American gun culture

Last lesson Farrah told us something about the American gun culture.

First, Farrah explained us a lot of vocabulary that we understand the topic better.

The American needed the guns to fight against the British when they became independent. After that the Americans have guns because they want to make sure that the governement doesn't go bad.

After the fight against the British the Cowboys went into the west and made small farms. They needed the guns to fight against the Indians and against wild animals. This live is called frontier life.

The people who live in the middle of America were called "rednecks". These people are uneducated, poor and fat. They have old cars and they drink beer all the time. They have guns and they don't care what other people think about them.

I think that it is not good, when people have guns, because guns are making people killing.

Thanksgiving

In 1621, the pilgrims thanked Squanto (a Native American) for his help by organizing a big party. They cooked a lot of food and they ate together.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving is celebrated in America. The whole family sits on the table and eats together. A typical American Thanksgiving meal contains a turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, a gravy, fried onion and green beans. For dessert they eat pumpkin pie or pecan pie.

The typical decoration for the table is a cornucopia which is filled with vegetables and fruits.

The day after Thanksgiving is called “black Friday”. On this day, the stores start to sell Christmas products. They offer a lot of discounts and a lot of people go shopping on this day.

This is a nice picture of a cornucopia:

Thanksgiving

In 1621, the pilgrims thanked Squanto (a Native American) for his help by organizing a big party. They cooked a lot of food and they ate together.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving is celebrated in America. The whole family sits on the table and eats together. A typical American Thanksgiving meal contains a turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, a gravy, fried onion and green beans. For dessert they eat pumpkin pie or pecan pie.

The typical decoration for the table is a cornucopia which is filled with vegetables and fruits.

The day after Thanksgiving is called “black Friday”. On this day, the stores start to sell Christmas products. They offer a lot of discounts and a lot of people go shopping on this day.

This is a nice picture of a cornucopia:

HALLOWEEN

Halloween October 31st
Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallows‘ Eve
Hallowed means holy
Eve is the day before a holy day.
Halloween was an ancient British Celtic festival.

At Halloween the souls of the dead returned.
People lit bonfires to frighten evil spirits.
Now bonfires are only burnt on November 5th.
Bonfire night.
Masks, costumes, ghosts, witches on broomsticks with black cats, skeletons, bats and spiders and Halloween lanterns have all become part of Halloween.
Children play trick-or-treat.
They ask for a treat hoping to get sweets.


When you follow the link, you’ll see a video about the history of Halloween. I like the video because they speak clearly and they tell us a lot of information.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-VRAemIvbI

Farrah

In our last English lesson, we had a visit from Farrah. She is from Maryland, near Washington D.C. and she is here in Austria to improve her German.
She will stay in Austria until May. Farrah likes Austria because it is very pretty. She already visited Saalbach, Vienna, Linz and Perg.
Her hobbies are reading books, listening to music, watching movies and travelling.
She loves to hear pop, rock and folk music like Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.
Her favourite movies are Fight Club, American Beauty, Superbad and Hangover.
She has a lot of pets at her home in the US. There is a dog, a cat, a turtle and a parrot.
The biggest difference between Austria and the States is, that in Austria is everything smaller. The cities, the buildings, the schools …
At the end I can say that it was an interesting lesson and I learned a lot.

XXXLutz

I don't like the spots of XXXLutz because they are silly and unnecessary. But it's a good advertisement because everybody remember this spots.

This is the link of one spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9IL3y1QiFM

The development of advertising

First paragraph:

In the 19^th century, during the Industrial Revolution, advertising became popular for new and fringe products. Later, more and more factories produced the same products and so, brand-naming became necessary.

Second paragraph:

The economic depression was a turning point for the economy. Before the depression the production had permanently expanded, but after it there was a crisis because the factories produced too much and the customers bought not enough and so the prices fell. And so the small firms combined with other small firms to rise their profits.

Third paragraph:

An example of the changes is a case in the soap industry. Small Factories flooded the market with anonymous soap bars and so the competition grew very fast. The leading companies started more aggressive selling methods to win new customers.

Fourth paragraph:

Lord Leverhulme was the first industrialist who realized that advertisement is an important part of selling methods. Nowadays, advertising is important and those firms who can’t afford advertising are out.

