rafael's blog07

Erasmus - Wolverhampton, UK

2007-09-23T17:04:00.000+01:00

This is the link to my other, new blog: wolverhampton07.blogspot.com

this and that...

2007-05-12T21:07:00.000+01:00

it seems to me that not everyone on this planet does respect Rocky as much as george does for example... just have a look at this video, a new version of the "eye of the tiger"....

HERE you can find a better version of this song accompanied by a few Rocky fights...

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do you know what the main difference between a European and an American car chase is?
First take a look at this video:
Germany

then compare it to the following one from the
US1
US2

I don't understand why the police in American car chases always tries to crash the other car to stop it. They might as well just use on of those things to stop a person from driving on an interstate...
source: http://www.gorin-images.com/blog/index.php?showimage=85
Anyway, I understand that you are not supposed to speed in the US, however, I don't get why such car chases need to be organized once the police has seen the licence plate the challenge to find out who the driver is should not be that hard...

By the way, these videos remind me of my trip to the US once again. As we drove for 5-6 hours every day for two weeks we had the unique opportunity of getting a good impression of roads and road design in the (south-western) US. In my opinion there should be no speed limit in the desert of Nevada where you drive straight ahead for hours overtaking another car from time to time. The only intersting thing you might see are signs saying; "do not stop for hitchhikers. State penitentiary ahead"...

How to upload a word document...

2007-05-09T16:47:00.000+01:00

Look at this nice page: GOOGLE

Look at this nice page!

How to upload a word document!

have fun ;()

(you might want to try to do all this from home. you can access the uni-graz server by the terminalserver system: www-ts.uni-graz.at First, follow the steps described on this page. Then choose "Login Terminalserver" from the drop down menu and log in to your uni-graz account...)

Microeconomics...

2007-05-09T16:11:00.000+01:00

Here you can find some work I've done for Microeconomics... some parts are copied out of the internet though.

LINK!!

Have fun!

Arnold for President

2007-05-07T09:28:00.000+01:00

... well! costitution or not... Arnold might run for presidency after all...

Arnold running for President

Vocab, NYT articles

2007-05-07T09:00:00.000+01:00

Here is some vocab from the articles I discussed just before: (explanations out of LDOCE)

to prune - to make something smaller by removing parts that you do not need or want (or cut branches of a tree to make them grow better)
sluggish – moving or reacting more slowly than normal
to feel smug – showing too much satisfaction with your own cleverness or success
What are you so smug about? To be smug about smth.
incremental – increasing, happening gradually over time
Cumbersome – a slow or difficult system, heavy and difficult to move
To shudder at something – to think that something is very bad or unpleasant
the runoff election
rocking on the toes – move up and down on the toes
to be a whirling dervish of ideas –
to whirl - if your head is whirling, or if thoughts are whirling in your head, your mind is full of thoughts and ideas, and you feel very confused or excited
dervish - a member of a Muslim religious group, some of whom dance fast and spin around as part of a religious ceremony
to have a strained relationship – with many problems
"...who may still have harbored ambitions" – to harbor  to hide/hidden Here: to have hidden, untold ambitions
Arson - the crime of deliberately making something burn, especially a buildin
to quell - to end a situation in which people are behaving violently or protesting, especially by using force (Synonym – to put down)
to dither (a ditherer) – to keep being unable to make a final decision on something
to have strong oratory skills – the skill of making powerful speeches

Change is crucial. But what should change and how?!?

2007-05-07T08:49:00.000+01:00

New York Times Article "Forget Who'll Win in France, Change Is a Loser.

This article about “Change Being a Loser” points out the American perspective of the European welfare System and its economic and social impact. When reading this article I inevitably recalled an article about unemployment which is ought to be bound to the social system and unwillingness of Europeans to move where the jobs are. Only downsides, which by the way are not at all proven, were presented producing a backward image of Europe. In fact, I believe, it’s not Europe who should take an example at US politics and US economics but, if anyone should look for a role model, it should be the other way round (yes, this is a very chauvinist point of view).
Anyway, to put it in a nutshell this article describes France, French politics and the French people in itself as a nation not willing to change, as a nation rejecting radical change, as a nation were change needs its time to evolve. The article is not at all negative, the image produced is by far more positive than I expected at first. Basically it says that the French are so well off that it is hard to let the people understand that change is necessary to boast the “sluggish”(kriechend) economy.
The most interesting aspect of the article, however, are the comparisons made between France and the US. There is the degree of violence in the suburbs in 2005 which were exceptionally brutal and seemed threatening for European standards. The author of the New York Times compares these riots to similar situations he has observed in the US and states that the level of violence was not that high after all. The same is done with the health care system, the working hours per week and the comfortable life people live in France everyday.
I can only agree with the author’s impression on life in France compared to the situation in the US. Although I’ve only been to the US once, I consider myself capable of judging the general quality of life there compared to France. Therefore I believe strongly that the welfare system, the 35-hour workweek, the state funded pension system, the lunch voucher etc. are essential achievements which should not be given up easily for a little more (uncertain) economic growth.
At this point I feel urged to say that it is not enough to have “one of the best health/educational/pension/… systems,” but that it is crucial to remodel, modernize and adapt these systems as to increase social equitability and collective wealth. In my vision of society the state is supposed to stand for a collective, to stand for every single individual of a nation’s collective. It is supposed to balance out social inequalities produced by the repartition of wealths as it is today. Why should inhabitants of European states be satisfied with what they have? Why shouldn't they improve their life quality even more? Be careful, I said "life quality" not economic wealth!
What is a six-digit income good for in a world undergoing major climatic changes which might affect your life, your children's lives and your friend's lives?

