Why the European Union should intervene to stop Hungary from a dictatorship

http://heroldflux.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/why-european-union-schould-intervene-to.html

Me and my Academic Paper

Ho ho ho.

To be honest, I'm not making much progress at writing my academic paper about the Design of the Euro Banknotes. It is one of the points on my Christmas-Break-To-Do-List, because right at the moment I have to focus on various other projects that have to be finished until Christmas. But during the holidays, motivation will knock on my door and overwhelm me with consistent presence. Hopefully. :)

I think the best way to explain what I'm going to write about is posting my introduction, so here it is:

The Design of the Euro Banknotes

The euro is the official currency of 17 countries within the eurozone and therefore it was of great importance to create a design meeting all country’s expectations and representing both multiculturalism and unity. The purpose of this paper is to cover three key points to display the process of how the euro banknotes got were designed. First of all, the design of the currency sign will be introduced as well as the competition launched in 1996 at which a range of possible designs of the banknotes were presented and valued. A summary of the main features the banknotes must contain according to the ECB will be given as well as the reasons for the choice of the actual layout, which was designed by Robert Kalina. The second part of this paper will give an overview of the illustrations, symbols and other elements the actual design of the banknotes comprises. Since the design of all euro banknotes gets modified and refreshed within the next few years, the third part of this paper will cover the reasons and main alterations of this changeover. Finally, it will be scrutinized if all countries and different cultures of the eurozone are represented and displayed as equal by the design of the euro banknotes.

Pronunciation Diary #1

To be honest, I never really cared about my pronunciation. I never asked myself whether I would like to speak with American or British Accent - for a long time I couldn't even name the main differences. 

But things obviously have to change now, since pronunciation is an important issue for the next weeks and even the PC2. I read about the pros and cons of the two options and now decided to focus on British English. Even though I think American English would be easier to learn, especially because most of the English movies and TV shows are from America, I just prefer the sound of British English - I do not even know why. I guess the most important thing is to stay motivated to practice my pronunciation skills - and simply to imagine myself speaking fluently with a British Accent motivates me a lot more than the opportunity to watch a lot of American movies to learn the right pronunciation. Watching movies, by the way, is something I do not have time for at the moment, so this argument is irrelevant anyways. ;)

So, the first thing to do is: 

The next step is to find some good examples. 

At the following video, the main differences between American and British Accent are explained:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nAnT3PASak

British Accent: Some Pronunciation Rules

- r: 

If the letter "r" is in the initial position of a word or in the middle of it, there isn't a huge difference from the pronunciation in American English. (rain, drain, spring, berry) 

However, the letter "r" is dropped if it occurs after a vowel in a monosyllabic word or at the end of a word. 

(birth,turn, learn, work, farm, other, clever, director)

For example, if somebody with a British accent speaks the sentence "Are there more birds?", no "r" is heard, but if the sentence is changed to "Are there any birds?", an "r" is heard at the end of "there" because "any" starts with a 

-t:

In British English, the letter "t" is always pronounced the same way. (In American English, the letter is dropped if it's at the end of a word.) 

- keeping the vowel sound very small

If the vowel is short, it should be pronounced small  (pit, put, pet, pot)

To come to an end, here is a short list of the main words (or letters) that are pronounced differently. To find out the right pronunciation in your preferred accent, check out the end of the video above. 

- Z

- new

- adult

- brochure

- garage

- address

- laboratory

- route

- advertisement

- controversy

- patent

- apricot

- vase

- hurricane

- enquiry (Am: inquiry)

- leisure

- either

- neither

The Council of the European Union - group paragraph

http://kristinasmurf.blogspot.co.at/2013/11/the-council-of-european-union-group.html
-> link to our group project about the Council of Europe :)

Comment on "Summary Deflation Crisis"

Original summary:

Europe is in the deflation crisis, which influences the rise of debt. Moreover, the history of 

mankind has experienced this problem before. Sometimes deflation may be lethal for economy, 

when debts exceed the margin of 300pc. Generally, in Western Europe inflation is not perfect, 

2pc which even deteriorates the case. Denmark is close to finding itself in deflation, so is 

Sweden.

With a downward shift in inflation, countries like Italy and Spain may be in a ‘’runaway debt’’. 

