The end of my blogging career

Well, I think this is my last post now. To be honest, in the beginning I had quite big problems to get into the thing with blogging, but now I got used to it and it was ok. My problem is that I hate working with the computer particularly if the weather is like it was today. But sometimes it was really entertaining and it was also varied. We had the possibility to do things that we want to improve our English and this was great.

So I say good-bye to everyone who has read my blog!

other blogs

Yesterday I read some blog entries from a Carinthian girl who was in America during this semester. Indeed she writes mostly in German but there are also some English entries. She expresses her feelings and her thoughts in a very entertaining and funny way and it is really an amusement to read her entries because she wirtes about everything. She was in America for about four month and worked there on her degree dissertation. She studies in Klagenfurt and came back only one week ago.
This blog is interesting for everybody who wants to study abroad for some time (so it is the right one for us) and if you read the entries you can see that is not only fun but also depressing and difficult.

If you want to check this posts you have to go to the following website (I hope it still exists although she has already come back):
www.kleinezeitung.at/inamerica

stress, stress, nothing but stress

To be honest, at the moment I am not sold on being a student. But probably it is the same for everybody currently. At the end of every semester it is the same. You have about four exams a week and furthermore you have to do presentations, homework,... .
Apropos presentation, today I had to present, together with a friend of mine, three very comprehensive and complicate topics in our proseminar-classtime. The preperation for this presentation occupied the whole, long weekend. It was about the following topics (I am not sure if you are interested in it, but anyway, I am going to tell you): The first one was "translation and power", then it was "feminism in translation" and the last one was "translation and postcolonialism". Isn`t it great? I know it sounds quite interesting but it sounds also easier than it actually is. The biggest problem of the topics was probably, that nearly every single page was in ENGLISH. Of course, I like English but with these texts I had my problems. Really, I had to struggle a lot that I could understand them and that I was able to translate them. I had about seventy pages to work through and I was the luckiest and most satisfied person when I finished it on Sunday at 11 p.m. To sum up, I am simply really happy that the presentation is over.

But this is just the beginning of two very stressful and nerve-racking weeks! We have to hang on, and look forward to the three month which come afterwards!

The "Gailtaler Speckfest"

Hi everybody!

I have to tell you something about my funny weekend. I was at home, in Carinthia, and there have been taken place the fifteenth "Gailtaler Speckfest". Maybe some of you have already heard about it as it is quite famous. There come tourists from all parts of Austria and it is really popular in Italy. About a third of the guests are Italian as they love our "Gailtaler Speck".

It takes place every year on the first weekend of June in Hermagor which is in the south of Carinthia. There are about seventy stands where people from our valley and also from other parts of Carinthia present their deliciousnesses. As you would expect the "Gailtaler Speck" is the thing which comes to the fore but also cheese, wine and home-made schnaps are important parts of the festival. Most of the presenters (is it the correct word for "Austeller"?) are farmers who live in our valley.

One of the most important meals on the festival is probably the so-called "Frigga" which is made of potatoes, onions, Speck and cheese. It is served with polenta and is really favoured. But you have to be very careful: As it is extremely fatty you can get an awful stomachache if you eat too much! Believe me, I speak from my own experience! :-)

The festival starts on Saturday at ten o'clock with the traditional "first cut" of a huge Speck.
During the whole weekend there are bands from Carinthia, Italy and Slovenia who make particularly folksy music. Furthermore there are different light entertainment programmes for children and also some raffles for the young and the young at heart.

This year it was the culinary aim for thousands of visitors who bought about five tons of Speck and 3,000 salami which is quite a lot.

On Saturday I visited the festival and we had a lot of fun there. So, if you have never been there until now you have to come to Carinthia next year, I think it is really well worth seeing. It is a different sort of festival but a special one. :-)

On this picture you can see some "important" persons from our valley, like the governing mayor of Hermagor, during the famous "first-cut" of the Speck which opens up the festival officially.