France has a new president...

2007-05-07T08:00:00.000+01:00

Source: http://www.paitabaana.com/images/shit-happens.gif

Nicolas Sarkozy: Winning the Chance to Prove His Critics Wrong, NYT May 6.

“Never in this country will a Sarkozy be president of the republic. For that, you have to go to the United States.” (Paul Sarkozy, Mr. Sarkozy’s father, in the weekly news magazine Le Point in 1999.) - Many (more than 15 mio voters) would have loved his father for being right in this prediction. Alas 18 Mio voters thought differently and made him president of the "Grande Nation" yesterday night.

Paris, 6th of May 2007. The presidential election is over. The result as expected. Horrifying! In the New York Times a few words describing the "new" man are listed: "arrogant, brutal, an authoritarian demagogue, a "perfect Iago".
Arrogant he is and proved it the minute the results were presented. When listening to his speech at his party's headquarters in salle Gaveau one could have thought he was elected president of the whole wide world. This means, he presented himself as a man who was going, not only to change France but also the rest of the world. He spoke about Africa, the US, Global Warming and the European Union. Now the time has come where he has to show what he can do and how he will do it without provoking civil unrest. Actually, he was in government for quite some years in the past as minister of finance and minister of the interior. Somehow, however, he managed to run for presidency without being made responsible for the governments’ (he participated in more than one government…) politics. He was not made responsible for the situation France is in today, not for the economic situation, not for the every day aggravating social problems. He was made president because of his strong oratory skills and because he convinced 53.1% of the voters in the runoff election that he would bring change, higher purchasing power, stability, security and position France as a strong nation in the globalizing world. He promised to re-establish national pride (I didn’t know that the French had lost their pride in the Nation though…)
The brutality Sarkozy is associated with only needs a few words of explanation. When it comes to petty crime (Article, May 2nd about Petty Crime on another Blog) in the banlieues he said a few years ago, he will “clean out” those troubled neighbourhoods and repatriate illegal immigrant. His anti-immigrant, pro France rhetoric was so strong that he managed to collect 60% of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s (FN – Front National, extreme right) votes from the first round of elections. This fact is even more astonishing regarding the fact that Le Pen called to boycott the runoff election. Anyway, these threats by Nicolas Sarkozy ended up in weeks of arson and riots (Brandlegung und Aufruhr) across the country. Again, Sarkozy managed to profit out of the situation by taking the lead in quelling the unrest (Unruhen ersticken lassen/ to quell – bezwingen) while others were unsure of what to do. So much for now about Nicolas Sarkozy: The man who will govern France for the next 5 years; the man who will not hesitate to confront his adversaries; the man who will bring France greater social inequality.

Immigration in Austria

2007-05-06T08:42:00.000+01:00

In my last posts I reported about immigration, illgal immigration, to the US. I believe it is crucial not only to talk about other countries, show how the situation is there but to talk about the own country as well. A few days ago the Green Party started a petition concerning the right of residence for asylum seekers who are "waiting" for their process to end for more than 5 years.
As I am working with asylum seekers I can tell from experience that indeed many men and women are waiting for years until their case is closed and a decision on whether they are allowed to stay or have to leave the country is made. By then some have started to work in fields they are allowed to (paper work - distributing newspapers, projects by the city or from organizations like the Caritas...), they have met new people, made friends with other asylum seekers or in the best case with Austrians. Some may have found a partner in the country and married, they may be waiting for a child. None of these reasons will help them to stop their deportation to their country of origin.
The ÖVP, a party which calls itself a "family party" has passed this law tearing appart father, mother and child. It is high time to discuss what is going on in our country and find a better solution for immigrants to our country.

If you understand German and want to read some more about this topic, please open the following link to the Petition of the Green Party. dahamisdaham

Illegal Immigration and other YouTube Stuff

2007-05-06T08:02:00.000+01:00

I started talking about immigration, so here are some videos commenting on that topic.

Here is a video about an Australian girl with an "asian" face - talking about herself being Australian for various reasons:

I can call myself Austrialian if I want to
Stereotypes Austrialians have from Americans

The Cost of Illegal Immigration from CNN
A report on the protests and demonstrations that were going on in the US concerning illegal immigration. After watching this report you should get bach to the cartoon on "The History of Illegal Immigration" and you should think about why these people try to cross the border to our industrialized countries. You should also think about how povertry could be changed on a global scale, maybe you have an answer to the problem.

Here another Cartoon... "Illegal Immigration and You!" For me this cartoon is rather shocking and not representing my political beliefs on immigration, nevertheless it mentiones many points worth thinking about.

Video on the Oval Office A great parody of Bush's politics (only watch it if you haven't watched too many of those before... Somehow it's always the same. Still, from time to time I like watching this kind of stuff.
"The thing about the Oval Office is it w're all a family and even though we disagree on how to fight wars we always agree to fight them." Citation out of the Video on the Oval Office.

