Interim Result

I moved to the U.S. 4 month ago, and therefore now I want use the possibility to think about this time and the eventful year 2007. It is very surprising how fast this year has gone by. If you had told me at the beginning of this year that I would be in the U.S. together with my boyfriend, I had not believed you. It was a big surprise.....

I gave up my flat, sold my car, but I could negotiate with my employer a sabbatical, so I still have my job if would go back in 2 years. After 11 years of work as a bank clerk (finally in private banking) I had a high position, a good salary, and a personal assistant; it was very difficult for me to go to the U.S. without any idea what to do and to expect. I'm not allowed to work here, so I will study. However, there are still hurdels which seems impregnable. And that is the first time I get no money for my effort, and even worse I'm dependent from my boyfriend.

Despite we live together for the first time, it's very harmonious and I'm very happy. It's really funny, we met in South Africa (holiday trip), lived in different cities in Germany (about 200 km), and live together in the U.S. Not very common, but very interesting.

In this 4 month I learned a lot, about me, my boyfriend, and of course English. However, there is still room for improvement. I think I have no problems to understand my teachers or other people at school, but it is still surprising and disappointing to communicate with the "normal" people. Sometimes I'm not even sure if they speak English with me or not. It was a great time in the ELI, and now I'm corious about new things and other fields of study, e.g. math and business (of course in English).

Thanks to all, Merry Christmas and have a great time whatever you will do in 2008!

The End Of The Golden Compass

Everybody who hasn't finished the book should not read this blook entry. However, I guess this entry will only be read by my classmates, and all of them know how the story ended up. Lyra will try to find out more about Dust and maybe fight against her parents. I'm so glad not to have such malicious parents; what a horror must that be? On the other hand the charisma, the intelligence, and her cleverness must be come from anywhere. I think these things she had inherited from her parents.

Although the end is not that what we had expect, the author had to let the end open so that he is able to make the readers buy his next book. Unfurtunately, I'm not one of these readers, but I will watch the film. That's also one thing the author might make a lot of money with. By the way, the film was produced a with a budget of $205 millions.

I also further informations about Dust at Wikipedia:

Dust in Philip Pullman's trilogy of novels His Dark Materials is a fictional form of dark matter, an elementary particle that is of fundamental importance to the novels. Dust is invisible to the human eye and cannot be seen without the use of special instruments such as the The Amber Spyglass or a special film. However, while humans cannot see dust without the use of outside devices, creatures such as the mulefa are able to see dust with their own eyes.
Unlike ordinary particles, Dust is conscious. It falls from the sky and is attracted to people (especially adults) and objects made by people. This makes it of great interest to the Church, which believes that it may be the physical manifestation of Original Sin. We later learn that Dust actually confers consciousness, knowledge and wisdom. This allows creatures who have the ability to see dust to identify other sentient and intelligent creatures. An example of this is when the mulefa are able to distinguish Mary Malone as an intelligent being, because of the dust surrounding her, when compared to the other animals in the mulefa's world.
It is Dust that provides the answers given by the alethiometer, and by the I Ching system of divination.

That's the autor Philip Pulman. In my opinion, at this picuture he looks very similar to my expectations.
Let's watch the film on Tuesday!

Art

To be honest, art is not a favorite topic of mine. However, it was interesting to read about China's art in the book because I never heard something about that before. When I saw the painting with the characters I was still wondering how anybody could read that. For me the characters of Asian languages looks very funny and I can not imagine to be able to read those. The script itself is a kind of art for me. And I'm sorry, the charcters look all very similar to me.

It must be very difficult for people with other scripts (Chinese, Japanese, Saudi Arabians etc.) to learn not only the other language but also the different characters first. Sometimes it's very difficult to read handwriting especially if the writer has not a very legable handwriting. Therfore, maybe Masa or Ashley might answer me the question: can you read illegable handwriting in your native languages? Can you also identify who the author of the writing is, do you something like a remarkable handwriting?

At this time I'm sitting on my PC and that brought up the idea how to type in different characters? Can you send an email in your native language from a computer here at the university?

I looked on the internet how a keyboard from Japan looks like, and now I'm more confused than before because I can't imagine at all how to produce this aesthetic characters.

Christmas

Today, on December the 1. is the first day that you can open your Advent calendar. Do you have one, maybe even made by handicrafts? It is a nice ritual that remembers me on my childhood when I can't wait until Christmas.

For me this year was very uncommon and eventful with biggest change, the movement into the U.S. That's also the reason why the pre-Christmas period this year is very different from all other experiences.
The weather makes me not feel like Christmas is coming. In Germany now it is freezing cold and you sit inside where it is warm. There are many Christmas markets where you drink mulled wine to warm you up and eat gingerbread.
Here in the U.S. I can sit outside with a T-shirt and I really don't feel like Christmas.