In Italy, for example, unemployment is already very high, and private debt there and in other EU 

members like France, Portugal keeps on rising by more than 100%.

Indeed, most of the countries could still be rescued by boosting inflation rate. Europe would not 

have to end up with Japanese-style deflation and with a burden of damaged private sector. 

Hence, the inflation may not fall below 2pc. With flat inflation, close to 0, even stable country 

like Germany is at risk. 

 Club Med allies could also unite and demand appropriate action from Germany. By making 

bilateral decisions countries could achieve more. Hopefully, deflation will leave Europe in short. 

Global growth is a valid reason to keep waiting, but it is not how responsible economy should 

behave.

Comment:

To begin with, I think a summary should start with the author, date and name of the newspaper the article was published in. I would not mention precise facts at the introducing sentence but give a short overview of the topic. In general, I would leave out facts as the situation of the single countries which only confuse - people interested will probably read the whole article anyways. Anyways, I like the third paragraph and the way the author put the information in his/her own words. 

Surprising Europe: Culture Shock

SURPRISING EUROPE: CULTURE SHOCK

intercultural differences expressed through music

Riedl Natalie, Kaspar Heimo, Haunschmid Sonja

Africans who come to Europe have to face a variety of problems - racial prejudice, xenophobia and identity crisis are only a few examples. How do they deal with that? Many of them try to give vent to their grief with music as it is a common way to express their feelings, raise awareness and overcome racism. 

Wonda Wendy, a French musician raised by Gabonese parents, is a perfect example for intercultural music experience. Even though she was born in Paris, she considers her „culture to be totally African“. To find out about her own roots, Wonda Wendy lived in Gabon for a while — now she describes this part of her life as the time she learned most about herself. She points out some differences between the European and the African culture: While in Africa there is always someone around, for example to take care of your baby, you have to pay for favors like that in Europe. She advises Europeans to learn something from the African culture. Wonda Wendy, caught between two completely different cultures, processes and expresses her feelings through her music, a mix of Hip Hop, Soul and some elements of Reggae. Her lyrics speak of identity, comparison and pride: “it expresses the best of me: My African roots and my Parisian neighbourhood; I keep the mix, I exchange, the words of angels, my past; Europe is progress, individualism; Africa is respect and ‚sorealism‘“

Not only Wonda Wendy noticed such clear differences between the European and African culture, but also Mousse from Senegal, who now lives with his family in Amsterdam, experienced the same. In Europe, everything is faster, everything is planned, everything needs to be organized. People usually do not take time for someone in order to have just a nice conversation with others. Performing in the streets of Amsterdam is for Mousse a perfect way to preserve his African roots and to reduce xenophobia, which seems to be a timeless phenomenon.

Talking about racism - Ade Bantu, a musician from Nigeria who lives in Germany, has gathered a group of black musicians , known as The Collective Brothers Keepers, in order to combat racism. The reason for the foundation of this group was the tragic case of Alberto Adriano. He was a black African  who became victim of a racism motivated murder. As a tribute to his cruel death they dedicated a whole song to him to tell the story of an unfair fight. Adriano‘s case again shows us the power of music and its relevance for all of us. 

“Europe is progress, individualism; 

Africa is respect and 

‚sorealism‘“

Wonda Wendy

EU individual paragraph

HOW CAN A COUNTRY JOIN THE EU?

1st DRAFT 

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a country has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. A new member State must show political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and the and protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy which is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. Any European country that meets this criteria is allowed to join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen, European. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

[170 words]

FEEDBACK (thank you, Natasha!)

Natasha mentioned some things I should change in order to improve style, register and cohesion of my paragraph. It's funny how you can overlook your own mistakes all the time until somebody else points them out. 

Corrections:

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet (change to "is required"?)  the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a country has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. ("These requirements are.." cohesion!) A new member state (not capitalized!)  must show political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and the and (don't know what happened here ... ) protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy which (change to "that") is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. Any European country that meets this criteria (change to sth. like "is willing to / is able to meet...)  is allowed to join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen, European. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

I was also advised to put the sentence about the "geographic definition" up to the other requirements to get more structure in the whole paragraph. 