The Governator - The Green Giant

2007-05-05T22:17:00.000+01:00

Source: http://www.londonrubbish.com/images/20050813161938_20050813.jpg

Actually, when writing about an Inconvenient Truth I was planning an introduction to an article I read in Newsweek (April 16, 2007) recently. It presented Arnold Schwarzenegger as “The Green Giant” able to build coalitions between Chevron and the Sierra Club (a Club dedicated to many environmental issues, in particular related to global warming and green house effects) or at least to bring representatives of both groups on one stage with him, the one and only Governator, in the middle.
I think the article sums up very well the environmental discussion in the US. California is leading and other states are taking an example at the new laws that were passed in the past year(s) and get ready to do the same. The family we were staying with in Colorado told us that it was good that California was not waiting for Washington to do something because America will follow what happens in The Golden State anyway. Many economists, enterprises and investors have understood that there is money to make in high-tech methods helping to save energy and save the environment. President Bush, however, does not want to put any pressure on the automobile industry to develop new engines or less fuel consuming cars. He claims that without China and India in the boat nothing is to be done. I was astonished to hear that America compares its economy with the one of a post-communist regime and of a developing country. Furthermore, European and Asian automobile companies are already investing a lot of money and efforts in the development of new technologies, while American companies are waiting for more restrictive laws in their home country.

Anyway, back to the article again. The green giant told some journalists about the origin of this attitude: Schwarzenegger traces his green sensibilities to his childhood in postwar Austria, where he grew up with rationed food and electricity - and had to haul bath water from a well. "I'm a conservative fanatic," he says. "I still can't walk out of a room without turning off the lights. I can't stand it when the kids spend longer than five minutes in the shower." (Newsweek April 16(print), 2007. 56).
There is another passage in the text referring to Schwarzenegger's roots, when describing the impossibility of him being elected president of the US, which I think is very amusing.
Austria is also to be found on a diagram describing the Global per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions. The result is striking, countries like Switzerland, France or even Italy are better off than Austria, still in the US the per Capita consumption is about three times as high as in Austria. California on the other hand is not that many tons away from Austria. This diagram should tell us that Austria is not all that green as it likes to present itself!

To end this article one thing needs to be said: More than once Arnold Schwarzenegger is described as "savvy" in Newsweek magazine. I believe this adjective hasn't been used to describe him as an actor nor as governator before his Green campaign.

This picture is related to a speech of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004

source: http://gopandcollege.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_archive.html Republican Blog...

Nice vocab and cultural information picked up while reading:

Sierra Club
...there are still bones to pick.
Jousting
To assuage your conscience without tightening your belt
Endorsement
A tepid relationship

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-05-05T21:31:00.000+01:00

SOURCE; http://www.jeremylatham.com/images/an-inconvenient-truth.jpg

Many of you may have seen the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” by the former presidential candidate Al Gore. This documentary on global warming, its consequences for the planet in general and for human and animal life in particular won the Oscar for best documentary this year. I had the opportunity to see this film in the US on the campus of an engineering University – the Colorado School of Mines. This impressive climate lecture by Al Gore was followed by a panel discussion with several professors of the above University.
Before going into further detail concerning the discussion and film in itself I want to describe my first impressions when arriving in the lecture hall where the movie was shown with the help of a projector.
What struck me first was the crowd waiting to enter the lecture hall. Environmentalism seems to be a big issue in the US right now and students want to take part in the discussion. Another, less important, matter I realized immediately was the unfashionable way in which students, both men and women, were dressed. Actually, Harald’s brother had warned us on our way there that engineering students were not the most fashionable species (I know that this word is rather used to describe species of animals etc.). Still, I was amazed on how homey people dressed and seemed to feel good sitting in a lecture hall on a Tuesday night wearing sport pants and trainers (not the Addidas kind but rather the running version). Then, there was the ratio of men to women sitting there waiting for the government representative to end his speech and the show to begin. Unlike my expectations there were a quite astonishing number of women in the audience. However, I was told that this audience was not at all representative for the general men to women ration at the School of Mines (as to get some more girls into the bars of Golden, CO there are Ladies Nights were women can drink as much as they want for free… it isn’t that expensive for men neither, a pitcher(2L) costs about 3$ - if you want to know more about beer measures click here). Later, in the discussion I noticed that more women expressed themselves, asked questions or presented their theories than men did. Once more, Ulrich (Harald’s brother) confirmed that female students were generally more motivated and active in the courses he had attended in the US.
Anyway, I don’t want to summarize the plot of the film in this blog, however, I want to recommend everyone out there to go to your DVD-rental and watch this film at least once. Al Gore’s skilful presentation contains a lot of scientific information which is without controversy accepted by scientists around the world. Only the media and some politicians try to spread incertitude amongst the people.
The discussion on environmentalism and on what was to do to prevent the worst from happening (floods, more tornados, hurricanes, droughts etc.) turned out to be very interesting. Students were well aware of the fact that something had to be done, and that as engineers they had the possibility and responsibility to push this development. However, there was disunity on what to do. Generally speaking, ideas like carbon-trading systems or the development of biofuel engines were well accepted. Scepticisms on whether higher oil prices would result in fewer SUVs and increase the number of “clean cars” was all the while present. One student explained that in the past during oil crisis, when the prices for fuel were exorbitantly high for that time, people did consume less, however, this decrease in demand resulted in a surplus of supply provoking, following the rules of the free market, falling prices which in turn increased the demand again. To sum his point up, he said that if prices for fuel enhanced the demand for alternative fuels prices would fall and Americans might be tempted to start the engine of their good old SUVs and pick-up trucks again. To this point, nobody in the audience or on the podium had even thought about introducing taxes to regulate or enforce efforts concerning the emission of greenhouse gasses. It was, if I remember correctly, a girl from the Netherlands intervening in the discussion who finally described how the problem was dealt with in many parts of Europe. She pointed out that tax relief for companies making big efforts or even for a private person doing its best to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, could help to integrate the economy into an environmental program. Subsidies on “zero energy buildings”, on clean cars or on the development of new technologies concerning renewable energy could help our world and the human race to live in stable climatic conditions for a few more years.
Well, I think this is a hell lot of information I handed on to my readers and I hope that some of you will watch An Inconvenient Truth or read a book or two on the topic.

