Culture Presentation Days

Hey there everyone! Last week has been a very tiring and strenuous one for all of us first-year TKK students because we had to give a presentation as a part of our Culture Project (like all of you can most probably remember). In addition, we had to go and watch ten presentations apart from giving our own. To be honest, I was not really looking forward to spending two afternoons in an awfully hot building instead of being outdoors. As it turned out though, the presentation days were much more interesting and exciting than I anticipated and I actually listened to more presentations than necessary.

On Wednesday I arrived an hour before I had to give my own presentation in order to listen to some of the other Irish Culture Topics. After having given my own presentation I stayed a little longer and listened to a couple more people presenting their paper. These following topics were the ones I attended:
- Titanic- The fate of the Irish aboard (by Jennifer Latzka)
- Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly – Irish bands from America - Gaelic and its use in Northern Ireland (by Jens)
-Bloody Sunday for the GAA (by Johanna Jechart)
- The life of Irish Traveller Women
- Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann – Festival of music in Ireland (by Sabrina Michelitsch)
- Croagh Patrick (by Katrin WIesinger)
- The Irish Film Industry (by Dunja Devici)
- The Cliffs of Moher (by Blandine Leclere)
- Abortion Law in Ireland (Andrina Dolinsek)
- Ireland’s contribution to the world of video games (by Artur)

To be honest, I didn’t find it very easy to choose the topics that I will be tested on for my KGP  but I managed in the end. These 5 topics are the ones I chose and the ones I considered most interesting of all.
  - Titanic – The fate of the Irish aboard
I chose this presentation because it never even occurred to me as a possible topic. And when Jennifer presented it, I was completely astounded. I thought it was really interesting to hear about it because the fateful sinking of the Titanic has affected so many different countries and Nations. Seeing only one side of the story was really fascinating.
  -Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly – Irish bands from America
Whenever I heard the name “Flogging Molly” by brain connected this band to the word “Irish”. Now, as you can image, finding out that they’re actually America came as a huge surprise to me. I am a huge fan of all kinds of music and that is why learning about those two bands will be something I anticipate doing.
  -The life of Irish Traveller Women
 I unfortunately can’t remember the presenter’s name, but I will never forget this presentation. She could barely speak because she had a hoarse voice so all of the people listening had to sit on the floor really close to her in order to be able to hear what she says. And despite her slight disadvantage, I think I personally never paid more attention than during that presentation. This topic was really something I’ve never heard of before and therefore it is something I gladly want to learn more about.
- The Irish Film Industry
Dunja really chose an awesome topic. Movies are generally something I am very much into and I strongly appreciate all the films coming from Irleand (e.g. “In Bruges”, written and directed by Irishman Martin McDonagh). For that reason I knew from the beginning that this topic would be among the ones I would definitely choose for my KGP. Good Job, Dunja!
  -Abortion Law in Ireland:
This issue and its current situation in Ireland is something I am quite interested in. Andrina prepared it very well and gave a very clear and understandable overview of the topic. The reason why I liked this topic so much though is because it really shocked me the first time I've heard of it. It seems to be a very controversial issue that offers a great deal of topics of conversation you can discuss.


On Thursday I went to see the presentations prepared and held by the students learning about American Culture.
  -Two Heroines of American Aviation: Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman (by Orsolya Csizmár)
  -Religion made in America: Scientology (by Harald Pasch)
  -Hurricane Preparedness (by Claudia Schwaiger)
  -Racial Segregation as depicted in 2 movies (by Tiana Jerkovic)

I have to admit that all four of them were simply amazing because the presenters either chose really up-to-date topics or interesting pieces of American history. I gladly listened to them giving their presentations and I had fewer difficulties in choosing the three American Culture Topics for my KGP:

1)Two Heroines of American Aviation: Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman.
Orsolya did an amazingly good job. She dug up a quite unknown bit of American history and presented it to us in the best possible way. I never heard of those two ladies before but now that I do, I feel like having learned something really useful.

 2) Hurricane Preparedness: Claudia
Claudia talked about something very up-to date. The chances of witnessing a hurricane whilst on a trip to the States is quite high. Hearing about how exactly people prepare for such a natural disaster and how they cope not only gives you an insight on people's personalities but also on how strongly they hold together in times of danger.