In Nuremberg, where I come from, is the most famous Christmas market (Christkindlesmarkt). Often we have snow, but we always have many tourist from all over the world.

Lyra Is A Good Liar

Lyra is such a tough and smart girl, and she is sly and clever. I liked the chapter which described Lyra's conversation with the king of Svalbard. First, the story she told to come to the king was impressive, and once she came to him she told him that she could be his daemon. How she has arranged to made the king believe her story was fabulous.

It sounded also very logic, that Iorek was coming to get her back. Therefore, she was able to protect Iorek from immediately death, so that he got the chance to fight against the king. However, with her plan Lyra gave her life in Iorek's hands and she was connected with his fate.

Yesterday, I saw a report about the preview in London was all the stars. Now I'm really curious about the film.

On the website of the film I found out, that in the film they pronounce Daemon as DEE-mon.
As you can imagine, the bears and daemons are not natural, expect of dog daemons, that's how the animated it:
The bears’ armor was likewise brought to life in the foundry after the bears themselves – and their armor – were carved into life-sized maquette sculptures that could then be scanned into the computer.Similar maquettes were made for each daemon, from Lyra’s Pan to Mrs. Coulter’s golden monkey. Only dog daemons were performed by trained animals.

I can highly recommend that website, it is also a good reading practise. Now as we now nearly everything about the story of the film, I'm very interested how a film (esp. this film) is produced.You also find some informations about the actors, for example what the actor of Lyra looks like:

Her name is Dakota Blue Richards.

DAKOTA BLUE RICHARDS (Lyra Belacqua) was born in London in 1994. When her mother named her Dakota Blue, she couldn’t have imagined the impact that name would have just over a decade later when she was cast in the leading role of Lyra in The Golden Compass.

Soccer: Why It Can't Make the Big Time in the U.S.A.

I really like this essay because I'm interested in the reasons why that sport is not as popular here as in the rest of the world. I was disappointed by the soccer worldcup in the U.S. because of the lack of interestent of the Americans. Despite the euphoria in the rest of the world, the stadiums were not filled by the american audience. This essay helps me better understandig the way Americans like sports.

First, Americans love their violence. In my opionion, the Americans prefer watching violent scenes not only in sports, but also in movies. In Europe we try to protect the players from being seriously injured. However, I'm also excited about watching to ice hockey because there is a lot of action, and the players are well protected.

Second, it is just to difficult to core in soccer. I don't understand that paragraph; counting the goals is sooo easy.
Either the ball is in the goal or not. For soccer sometimes it is necessary to be lucky, and not only to to play good soccer.



Violent scenes are also seen in soccer, but there are strict rules and the players get warning (yellow card) or have to leave the soccer ground (red card) if they break the rules.

A very famous expamle for a punishment with the red card which is known by all the soccer fans under my readers is Zinédine Zidane whom you can see on the left side.

(Soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany)



Third, it is unlikely that Americans appreciate a sport in which players are not allowed to use their arms and hands.
That's the reason why it is called "football" in almost all countries in the rest of the world. You should avoid playing with the hands; otherwise it's a foul or in the penalty area you will also receive a warning (yellow or red card). However, it is allowed to use the head; in fact many goals are achieved with the head.

Finally, soccer is not TV-friendly. I would like to see sports and not only advertisments. In the rest in the world that is not a problem because soccer is shown an TV and it is very popular. As the author mentioned, the World Cup final
was seen by 1.7 billion television viewers. In the half-time break there is enough time for a good commercial break.
If the Americans will be stultified by all the commercials in their sportevents that's not a problem of the sport!

I look forward to watching the next soccer game on TV now....

Kinds of Art

My simple definition for art is the following: there are two different kinds of art, one that I like and the other one I don't like. In my opinion, art is something you can argue about because art is a matter of opinion.

The articel in our book about art reports about architectur. That's one field of art I had not count to art.
However, now I remember me that in my art classes at school I had art history and I learned also about architecture. Unfortunatly, the knowledge about that is gone completly.

I'm more impressed by architcture than by paintings. In Europe we have a lot of very old and fabolous builings and even wohle cities ful of impressive architecure, e.g. Rome is a beautiful place and you can spent weeks there without being bored.

I was also very surprised of the flair in New Orleans. It is defninetly very different from the cities I have seen before in the U.S. On one hand, you can see gorgeous houses with extensive wrought-iron balkonies the French quater. On the other hand, the city also has the villas of the time of prosperty in the suburbs. New Orleans is a journey worth, not only for a archticture....



French quarter Villa