Comic Strip on Global Warming:
CLICK HERE

Listening! Immigration

2007-05-05T15:54:00.000+01:00

The Immigration Debate

Immigration is in everybody's mouths, politicians, tabloids, sociologists, police, etc. all think they have understood the problem and believe having THE one and only solution to this problem...

If you follow the above link you will know some more about the first immigrants to the us, if you are interested in Illegal Immigrants in the US you should click on the link below.

I think both reports try to present the problem from an unusual point of view, summarizing what has been done so far and what has gone wrong in the past and will go wrong in future.

Illegal Immigrants

New Word

2007-05-02T16:35:00.002+01:00

A moment ago I just sat in my microeconomics lesson listening to explanations of Game Theory when the professor flipped to the next slide with a version of the prisoner's dilema on it.
He tried to explain it using a hard working person and a shirk. I suppose that nobody really knew what a shirk was (this is an economics class, remember) but everyone did understand the meaning of it in some way.
I think shirk is a very beautiful word for a lazy person.
The Longam Dictionary defines it as follows: to deliberately avoid doing something you should do, because you are lazy.

There is the verb to shirk but also the noun a shirker.

Well this is it for today I suppose...

Writing - text written for class...

2007-05-02T14:43:00.000+01:00

Black Canyon 1 source: private picture

This text was written for class, however, at the same time it is one of the adventures I had in the US. Therefore, I need to post it to this blog as well.

The Black Canyon Experience

What I’d like to tell you about is something that happened to me and a friend of mine in Colorado. Never having been to a canyon before, we were excited when approaching Black Canyon National Park on an unpaved, dusty road where we planned to stay for the night. Actually, our goal was to hike down to the bottom of the canyon and sleep near the Gunnison River on a backcountry campsite.
Being the only human souls around, we had to register ourselves at the closed ranger station on the north rim of the canyon. The irregular gusts of wind gave us a hard time filling out the necessary registration forms and orienting ourselves on the provided tourist map. Finally, we made our decision, we were going to hike along the Dead Horse Trail and at its viewpoint “find our way down the canyon” as it said on the notice board. Before leaving our car behind, though, a warning caught my attention: “Coyotes, Striped Whipsnakes and Black Bears live in this area; occasionally Mountain Lions might be seen. Be cautious and respect wildlife.”
Not far had we gone, when our trail seemed to divide in various directions. The map was not very clear on where to go; therefore we decided to move towards the rim which very soon turned out to be wrong. By then, some mule deer had overtaken us on our path and we realized that we actually were on their trail. All we could do was to approach the rim and walk along its border. The first sight of the canyon was unbelievable: the sheer walls combined with the startling depths and narrow opening of the canyon will always stay branded in my memory. On and on we went for what seemed like forever, and we both began to feel the heavy load of our backpacks. A tent, two gallons of water and food for two days are not easy to carry through bushes on rocky mule deer paths.
To cut a long story short, we did eventually get to the Dead Horse Viewpoint where we immediately decided to, what seemed to us an adequate trail, try to descend as fast as possible. Unfortunately, dusk was faster than us and the wall steeper than expected. Hence, we stopped on a small but more or less stable rock platform in the middle of the wall, heated some noodles on our cooker and tried to get some sleep.
It was long before dust when we were awakened by the sound of howling coyotes and the freezing night. So, with the first beams of light we began our hike back up strengthened only by a Powerbar and a sip of Gatorade.
Afterwards, friends told us that we had chosen the wrong path and were not supposed to “find our way down” the canyon on our own but that there actually was a real trail on the other side of the ranger station leading down to the Gunnison River. To this day, I’ve not reached the shore of the Gunnison River, but someday I will. Still, it was a rugged experience after all.

Mock exam preparation

2007-05-02T14:26:00.000+01:00

This actually is an Axolotl - source: http://pageperso.aol.fr/lechaletblanc/images/axolotl%202.jpg

In preparation for our mock exam (yes it is possible to prepare even for mock exams even though other important exams are coming up soon) a few friends and I sat together after Welland's class at Axolotl's.
First, we discussed about what we actually had to do, know or be able to talk about for our oral exam next week. Then we took turns talking about ourselves, hobbies, things we do outside class and why we decided to study translation and English in particular. Similar topics are supposed to come up at the oral exam at the end of the semester.
Our second main topic was class work and topics discussed in class. We tried to reflect a little on Jaywalking and then decided to create a list of the texts we've read so far in class and on the topics we've been working on.
Finally, we focused our attention on the 3 minutes group discussion we are supposed to have next Thursday and at the end of the semester. Not only did we talk or discuss the topics listed in our skript on page 11 (Speaking Practice 1) but we also timed the discussions as to get a better feeling for how much each and every one of us can talk. We realized that 3 minutes were really short and that it was quite difficult to relate to what the person before you had said. In the end, however, all of us thought that we had done a good job for a first speaking practice of this kind.
Before we left Axolotl we decided upon the next practice session which will be tomorrow.
Some more information, maybe some interesting phrases for interaction, will be published there after.