3) Racial Segregation as depicted in 2 movies
There we go again: Movies, something I am always tempted by. This presentation dealt with  two movies called “The Secret Life of Bees” and “The Help” and both of them are centred around racial segregation. I unfortunately havn’t seen either of the movies but I think that the topic is a very important one everybody should be aware of.

Altogether, I think everybody did a great job during the Culture Presentation Days. All those weeks of preparation for the paper and the amount of work we put into researching it really paid off in the end. I can say without a second of hesitation that everybody really tried hard to write an awesome paper and to prepare an even more awesome Prezi or PowerPoint presentation. The only thing we have to worry about now is whether or not our teachers were also as positively surprised. But keep your hopes up, I am 99% sure that everything will work out perfectly well.

Star Trek

Some of you might have already realized that I am a bit of a movie-freak and in order to do justice to that cliché I am going to tell you about another movie (or actually a whole franchise) that I really love. So if you need to take your mind off things for a little while, this is the perfect time and place to do it. And now: Welcome….
….. to the world of STAR TREK.

First of all I am going to take you back to the beginnings of this immensely huge movie franchise. In 1966 „Star Trek: The original Series“ was first broadcasted in the United States. Gene Roddenberry, its creator, probably didn’t know how successful his brainchild would still be today in 2013. But there we are, 47 years later, and the science fiction franchise  still hasn’t lost its appeal.

For all the “Non-Trekkies” out there, I am briefly going to tell you what Star Trek is actually about. The Original Star Trek Series is centred in a futuristic world, where things like consumerism or money don’t exist anymore. Technology has been advanced a great deal and Earth is not the only planet inhabited anymore. There are different species like Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Humans,..ecc that all live on different planets. In this very futuristic world “Starfleet” is a very important organization maintained by the “Federation of planets”. All the people working for Starfleet and Starfleet itself operate in order to research and explore space and other planets but it is also a military and peacekeeping service. The main characters of the series are the Captain of the star ship “USS Enterprise” James T. Kirk (William Shatner), his first officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and the chief medical officer Leonard “Bones” Mccoy. In this series the audience follows the different adventures and challenges the star ship’s crew go through during their first 5-year mission.

After the success of “Star Trek: the original series” five more television series followed. Altogether, they consist of 726 episodes. But Star Trek did also hit the big screen multiple times. There are twelve Star Trek movies around of which the last one called “Star Trek: Into Darkness” was released in May this year. This new film was directed by J.J. Abrams and it is the second movie of his planned trilogy. The two phenomenal actors Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto slip into the roles of Captain Kirk and Spock in these two movie adaptions of 2009 and 2013.  The new cast and J.J. Abrams created two movies so thrilling and breath-taking which simply enthralled me from the first moment on. The effort J.J. put into the film  is unbelievable . It is simply amazing, not only because of the brilliant actors and the message that it sends but also because of the damn exciting action sequences. :-)

But now you might me wondering "What is so special about this whole franchise"?? Well, for me that question can be answered easily. To my mind, the most special thing about "Star Trek" is the message it sends to all the people that watch it. Start Trek takes place in a time, where equality is a given: A world in which people from different planets, races, skin colours and religions work together and have the same rights. And to come up with and broadcast a series that displays such open-minded viewpoints already in the 60s (when most people where still very narrow-minded and conservative and equality was not a given) is remarkable and admirable. Also, one of the first interracial kisses ever happened in one of the episodes of "Star Trek: The original series". Altogehter, Roddenberry’s ideas and also different egalitarian principles are clearly visible  in all of his work relating Star Trek. And for me personally, such a forward and liberal way of thinking, and the courage to adhere to it is simply remarkable.

Father's Day

As you all know, last Sunday was Father’s Day and this year round my sister and I decided to prepare a special something for our Dad. We decided to cook him a four course meal for lunch but we eventually had to reschedule because Dad decided to have a barbecue. Still, that didn’t  knock us off course and so we decided to just prepare two meals, an appetizer and a dessert. Firstly we thought that it wasn't such a great idea but believe me guys, it was a real success.

