The fault in our stars...

Hey guys, guess what day it is today… Right it’s blog Thursday.

But before I start I want to make a quick announcement: Since I’m going to be quite busy next week with exams and the usual stuff and probably also throughout the rest of the semester, I decided to blog only every other week. So in general I’m going to write fewer posts but hopefully more thoughtful ones.

This time I want to tell you a little bit about my favorite book at the moment. It’s called The fault in our stars and is written by the ingenious John Green, who is not only a writer from Indiana but also has a youtube channel.

Here is a pic of him and the link to his channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

Anyway, The fault in our stars is about Hazel, a 16 year old girl who has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Her parents force her to go to a support group in the “Heart of Jesus”, a cross-shaped basement of a church. There she meets Augustus, a former cancer patient who is due to a type of cancer called osteosarcoma an amputee now. They fall in love with each other and experience quite a few adventures. However, I don’t want to tell too much of the storyline in case any of you hasn’t read the book yet and still wants to enjoy reading it without any spoilers.

To get an idea of the style the book is written in, here’s a quote:

 

There is also a movie adaptation for this book coming out in summer 2014 if you prefer watching films over reading books. No matter on which you decide, I recommend both and I myself am going to watch the movie as soon as it’s available.

Show addictions

Hey everyone, it’s blog Thursday.

So this time I thought why not talk about something that we all love to watch though of course we all have different preferences. Some of us are more into comedy, others prefer action and drama and yet others are more into mystery, science fiction and fantasy just like me. There are even those who love soap operas. If you still have no clue what I’m talking about, it’s TV shows.

I have to admit that I myself love TV shows of any kind and currently watch at least 10 different ones, not to mention those which unfortunately no longer air but of which I mostly own DVDs. Sadly, I’m now at a point where I constantly discover new shows I want to watch including some older ones which are no longer produced but I’m rambling on again.

Actually, I wanted to introduce you to one of my new current favorite shows. It’s called The Tomorrow People and has a really amazing storyline. The plot revolves around a new species of human, named the Tomorrow People, who have special powers such as telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation. They are hunted by Ultra, a secret organization that focuses on research in order to eliminate their powers. In my opinion, this show has a lot to offer. Not only there is a lot of action combined with lots of plot twists and a compelling storyline but also really great actors, who are portraying the characters, among them my favorite actress Alexa Vega.

So you guys should really check this new show out, even if you’re normally not into science fiction, give it at least a try. I promise you won’t regret it.

 

Here’s the trailer:

Food blogs

Hey guys :)

Since I was blogging about the characteristics of a successful blog last week, I thought why not talk a little more about blogs. By the way, I’ll try to write a post every once a week considering the fact that the most widely read blogs stick to a fixed schedule. So I’ll introduce you to Blog Thursday (which might be procrastinated to Friday or Saturday if I can’t find the time to write a post).

Well, to start off, this time I’ll be talking about my favorite food blog. There a few good one’s out there on the internet but my favorite one is by far this one which is all about American food: http://www.scoop.it/t/american-food

Not only does this blog give a lot of information about typical American food in general but it also provides links leading to detailed recipes and interesting articles about food-related topics. What makes this website particularly special is that Christine Szalay-Kudra, who is in charge of it, also posts her insights on these chosen topics and in this way clarifies them more or less. In addition, she also adds appealing pictures of the discussed meals and matters together with a very nice and easy-navigable layout.

 
Especially the scoop titled “10 extraordinary homegrown American foods” caught my eye because I was really amazed about all the different influences that establish typical meals in a certain state or region but also make them very hard to find anywhere else across the country.
 
So just check it out for yourself, I’ll highly recommend it and I’m sure you’ll find something that interests you, too.

Characteristics of a successful blog

Since I try to improve my blog and make it more interesting for you guys I thought about all the qualities that are part of a good blog. So here is what I’ve come up with so far:

At first, a noteworthy blog should captivate its readers interest and address them, too. Of course sufficient and correct language is very important as well as a variety of expressions to avoid dull writing but all in all content is even more important. I mean how enjoyable is it to read a post which contains marvelous expressions but basically just rambles on without actually saying anything at all. Obviously these types of writing also have some positive aspects since you can learn quite some useful expressions from them but honestly when I want to get to know more about a certain topic I don’t want to spend hours reading through a text that ends up giving me no sufficient information at all. Do you know what I mean?

Another important aspect about blogging is to write in your own words instead of simply copying and pasting a text from a website to your blog. Not only is it unfair towards the person you take it from and pretend it’s yours but it also becomes clear pretty easily that it’s most likely a different level and or style of English which you wouldn’t write when you’re writing it yourself. For example there is a huge difference between those two extracts:

 

• Keep It Simple. This is where minimalism can be applied to any blog, irrespective of its genre. No need to place superfluous advertisements or widgets all over your site; stick to the basics and remove anything you don’t need, remove anything that doesn’t add value.

• Try to stick to a simple style, this applies to any blog, no matter what type of blog and what topics it tackles. You don’t need to add any advertisement or special widgets to your site. Just try to keep it as basic as possible and get rid off anything unnecessary which doesn’t make your blog more valuable.

The first one is part of a post on http://www.theminimalists.com/blog/ and the second one is my rewritten version. They are quite different, right.