What I did for my English this week...

2007-04-28T22:26:00.000+01:00

Short enumeration of what I did for my English this week:

Reading:
- actually only did the necessary. I read a few pages of Jaywalking, prepared for my presentation I had on Monday. This included some researching on the web which, as I realized later on, was unnecessary work because I found almost exactly the same links as Roman had already found last year. However, I looked up his link page on our yahoo group too late. The work had already been done by myself.

- my girlfriend ordered the second part of "A Year in the Merde" (I don't know if that counts, but as I'm really looking foreward to reading this book I wanted to mention it here as well)

Writing:
- just read this weeks post, that's what I did for my writing.
- what I plan to do is, to proof-read my blog entries or at least to write the following entries more carefully using dictonaries, linking words list etc.
- Grammar exercices by Rebecca Welland (prepositions...)
- a wonderfull mail to George summing up the content of my part of the presentation allowing him to create our wonderful handout.

Listening:
- youtube (not always the highest level of English but can be fun from time to time)
- some Hollywood film I can't remember the name of nor what it was about... I'll wait a minute and add it later on...
- not much more's going on in that section right now.

Speaking:
- preparation for the presentation. We tried to stick to English as much as possible during the preparation of our presentaion. Furthermore, we praticed the presentation a few times as to speak as freely as possible. In the end all of us spoke without using any notes which is a good thing I believe.
- a short chat on earthquakes in Dover, GB with my landlord, who happens to be from the Island.

Well, I believe this is about it!
As soon as more comes to my mind I'll add it to this wonderful blog...

The post-flight adventure

2007-04-28T22:24:00.000+01:00

I already wrote about the pre-flight adventure and the flight adventure, hence I’ll need to find a post flight adventure as well. Actually, this last comment on the flight is not that much of an adventure as everything worked out as planned. Nevertheless, I think a short description of immigration into the US is interesting though not a thrilling experience. Still, I was a little nervous when waiting in line for my turn as I had not checked-out of the US correctly last September. I’ll stop my confusing introduction here and start again in chronological order.
First, last September on my trip to Canada I went on a day-trip to Seattle with my girlfriend. Not only could I for the first time experience the bureaucratic immigration process to the United States of America but also did I see the Space Needle and a lot of shopping malls. Anyway, what is important to mention is that when entering the US Austrian (and many other European citizens) get a Visa-Waiver (a kind of temporary Visa you don’t have to pay for) stapled into your passport. When leaving the country for good you are supposed to give this Visa-Waiver back to US immigration officers. Unfortunately, when crossing the border to Canada again we never met an US immigration officer. The only person checking our passports was a Canadian officer who did not remind us of bringing back those certificates to the US services. Hence, when leaving Canada from Vancouver airport for Paris Charles-de-Gaulle the Visa Waiver was still in our passports and no Canadian would take it from us. Back at home we decided to tear the slips out of our passports and send them, accompanied of a nice letter containing a short version of the story, to the US embassy in Vienna. To the day of my departure to the US I didn’t get any answer from the embassy nor could they tell me what happened with our letter when I called them.
That’s enough to understand the situation I was in while standing in the “Non-US citizen queue” at Denver airport. Eventually it was my turn and I advanced to the immigration officer. With sweaty hands I handed him over the I-94W Form (for more information follow this link ) and the customs declaration. While scanning in my passport he asked me if I had ever been to the US before and at the same time he was interested in what I was planning to do in the country this time. Then, without any emotion or astonishment he wanted to know why I had not returned the “green slip” at the USA/Canadian border. Showing him the letter to the embassy (which I of course had printed out and taken along) I explained myself. He looked at me, wondered how such a thing could happen and told me to place my left index finger on the fingerprint identification machine. After having done the same thing with my right index finger followed by an automatic photograph he continued his speech: “This time when leaving the country you have to, do you understand, you have to check-out your passport. After check-in; before boarding there are automatic check-out machines. You have to put your passport in there, give him your fingerprints and let him take another picture before boarding.” He repeated these or similar words two or three times to make sure that I had understood him correctly. Finally, after I had told him that I was planning a road trip without even thinking about espionage, terrorist attacks or any other criminal offence he let me enter the country; or at least the baggage claim area.
I was relieved but wondered what the “A” meant he had written, with a fat black marker, on my customs form. Was it a special request to frisk me for Arms, Ammunition or even for Anarchist material? A few moments later I was sent to the baggage scanner and, while my bags were scanned by customs officials, my brain finally associated the A correctly with the word “agriculture” or “agricultural products”. Again, relief followed by a short explanation what pumpkin seed oil was and that it was not worth building a pipeline from Austria to the US because their cars’ engines would not appreciate it too much. Hence, it was not necessary to bomb our country (actually it was not all that dramatic). Accompanied by the final words of the customs officer: “You are free to go now”, Harald and I stepped into the main hall of Denver airport.
This is the end of my post-flight adventure but, at the same time, the beginning of a three week stay to the US starting in “Colourful Colorado”.

Flight Adventure

2007-04-27T06:52:00.000+01:00

http://www.luftfahrt.ch/images/ - Augsburg Airlines...