FINAL VERSION

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a new member state has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. These requirements are political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy that is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. One obvious restriction is the fact that only European countries can join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen , European. All in all, any country willing and able to satisfy these criteria is allowed to join the EU. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

[180 words]

Note: I was absent in week 3, so I received feedback only once. 

EU Paper Topics

1. How the euro got its design
Since I am a graphic designer I am fairly interested in the procedure of how the design of the euro was chosen. I heard about it at school but I would like to go deeper into this topic. Next to that, I think this topic is focused enough to not get lost in general facts.

2. Translating for the EU parliament
I guess it's obvious why this topic is on my list. Right now I do not know much about the daily routine of a translator of the EU parliament so writing a paper about it would be a great chance to find out about it ;)

3. European Award for Pop Surrealism and Urban Art
I love art - especially Surrealism. I would concentrate on the criteria of how a winner is chosen, where the whole event takes place and so on. But have I mentioned the main reason for choosing it yet? - I love art. ;)

4. Future Enlargement of the European Union
What are the plans for the near future? What about the recognized candidates as Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey? What is left to be done until these countries can become part of the EU?

5. EU response to the Arab Spring
Visits, civil protection, and support for partnership, poorer areas and reform - by choosing this topic I'd like to give a shot overview of how the EU responded to the events of the Arab Spring. For a better focus I would concentrate on one specific country of the Middle East.


I could imagine writing a paper about all of these topics but one of them is already my favorite. But we'll see :)

sonjart#1: My New Portable Garden

Louise Morning has never been, despite her name, a morning person. How awful the necessity to crawl out of bed when the sun is still sound asleep! No cheerful alarm tone could change Louise's grumpy mood every morning the freedom of lying in is taken away from her. She tried everything. But on a rainy day in September, probably the 17th but I'm not quite sure, it was somehow different. Three strange and unusual happenings occured. #1: Louise felt a strong, piercing pain in her head. (I should  probably mention that Louise had never been ill her whole life - admirable, isn't it?) #2: The wooden board at the top of her bead was scratched all over. #3: Her pillow was nowhere to be found. Scary. Not sure if she might be still asleep, Louise slapped her own face. The hurt proved she was fully awake. Slowly and thoughtful, she entered the bathroom. At first, she looked inside the mirrow, two seconds later she screamed, four seconds later she blacked out. But to look on the bright side: Louise found her pillow. It was skewered by some branches coming out of her head. And, next to that, she found a good reason to stay at home that day.

Don't worry, Louise recovered her senses a few minutes later. Immediately afterwards she cried, laughed and acted like a deer, all at the same time. When she heard someone knocking on her door, she decided impulsively to stay quiet. Deep inside she knew she couldn't stay in her apartment forever, but she successfully ignored that at that moment. The knocking didn't stop. She knew it could only be Alice, her best friend since probably ever, with whom she had a kind of childish argument the night before.

"Louise, don't be stupid! Open that door, we have to get over that. We're grown up now, don't you remember?" Louise remembered. After many pointless fights they both agreed to grow up and stop acting like children. This didn't quite work out, so they both decided to restart their friendship everyday by forgetting whatever had happened the day before. Louise gave in.

"Alice sweetheart, it's just not about that. Something weird happened. I've changed.. Something is growing inside of me, you know? You can even see it from outside. Something huge, something complex and branchy.... ". Louise couldn't pull herself together anymore. She bursted into laughter.

"Louise, stop kidding me and open that door! I'm serious!", Alice answered angrily.

Louise did like she was told. She longed to see the expression of surprise on Alice's face. It was outstanding. Louise, clever as always, was prepared and took out her camera to make a picture of it - with this picture she won a prize a few years later, but that's not important now.

"What... How... You..... Whaaaaaaaat? Louise.. WHY ARE THERE BRANCHES COMING OUT OF YOUR HEAD?!?" was Alice's reaction. Both couldn't explain it and both couldn't calm down. It was only a few hours later, after trying desperately to find any reason, that Alice made a sound of exhaustion and surrender, followed by the suggestion to just let it be the way it was and go outside to drink some coffee. Louise first gave her a look of reluctance but then she realized the idea wasn't that bad. "Ok. Let's make this strange day even weirder."

