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.