Passives

Today I’ve revised Passives form the Grammar and Vocabulary book (the orange one). Afterwards I’ve done some online exercises, which you can find under my favourite links: Interactive Quizzes --> Recognizing and Changing Passive Constructions (js)

!Watch out: (one of my usual stupid mistakes)

Active: They suggested we try a new method of checking how much we were spending.
Passive: We were recommended to try a method of checking how much we were spending.

Subject (Result) --> Action --> Agent
The window--> has been broken --> by some youngster
(Don't forget that when we use the passive we are interested in the action itself. We don't have to mention the agent, if it is not necessary)

Americans in Graz

On Friday I had a really nice conversation with some Americans (and one emigrated English) from Michigan, who work for Daimler and Chrysler. They had a kind of exchange program with Magna.

Having a beer with a friend of mine (Andrea) at Flann O'Brien, they interrupted us wanting to know what the closing time of pubs in Austria was. Ten minutes later we were discussing the American health care system, of course governmental issues like president Bush(they weren’t in anyway pro Bush, which was a huge plus), joking around about Austrians and Americans etc.

For example one of them told me that most Americans would love to have a health care system, like we have in Europe but it would be to hard to change the current system. They always wanted to be independent of government with no interference.
Thanks to Mr. Newman I was also able to show a little bit off :)!

America

You Know You're From Florida When...

You own at least five pairs of flip flops

You know someone who's been struck by lightning

You're more scared of the freaks who live down the street than gators

Your backyard is sometimes a swamp

You're officially sick of Disney

You shrug off hurricane warnings

You've been permanently blinded by fat men in speedos

There are only two seasons - hot and hotter

You've drank a flaming alligator

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Florida

Link: http://www.blogthings.com (follow the link to draw a conclusion about people from other states)

Prof. Newman was anxious to give us some essential and funny details about America. Topics like geography, stereotypes, polls about America ect. were covered.

Here are some of the stereotypes: Americans are loud, nice, warm-hearted, outgoing, helpful, full of self-confidence, pushy, overpowering, talk a lot, brash, over weighted…

Here are more links if you are interested in exploring America on your own:

http://www.nationmaster.com/
www.pollingreport.com/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/search.htm
www.pollingreport.com/values.htm
www.johnsesl.com/america/America.html

Driving Over Lemons

There is another book I've read during my semester break (as you can see I had a lot of time for reading :)

What can I tell you about this one. Well, Chris Stewart, an English sheep shearer, and his wife Ana bought a rustic house in the mountains outside of Granada, Spain. Having no running water, access to road or electricity makes their life a little bit harder than they had expected. Their new life is worlds away from the one the had in England. New dialects, droughts, flooding, bridge building, local rituals, new friends (some of them are absolutely nice but some are quite weird) etc.
In my opinion, Chris Stewart describes all the new animals, plants, rituals or surrounding in a long-winded way. What was more, I missed interesting facts about the Spanish culture.

The book I’m reading at the moment is Almost French by Sarah Turnbull. I’ve to admit that prefer this one more. There is a little love story involved and the French culture (and all the stereotypes) are picturesque described.

Book Sharing

It would be great to share books, so we could safe some money. These are the ones I’ve, which I would also love to share with you. Just let me konw if you want to read one of them.

The Zahir by Paulo Coelho
Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho (one of my favorites)
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
How To Be Good by Nick Hornby
The Distance Between Us by Maggie O'Farrell (not one of my favorites but maybe you'll like it)
Post Mortem by Patricia Cornwell
Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen
Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart
First Love by Paul Bailey (pocket-sized anthologies)
Almost French by Sarah Turnball
Hard Work by Polly Toynbee
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Nickel And Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich :)

How To Be Good

How To Be Good by Nick Hornby is a funny book I would definitely recommend. It's one of the books you can't/won’t put down.

Nick Hornby, as in most of his books, is tempted to make us think about our life. So what does it really mean to be a ‘good person’? Katie Carr, one of the characters in the book, is trying hard to be one. She is a GP, cares about homeless, the Third World, wants to be a caring and excellent mother etc. Being the opposite of her sarcastic husband David, who seems to be the angriest man in Holloway, Katie made a fatal mistake. She slept with another man.
Contrary to expectations, this does change David’s life for the better. He meets an mysterious faith healer, who made him convert to an optimistic do-gooder. At this point there is a twist in the tale, which makes the story hilarious.

I've read the book over the semester break because Nick Hornby is always a good choice. If there should be anyone interested in reading it, let me know and I'll bring it along.

Speed-Friending

'Speed-Friending' is an event, which took place last Saturday at the Office Pub!

I’m sure all of you are familiar with the idea of 'Speed-Dating' but the idea behind this event was to meet expats from all over the world (USA, France, Italy, England etc) whilst practicing English. We had short conversations with each other, in order to get to know as much people as possible, which continued afterwards. E-mail addresses and telephone numbers were exchanged, while listening to an Irish live band and having a beer.
It was so much fun, although I have to commit that I had some doubts at the beginning. However, I’ve made some new friends with whom I’ll go to the cinema and play badminton (some of the prices, which were donated)!!!

Global Studies

If you would like to know how the world has changed in the last 40 years, you should definitely follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUwS1uAdUcI

Latin America, Africa, China, Arabic States, OECD, USA etc. were compared, by an Professor of International Health, in terms of income distribution, life expectancy, seize of families, child survival etc.

It took me just 20 minutes to watch the video but much longer to realize that there has been an enormous change over the last 40 years, especially in the third world.

London

After having a great time in Brighton, we decided to go London. Well, this city was more demanding than Brighton because we did (and you definitely should) a looooot of sightseeing.

Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus (which is also where we stayed in a backpackers hostel), Tower Bridge, Downing Street, London Eye, Harrods, Oxford Street (for shopaholics), St. James Park, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square etc.
And the most amazing thing --> we did it in just one day, by rain and without using one of these expensive (less adventurous) sightseeing buses :) but there was still time for shopping, exploring the local pubs and eating!

Brighton

Have you ever been to Brighton? It is a really lovely town, which is located on the south coast of England. In February my friend Nika and I decided to make the best of our semester break, so we headed to Brighton!

Sightseeing was done within one hour because beside the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Pier, there isn't really much more worth seeing. BUT the night life, shopping and relaxing is fabulous :).


This club in fact doesn't look that spectacular but trust me the music was so great that we could have danced the whole night. Unfortunately, the English think that 2 am is the right time to go home even if you’re having an amazing time :(!!! We didn't mind .... (we had 3 days to continue)















The only low point of our trip was the food. Having an unbalanced diet (consisting of fish & chips, McDonald's or Burger King and disgusting Chinese food) we couldn't await to have some delicious salad with pumpkin seed oil!!!!!