It was like a movie scene. Walking through the streets, Louise caused chaos. Children bursted into tears, cars stopped on the streets and innocent citizen ran into street lamps. But suddenly Alice screamed enthuastically: "Louise! You produce fruits!" And she was right - her "horns" were decorated with little grapes. "Amazing", Louise thought, "I start to enjoy all of that."

And she really did enjoy it from that moment on. One week later, everything was back to normal. Louise and the people around her got used to her special feature and were delighted by the free grapes. In addition to that, birds settled down at the branches and felt very comfortable. Kind of a happy end.

"Alice, I realized something..", Louise mentioned one evening, "isn't it quite often the case that what might be a burden for you helps the people next to you? I mean, of course I love my portable garden but it can be highly exhausting sometimes. But now I see it in a different light - I can make other people happy with free grapes and I can even give birds a home!  How amazing is that! We often complain about things happening in our lifes we just don't understand or see a reason for because we're too blind to see the effect on others."

Alice nodded speechless, amazed by the insight of her friend. "Oh Alice. This would be a perfect ending for a story, wouldn't it?", Louise continued. Again, Alice nodded but felt exactly as strange as when she found out that the electron orbits the nucleus in the same way as the planets orbit our sun.

"Tell me something about your Art Project, pleeeease!" - "Ok, whatever."

While I'm trying to confrontate myself as much as possible with English to get prepared for the exam, I realize one thing: I can not force myself to love this language again.

But,of course there is a solution. One idea came into my mind: combining two things I love doing with English: Drawing and writing short stories. About one and a half years ago I even dreamt of becoming an author. I applied for the course "Sprachkünste" at the University of Art in Vienna, but I wasn't one of the lucky fifteen out of about 500(!) appliers. I'm actually glad about that - I don't like Vienna that much and, probably even more important, walking that path would have led me nowhere. ;)

I just somehow feel like I lost my creativity during the last year in Graz. Maybe the reason was the absence of time. I remember spending much time on drawing, writing English poems, analyzing song lyrics and so forth as a pupil of the HTL (during boring lessons - so maybe it's the lack of boredom :P )

So my plan for the future is to not let any exam or other pressure take away my passion of expressing myself through language in a playful way. I hardly doubt any professor would want me to lose this passion - ignoring it and letting it sleep was my own fault, of course. But it's time to wake it up again.

That's what I call my little "Art Project". I come up with short stories, poems or just crazy nonsense, draw a quick sketch that introduces the topic and publish both here at the blog. Many ideas in my head, nothing yet falling into place. I hope this will work :D

All in all a wonderful activity I look forward to do. The last few days I spent on reading a 700 pages book about American history (and believe me when I say I'm far from finishing it  :D ). Don't get me wrong, it is interesting. But.. time consuming :D

So, nothing more to say.

I wish you.. actually I don't exactly know what I could wish you cause I don't know what time it is when you read this. So it might be stupid to wish you a good night, even though I'm really tired and ready for bed. You know what - I wish you a wonderful moment, right now, and please, do me one favour: smile :)

Yours,

a girl in the middle of nowhere in Upper Austria.

Book Recommendation

I planned to do an "Intensive English Study Week" - unfortunately I got ill and slept A LOT! I still feel tired, dizzy and shivery but overall my health is better now. Or maybe it just seems so because, unlike yesterday, I managed to get out of my pyjama and put in my contact lenses. :D

 

As a positive result of lying around bored I finished one of the four English books I bought, called "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared".

 

 

 

It's hard to give a short summary about this book, because it is NOTHING like you expect from the title. Allan Karlsson - Swede, centenarian and explosive expert - decides to leave everything (which is acutally not much) behind on his hundreth birthday. A story including murderes, thiefes and an elephant begins.

 

Next to that, Allan's past gets slowly revealed. Without taking much notice, Allan played an important role in almost any noticeable event of the 20th century. He, without any interest in politics and religions at all, saved the life of Franco and changed sides in the Spanish Civil War, met Harry Truman as well as Stalin, Churchill, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Mao Tse-tun, who sponsored him 15 years of holiday in Bali because Allan had saved the life of his wife.

 

I don't want to give away too much because I think this book is a must-read. The story is hilarious and every person has its own detailed and special characteristics.. Throughout the whole book, Allan Karlsson often reminded me of Forrest Gump - kind of naive in talking and behaving, without any clue what's really going on but shaping history with his careless actions.