Hungary's tooth tourism

All of us want white and shiny teeth, also the British people are dreaming of "Hollywood teeth". Therefore this year, 25,000 Britons will take cheap flights to Budapest for bargain dental work. There you can regulate your teeth for a quarter of the price. Another few thousand will come for cut-price cosmetic surgery or lasik corrective surgery. Someone reported that he had needed a couple of fillings and a crown replaced which costs about 750 pounds in London, in Budapest it is quoted 266 pounds. With the return flights and car parking it costs about 352 pounds, which is still a bargain.

The clients come mainly from the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and Holland. In 2004 the clinic treated about 16 Britons a month, which is quite a lot in my point of view. Three years later, work-of-mouth recommendations have pushed that to more than 100, with similar numbers arriving from other northern European nations.

But the British Dental Association warns that anyone who is thinking about treatment overseas must make sure that they are aware of the potential risks and the hidden costs. There can arise difficulties if there are problems with the treatment when the patient returns home. But the Bedfordshire-based dental travel agency Perfect Profiles ensures that if things go wrong, they fly their patients back to Budapest, put them in a hotel and resolve the problems - at their expense.

I read also some personal experiences of patients and nearly all of them were fully satisfied with the treatments in Hungary. But to be honest, I am a bit skeptic and I think I don`t want to be under medical treatment in Hungary although it is much cheaper as in Austria.

What you eat is very important for exam success

As now the stressful learing period for us poor students :-) starts I have some tips for you to boost brainpower and keep stress at bay. I found an aricle during I was exploring the web which is called "What to eat for exam success". I think everyone of us know how the feeling is if you are under learning stress and how difficult it is to stay alert and to be concentrated during the long, long learning process. Sometimes we try to learn the whole night and for these times we need something which keeps us alert, the solution for this problem is COFFEE. At least we think it is but there are other things which are more useful and also healthier.

First of all one of the most important meals is breakfast. It is an old rule but a golden one. Studies have indicated that those students who eat breakfast have better recall, better problem-solving skills and improved scores in math tests, which is not so important for our studies. :-)

Wholegrain cereals such as porridge and sugar-free muesli, garnary toast or some fruit with a yoghurt or formage frais are the perfect breakfast. The milk, which you should add to your muesli, provides protein which helps to keep you full and aids concentration.
With this sort of breakfast you will have a good start and you will make an enourmus process during the morning! :-)

Secondly you have to know that lunch is as important as breakfast. You should avoid fad-laden, mayonnaise-based sandwiches, pizza and chips because otherwise you will have the feeling that the meal is sitting uncomfortably in your stomach all afternoon.

Protein, as I mentioned before, seems to help us to concentrate. Therefore you should eat tuna, turkey, lean beef or ham and eggs which make ideal basis for lunch. These things can be accompanied by small pitta bread, tortilla wrap or a slice of rye for example.

Furthermore have a plenty of citrus fruits, berries and vegetables, which are great for vitamin C. It is needed for a robust immune system as well, these fruits and vegetables may also help to reduce the risk of being laid low with a summer cold that could upset your revision and exam performance.

Finally try to replace some of your caffeine-rich, sugary drinks with sips of liquid or camomile tea.The active plant constituents can help to reduce stress.
Coffee, tea and energy drinks such as Red Bull might seem to help in staving off sleepiness but overdoing these beverages can overstimulate the nervous system, elevating blood pressure and heart rate and putting you more "on edge". Stick to no more than five or six caffeine-containing drinks each day.

Well, I hope you have read this article carefully and if you will try some of these tips you will have the best exam results ever! :-)

I wish you a good and stressful learning period and good luck for all the exams you have to sit.

presentation

The previous week was really stressful for me, as I had an oral exam in "Kulturschwerpunktthemen Italienisch" on Tuesday and the Jaywalking presentation on Thursday. I had the presentation togehter with Alexandra and we dealt with the following topics: Gaelic Athletic Association, alcohl abuse in Ireland, Bloody Sunday, Good Friday and crime rate in Ireland. It was quite difficult to find some interesting facts about the crime rate and unfortunately I couldn`t find any comparison to Austria. Alex had some problems with the topic Bloody Sunday as David Monagan mentioned in his book that it was in 1921 during a Hurling match and Wikipedia said that it was in 1920 during a Gaelic football mach. So Alexandra was a bit torn but at the end she decided, together with Lisa, to mention both, to avoid misunderstandings.