After poring over cookbooks for a couple of days we finally decided on what to prepare for our Dad. We chose a “Salmon-Tartar” as an appetizer and a farmer’s cheese-poppy cake for dessert. We tried to keep it a secret from him, but that didn’t really work out because he pretty much ran in and out of the kitchen the whole time while we were preparing it.

When preparing the Tartar we pretty much had everything under control. The recipe was pretty easy and it took less than half an hour to cut all the ingredients up into tiny pieces and to mash it up real nicely with different herbs and spices. After having made up our mind about how to present and garnish it on the plates, we could then move on to the cake.

I have to admit that I was most excited about the dessert because it really looked mouthwatering in the cookbook. But there was a little mishap when preparing the pastry, which didn't suprise me that much.Something like that always tends to happen when me and my sister prepare something to eat: we miscalculated the amount of oil needed for the batter and had to pour it all away and start again. The second time it all worked out perfectly fine though and it was really worth the effort. When it was finally done it smelled delicious and the fact that we still had to wait one day (we baked it on Saturday) to find out what it tastes like was simpy cruel.
 

Altogether, father’s day was a huge success. The Tartar tasted awesome together with the toasted bread and the dessert was simply delicious.  I think we really outdid ourselves us this year and we made our Dad really happy. But the problem that comes along with putting that much effort into something – now we need to exceed his expectations again the following year. Fortunately, we still have a bit of time to make our minds up about that…. 

Same Love

I’ve just recently heard a song by a currently very popular artist called „Macklemore“. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him before but maybe his current hit “Thrift shop” or his party song “Can’t hold us” may ring a bell. But none of these two songs are the ones I am referring to. I am talking about his song called “Same love” which I first listened to yesterday and I felt really moved by it. If you want to check it out, I am going to post the link here in the post, and you’ll see that it will have a lot to do with today’s free post.

Okay so first things first: I don’t want to just give you an idea of what the song is about (although the title is pretty much giving it away). I want you to read a paragraph from the song lyrics that I consider especially moving.

“When everybody else
Is more comfortable

Remaining voiceless

Rather than fighting for humans

that have had their rights stolen

I might not be the same

But that's not important

No freedom ‘til we're equal”

Okay, now you all know what the track “Same love” is aout. It is about Ben Haggerty’s (the artist behind the stage name “Macklemore”) view on equality and same-sex love. He completely stands 100% behind it and is undoubtedly for the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Throughout the song he mentions the church’s attitude towards the very same topic and other people’s conservative views. He also gives the song a very personal touch by mentioning that he himself thought that he was gay when he was younger. He voices his anger and the unacceptable discrimination (especially the unconscious discrimination) of gay people in everyday life. We might not even notice it anymore but we probably do it as well. Just by saying that something/someone is gay or by calling someone a faggot we contribute to the hate and the discrimination. The following part of the lyrics reflects just that one thing.

“We've become so numb to what we're saying

Our culture founded from oppression

Yet we don't have acceptance for 'em

Call each other faggots

Behind the keys of a message board

A word rooted in hate.”

Macklemore is an American rap musician who published his first album “The heist” in 2011.Ryan Lewis, who was his producer at the beginnings of his career, soon became a very good friend of his and now they basically produce almost all of their music together. Some call “Macklemore”  the new “Eminem” or the first rapper that writes about meaningful stuff after 2pac. I really never was into rap music but I have to admit that Macklemore changed my mind in that perspective. I love his music, and especially the influence of hip hop. He writes about really touching things and isn’t shy about letting his own experiences act as a  in the music. He is not reluctant to talk about his own life, his experiences and difficulties like e.g. his drug addiction. When watching interviews he always seems very honest, open-minded and smart, which makes him simply seem like a great guy.


If you’re interested in his music, check out his twitter account or his channel on www.youtube.com
And last but not least, my favourite quote from the whole song and my personal reason for admiring “Macklemore & Ryan Lewis”. An unbelievably talented artist that really tries to move people and to change something. I have the deepest respect for you.

None of the videos, pictures or lyrics mentioned above belong to me. They are all © “Macklemore & Ryan Lewis”