 

I can only recommend you to read it, but for me it's time now to rest a little bit to get well again :)

BYE!

 

 

 

 

 

Study Plan

I didn't pass English at the KGP, so it's about time now to think about how to improve my English until September. A friend of mine told me to write a study plan I must force myself to stick to, otherwise I might get lost somewhere. I can only agree with him, because "just starting to learn English" doesn't work out that well, as I experienced. The problem is, I don't feel like having a real goal to reach because there are no vocabulary lists I will be tested on and no special grammar parts I just could learn by heart. But I have many ideas how to improve my knowledge in all areas of language learning.

So, let's get started- here is my plan.

 

• Vocabulary.
  When it comes to writing and expressing myself verbally, I often search for the right words but I just can't find them. As a result, I use the same boring words over and over again. Getting to know a various range of words and synonyms will be a great benefit.
  - vocabulary.com: Finally an entertaining way to learn new words. The program even creates lists of words I failed at, so all I have to do is doing the so called "challange" to extend my treasury of words. In addition to that, I will create some lists of random words I come across while reading, writing and so on. Thanks to the Internet it's so easy to get my vocabulary collection organzied.
  - reading: This will not only extend my treasury of words but also give me a better feeling for English grammar. I plan to read "The Chronicles Of Narnia", which is something I always delayed doing because of so many other important and time-consuming things in my life (like studying ;) ).

• Grammar.
  To figure out my main mistakes I will go through all the stuff I wrote last year. I think the tenses are something I should revise carefully as I still struggle with them alot.
  - englishpage.com: Doing these exercises hopefully gives me a better understanding of the grammer rules.
  - Major No-Nos: Probably a good idea to go through this list again (and again and again..)
  - Innovations Books: Studying the grammar parts and doing the related exercises should be helpful. ;)

• Writing.Frankly, dear readers, writing is my weakest point. Even though I wonder if anyone might read this during the summer break and I'm not sure who I'm talking to if not just to myself, the sentence is still correct - my writing skills happened to be "under all pig" the last semester. :P Excuse me for drifting away. What are my plans to improve my writing skills? Well, I think that's obvious.
  - writing. Using this blog is the best way to keep focused because there is a chance somebody will actually read my outpourings. I hope this will help me to stay motivated and focused. I don't have time the whole summer but I intend to record my progress in all areas.

• Culture Stuff.I think I won't change the topics I've chosen, but I'm not sure yet. Over all, I want to inform myself about American History in general.
  - watching documentaries and relevant movies: Hehe, something I enjoy doing.
  - reading books: I don't know yet which books and where to find them, but I'll figure that out.

 

• Speaking.
  - finding someone I can talk English to.
  - trying to think only in English.
  - talking to myself in English. 

Well, it's a wonderful feeling to have a plan. Right now I'm really motivated to improve my English since it's something I'm doing more or less voluntarely at the moment. ;)

 

LET'S DO THIS! YEY!

 

Where have all the Honey Bees gone?

The dying of the honey bees is highly discussed at the moment, I think everyone has heard of it. I did some research about this occurence and guess what - I'll give you a short summary. ;)

 

 

Like we all know (hopefully), bees are essential to the pollination of flowers and trees. Thanks to the honey bee, we can enjoy apples, pears, nuts, onion, carrots, plumbs and even cotton. But all around the world bee keepers voice concerns about the vansishing of the bees. In some cases, bee keepers open their hives just to realize that up to 80% of the bees are dead.  While there were 4,5 million bees in the United States in 1945, there are now about 2 million. But why? What is going on?

 

A reason for thís mysterious "Colony Colapse Disorder (CCD)" could be parasites. Furthermore, bees often get transported  across the country what has also been considered as a possible reason, but one should know that this was going on for about 40 years now without affecting the bees and leading to such a "bee holocaust". Also the climate change was mentioned in one documentary I watched, but in my opinion this is a little bit far-fetched, but of course I'm no scientist.

 

According to biologist Marla Spivak, all this is happening because of changes in farming practices after World War II. Pesticides came into usage and as a result every batch of pollen a bee collects has at least six traces of pesticides in it, including neonicotinoids. While parasites die because of this pesticides, they affect the brains of the bees so they can not find their way back home. Scientists did some research and found 25 different pesticides in one bee. Nobody really knows what the combination of these toxins might cause.