My grades

These are my grades of this year
Winter term: C
2nd test: B
presentation: B
course work (participation in class, home exercices, blogs, etc. ): A

I think I deserve a B because my test improved and my class work is very good.

Our trip to Italy

Monday, May 17th: We started our trip at 8 o'clock in the morning. When we were in Udine, we stopped our journey to visit the city and to take a lot of photos. At 6 o'clock, we arrived in Bibione. There, we got the key for our accomodation, which were small caravans.

Tuesday, May 18th: We started our trip to Venice at 15 past 8 o'clock in the morning. It took us about 2 hours to arrive in Venice. There we had to wait about one hour to take the ferry, which brought us to the famous "Markusplatz". Our teacher, Mr. Huber, told us a lot of information about Venice. After this, we got a short quiz. We had 3 hours to answer all questions and we had to find the funniest postcard. At 4 o'clock, we were back at the bus and after 2 hours, we were back at Bibione.

Wednesday, May 19th: On wednesday, we learned how to use a bow and in the afternoon we went cycling. We rode to a beautiful coast where we had time to relax. At the evening, we went to Bibione, to drink a cocktail and to buy souveniers and after it, we went to the disco.

Thursday, May 20th: First, we went to a small fishing village near Bibione. There, we ate noodles with seafood and we visited the village. In the afternoon, we had time to relax at the beach and we played boccia. At the evening, we went to Bibione and there we drank some cocktails again. We went back at 10 o'clock and then, we packed our suitcases.

Friday, May 21st: We had to clean our caravan and at half past 10 we went back home, to rainy Austria. We arrived in Perg at 5 o'clock.

Finally, I can say, that it was a very funny, hot, interesting and great week. :)

Let's Go Green!!

I saw a presentation about environment and pollution.

What I learned about it is that the climate changes don't only depend on the nature they also depend on human causes.

To save the life on earth, recycling and composting is very important. You have to separate your waste, to reuse it.

We can reuse paper, switch of the light or use public transport to save the earth.

At the end of the presentation, I had a look at two webpages of organisations which want to help the environment.

Press Review

I read an article the other day on the internet newspaper austriantimes.at and it talks about fake Euros.

I thought you might be interested because counterfeit money is on the rise and each of us needs money every day for living.

Basically what it says is that 47 per cent of the counterfeit currency are 100 – Euro – notes and about 27 per cent are 50 – Euro – notes.
It is also said that there had been more 50 – and 20 – Euro – notes forged than 100 – and 200 – Euro notes.
And it is mentioned, that the centers of counterfeit coins are Bulgaria and Italy.

What surprised me most was the fact that the police confiscated
15 000 counterfeit 100 – Euro notes last year.


Vocabularies:

counterfeit (gefälscht) - A 100 - Euro - note is counterfeit, when it is not original.
forge (gefälscht) - Forge is a synonym of counterfeit
currency (Währung) - Austria's currency is the Euro


If you want to see the original article, klick here!

abc

Press review “Austrians fear low-cost airline safety”

I read an article in online version of austriantimes.at the other day and it talks about low-cost airlines.

If you want to read the original article click here!

I think you might be interested because the summer holidays and so the time of going abroad are just over and so you can think about it what your opinion is.

Basically what it says is that in a study by pollsters 48 per cent said that they trust other airlines more than those offering low-priced fares when it comes to safety.

What shocked me most is the fact that SkyEurope sold 280,000 tickets for the next year although they knew that they maybe not exist any more.

As for me, I can’t imaging that SkyEurope sold tickets although they knew that they are in trouble.

words:

low-cost airlines (Billigfluglinien): When you fly with a low-cost airline you don't pay much.

pollsters (Meinungsforscher): If you do a survey you are a pollster.

Comment on the EP election

I’ve just read an article on the online version of „Austrian times“ about the European Parliament elections on Sunday.

I thought you might be interested because the European Union regards to everybody.

Basically what it says is, that the Social Democrats lost a lot of votes and that Hans-Peter Martin and the Freedom Party are the real winners of this election.
The Greens will lose one of their seats.
The other parties like Young Liberals, the Communist Party and the BZÖ failed overcoming the five-per-cent hurdle.

