Discovering the world of Apps that help you study - gFlash+

Until two months ago I was strictly against Smartphones. I saw no good in them. Constant ringing, having to text all of your friends all the time, never stop looking up things on wikipedia --- uah... horrifying.
But now that my good old phone, with a battery that lasted for 5 days (yes, those still exist) died (RIP); and my sister moving to Dublin (I can not just text her the old way or I will have an enormous bill every month) I decided to join the dark side. I purchased a Smart-Phone.
As it turnes out, those things are not so stupid after all! It can even help you studying. Last year I spent hours and hours and hours producing flashcards with english and russian vocabulary on them. Just to go through them once and then never look at them again because producing them had already taken all the time I had to study them. This year I discovered gFlash+.

This simple App makes it possible to simply turn a google spreadsheet with your vocabulary into flashcards witch you than can learn with your smartphone whenever and wherever it pleases you. Fantastic! I am not yet a master in gFlah+ but intend on becoming one very soon. Of course I will share all my experience with you guys.

Have a nice Weekend!

The European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life

The European Union decided to designate 2014 as the European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life. As their main reasons the increasing conflict between family and work life with whom families all over Europe have to deal was stated. Throughout the year a special focus will be on social integration, child and family poverty, quality employment and, of course, work family life balance. The main aim is to rase awareness among the EU Memberstates for this cour themes and initiate them to support families. This should be done not just by encouraging already existing programms but also change policies in order to make life easier for families and creaty a family friendly work environment. In the End all of the European citizens should profit from this aggenda. But it is expected that specially women who are often the ones to manage a family are considered to be among the bigger benefiters. At the End of 2014 the EU anticipate an increas in quality of life and a better work life balance for it's citizens. 

Brainstorming:
Aspect of the EU that interest me:
Beeing able to move to (nearly) every EU country and live and work there.
 

work life balance got worse 
focus: social integration, child and family poverty, quality employment, work family life balance
initiate support for families, make life easier 
profit woman

necessary for mental health

prevent burn out 

family friendly work environment

labour market

change in policies in order to make it easier for families

Feedback No. 1: Register and Topic Sentence:
- Cut the "but"s
- don't say the same twice
- topic and Conclusion sentences are okay


Feedback No. 2: Vocab and Kohesion
- Change second sentence (confusing)
- look at initiate again
- expect and consider - saying twice the same thing
- benefiters not a word - beneficiaries
- by encouraging - by changing
- work family life balance does not exist
- the EU anticipates

Revised paragraph:

The European Union decided to designate 2014 as the European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life. As the primary reason the increasing conflict between family and work life, with whom families all over Europe have to deal, was stated. Throughout the year a special focus will be on social integration, child and family poverty, quality employment and, of course, work family life balance. The main aim is to rase awareness among the EU Member States for this cour themes and to inspire the individual governments to support families. This should be done not just by encouraging already existing programms, but also by changing policies in order to make life easier for families and creat a family friendly work environment. All of the European citizens should profit from this aggenda. However, it is expected that especially women, who are often to manage the family, are to be among the bigger beneficiaries. At the End of 2014 the EU anticipates an increase in quality of life and a better work life balance for its citizens. 

Final paragraph:

The European Union has decided to designate 2014 as the European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life. It was stated that the increasing conflict between family and work life, with which families all over Europe have to deal, has been a primary reason for this decision. Throughout the year the focus will be on social integration, child and family poverty, quality employment and, of course, work-family life balance. The main aim is to raise awareness among EU Member States of these core themes and encourage the individual governments to increas family support. This should be done not just by strengthen already existing programmes, but also by changing policies in order to make life easier for families and create a family-friendly work environment. Women, who are often the ones to manage a family, are considered to benefit most from these changes. In the End, the EU expects 2014 to bring an increase in quality of life and improvement in work-life balance for all European citizens.
 

Paper Ideas for SUK3

Welcome back to the new semester to everyone!

It has already been a week for everybody now since our third semester has started. I am already very much looking forward towards all the interesting things we are going to learn this semester. As the paper on the EU everyone of us has to write is going to be a huge deal to each and everyone of us here are my suggestions for topics:

Education in the EU - How does the EU handle the differences?

Since the Programme for International Student Assessment is again in every Newspaper, why not try finding out what the difference between the Finnish education system and that of other EU members is? It would be very interesting for me to find out what the EU has to say to that topic.Since in someway we are still part of the educational system and some day our children will be again I find this topic very fascinating. (Maybe it is also because I am going to visit Finnland very soon)

The Nobel Peace Price for the EU

On Friday it is again time for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to announce who the new Nobel Peace Prize goes to this year. In 2012 they decided the European Union to be warded. The official reason stated on the Nobel Peace Prize website is: "The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe." I would very much look deeper in to the matter what the EU has actually done to earn this. For example, that in 1980 they introduced democracy as a condition for EU-membership.

The role of the EU in european sustainable farming

I am sure we have all heard about the ridiculous cucumber law. But what exactly is the European Union doing in order to help our farmer grow sustainable food for all of us? How are European agricultural laws helping or how are they keeping us from increasing the quality in food? Being very much aware of the food production situation in Europe I find this topic fascinating.

The role of the EU in the fall of the Berlin Wall

I have never ever before thought about this: But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 the EU had already existed and the BRD was one of the founding Members. So it would be really interesting for me what part the EU played in this historic event. Did they do anything at all to help Germany unifying the country? What happened after the Wall fell and suddenly there were a vie thousand EU citizens more?

Health insurance in the EU - What happens when you cross the border?