 

As I was writing about GMO foods at my Food Magazine Article, this came not as a big suprise. Whenever I read something about genetic engineering, I imagine humanity as little children playing in the sand without realizing what they do.  We do not know the long term results of interfering with nature, but we just try it - just as little children.

 

The dying of the bees is one result I guess we'll soon experience firsthand. What can we do to avoid this? Planting as much flowers (without pesticides!) as possible in the garden, on the balcony, etc.. and maybe getting bee hives.

 

 

 

I wish you guys a flowery summer!

 

 

Culture Presentations

The presentations are done now and I think we're all relieved the project is completed. All in all I was really impressed about how much effort everyone put into researching and preparing for the presentation - great job all of you!!

A list of the presentations I watched:

USA:
- Southern Hospitality - The Southern Way of Life (Julia Rauch)
- Monty Roberts: An Extraordinary Communicator
- America as a nation of narcissm (Maria Dorner)
- Does Race Still Matter in the US? (Lisa Ziermann)
- Ellen DeGeneres - a modern woman and her influence on America (Johanna Schreilechner)
- Two Heroines of American Aiation: Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman (Orsolya Csizmár)
- Hurricane Preparedness (Claudia Schwaiger)
- Harlem, New York City (Louis Nguyen)
- Scientology: A Religion Made in America
- Racial Segregation as depicted in 2 Movies (Tiana Jerkovic)
- How the Columbian Exchange changed the world (Alexandra Haunold)
- The Amish country (Anita Mužek)
- TV shows depicting social issues (Christine Hartinger)

IRELAND:
- Witchcraft in Ireland (Sabrina Krassnig)
- Homophobic Bullying in Irish schools (Shirin Mahrouzadeh)

In all this stress and nervosity I acutally forgot to watch a third Irish presentation - I'm ashamed ;) But fortunately only the American ones will be tested at KGP, so I hope it's not that bad ;)


TOPICS I WANT TO BE TESTED ON AND WHY:

1. Southern Hospitality: The Southern Way of Life by Julia Rauch
I really enjoyed watching this presentation because I think Julia did a good job on giving a short overview about the pecularities of the South. It's something I want to figure out more about, that's why I chose this topic.

2. America as a Nation of Narcissm by Maria Dorner
Maria presented what everyone might feel in some way - American's self-image and national proud goes too far. I was really impressed by this presentation.

3. Religion made in America: Scientology by Harald Pasch
I heard a lot about Scientology but I hadn't known that much details, therefore I found this presentation greatly insightful, especially because I always wanted to find out more about it.

4. Racial Segregation as depicted in 2 Movies  by Tiana Jerkovic
I've already seen the movie "The Help" and even blogged about it, so this topic is kind of a must-have. I'm looking forward to watching the second movie "The Secret Life of Bees" since I was really moved by the short clip Tiana showed us on Thursday.

5. How the Columbian Exchange changed the world by Alexandra Haunold
It was fascinating to realize what foods wouldn't be popular in Europe without the Columbian Exchange. I felt like Alexandra could have talked about this topic for hours since it has a huge impact on world's history. She did a great job at giving a short summary and I really want to learn more about this topic, so this is the fifth presentation I chose for KPG.


To anyone of you who actually read this article - I wish you much motivation for studying and good luck for your final exam! :)

Why I love calligraphy.

Actually, I've always loved the act of writing. It doesn't really matter what I am writing, I just enjoy using different pens, feathery, papers and so on. But being a lefty led to some problems in the past - I always smeared up what I have written, therefore I nowadays hold my pens in a strange way to avoid this, but I've seen many left-handers doing this ;)

However, my passion about calligraphy and writing in general developed at the first year in HTL. Our teacher gave us pictures of different people with the task to design the letter "g" in a way that represents the facial features of the persons. I really loved doing that, but never had I imagined what this simple task might bring forth. I couldn't stop writing the letter "g" everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. All the sheets we got at the different lessons and even the desk pad we had to use was full of letters. I must have been considered psychopathic by my classmates and teachers, but fortunately in a school for graphic design the pupils are expected to have their weird characteristics and peculiarities. :D 