All in all, in my opinion the presentation was quite interesting and our colleagues were really attentive. Furthermore it was great that they really cooperated when it came to the discussion point.

To be honest I am quite happy that it is over now as I am not a fan of presentations.

girls, girls, girls

Yesterday evening Alex, Kristel, Hermi, Julia and I went to the "Tomawirt" to have dinner together und to talk English. It was like the last time absolutely entertaining, funny and also interesting. We talked about different things, like University, our plans for this summer,...

Okay, there was a bit of some girls talk as well! ;-)

We met there at quarter past eight and spoke in English for about 1 1/2 hour. As soon as our food arrived we stopped talking in English because we had to concentrate on our food. :-) By the way it was delicious and I recommend this restaurant to everyone although it took some time until the food arrived but therefore it was really mouth-watering.

It was a fantastic evening and we will meet also next week to do something similar. I think Hermine will add some vocab we came across yesterday.

We had a barrel of laughs!

And here is a special picture for Julia, I think she will know what I mean! :-)

outlook on my future job

Today I got insight how my job will look like as the boyfriend of my sister asked me to translate the abstract of his dissertation. It is about the problems of the lumbar region and therefore it was quite difficult because of the many medical expressions. He told me that it hadn't to be so exact I thought I try it. To be honest I am not sure that everything is correct but I enjoyed this work and for some time I felt like a translator. :-) So I hope I did a good work and I am looking forward to doing things like this more often!

oral exam

The day before yesterday the rest of the SUK IV group had the oral mid-term exam, so had Kristel, Alexandra and I. We met two hours before and discussed the questions, which are in the script, together. All of us were quite nervous but we tried to calm us down. Our exam began at 15.55 and ended at quarter past 4. After the first question we got more relaxed and, thanks to Lisa, it was like a 'normal' conversation.

All of us got a 2 and we were really satisfied with it.

I hope that our final oral exam will be similar to this but I think in june our nerves will be more strained than this time.

The cutest film ever...

FIND NEMO is the loveliest film I have ever seen and I have watched most often. It is about a little clownfish which has lost his mother and has an arguement with his father on the first school day. So he decides to swim into the wide ocean and gets caught by a diver who puts him into an aquarium in a dental practice (is this the word for "Zahnarztpraxis"?) Marlin, his father, desperately swims after the diver´s boat into the open ocean but he quickly falls behind. Afraid that he is about to lose his son forever, Marlin asks for help from a number of fish before finally finding one who knows where the boat went. It is Dory, a palette surgeonfish who is suffering from short-term memory loss. Together they swim across the ocean and have to overcome many difficulties....

I have to admit that I really love this film because it is cute and very funny at the same time. So if you have not seen it until today you have to make it up as soon as possible!!!!!

A Year in the Merde

I have completely forgotten to tell you something about my second book which is called "A Year in the Merde". It is written by Stephen Clarke. I have read about 70 pages of the book now and I am really impressed by it. In this chapters Paul West describes his first impressions of France and his fellow workers. He decided to spent a year in France and is job is it to establish Tea Rooms in France for his company. At the beginning everything is quite difficult for him as most of his co-workers speak only their mother tongue, and if they speak English he could hardly understand them, becauese it sounds more like Chinese or Hungarian.

Paul West tries to learn French on his own by a CD Rom. After some difficulties with waiters, secretaries, and so on, he gets used to his new life in France and tries to make the best out of it.

It is a very interesting and entertaining novel and I really like to read it. It is fascinating, in a bad way, to see how he has to struggle when it comes to a conversation. I think it is strange that most of the French people are not able to converse in English, although it is a world language. In my view the author gives us a good inside into the French world and describes everything in a very entertaining and funny style. I just like this book

oral exam

As Alexandra, Kristel and I have to sit our oral exam tomorrow I had a look through the questions in our script. I tried to prepare myself a little bit so that I am not too nervous. But as Julia and Hermi said it is "easy peasy", so I try to trust them and I will tell you as soon as possible how the exam had been.