This topic has to be of special interest to all of us. Because sooner or later we have to cross the borders and what happens than? In Austria we all live in this super safe Bubble where you can always go to your doctor and hardly ever have to pay for it. But what rules are there in other countries? And more important what law applies when you need medical advice somewhere else in the EU?

So many interesting topics, so many questions to answer...
I am really looking forward to reading our papers!

Culture Presentations

Wow! I really have to say, I was impressed by the vaste range of topics we carried together for our culture presentations. Listening to my colleagues I learned plenty new stuff.

Anita Bhatti introduced me to the art of Newgrange, the oldest artwork in the world.
From Diana Skof I got some shocking facts about Psychiatry in Ireland in the middle of the last century.
Irish Dance is no longer this big secret to me, thanks to Katharina Luttenberger.
I was stunned by the story Bianca Brandtner told about Donal Walsh's fight against suicide in Ireland.
Thanks to Carmen Loderer, I'm now jeallous of Irish students for their opportunity to do a transition year.
The stories Katja Wallner told about animal symbolism in Irish Mythology captivated me.
Until Verena Praschs presentation about Whiskey I didn't even know there is such a thing like Austrian Whiskey.
Next time I'm in Dublin I will pay the Dublin Docklands a visite, beeing curious about them since Sowannry Em introtuced them to me.
I do now have a deeper knowledge about the GAA, thanks Alexandra Perfler.
Me and my sisters will send our 40-years old single cuisine to Willie Daly, hoping he can help. Natalie Riedl
Next time I'm invited to a Dinner party in one of the southern states of the US I will bring a cake. Thanks to Julia Rauch for giving me all this information about Southern Hospitality.
Should I ever get arrested in the US, at least because of Livia Pershy I do now know which society threat group I have to become a member of, in order to not get beat up.
And the San Francisco bay arrea is no longer a stranger to me, after heaving heard Marina Margeta's presentation.

All in all it was a really fun afternoon with lots of fun new facts to learn.

The presentations which most ceptured me, which I'm really curious about and which I'm choosing to be tested on in the KGP are:


Irish Dance
Transition year.
Animal symbolism in Irish Mytholog
Whiskey
The GAA

"The Awful German Language" by Mark Twain

Just in case you don't know who Mark Twain is/was:
Whoever heard about Tom Sawyer and Huckleyberry Finn, has heard about Mark Twain too. Samuel Langhorn Clemens, how Mark Twain is actually called, is the author of this two fabulous books. He lived in the second half of 19th century and is an important American Author. So important that William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature" once.

Maybe you already knew who Mark Twain is. Maybe you even know all this information already. But I am pretty sure that there are not so many people out there to know this about this great man:

somewhen between is birth in 1838 and the publishing date of his book “A Tramp Abroad” in 1880 Mark Twain payed Heidelberg a visit. Staying in Germany for several months he took the effort to learn our complicated language. After wards he wrote about it in his book mentioned above. He wrote about all the little quirks of German.

First is frustrated by the many exceptions to every rule. Next he is completely lost in the cases-jungle. Later tells about him being taken aback by the, to english ears/eys, unusually long sentences. And at somepoint he talks about the very strange habit of us german speakers to talke about little girls in the neutra.

Should you now be as curious about looking at our language from the perspective of this great American Author. Please be my guest and check this out.


Have fun!

ASL - American Sign Language

For many, many years I thought, like many, many other people, that Sign Language is an international the same. By now, I know that's a ridiculous idea. When my friend started to work at a kindergarten for children with hearing disabilities, I first got in touch with signing. Together with her I started to learn some useful signs and it got very funny pretty quickly. When we were on a night out we would start to signin in discos. I acutally thought about taking sign language as my second language. But it was not until last week that I really dug in deeper into this matter.

I discovered this new TV-series "switched at birth" where many deaf and hard of hearing people act. One of those Actresses caught my attention and I started researching. Marlee Matlin lost her hearing nearly completley when she was 18 months old. Nonetheless, did she manage to start an acting career. Today she is the first and only deaf Actress to have recieved the Acadamy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Moreover, she acted in more than 15 movies and several Television productions. In her book "I'll scream later" she writes about her interesting life.

Thanks to this TV-series I now found out that in the US there is actually the world wide first, and unfortunately onliest, University for deaf and hard of hearing students. The Gallaudet University in Washington offers both undergraduate and graduate programms. I also tried to find out something about the educational situation for deaf and hard of hearing people in Austria and Germany. But all I could find, was that people in Germany try now already for several years to start a similar University in Bad Kreuznach. Unfornuately they still didn't manage to do that. 

Global Village

We all know that there are many ERASMUS Students in Graz. But how many do we actually know? Besides the exchange students in our courses of cours.

I didn't know many, but a few weeks ago my friend tragged me to this event.Global Village. I hadn't heard about it before and didn't know what to expect. The moment we arrived at the Meerscheinschlössl I noticed, it had to be something special. There was a long cue lining up outside waiting to be let in.

At the entrance we had to pay € 3,50 entrance fee and than inside there was a big room full with food. Many exchange students who are currently studying in Graz had prepared meals from their home country. The had set up tabels and the visitors could walk arround, taste the food and talk to the students who prepared it. It was really great fun. I tasted stuff I had never even heard about. Sometimes it was delicious and sometimes I just realized that if I am ever going to vist this country, I will have to make a big circle around this meals.

All in all it was a wonderful evening. I talked to people from many different countries like: the Philipines, Jordania, Mexico and many moor. They were very eager to tell me about their country and I was very curious to find out what an impression they have from austria.


I found out that this kind of event takes places two times a year, so once per semester. Next time I'm going to be there as well and I kan just recommend you try it.