic is spoken in every day life. I was surprised to find out at Wikipedia that Irish is an official language of the European Union. That fact seems rather strange to me as English (the second official language) is spoken throughout the country.

Krystian wrote that he wants to learn Irish but he couldn't find anybody who was able to teach him the language. Only some people he met could sing songs or could communicate in Irish. In addition to that he wrote that some of them find Irish cool and sexy, which can be helpful in attracting women or men. ??? Very strange, but obviously that's what he experienced.

I think this decline of Gaelic is also due to the difficulty to study the language. Lisa wrote down some words in Gaelic last class and nobody could pronounce it the right way. It's an exraordinary language, with a lot of letters unpronounced and therefor extremely hard to learn. It's not at all resembling English, like I thought first. (totally different grammar, structure...)

Here is the map where Gealic is spoken:




Not really widly spoken for an official language (-:

The Year in Manhatten without toilet paper

Iiiih, disgusting.
Well, that's the title of an article in the NYT this week. I love those crazy articles. They always make me chuckle. Anyway, this article is about Colin Beavan who is a writer of historical nonfiction and his wife Michelle Colin, a writer at Business Week. They take part in a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call "No Impact". That means that their life should have no impact on the environment. Therefor they are not allowed to produce any rubbish whatsoever, expect organic garbage. In detail this means only eating organic food, using no paper (no newspapers and no toilet paper , of course), using no transportation (no elevator either)...
You might ask yourself, why are they doing this? Well, the only reason is to write a book about it and earn money.
But honestly, is this worth living a year without virtually everything? Beavan sais: "Like all writers, I'm a megalomaniac (Größenwahnisinniger) and I'm just trying to put that energy to good use." Okay, that explains everything (-:

vocab "and now..."

Here are some words or phrases from the text which are, in my opinion, worth learning:

exuberant: happy and full of energy and excitement (überschwenglich)
He is an energetic and exuberant person.
She needs to try and control her natural exuberance.

embellish: to make something more beautiful by adding decorations to it
My sister couldn't help embellishing the story.
She wore a beautiful dress embellished with golden stripes.

to fragment/fragmentation: to break something, or be broken into a lot of small separate parts
The more English spreads, the more it diversifies, the more it could tned towards fragmentation.

hold sway: to have a lot of influence or power
Just as Latin, which once held sway over a great linguistic empire, split into French, Italien, Spanish portuguese and Romanian.
Our traditions in Austria still hold sway.

ponderous: - slow or awkward because of being very big and heavy (schwerfällig)
an elephant's ponderous walk
- boring, very serious, and seeming to progress very slowly
The system, though ponderous, works.

And Now...?

I've just finished reading the text "And Now...? from our script. It was very interesting, even funny to read. It discuss the same topic we've already handled in Welland's class; how English is changing and "feeding other languages". In Rebecca's classed we talked about "Chinglish" and "Indian English".This text provides information about "Singlish (Singapore English) South African English and so on.

It's a matter of fact that pure English will be spoken only by a minority in the near future. And the new variations of English are not only a dialect of English but are getting more and more accepted, also in Europe.

The reason for this, according to scholars, is the growing number of L2 speakers, so for whom English is a second language. They form and shape the new varieties of English.

A new form of English, which has just appeard, is Text English. That's the form of English when writing a text message. Example: 2 mny wds & ltrs? (Too many words and letters), I luv u (I love you) and so on. Melvin Bragg, the author of this text, states that a texting dictionary is already on the streets. (-:

Another funny paragraph of this text discussed new words in the dictionary, or words which are queuing up to be admitted next. Here my favorites:

Zorse: an animal that's a hybrid of a zebra and a horse
Gaydar: an intuitive sense that enables someone to identify whether another person is gay
Earworm: a song or tune that repeats over and over inside a person's head (wow, I had a hard time to remember "catchy tune" and now there is now use for it anymore, because "earworm" exists now (-:
Gayby: a baby born to a surrogate mother on behalf of a gay couple
Uber-nerd: a person with exceptionally poor social skills (i think we should use "Über-nerd" in German too, it's super!)

make - do

I worked on the exercises concerning verbs and idioms with "make and do" today, which we did in class last time. Here are the ones I want to remember and use:

do a good/bad turn: ( to do something that is helpful or unhelpful for someone)
syn: to do a favor
You did me a good turn by driving Molly home last night.
She was only trying to do me a good turn.

be done for: (INF) ( to be in serious troubles or likely to fail)
If we get caught, we're done for.
Alone in the Ghettos of New York, I realised that I was done for.

make amends: syn: make up for, pay penance
He seized the chance to make amends for his behavior.
He tried to make amends for what he's done.

make off with: syn: to steal and take away
Thives broke into the house and made of with several sumptuous items.

do up:
- decorate: The appartment was done up in a special style.
- to fasten: Do up your coat or you'll get cold.
- repair, improve: They did up and old cottage in the outskirts of Graz.
- to be done (shoes): Your shoes need doing up (need to be done), otherwise you'll trip over the laces.

do away with: syn: get rid of, stop
Do you agree that all examinations should be done away with?
I thought the discussion would do away with preconseptions.

Vocab work - Almost French

Here a little excerpt of my vocab work I've just done. Maybe you can use some of them for your own writing.

• to immerse - The idea was to immerse myself in fascinating foreing cultures. (eintauchen)

• preconception - syn: prejudice

• haunt - The Cafe Vianna was a favourite haunt of journalists and actors. (a place that someone likes to go to often)

• conceal (F) - I couldn't conceal the doubt in my voice. syn: hide

• hurtle - All of a sudden, a car come hurtling round the corner. (rasen)

• peal of - We could hear peals of laughter. A loud peal of thunder. A sudden peal of bells.

• at odds - He found himself at odds with his colleagues. The two politicians were at odds over what was the truth.

• to be lost for words - For once in her life, she was lost for words.

I have to appologize for this rather chaotic list of words and phrases but I'm not yet totally familiar with blogging and making organized entries. I try my best to post maybe a table or something similar the next time.

Week 12

WRITING:

• essay: Austrians are... (We had to write a text about the stereotypes, attitudes and traits of Austrians. )
• I'm currently mailing with my sis almost every day. She wants to improve her English too and so we're telling each other what's happening in our daily life.

READING:

• Almost French
• Xenophobe guide (script)

SPEAKING:

• volunteer fair in Welland's class: This was a great opportunity to find out useful information about volunteering abroad and at the same time practice my spoken English. It seemed that everybody had enjoyed this class, me included and nobody was afraid to speak English. That was great.
  

VOCAB: (see Entries vocab)

• Xenophobe's guide
• Almost French
• Jaywalking
• studying vocabs, collocations, idioms and good sentences out of my old vocab book