Irish teenager won abortion fight

A 17-year-old girl, known as Miss D in court, is four month pregnant with a baby who has anencephaly, which means that a major part of its brain, skull and sculp will not form. She was told two weeks ago that the baby was not excepted to survive for more than three days after the birth, the girl told a social worker that she couldn´t cope with carrying it, which is from my point of view really comprehensible.
As abortion is illegal in the Republic of Ireland unless the mother’s life is in danger, the girl wanted to travel to Great Britain to abort the baby.
The Irish Health Service Executive stepped in and put the 17-year-old in its care and prevented her from making the journey.
In court last week, the executive made a U-turn and dropped its opposition to her travelling to the UK, and said it would let her go on the grounds she has consent from her mother and a judge. But the process was further protracted on Saturday when a district judge refused to give consent.
But the lawyer said the cours were barred from helping someone to seek an abortion abroad. However, he agreed there were no laws restraining the teenager from going to the UK.
Anti-abortion protesters demonstrated outside the court.

I think it must be very hard if you know that your unborn child won´t survive for more than a few days and in this case there should be no debate if the girl is allowed to abort the child or not.
Of course, the baby has a right to live and I am also absolutely against abortion but in such a case it should be allowed everywhere.
As we discussed this topic in class I think it is an appropriate article for my blog.

Place for Transgendered Youth

Yesterday I read an article on the New York Times websites which dealt with the problem of the transgendered youth in New York.

The worshipers - Princess, Kelly, Michelle, Skye, Gianni and Terry are all teenagers or in their early 20s. They are slender, stylish and soft of voice and will smack anyone who questions their femininity or asserts that, biologically, they are still males.

The only place which they call home and where the term transgender is tolerated is the homeless shelter in New York specifically for transgender youth. This shelter is called Carmens´s Place and is named after the missionary Carmen Solis who started a youth outreach program at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Astoria. Father Braxton wast the pastor of this church and after its closing he rented a two-bedroom apartment and opened this for transgender people. He and a small staff of volunteers prepare the meals and try to turn the residents away from prostitution and persuade them to go to school or to find jobs. Father Braxton says that this shelter is the last hope for the transgenders because they had been kicked out of the other gay youth shelters by breaking rules and curfews. Father Braxton does have rules. No sex with customers within five blocks of the shelter. Sex with shelter workers is forbidden, and sex with other residents is strongly discouraged.

In my opinion this is a very interesting article and on the website there is also an interview with one of the people who live there and a video.

If you are interested in it, have a look on the New York Times website.

Almost French

Today I read the passage from the book "Almost French" we have to prepare for Thursday. It is about a cocktail party where Sarah and Frederic were invited to. Sarah was really shocked about the atmosphere at this so-called party. The guests were totally quiet and everyone seems strangely inhibited.
As Sarah decided to break the ice she introduced herself and tried to start a conversation but her attempt failed. Then she offered champagne to everyone but the guests seemed to be torn between a desire to accept and some sense of duty not to.
As soon as they were out the door she exclaimed that it wasn´t a party, it was another planet.
Later on Frederic told her that her action had appeared shockingly forward. Especially for a woman, because in France, apparently, serving alcohol is very much a male domain, so her champagne gaffe had been far too assertive.


Finally, Sarah talked about her difficulties to click with anyone and that she needs some friends who are around her age.