Here is a diagram which shows the solution again:

What surprised me most was the fact that the Freedom Party won a lot of votes and that the Social Democrats lost so much.

I was also shocked to hear that only 42.4 per cent cast their vote.

Finally I could say that I don’t think that there will be a big change in Austria.

Comment on St.Patrick's day

Today I read a post about on Bianca Danninger’s Blog (http://myblogdanninger.blogspot.com/)about St. Patrick’s Day. I thought you might be interested because St. Patrick’s Day became a very popular day in the last years.

The basic information about the text is St. Patrick. Who he was, how he lived and why he became so famous. It is also mentioned how people of the world celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

What shocked me most was the fact that St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in so many countries, but not in Austria.

What I liked most is that the text is written understandable and clear.

As for me, I think we should also celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Austria, because it is a good occasion to have fun and to keep in touch with your friends.

St. Patrick‘s Day

Today is 17th of March and in Ireland it is an important day because today is St. Patrick’s Day.
St. Patrick was the first catholic missionary in Ireland. They celebrate St. Patrick’s Day because St. Patrick is a patron saint of Ireland. First, St. Patrick’s day was celebrated as an religious holiday.
This day is also celebrated outside from Ireland for example in:
• Canada
• Great Britain
• Montserrat
• Australia
• Uruguay
• and in The United States
The main color for the day is green. In former times, the color of St. Patrick’s day was blue, but the national color of Ireland is green, so this color also changed. Everybody wear green clothes, in some cities the beer is colored green and in Chicago is the Chicago River dyed green every year. They make huge parades, listen to Irish music and drink a lot of Guinness or “green” beer.

homework january 24th, 09

My own opinion about school uniforms:

School uniforms have a lot of advantages and disadvantages.
For example if you don't wear expensive clothes at school you may not be as cool as the other pupils. But in Business College in Perg it's not obligated to wear expensive clothes. So that is no real advantage for me.
One big disadvantage is that you aren't allowed to wear what you want. And this is - I think - a real problem, because with clothes you can express yourself. If you are a skater you wear wide jeans and big T-Shirts, if you are a "Krocha" you wear pink accesoirs and Ed Hardy clothes but if you wear school uniforms everybody is looking the same. There will be no difference between one and the other.
I think it's better to have no school uniforms because for me there is no real advantage of them.

My Book Report

Spaghetti Crime

The book I read is named „Spaghetti Crime“.

It was written by Christamaria Fiedler.

The author:

Christamaria Fiedler was born in Berlin and now she lives in Schöneiche near Berlin.

She has been working as a children’s writer since 1967.

Other published bookes from her are:

This book was published in 2005 from the publishing house Thienemann.

The main characters are:

Isy Schütze:

She is in class 6b and she is one of the “calamity queens”. Isy lives in Berlin and she lives there with her parents and her elder brother.

Amanda Bornstein:

She is also in 6b and the second “calamity queen”. Her hair is a bit violet and she is the total opposite of Isy, but they are still best friends.

Mr. Rimpau:

He is an author and he wants to help Isy, and Amanda. He is only for holiday in Green Meadows.

Ruky King:

He is a young mysterious boy and he lives in Green Meadows.

Hagen Golz:

He is a classmate from Isy and Amanda and he ran away from home to the school lodge. The “calamity queen’s” just call him “Jelly Baby”.

Harry Herman:

He is the man of the party-service and the real thief.

A short summary:

Isy and Amanda drove to the school lodge to tidy it up, because Isy’s mum (who should do that) had broken her leg. There, they had a lot of adventures. Men who broke into the school lodge, mysterious noises and a mask which makes you invisible. That mask was used in a robbery in the post office of Green Meadows so Isy and Amanda had to find out who was the thief. Amanda hid the mask in a pot of spaghetti. Then, some people wanted to steal the mask, but nobody found it. The calamity queens thought that Ruky is the thief, but they were wrong.

And then, everything seemed to be against lovely Mr Rimpau because Ruky disappeared and Mr. Rimpau was seen in Ruky’s house. But finally, they found out, that Harry Herman was the thief and that Ruky went to Mr. Rimpau to tell him the story of the robbery for his next book.

So it was a happy end, because the thief was catched and all classmates from Isy and Amanda came to the school lodge and they had a very nice week there.