First year

Alright, this is probably going to be my last blog post for this semester. A perfect opportunity to look back on my first year of university.

I came to Graz, thinking about a new beginning, new City, new people, new living arrangements. It wouldn’t only be my first time not living at home but together with two strangers in a flat in a dorm. It was really exciting and frightening. But my flatmates soon turned out to be very nice people and we would get along well. It didn’t even take long for me to make friends and to meet awesome new people. Even though I was homesick. Who wouldn’t be, especially someone like me who, as a child, cried because they didn’t want to go away for a week with their class. I am still homesick from time to time but it is by far not as bad as it had been at the beginning of the year. Holidays would later turn out to be the worst. Finally at home again, all I could think of was that I would have to leave again. At least I had friends I could look forward to. And I really did look forward to seeing them again, I mean they are awesome, how couldn’t I?
Well but before it got better it just had to get worse. Spring wasn’t really a great time, the first pile of exams to worry about, still very very homesick and despite having met awesome people, feeling lonely on a regular basis because I couldn’t see my family as often as I wanted to. But gladly time passed, exams went by, some positive some not as much, and I came to like it here (pssst, don’t tell anyone). Despite all the hard time I had and still sometimes have, I actually have to admit that Graz is a fairly nice City. And come on, even though it wasn’t always easy I have made great friends who I wouldn’t know otherwise. It is still weird and I am still getting used to everything but I am glad that I am here. There a new challenges every day that only make me stronger and let me grow as a person. I hope every single one of you can look back on this year and see the good in it. Because all the stress and homesickness was worth it in the end.

I wish you all a great weekend and much success with your last exam(s)!

About writing

I guess I never told you that I absolutely love writing stories and am actually working on my longest yet. At the moment the story is around 12000 words and 21 pages long. For some this might not be as much but for me it is an achievement. But today I don’t want to talk about my story, maybe another time, but rather about a thing that comes with writing in a foreign language even if it is just, or maybe especially if it is fiction. What I am talking about is the amount of new words and vocabulary I learn through writing my story in English.
To be honest i would learn quite some new words if I wrote in German but it is much more interesting this way. The thing is, for me learning new words while writing or finding out what that thing I want to write about is called, is one of the most exciting things for me. Sometimes it takes me day to find the right word especially if I don’t know what it is called in German either. But when I find out I feel like a little child getting the present they so wished for. Seriously, I can get really excited when I learn a new word.
A second very neat thing about writing in English for me is, that I am always practicing. I am continuously trying to learn new things and try to correct, or at least see the mistakes I made. It’s hard but it is really awesome when I finally manage to put something into my story that I learned during class.
I just wanted to share my enthusiasm for writing a bit and would really recommend you try it out as well. It is just amazing.

My Culture Topic

Emily Dickinson

Maya Angelou

Because I already told you about the presentations I watched, I want to talk a bit about my own. Let’s begin with why I chose the topic Two Famous American Women Poets. The answer is actually pretty simple, I wanted to talk about women. Alright, to be honest my first idea was to talk about same-sex marriage but as that topic was already taken I had to decide for something else. At first I didn’t even know what exactly I should write about, I mean there is quite much you can write about women. To get myself inspired I went through a list of topic ideas our teacher recommended, where I came across a title about authors. I then decided I would write about female writer. In another list of famous writer I finally came across Emily Dickinson and my teacher would later suggest I should talk about Maya Angelou as well, as I really wanted to talk about a black woman too. I suppose I couldn’t have made a better choice as there couldn't be two more different women, only connected through poetry.
So I wrote the essay we had to write before working on our presentation and became rather fond of the two women, especially Emily Dickinson. A shy woman with health issues and anxiety problems, staying nearly all her life at the family estate, writing about life, death and immortality. I have yet to read more of her work but I wanted to know Because I could not stop for Death by heart the first time I read it. And while I came to really like Emily Dickinson I admire Maya Angelou. Especially with Angelou I had the feeling I had not enough time to write and later talk about her. There is so much to know and so much to talk about that it nearly felt wrong to just have so little time to talk about her. Sadly, on the day I handed in my essay and before I began to work on my presentation I read in the news that she had passed away.
For the presentation itself I decided to concentrate on two of their poems, for Emily Dickinson it was Because I could not stop for Death and for Maya Angelou it was a part of On the Pulse of Morning. I read the first one as a whole and the beginning of Angelou’s poem. To be honest, it was much harder for me to find the rhythm in On the Pulse of Morning than it was with the other one. And even just with those two examples I am already amazed at how much they differ from each other.
I really have to say that both of them are very fascinating women and they are worth the time learning more about them. I still wish I had had a bit more time to talk about them but maybe I will get another chance some other time. Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson first part of On the Pulse of Morning by Maya Angelou

Culture Days

This week, Monday and Tuesday, we, the students from the second semester English course, had each to hold a presentation about either an American or Irish culture topic. I myself talked about Emily Dickinson and Maya Angelou as two famous American poets. But right now I don’t want to let you know what I talked about but instead which presentation I went to listen to and why.

The first presentation I watched was on Monday at 10:10 with the title Same-sex marriage (American culture). Personally I am very interested in topics regarding different sexual orientations as well as different gender identities which is why I decided to see what my fellow student had to say about same-sex marriage in the US. Maybe it was because the topic wasn’t new to me or out of some other reason but the presentation didn’t get me as I hoped she would. I found it rather dry as many facts were mentioned but not really talked about how the laws passed affect the people.