In fact, the flight adventure isn’t about either one of the flights but about the time in between our landing at Frankfurt airport and our departure there. After saying goodbye to my girlfriend and reassuring her that I would take care of myself Harald and I entered the boarding area. Where, due to massive time surplus, I had a closer look at our tickets. In my, sometimes wild, imagination, when booking the flights I had paid attention that we would have enough time in Frankfurt. Whatever finally happened I don’t know. For sure, I can only say that on our tickets there were mere 60 minutes from our arrival to the departure of our flight to Denver, CO. As I later realized I had not turned insane nor was I hallucinating in front of my computer a few months ago; actually, the flight departing in Graz had been rescheduled by half an hour. Anyway, this was not going to help us when our pilot explained that we were going to land a few minutes late because of heavy air traffic. Nor was it comforting us in any way when we were driving in a bus (where all passengers of our shuttle-airbus were transported at once – so much to the size of the first plane) from one end of Frankfurt airport to the other. To cut a long story short, by some unexplainable chance not only the bus brought us to the Terminal were we had to catch our connection flight, but also the queue at the security checks was short enough to let us move on rapidly. In the end we arrived at Gate 23 just in time for boarding, which by the way was about 15 minutes late and approximately 25 minutes after our arrival at the Terminal.

Pre-flight adventure

2007-04-27T06:23:00.000+01:00

One week ago I posted a list of promises, a list enumerating all the details I planned to hand on to the readers of this blog. It’s high time to give at least some of my stories on to you. Before I do so, however, I’d like to refer you to my flickr photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rys07 . Up to date there is a collection of approximately 50 pictures from the road trip. As soon as flickr makes it possible to me (I think at the beginning of next month) I’ll upload some more, hopefully amazing, pictures of my first week in Golden, CO, of the summit attempts and our excursion to the Garden of Gods near Colorado Springs.

Anyway, it was early in the morning when my girlfriend, Harald and I departed for Graz Int’l Airport (actually people in Graz rather call it Thalerhof but for us it was Graz Int’l Airport). My girlfriend asked me whether I had taken all important documents I would need for check-in and immigration. It was only at the check-in desk when it turned out that we had forgotten to take the US address of Harald’s brother along to the airport, which for us personally was not a big deal because he was going to pick us up anyway, however, the check-in lady was not ready to actually check us in without an address in the US she could hand on to the US immigration office. Certainly, we could have called Ulrich in the US but then we realized it was night in the Mountain Time Zone. It did take me some time to come up with an intelligent solution but in the end I managed to dig out a route planner where an arbitrary address, including the ZIP code was mentioned. Hence, we decided that, at least for US immigration officers, we were going to spend our first night there. This was the pre-flight adventure.
Right, if there is a pre-flight adventure there has to be a flight adventure as well. Read about the latter one in the next message.

Back in ahh from the USA!

2007-04-21T22:16:00.000+01:00

source: www.lunargifts.co.uk
Well, it ain't my country but the Americans love their flag so much that I've to put it here for once at least!
Chuck Berry: Back in the USA The Beatles' song "> "Back in the USSR" is a parody of Chuck Berry,...
It’s been almost a week that I’ve touched Austrian soil again. Unfortunately, to this very moment it was not possible for me to update my Weblog. I suppose that millions out there are waiting for comments, pictures and adventures from the Far West. Don’t worry, be patient! Sooner or later I’ll sit down in front of my laptop take out the USA map and write down what comes to my mind. This will be the moment when you will hear about my friends and me on several summit attempts in the Colorado Rockies. Then, you might get some pictures of the unbelievable places we had to sleep on our hikes in the American Canyonlands. Further, I might show you the statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and the Venetian Canals à la US. As my trip took me even further west, a short update on how Mitch is doing at Malibu Beach and which star lives where in Beverly Hills could come up as well. Not to be set aside are wonderful pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge followed by ups and downs in San Francisco, California. Before coming home to everyday life in Graz; a short visit to Grand Canyon National Park, the Great Sand Dunes (which by the way look fantastic even if they are snow covered) and finally Denver and Golden, Colorado will sum up my report on my three week trip to the far west of the United States of America.
In addition to that, I’ll provide you with some personal comments on American life, people, attitudes and culture sometimes comparing my experiences with Bill Bryson’s “Notes from a Big Country” which I happened to read on my flight back to the old continent. ("Link" to buy the book – by the way, I read a "Reklam" version of it where the most important vocab and cultural information you might not know are provided. The Reklam, however, only contains a third of the original text. Nevertheless, I believe Bryson’s “Notes” form a great opportunity to get a first glimpse of American culture.)

Last Week, English

2007-03-26T09:59:00.000+01:00

Graz, Austria. Week 19th - 25th of March 2007.

Browsing through my own blog I realized that I forgot to mention quite an astonishing amount of work I did to improve my or at least get in touch with the English language.
First, starting in chronological order, I watched Rocky Balboa in the Royal English Cinema Monday night with a few friends, as George puts it. To tell the truth, I did not expect having to much fun watching the movie for a second time, but I need to underline what George already explained in more detail on his blog, the English original beats the pants off the German dubbing.
Tuesday, I joined for the first time the, by now, traditional Pubquiz at the Office. I should have done this a year ago then some of Mr. Newman’s culture questions would have been easily answered (and maybe I’d have passed SuK III on my first try). I don’t want to brag about it, still I think it is important to point out that George, Julia and I tried very hard to stick to English as long as we were inside the Pub (for a proof click here).
Wednesday, this was the hardest bit. Every Wednesday morning (and afternoon) I’ve got a microeconomics class in English at the SOWI. For everyone interested in microeconomics and English I recommend taking a course with Mr. Baigent next semester. At night I watched the only episode of Rocky Balboa I had not seen by then: number V.
All week long I read a few chapters of Jaywalking and finished A Year in the Merde (see, review).