As a result, whenever I'm sitting around bored and pen and paper are within reach, I start to scribble - not just letters, of course. But whenever I'm chatting with somebody on the phone, i unconsciously start to write some words used in the conversation in a calligraphic way. One big advantage of that - after the phone call I know exactly what we were talking about. ;)

Writing words in different ways helps me to calm down. I just need to let my creativity out now and then, especially since I'm studying something completely different, namely languages. I can not really explain why it makes me happy, it just does. At some point I even dreamt of opening a calligraphy studio, but soon I realized it's impossible to earn your daily bread that way. That's art - wonderful to create, wonderful to look at but at some point useless ;)

I planned to write a few lines about the history of the alphabet and calligraphy, but I even got bored myself so I think I'll release you from that. Instead I'll show you some wonderful artworks and handwriting:

Have a nice weekend, see you :)

Schindler's List

I can't believe I haven't seen the movie "Schindler's List" earlier - I watched it a few days ago (to be precise, immediately after PC2 ;) ) and was really moved. The film tells the story of Oscar Schindler, a German business man who saved the lives of more than a thousand Polish Jews by employing them in his factory. Jews who were important for arms production were not taken to concentration camps. At the beginning, Schindler's aim was not to safe lives but to earn much money by empolying cheap workers. Gradually, he became aware of the cruelty of the Nazis and decided to "buy" many Jews from SS-officer Amon Goeth. All Jews he wrote down on a list were saved from being gassed at Auschwitz.

Since this story is based on real historian events, I want to write a few lines about the background and one person in particular: Amon Goeth.

 



 

Amon Leopold Goeth was a captain of the SS and commandant of the concentration camp in Plaszòw, Polen. He was born in Vienna and joined Nazi youth group and the Austrian Nazi party at the age of 17 and 22, respectively . At that time, the Austrian SS was an illegal underground organisation, as a result there is not much information about his activities available. In 1943, he was assigned to construct and command a forced labour camp at Plaszòw.

 

A description of Amon Goeth by Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, one of the Jews saved by Schindler:

 

"As a survivor I can tell you that we are all traumatized people.

Never would I, never, believe that any human being would be capable of such horror, of such atrocities. When we saw him from a distance, everybody was hiding, in latrines, wherever they could hide. I can't tell you how people feared him."

 

In the movie, Amon Goeth seems insane. I especially remember the scene where he randomly kills Jews from his balcony, appreciatively smoking his cigarette. It's unbelievable. We all know what cruelties human beings are able to do, but it's still disgusting and depressing to become aware of stories that really happened.

 

As some of you might know, I believe in God. I'm often confrontated with the question - if there is a God, how can he allow such cruelties? Why didn't he do anything about it? Well, I really understand this question, I often asked it myself. But at some point I realized that God gave us free will. God never wanted us to be robots. No parent would prefer robots, built to say "I love you" all the time, to real children that can think themselves and therefore express their love without being forced to do so. All pain and cruelty is a result of mankind's failure and it's wrong to blame God for all of that -  that's what I think about it.

 

 

 



A Different Kind of Love Story

About one year ago, the  Isreali graphic designer Ronny Edry created a digital poster about his attitude towards the Iranians:

I know it's kind of yesterday's news, but I watched Ronny Edry talking at TED a few days ago and I want to give you a short summary of the story behind. Ronny wasn't acutally expecting such a big media attention when he put this poster online, because he made many different posters before wich were more or less ignored. But with this one it was different - he got up in the middle of the night and passed his computer, just to see many red numbers on facebook. Many people, and beyond them many Iranians, were enthusiastic about his message.

As a result, new posters with different people were produced. It was a stressful time for Ronny Edry and his crew, but this campaign was mentioned in worldwide media. There is even a facebook page with many different posters and pictures which you can find here:

https://www.facebook.com/israellovesiran

As the Iranians were really touched by this campaign, many responsing posters were made. The special thing about them all is that there aren't just statements from anonymous people, instead these posters show faces of real citizen who agree with the message.

I have to admit that my first thought was: Ok, that's nice, but how should "normal" citizen be able to decide wheather a country gets bombed or not? I do not think they acutally can, but I find it so wonderful to see how this campaign destroys many stereotypes about other countries. Friendships were made because of these posters and many people might have realized that people from another countries just feel the same way.