Later I continued at 11:00 on Monday with a presentation called Ernest Hemingway. I chose that topic because my own presentation dealt with two writer. I was positively surprised at how funny and interesting the presentation was. To be honest I never really cared about Hemingway, never even read anything he wrote, but now I really feel like I should. And even if it turns out that I don’t like his work he seemed like a very fascinating person, especially the way he tended to excessively re-write his work.

The third presentation I went to was straight after the second one and had the title Native American Languages. How could I, as a language student, resist a presentation with that title? This presentation was by far one of my favourite. I didn’t really expect much as I thought it would just get to hear a list of facts but was gravely mistaken. Even though I sometimes had trouble understanding what was said because of the accent of the person giving the presentation it was still great. It wasn’t only informative but also funny and I don’t think anyone else was that taken with their topic and talked about with a fascination like that. Certainly a presentation to remember.

The next presentation I went to was the one right after mine dealt with the topic America’s Gun Culture - Why American’s are so obsessed with Guns. It’s a much discussed topic and certainly not the last. Not only did I want to listen to my friends presentation but was also interested in what she was going to talk about. It was quite the interesting change as she tried to stay objective and not take a side. I do have to admit that this is quite difficult especially as someone who opposes guns and gun possession. Only in the end did she talk about what happens if guns get into the wrong hands.

Right after that I watched a similar presentation with the topic Massacre at Virginia Tech. Personally I was interested in how the two gun related presentation I listened to would differ from one another. In contrast to the first presentation the second one had a more negative view of gun possession, which is absolutely not surprising. The second one also showed how much easier it is to simply invent some knew early warning system than to do something against the actual problem, guns.

Following that I listened to a quite amusing presentation about the Flappers. I never heard about the term ‘flapper’ but decided I would just let myself get educated and listen to what the young lady, dressed as a flapper, had to say. The presentation was quite amusing and the woman dressed up as a flapper was only one part of it. I am glad to have visited this presentation as I have yet again learned something else about women culture.

The last American culture topic I listened to was on Tuesday at 10:30 with the title Women for Women - The will to lead. Even though I am really interested in feminism and equality, this presentation wasn’t really what I expected it to be. There were quite some things I already knew or wasn’t unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, it was still an interesting presentation as learned a bit about Sheryl Sandberg and might have to research her myself a bit.

After I all those American culture topics I went to see three Irish culture presentations and the first one was Irish as an official EU language. Even though this was yet again a very interesting topic the presentation itself wasn’t very convincing. Sadly I don’t even have a handout as there were too few for the audience which means that I can’t write much about this presentation besides not having been satisfied.

The presentation following the last one was David Norris’ contribution to the LGBT Rights in the Republic of Ireland. I really liked this presentation not only because it dealt with LGBT rights but also because I felt like the person presenting really knew what she was talking about. It was also very informative and engaging.

The last presentation of the Culture Days I went to had the title Is Irish a dying language?. This was a very interesting presentation dealing with a language that is slowly disappearing, even in it’s own Country. I am really fascinated with dying languages and am going to look further into that matter. I also believe that every language is important and should be preserved. For someone who likes to learn about less common languages this was a great presentation.

Last but not least I want to announce which of the American culture presentations I would like to choose for my first big exam at university. As I do not want to talk about guns I would like to talk about Same-sex marriage, Ernest Hemingway, Native American Languages, Flappers and Women for women - The will to lead.

The reasons why I want those to be my topic at the KGP are that they are all very interesting and I am going to enjoy learning more about them. They were also the ones I liked best from the American culture presentations I have watched.

CSD

Hello again!

As it is a beautiful and hot day I thought I would write about something more pleasant than last time. Everyone who knows what the abbreviation CSD means will know what this entry is going to be about. If you don’t know what it means, well, it has to do with sexual orientation, gender identity and rainbows. Yes, you guessed right I want to talk about Christopher Street Day. The reason for that is, that it is going to be celebrated in Graz on June 21, so what better time to write about it than now?

First of all though, lets start off with a few facts for all those who are not familiar with what the CSD is about and why people celebrate it. Christopher Street Day is held in memory of a riot on June 28, 1969. The riot began in Stonewall Inn, located on Christopher Street in new York City, in response to a police raid. This was one of the most important, if not the most important event in the history of the fight for gay rights. Within only a short period of time activist groups built and newspapers were published to confront the public as well as to fight for gay rights. Already the next year the first Gay Pride marches took place on June 28. Now it is not only celebrated in the USA but nearly all around the world, in way or another.

To be honest I have never been to a CSD or similar event but there is a first time for everything. As I mentioned before the CSD in Graz is going to take place on June 21 (links below) and I think it’s a great opportunity to show your support and meet new people, no matter your sexual orientation or gender identity. No one should be discriminated because of their gender or the person they love (or for their race, disabilities, and so on. Just don’t discriminate, okay?).

I would love to write some more but as I as finals are coming up I have to do that another time. I hope you all have a great time and as alway, I you find any mistakes or things I got wrong, don’t hesitate to comment and I am going to look into it. Some links: JungeGrüne QueerStudentGraz