Golden, Colorado

2007-03-26T09:39:00.000+01:00

Today is my last day of university before Easter break!
Tomorrow I am leaving for Golden, Colorado. This place is very close to Denver, Colorado in the mid-west of the United States of America. The last few days I had to pack for my evection (Wellandians will know what this means). Hopefully the weather will be nice regarding our plans to camp for the majority of our stay.
At arrival we (a good friend of mine and me) will stay at my friend's brother's house for a week or so. Ulrich (the brother of my friend Harald) is completing his master in "Erdöltechnik" at a University in Golden.
By the end of the week we hope to have seen the best parts of Denver and some nice places in Colorado (there are fantastic skiing resorts and hiking possibilities), in order to leave this place for the two weeks left.
According to our rough outline we will start our route in direction "Grand Canyon National Park", a must see when in the area. Next, we will continue our route to the center of gambling, Las Vegas. From there, if time permits, we plan to head to the West Coast and eventually reach Los Angeles. By then we will be broke and hungry, therefore ready to return to Golden and fly back to Graz, Austria where University will have started already a day before we arrive.

I looking forward to leaving a message from time to time in order to let you know what I found out about the American culture ;)

Review, A Year in the Merde

2007-03-26T09:36:00.000+01:00

Stephen Clarke's first book on living in Paris, France and stepping way too often into Merde was a wonderful reading experience.
If I had to describe this book with three words, I'd definitively choose: hilarious, short and realistic.
It is hilarious because it made me laugh uncountable times – jokes which, I suppose, are hard to understand for someone who does not speak a word of French and/or has never been to Paris or at least France before. For all those who understand the French and French the 383 pages are a humorous introduction into cultural differences and cultural misunderstandings.
My second word, “short”, is not describing its actual length nor am I talking about the size or format of the book. The aspect I’m referring to is its readability. Clarke’s style of writing, using very few long and boring descriptions, instead using dialogues and “unspoken” comments to explain the situations, make his book very lively. Furthermore, most of the descriptions you actually get are either about girls (sex related) or about food, which makes reading them enjoyable. The language in general is quite easy, however, there are still a few words per page which I don’t know and actually seem useful. Basically, the context makes it possible to understand and grasp the idea of every sentence although not every single word might be clear. A rather obvious exception are the “Frenchenglish” dialogues, Clarke provides us with. Please try to decipher this one (post your thoughts as a comment please): “Ah’em ed of hah tee”.
The third adjective I chose is realistic. The misunderstandings, his learning by doing attitude followed by many faux pas, the ups and downs in his private life and job are reasonably measured. By the end of the book the character more or less knows how to handle the French (in particular the Parisian girls). However, when returning to London he does not feel at home anymore, he has adapted to the French culture in one way or another.
I can wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone who loves to have a laugh from time to time and needs relief from the heavy pages of Jaywalking with the Irish (not that I don’t like the book, actually I think it is very interesting. However, it contains way more cultural information and words I’ve never heard of, than A Year in the Merde.)

English Log 5, Vocab

2007-03-14T10:11:00.000+01:00

Here is my first document containing a few usefull (sometimes unknown words - at least to me) words I picked up while reading through the texts for Welland's class.
I'm really looking foreward to our class today - the topic we're working on right now is very interesting and worth discussing. English is such an important language nowadays and spreads all around the world. By doing so it is constantly exposed to other languages, cultures, accents, dialects etc. therefore it is in permanent change. I believe that not only non-english languages are affected by the "world-domination" of English but also American or British English are strongly influenced.
Language is like chicken masala. First, the English arrived in India, they liked their food - brought it to Britain (or at least Indian immigrants brought it there). At this stage it was adapted to the English taste and finally brought back to India, where today you can find Indian-British Chicken Masala. The same happens with English. It travels around the world and every now and then it comes back home and changes the "original" British or American English. Enough for today, we'll speak about this in class anyway.
Follow the link to have a look at my vocab list (I'll update it with new words everytime we have to read for class) Vocab 1

tongue-twisters

2007-03-13T18:48:00.000+01:00

Whatever language you learn tongue-twisters are not easy to do...
This guy makes an art out of it in "Wetten Dass ???" - try simulaneous interpretation ;) or just have fun listening and try understanding what this guy is talking about.
By the way, his method might be interesting for language learners in training their articulation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdeRwWplJ2c

have fun

English Log 4, A year in the Merde

2007-03-13T18:23:00.000+01:00

Image by www.amazon.fr

A year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke - Chapter I
Amazon is fast and cheap. That's the reason I' loving it to use McDonald language.

A few days ago I ordered "A year in the Merde" by Stephen Clarke after having read a few reviews - I think I mentioned this before in a previous post.

This afternoon I finally received the book and instantly began reading it. (Not that I had nothing else to do but compared to reading a book on macroeconomics it seemed quite a good option to begin Clarke's oeuvre.)

