A Song of Ice and Fire

Around one year ago one of my American exchange friends drew my attention to one of the books, he was currently reading. Trent knew that I was interested in the Middle age and that I am obsessed with movies and books about this epoch. For that reason he recommended me the book series called “A song of Ice and Fire”. At that point I didn’t know that a TV-serial called “Game of Thrones”, based on the books of “A song of Ice and Fire”, was already a massive success in the US. First I was a bit sceptical because Trent told me that the author, George R. R. Martin uses a lot of old English expressions and I was assuming that I wouldn’t understand most of it but I gave it a go.  As was expected after the first two pages I had to look up quite a few words in the dictionary. Trent was right with his remark but I didn’t want to surrender only after two pages. Consequently I continued reading and that was definitely the right decision. The first book of the series, called Game of Thrones, is full of intrigues, power fights, love stories and the central fight for the Iron Throne, the place for the king of the seven kingdoms. What I really appreciated was the fact that every single character has their own chapters, logically because they are all located at different venues.  The feature of the different locations made it easier for me to get all the connections and involvements. Right after I had finished reading the book I decided to watch the TV-serial. Admittedly I had a hard time deciding if I should start watching the show or read the other four books first but I was really curious how good and original they producers adopted the first book. After I have watched some episodes I was surprisingly impressed how close the producers sticked to the novels. The adaption was not the only feature I was really impressed with. Starting with the costumes, the locations of shooting up to the requisites, everything was just fascinating and extremely realistic. Additionally I had the impression that the producers hired the best and most authentic actors of our time. The roles suit them all extremely well and every episode the whole crew knock out a masterly performance. Speaking of a masterly performance, the author George R. R.  Martin, should also be named. Right after I had finished season 1 I dashed to the next book store and bought the following three novels and I have to admit that all of them are master pieces. By this time I have read four novels out of five and watched all four sessions. Unfortunately the next sessions won’t air until April but the good news is that there is a fifth book I can read until then.  As you may have noticed I am quit obsessed with the history around the fight of the Iron Throne and if I had the opportunity to meet one author, I would go with G. G. Martin without hesitation.

My second love

In my previous posts you heard a lot about English and contents of my English course and I guess now it’s time to talk about my second language, the Austrian sign language. You probably wonder why I choose to study this demanding, amazing and active language. The answer to that question is that my mum did a beginners course some years ago and I was fascinated whenever I saw her practicing the vocabulary in front of the mirror. In the following text I want to introduce you to some special features and singularities of the Austrian sign language.

Facial expression

The most essential part of the sign language is the facial expression. For this reason, the first thing we learned was how to make the craziest and weirdest mops and mows. In the oral language we do not really consider the facial expressions, so our faces felt rusted in and inelastic. Most of the signs have their own facial expression to differ them because the tricky part about sign language is that some words have the same sign and you can only distinguish them by their  facial expression.  Fun fact, my family noticed that I used facial expression more often after my first lecture, the same goes with the gesture. My sister actually told me once to get my hands out of her face but I couldn’t let them hanging while I was talking. 

Gesture

As you may probably know you don’t really use your voice while you are signing. Be careful because that doesn’t mean that you don’t talk, you mouth the words without a sound. At the beginning it was tough not to utter something but after some time I got used to it. The mouthing is one of my favourite features of the sign language course because as a consequence it’s always quit during the lectures. Sometimes it’s too quit so that you can hear all the phones vibrating and ringing but most of the time I really enjoy this one hour of total silence. 

Grammar

Another great feature of the sign language is that you don’t really have to sit down and learn the grammar for hours and hours, broadly speaking you just put the verb at the end of the sentence. This little grammatical difference makes it really hard to translate sign language to German because you have to wait for the verb to come. Nevertheless, in most cases you can suspect where the person, speaking sign language, wants to get at. 

Finger alphabet

Lastly I want to show you the Austrian finger alphabet and its advantages. At the picture on the right site you can see all the different letters with their signs. You can use it whenever your collocutor doesn’t get what you are signing. Additionally it’s great when you want to tell your friend something that not everybody in the room should hear or when your collocutor is too far away to understand what you are trying to tell him. If you are interested and have a little bit of time have a look at the alphabet and try to learn some letters. Give it a go, it’s really convenient!