So if you're interested in this topic, I can highly recommend you to watch the video on TED:

http://www.ted.com/talks/israel_and_iran_a_love_story.html

The Help

A few days ago I watched a movie with some friends - guess the name of it - correct, it's called "The Help".

The reason I'm telling you something about this movie is the fact that this movie describes the life of black maids in the early 1960s. I guess you all know something about this date and what was going on in America at this time, as we all (even me as one of Fionas students) had to learn much about the American history.

The black maids in the movie have a hard life - they take care about the children of others, just to see them grow up until they become their new bosses. The most horrible thing about it: The maids are not allowed to use the same toilets as the house owners.

The main character of the movie, an awkward young female journalist called "Skeeter", decides to write a book about the whole situation. She was raised by a black maid herself and slowly earns the trust of Minny and Aibileen, two maids.

Enough said about the storyline as I don't want to give away too much information. For the exact same reason I'm not a fan of trailers, so all you get is a picture. :)

 

I can only recommend you to watch this film - I enjoyed the humour, but to be honest, at some points the movie almost made me cry.

 

One thought stuck in my brain the next day - it could have been reverse. It's so strange how one race feels superior to another without any logical reason. Just picture all black people being white and all white people being black. What would it be like? If the Afro Americans would be in the same situation as the white ladies in the movie - wouldn't they act the same way? Of course that's no excuse for all the cruel and horrendous things that were done to Afro Americans. It's just a mind game that leads to one result: there's something wrong with humanity - with all of us.

 

 

 

 



 

Food Question

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘food’?I think that's a tough questions without one simple answer, but that's exactly the reason why I chose it  - I like writing about such wide-ranging topics.  ;)

To be honest, the first thing I was thinking about when I read this question was what I've been eating today and what I could possibly eat for dinner. The next thing was that I'm really thankful that something every human being needs for life is something that can be so satisfying and delicious. Imagine we wouldn't need energy from food to survive, and it would be enough to charge our batteries with electricity or something like that. Must be horrible and boring!

Enjoying food is something that connects everyone. Family dinners, business lunchs or the big buffets and meals at weddings bring people together. Just picture how antisocial you would be if you would not have to eat anything.

One last thing: Over the last few years I realised something about food: Healthy for somebody does not mean healthy for everybody. I started my journey of figuring out the right food for me some years ago, just to find out that there are so many different opinions about what's healthy, what you should avoid and what you should eat at what daytime and so on. Right now, I don't care much about that. I learned a lot form all these articles and videos, but it think everybody can more or less distinguish between healthy and unhealthy foods. Some need fruits to get the right vitamines, some do not tolerate them at all and can get really uncomfortable. Like so much in life healthy food is subjective and shouldn't get too generalised. But please don't get me wrong - I don't think that eating only fast and stodgy food is healthy for anybody. Eating varied food is something very important!

Above all - listen to your body. I think that's something many people forget - in the end you are responsible for what you've been eating your whole live, and only you have to live with the result. ;)

I'm hungry now.

Good Bye, Butterfly.

Sonja

About the author

Hey everybody! My first post entry (not exactly the first one but my blog had to move..) should be a short introduction about myself. I don't want to do it the common way, so I will introduce myself differently. There is something for you to do as well - more than reading! ;)
I will give you ten "facts" about myself, but three of them are just completely made up. Feel free to guess the false ones!


1. Something like my great-great-great-great-grandparents lived in Italy. A good friend of mine has relatives in Italy too, so we always joke about being related to each other.

2. I was born in South Africa, but my family moved to Austria when I was three years old.

3. My second language is sign language.

4. I'm from the Mühlviertel in Upper Austria.

 5. I hate getting notebooks or pens as presents. I don't know why but I always get stuff like that.

6. I have NO sense of direction. A few weeks ago I got a Smartphone, but my first months in Graz I depended completely on a map I always had with me.

7. I avoid arguments - it's not easy to quarrel with me.

8. I hate humor and laughing. Most of the time I'm crying.

9. My favorite book is the bible.

 10. I'm already an educated graphic designer and I run a company with my best friend, who I share a room with since last Semester.


If I didn't know myself, it would be hard for me to guess the three lies about myself. If you think you know them, leave a comment!



See you later, Alligator.
Sonja