In my opinion this passage was quite easy to read although there were some new and difficult words which I want to share with you:

• 
  inhibit --> to take an action that makes (something) less likely to happen, or that discourages (someone) from doing something --> hemmen


• incredulous --> not wanting or not able to believe, and usually showing this --> unglaubhaft


• ease --> freedom from difficulty, effort, or pain --> Leichtigkeit


• scud --> move quickly and without stopping in a straight line --> eilen


• inane --> extremely silly or lacking real meaning or importance --> albern


• surreptitiously --> done secretly, without anyone seeing or knowing --> heimlich


• incongruous --> unusual or different from the surroundings or from what is generally happening --> unangebracht


• disincentive --> something that discourages people from doing something or working hard --> Abschreckmittel


• gaffe --> a remark or action that is a social mistake and not considered polite --> Ausrutscher


• intrusion --> unwanted involvement --> Einmischung


• to defy --> to refuse to obey, or to act or be against, a person, decision, law, situation --> sich einer Sache widersetzen


• to mingle --> to mix or combine, or be mixed or combined --> sich unter Leute mischen


• bumpy --> not smooth --> uneben

Ice Age

Yesterday evening I decided to have a relaxed evening and therefore I watched the film Ice Age.
It is an absolutely cute and awesome film and I really enjoyed this time. As I had seen the film before it was no problem to follow. I didn´t come across notable words which could be useful so I will give you a short review of that adorably film (for those who don´t know it yet).

First of all, there is Sid the Sloth which has been left behind by his family when they migrated. He decided to restart alone but then he met a problem, he gets attacked by two Rhinos. But thanks to Manny the mammuth Sid survives and so he decides to follow the mammuth as he doesn´t want to be alone. In the meantime a pride of sabre-toothed tigers attack the humans. Diego, one of the tigers, chases a mother and her baby to a waterfall. As the mother wants to saver her babys and also her life, she jumps of the waterfall and dies. The baby survives as the mother pushes her onto the shore. Manny and Sid find the baby and decide to return it to the humans. Diego accompanies them to lure them into an ambush. But as Manny saves Diego´s life he feels guilty and decides to tell them the truth. They made a plan and finally Manny and Sid find the humans and return the baby. Diego gets injured and tells them to leave him but in the end he appears safe and sound and they migrate all together.





Isn´t it nice? I really like this film because it is funny, sad, thirlling, a bit of everything!

My favourite one is Sid, he is the clumsy fellow of the film, but by far the funniest one
Manny is more or less the grim mammuth, but the good soul at the same time. Diego seems to be the bad one, but in fact he has a heart of corn.


If you have not already seen it you have to watch this lovely film! :-)

Oh, there is some vocab:

• sloth: an animal that moves slowly and lives in trees --> Faultier
• pride of lions: a group of lions --> Rudel Löwen
• sabre-toothed tiger: a large wild cat which lived in the past, with two long curved front teeth --> Säbelzahntiger
• shore: the land along the edge of a sea, lake or wide river --> Ufer
• to lure: to persuade someone to do something or go somewhere by offering them something exciting --> locken
• an ambush: an occasion when a person or group of people are ambushed --> Versteck

CNN

Yesterday I watched the CNN news in the evening where one news item was about the gender gap which consits all over the world.

The gender gap is usually expressed as the ratio of female to male earnings among full-time, year-round workers. The pay differentials between men and women in employment have been noted since the 1960s.

The reason for this gap is disputed. Some economists have argued that the tendency of women to get together in women's fobs has led to 'occupational crowding', in which the high supply of applicants for 'women's jobs' drives wages for those jobs downwards.

In 2004, women's wages in the USA were 76.5% of men's wages.

Here is a statistic, taken out of the wikipedia website, which shows the differences of earnings between men and women among all races.

Gilmore Girls

hi,

I know I have not written for a long time, but I had a lot to do for my Italian courses as I have had a presentation today and also some pieces of homework to do.

I think you have seen on the title what my entry is going to be about, yes you are right - Gilmore Girls.
I am really fascinated by this serial although it is not very intelligent but it is funny and relaxing. So I want to introduce my favourite actress to you, it is Lorelai senior. :-)

Her real name is Lauren Graham and she was born on March 16, 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
She grew up in Northern Virginia, and she studied in Barnard College in New York, where she majored in English. Then, she earned an M.F.A. in acting from Southern Methodist University.
(As far as I am informed the M.F.A. is the Mallorca Film Academy)

For further information about her biography explore the following website:
http://www.gilmoregirls.org/lauren.html

About her character in Gilmore Girls:

In my opinion she is the funniest person in the serial. I love her humor and I like her relationship to her daughter. Sometimes Lorelai has a quite rude conversation with her parents but only when it´s necessary.