The struggle is real

It’s this time of the year when students, especially the ones from the ITAT, get stressed out because of all the upcoming exams. I am one of these students and right now I have some troubles in setting my priorities right. As you may know I have also courses in history, pedagogy and Latin as part of my history BA programme. Admittedly it was probably not the best idea to start a second BA programme subsequently to my Transcultural Communication one but I will try my best to complete both of them. Since I have the double amount of lectures I also have much more exams than others, to be exact I have fourteen of them at the end of January. Therefore, I decided to postpone some of them to the end of February. The question is which of them should I put off? Immediately I knew that the three pedagogy lectures would be the first ones on the hit list, since I am not really into that topic. You now may ask yourself why I have to visit these lectures anyway. Well, as part of my history programme I need a complementary subject where you have to complete six lectures within the first three semesters, I believe. Not quite convenient for someone who already has two BA porgrammes but that’s another story. My second subject I postponed is the “Basismodul”. You can compare it with my complementary subject but it’s slightly different as you have to choose two additional subjects within the “GEWI”.  In total I have to learn for ten exams, which is also intense but not impossible to manage. After my postponing and at the beginning of my intensive month of learning another issue appeared.  On which subjects should I set my priorities? Language, history, language, history….. I came to the conclusion that I should probably concentrate my attention on the four STEOP – exams and my two language courses. As these six are the ones I have to pass in order to get into the second semester. Now, halfway through my intensive learning period my brain is stuffed with year dates, historical events, culture concepts and definitions, phrasal verbs, vocabulary and sign language. That’s not a comfortable mixture I have to say. I am already at this point where I start to do the most hilarious things while learning. For example, my newest learning method is to spell the English vocabulary with the finger alphabet. I guess whenever people see me learning, the probably think I am crazy but whatever. With this method I can connect two language subjects with an easy method. Speaking of methods, at first it was difficult for me to remember all these important year dates but fortunately I found a quite helpful method for myself. Last week I bought a great white board where I can write all the dates and events on and can also connect them with different colours. Whenever I see something illustrated it’s easier for me get the connections and also remember the dates. Only the Prague Spring won’t stay in my remembrance. Something about 1968, socialism, liberalism, the Soviet Union, and an uprising, I believe. That’s a perfect example for how I am mixing up subjects. While I am writing an English blog I suddenly bring up history. That is quite weird I have to admit. Well, after I spent quite some time thinking about the content of my post and with the writing of it, it’s now time for another subject. It’s probably history, so that I can have a look at the Prague Spring over and over again.

Austrians in Amsterdam

 

Sorry for my late post but I have been in Amsterdam over New Year and that’s the topic I want to talk about today. Amsterdam, a city where different cultures, different walks of life and lots of different countries meet. I was a little bit skeptical and afraid before the journey because I heard some rumors that Amsterdam shouldn’t be the safest city in Europe. Armed with my secret purse and the uncomfortable feeling that someone will pinch my stuff we started our first city tour. Our first destination was the Amsterdam dungeon and it scared the hell out of me. In the view of the fact that live actors chased me, a liver landed in my  face and I almost got a heart attack because of all the sneaky little tricks I am glad that I survived that place of horror. Afterwards we explored the Anne Frank museum. As I study history, the house was one of my highlights of the journey. Inside you could visit all the original scenes and could have a look at Anne Frank’s diary, you maybe have heard about. Knackered from the museums and our quick walk through the city we went back to our hotel which was located 11 km outside Amsterdam. The next day we visited a museum called Body worlds. Undoubtedly I have never seen something nastier than that. The museum exhibit dead bodies without a skin, so you can see all the muscles and internal organs. On the one had it was really fascinating and interesting to see what is happening inside of your body but on the other hand you were looking at corpses. This exhibition is definitely not made for everybody. Later we had a delicious Dutch lunch called “Krokets”. You can compare it to our croquettes but the Dutch ones have a stuffing inside. Once we have totally overeaten ourselves we took the Metro to the biggest soccer stadium called “Bijlmer Arena”. It is the home of the most famous Dutch soccer team Ajax Amsterdam. On the ground that I am a big soccer fan, I really enjoyed the tour and the fascination stories I heard about Ajax and its history. Later on we went to the famous Red light district. The boys of our group were wide-eyed. You won’t believe me but there were shop windows with prostitutes everywhere. That was the first time that I felt unsecure.  This is probably an area you should avoid late at night. As we exited the district we saw the first drug dealer. That’s nothing special for Amsterdam but still kind of strange. Speaking of drugs, there are Coffeeshops as far as the eye can reach and as a result the whole city smells like them. First it is kind of pungent but with the time you get used to it. For me that was one of the down sides of Amsterdam.  One of the positive sides of the city is its architecture. Even if most of the houses are crooked they look really cute and are painted with hundreds of colours. Additionally all the bridges and rivers give the city a romantic and historic touch. Talking about historical the royal palace is probably one of the oldest buildings in Amsterdam and at its courtyard we spent New Year’s Eve. I have never seen such a big crowd of people before, as well as different cultures at one places. For instance, there were people from Italy, South Korea, France, Japan and England standing next to me. That was a great moment for all of us. At midnight the Dutch started a firework but not a small one. It lasted for one whole hour. Isn’t that unbelievable? After the firework we wanted to go back to the hotel with a Taxi. Unfortunately 1456 other people had the same idea and we had to wait for 2 ½ hours to finally get one. By that time we resembled ice blocks. As soon as we arrived at the hotel we fell asleep. The next day my friends and I yet again had to leave this beautiful ancient city.  This journey had definitely been one of the best holidays in my life and I can’t wait to visit this fascinating city again and explore different parts and places of Amsterdam.