This aspect leads me to my next point: If you find any helpful sites concerning your chosen topic give them the credit they deserve by posting their link at the bottom of your post or wherever it fits best. Same goes for relevant pictures or videos. (They will also make your blog more intriguing ;))

All this talking about topics might make a few of you thinking “but what’s a good topic to post about?”. Well, I kept asking myself that question for quite some time as well until I realized the best topics are those you got experience about or interest in. Not is it only easier to write about something you already know a great deal of information about or eager to learn more about but it will also be (hopefully) more interesting for your readers since you put more work into it and try harder in general.

In case you want to write about something but feel like you don’t have enough knowledge about it do some research beforehand in order to know what you’re talking about.

Keeping all these steps in mind, I will hopefully become a more successful blogger this semester and maybe helped out one or other of you guys.

 

If you need any further advice, check out the link I included above, you can find quite some helpful tips there as well.

 

Irish cuisine

Since we are supposed to dedicate a blog post to Irish culture I thought why not write a little bit about typical Irish food and Irish recipes.

Actually I first wanted to write about Ed Sheeran one of my favorite singers and songwriters but after doing some research I found out that he actually is British and only his grandparents on his father’s side are Irish.

Howsoever, let’s get started with some typical Irish food items. First of all, one of the most important basic food in Ireland is the potato since a lot of meals are based on it. Other common vegetables are cabbage, tomatoes and carrots. As for grains wheat is dominating. Of course meat is also part of Ireland’s food especially beef, pork but also chicken and lamb.

To get to the real meals, a rather traditional one is corned beef with cabbage. It mainly consists of corned beef and cabbage as its name already say but potatoes, onions and carrots are usually added as well. Cooking this dish is rather easy, however, takes a lot of time since you have to stew it for about seven hours.

I found a recipe for corned beef and cabbage on this website: http://www.food.com/recipe/slow-cooker-corned-beef-and-cabbage-205367

Another traditional dish is soda bread. Although soda bread is present in a few cuisines of different countries it can be seen as typical Irish since there is a very own version popular in Ireland containing raisins. Other than usual bread it doesn’t contain yeast but baking soda and buttermilk instead.

If you like to try to make it at home I’ve found a recipe for the typical Irish soda bread: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Irish-Soda-Bread/Detail.aspx?evt19=1

Another element of the Irish cuisine is not a meal but a beverage. Any clue? No, I’m not talking about Guinness which would be typically Irish as well but about Irish coffee. This hot beverage combines two very different drinks black coffee and whiskey. Normally it also comes with whipped cream on top but traditionally this cream shouldn’t be whipped, though.

Here is a recipe for Irish coffee and the website also talks a little about the history of this beverage: http://cocktails.about.com/od/atozcocktailrecipes/r/irsh_cfe_cktl.htm

Of course there are many more but for now these should be enough.

Register

To be honest, I never really paid too much attention to the different registers of language before. Of course I had to deal with the appropriate register at every day’s situations depending on who I talk to and for homework assignments at school as well as at university but I never really gave it too much thought. However, I really tried to watch out for it in order to write this post and what I found out is actually quite interesting.

I've already mentioned quite a few times that I love the TV show Supernatural (Yeah I know, I keep rambling about it over and over again and anyone reading this blog must think I’m obsessed with it and that it might get annoying to a certain extend but so what) and now I want to talk about the dialogues and of course their register.

Well, first of all the main part of the dialogues are informal as well as happening between the two brothers Sam and Dean. These informal speeches are very direct, mostly use rather simple language apart from some specialist terms concerning hunting and the supernatural and are larded with swear words.

This is, however, not the only type of language which is used since especially Sam applies more neutral to rather formal language when talking to police officers, doctors and relatives of the victims pretending to be an FBI agent. Also Castiel, an Angel of the Lord (Yeah, you read right, there are not only demons but also angels on this show) is very formal as well as stiff which is one of his overall characteristic features.

I’m not 100% sure if this belongs to register as well but Crowley, the Crossroad demon aka the King of Hell, is talking in British English using all the belonging expressions which are sometimes hard to understand, other times sounding rather funny.

All in all, I personally find it very intriguing that register is this present in every day’s life and even in a show that I watch a lot.

 

I found a video which gives quite a good insight into the different types of register I mentioned above. So just have a look at it:

Happy New Year :)

So 2013 is almost over and a brand new year is ahead of us. Most people would use this opportunity to post a recap of the previous year on their blog, but not me. I won’t start talking about New Year’s resolutions either, since I normally don’t keep them and therefore don’t make any, anymore.

Instead I thought about talking about some New Year’s traditions.

Well to start with, a very common custom in Austria is to melt lead and to poor it into water (preferably cold) afterwards so it solidifies again. Then you look at the shape to tell your fortune for the upcoming year. (Every shape has it’s own meaning: For example a clover means luck, a horseshoe good business, a hat good news and so on)

In Spain and some Latin American countries, however, eating twelve grapes at midnight is said to bring good luck in the New Year.

Another tradition which I found on the internet is by the Irish. (I personally think this one is the most interesting one I came across) They apparently bang white bread against the wall to get rid off the bad luck.

I also found a website which gives twelve examples of other New Year’s traditions: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=9377008

Just check it out – there are some pretty amusing ones among them as well such as Greek people throwing pomegranates out of their doors for good luck.