Being half-french therefore knowing the french culture or at least recognizing it when made fun of I had a great time devouring the first chapter. The destcription we got in class as this book being a "LOL - Laugh Out Loud" book is definitly true! More than once I had to put the book aside and calm down again so I could continue reading.

For those that have not chosen a book yet, I can absolutely recommend this one. If you've already been to France once or more you'll recognize many stereotypes or maybe even situations you lived through and laugh even more. Another, for us language learners, relevant aspect is the very fluent style this book is written in. I could read over 50 pages without having to look up many words in the dictionnary to understand what it was all about (altough I underlined more than one word per page - but they were not very important to understand what Stephen Clarke was trying to say) and, more importantly, without wanting to stop reading. Unfortunately, my macroeconomics class is coming up soon, so I decided to switch to this very last one.

The update on new vocab will follow soon!

English Log 3, Rocky Balboa (again)

2007-03-13T18:12:00.000+01:00

... by today I've seen part I, II and VI of Rocky Balboa. All of them very nice films, some action but also some story.
The main difference between Rocky and other boxing movies is, that it is not exclusively about the sport but also about Rocky's life. It is the story of a 30 year old man living the American dream. A poor man who is always aware of his roots or at least some people remind him of his roots. It is impossible for him to be part of high society, to be part of the rich people - he doesn't care enough for their goals. Rocky is what I would call a "good" person. He gives advice to people he meets (e.g. little Marie - for those of you who have seen the movie), he can't follow the orders of the mafia he's working for properly, he gives his best in trying other things than fighting because of his wife and health asking him for it.

Very soon you'll get another update on Rocky III!

English Log 2, Rocky Balboa

2007-03-11T21:20:00.000+01:00

This picture is from: http://www.rockybalboaassets.com/RBB/pictures/DF-01624_rv1_wtm.jpg

Listening, week-end 10-11.3.07

To enhance my listening comprehension skills I thought that going to the cinema would be an appropriate comfortable way of exposing myself and in particular my ears to the sound of the English language. Unfortunately Rocky 6 is not played at the Royal English Cinema therefore I had to go and watch it in German... Luckily I found another possibility to train my ears. As I had never seen any Rocky film actively I decided to watch at least one of the 5 precedent episodes on DVD.

After discussing the main plot of Rocky 1-5 with a friend and calculating how much time there was until we had to leave for the cinema, we decided on watching episode 2. The reasons were simple: Rocky wins his fight (he does not at the end of the first episode, which makes you want to look at the second one immediatly afterwards - but we didn't have time for that), it is shorter than some of the others, number 3 isn't a typicall Rocky because he is rich and famous all the time (his social background isn't described that good in this episode I was told), 4 and 5 are late Rockies and not very well suited to get to know what the movie is all about. So, we chose number 2.

Indeed looking at is now I think it was a great decision. Not only does Rocky win in the end, to get there but he has to work hard and make his private life work in one way or another to achieve his doal. I was very astonished by the quality and somehow also depth of this boxing film (same for part 6, although the German dub is not what you want to hear after the English original). Never had I thought that Silvester Stalone's Rocky was more than action and hard fighting but now the fever caught me and I'll have to watch the other 4 episodes very soon!

For those of you who don't know anything about Rocky or those of you who are fans or anyhow interested in this kind of film, check out the Rocky website (http://www.rocky.com/) or the Rocky Blog (http://rockybalboablog.blogspot.com/).

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the music!! How dareI. "The Eye of the Tiger" is a fantastic theme song and also other musical inputs are fantastic - just the best for Rocky Balboa!
Rafael

Well,... I think there's only one thing to add:

"It ain't about how hard you hit it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."

Log 1, 9.3.07

2007-03-09T15:02:00.000+01:00

A few things I did for class today:

Today I copied the English script for the whole class at the copyshop.... It's amazing how heavy 100*24 = 2400 pages can be.

The second thing I did for class was to look up a few reviews of Pico Iyler's "The Global Soul", onw of the books some of us might read this semester. By scimming through an interview with Pico Iyler I could get a pretty good picture of what the book might be like. There seems to be an awfull lot of information about culture, life in general and travel experiences in the first part of the book.
Iyler describes The Global Soul that way: "I begin deliberately with those dizzying surfaces and passageways - movement, an inundation of data, which I think refelcts how the world is today..." "... the book is about the passage from speed to slowness and surface to depth"(citation: www.powells.com/authors/iyler.html)
I think that those few lines tell a lot about the book, maybe even about the style and the philosophy of his book. Reviews always mention that many places are referred to in the book, and that The Global Soul is about the quest for a place where people like Iyler can feel at home. A quest for a place merging as many homes as possible. (Pico Iyler is an ethnic Indian who grew up in the US and GB, now he lives part-time in California and Japan).
For further information see: www.amazon.com/Global-Soul-Shopping-Malls-Search/dp/0679776117

Third, I ordered "A Year in the Merde" by Stephen Clarke at amazon.at...

... Well and now I'll try to understand "chinglish",.... (Yuppie!)

My 1st Entry

2007-03-08T18:55:00.000+01:00

This is my very first WegLog entry at Blogger.com

The only purpose of this entry is to try out the functions and get to know some of the options I have when using this blog system.

It was very easy to add an image to this message - size and position were easily arranged!

only last thing for those of you who are not only interested in Hollywood and other mass-public movies. Please sign the petition against the closure of the Augarten Kino in Graz, Austria under: www.sichertdasaugartenkino.at

Rafael