Then there is Lorelai junior, called Rory Gilmore:

Her name is Alexis Bledel and in reality she is 25 years old. She was born in Houston, Texas and has already spent years in front of the camera as a model. Her parents encouraged her to try the community theatre when she was 8 years old, hoping it would help her to overcome her shyness.
While she was in highschooll she started her modeling career traveling all over to locations like Tokyo, Milan, New York and Los Angeles.
In her freetime Alexis Bledel enjoys writing, reading, shooting photography, going to the movies and spending time with her family.

About her character in Gilmore Girls:

Rory is the shy and sweet girl and she embodies the life of a teenager. She has a very good relationship to her mother and is deemed to be very clever and a hard-working student. She has different relationships and demonstrates the hard life of growing up.
So these are the two main characters of the Gilmore Girls and I promise that I will give you soon more information about this serial. :-)

Kiss shocked India

Maybe many of you have heard about Richard Gere´s exaggerated gentleness. But in my opinion not only is this action exaggerated also the reaction of some groups of men is really excessive.

His kisses on the cheeks of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in an event to promote Aids awareness caused shock and sparked protests in India. Many saw the act as an outrage against Shetty's modesty and Indian culture, though Shetty dismissed the protests as an "over-reaction" that made India look silly.

Groups of men kicked and burned even effigies of Richard Geere in protests agains India. From my view this reaction is really exaggerated because the action of him was not that terrible or harassing.

fun...

Yesterday in the evening Julia, Hermine, Kristel, Alex, Maria and I met in the Propeller for a drink and had decided before to speak English. Before we met I had thought that it would be a bit strange and embarrassing because it is not a typical place for speaking this language, but it was really funny and the situation was very relaxed. We were there for about two hours and spoke about different themes. Some very serious the others entertaining and of course there was the typical girl talk. All in all it was a very nice evening and we all together decided to repeat this as soon as possible. I think all of us had a blast.

vocabulary

Yesterday Alexandra and I elaborated some vocab which will be HOPEFULLY useful for our test tomorrow. We chose some from the first chapter from the book which might be important and also some from the script. I hope we caught the most necessary ones and they will help us to pass our exam!

learning...

Today I spent some time on working on the vocabulary which we need for our test on Thursday. I worked out some from Jaywalking and from our script. Moreover I read about twenty pages of David Monagans book, but to be honest I still can´t cotton on to this book (we are not friends yet). :-) As the first day after the holidays was quite exhausting I think I go to bed now, tomorrow is another busy day.

Good night!

Perfect day

Although winter is my favourite season I like spring as well, particularly this one. Today was the most beautiful day in these holidays. I got up at half past seven and I went snowboarding at half past eight.
With the cablecar it takes me only ten minutes from my house and I am in a quite big ski region (called Naßfeld). Today it was great there because there were nearly no skier, the sky was azure and cloudless.

In the early afternoon I was sunbathing while I was reading Jaywalking. Try to combine these two things and you will see that the book is a lot easier to read outdoors. :-)
I got sunburnt, my first one this year. Yippee, now I am a bit red instead of white, but tomorrow I will be as pallid as yesterday. :-)
Although the hotness is unseasonable, I loved this awesome day!

Enjoy the rest of your holiday and the warm spring days!

Jaywalking with the Irish

I don´t want to summarize the plot of the pages I´ve read so far, because I think it is quite boring for SUK IV students, as everyone has to read this book on their own. But I have to mention that I have some difficulties with David Monagan´s book. The vocabulary he uses is hard to understand and if I would try to understand every single word I would need at least half an hour for one page. Sometimes it is also a bit boring and I have to admit that it is easy to lose concentration.
But I will keep on reading as I have to do and I also want to do it! ;-)

something about cork...

As I tell you a lot about Jaywalking with Irish today, I can´t leave out the location where it takes place.


So I am going to tell you something about it. It is called Cork (Irish: Corcaigh) and it is Ireland's third most populous city after Dublin and Belfast and has a population of 119,143. County Cork is situated in the South West of Ireland, it is the largest of all the Irish counties and in many ways the most varied. Rich farmlands and river valleys contrast with the wild sandstone hills of the west, and above all there is the magnificent coastline. The city´s name derived from an Irish word corcach meaning "marshy place", referring to its situation on the River Lee.

Cork City Council


The most important place of interest in Cork is the church tower of Shandon, which dominates the North side of the city. The cork tower on the church is known by locals as The Four-faced Liar, as from the base of the building, each clock face appears to show a different time. Shandon is accessible to the public, and the bells myay be rung by the visitors.
The picture on the right side shows the Shandon bells.



Another important sigth is the Cork City Hall which is illuminated at night and reflected in the River Lee. In 1920, during the War of Independence, it was destroyed by British forces. This event was and is known as the "Burning of Cork". The rebuilding in 1930s was provided by the British Government as a gesture of reconciliation.


For further information about Cork you can explore the following websites:

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.cork-guide.ie/

And here is the URL of the University of Cork, maybe you want to do your semester abroad there.
http://www.ucc.ie/en/

Jaywalking with the Irish

As I wanted to explore some facts about David Monagan I came across the book called 'Irrwitziges Irland' which is Jaywalking with the Irish in German. I didn´t know that it is also available in my mother tongue but also if I had known I wouldn´t have bought it in German because we need the English vocabulary for our exams (only one reason :-) ). Here is a picture of David Monagan and the cover from the book.

cyberopps

I poked around Mr. Newman´s cyberopp sites and there I have found a very nice site for listening comprehensions. There you can read and listen the text together or do it back-to-back. Then you have a quiz and some difficult words are explained. There is particularly gossip of the young Americans.

The today´s English lesson was about 'Thank You Notes'. In my opinion it is a very useful and funny site.

Just have a look.

http://www.englishbaby.com/

Happy Easter!

The ring

Julia told me she came across an extremely funny site on the internet which is about cute bunny-movies. There are different short films of thirty seconds which are a good summary of the 'normal' movies. Today I visited this site and I watched The Ring and Titanic. Normally I hate watching films like 'The Ring' but this interpretation of the film is really funny.

Here´s the address of this site:
www.angryalien.com

If you want to have some fun during your learning vacation :-) have a look.

"gift" to the British people...

On the 'New York Times' website I read an article about the release from the 15 British sailors and marines, one of them was a woman. The Iran´s president called it a "gift" to the British people.
The sailors arrived about 7 a.m. Thursday in Tehran at the airport for an commercial flight to London. The Iran´s president said personally good-bye to the captives and one of them said that they were grateful for his forgiveness.

The reason for the capture was, according to the President Ahmadinejad, the violation of the Iranian territory.

In my opinion it is a very interesting article and there is also a back story with Sarah Lyall on the website. If you are interested, here is the address:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/world/middleeast/05iran.html?_r=1&oref=sloginworld/middleeast/05iran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

conversation with children from England

Today I was skiing and on my ascent I had a funny conversation with five children from London. They were between 10 and 12 years old and they were really cute. They told me how stupid it is to carry the skis and how funny and beautiful it is to schuss down the slope. They explained where they have their youth hostel and why they are in Carinthia. They said that they went to Carinthia voluntarily with their teachers.
The funny thing was that they called the cabins bubbles and they were fascinated by the snow which was glittering.
It was a very amusing and entertaining ascent.

volunteering abroad...

Today I looked for some volunteering opportunities, because we have to present one on Wednesday in Rebecca´s class. I dealt with the programm which is called "working abroad" and it was really interesting.
Here is the address of their homepage:
www.workingabroad.com

There you can see that you have many opportunities to get to know other cultures and it is a great possibility to stay abroad for a certain time.

my first blog

Here is the first entry in my weblog.
For me it was quite difficult to create one because have not created one before, but I hope I will get used to it and I think it will become easier.