Anna´s blog

Friday, June 20, 2014

No shopping in Paris

In May, my mom and I spend a couple of days in Paris. We expected a nice journey, but the trip didn't exactly live up to our expectations.

On our first day in Paris we were robbed in the subway. It all happened really fast. It was really crowded, and just as we wanted to get out, a man pushed my mom away from the exit and snatched away her bag. The next thing I saw was my mom standing there surrounded by coins that fell to the ground. No sight of the thief. It took her some moments to realize that everything was gone. The money, all of her cards, the ticket for the parking lot at the airport ... We headed to the next information point, but unfortunately neither of us did speak a word of French. The lady at the counter wasn't very helpful. In bad English she described us the way to the next police station. After half an hour of searching we finally found it. But there the next language barrier came up. The police officers English was even worse. We tried to explain what happened and that we needed a police report for our insurance company - but he didn't seem to understand and went on and on talking to us in French. Finally I called my boyfriend’s French mother and asked her to talk to the police officer. It turned out, that the problem was the photocopier at this police station. It didn't work and that they wanted to send us to another place.

So our journey went on. When we arrived at the next police station another officer with poor English skills asked us to come in and take down the incident. Somehow we managed to answer his questions. When did it happen? Where exactly did it happen? Under what circumstances...?

When he asked what the thief had looked like my mom, who doesn't speak English well herself, stammered something like "Muslim". The police officer nodded and wrote something down. I sighted. "Mom, you can't just say the man looked like a Muslim. What if the police officer is a Muslim himself? That is somehow discriminatory" She looked even more frightened after that.

After a couple of hours we were finally back in our hotel. What a day! At least our passports weren't stolen. Still we could enjoy the remaining two days, even if we had to skip shopping in Paris!

Justice Center Leoben - 5 star prison

Since my Culture Project topic is about the detention Camp in Guantanamo, I have been thinking a lot about prisons in general lately. I realized, I knew very little about what its like to be a prisoner in Austria. I did a little research and found: It must be quite nice! ;)

Justice Center Leoben

The court and prison complex in Styria was designed by the architect Joseph Hohensinn.

It has room for 205 inmates and is currently fully booked. There are two inscriptions at the entrance. "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," and "All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person."
On a Georgian website, the prison in Leoben was actually adverted as a vacation destination!! For Georgian conditions, the prison complex seems almost luxurious.

The other day I read a newspaper article about a man who described daily life with an ankle monitor. It was written, that some people actually prefer to serve their time in prison than to wear an ankle monitor. I couldn´t believe it. Who would choose prison over living at home with your family? Well after seeing the justice center in Leoben I think I do understand ;)

Here are some more pictures:

Flat-hunting in Graz

Currently I am living on my own in a small flat here in Graz but next year I am moving in with a friend of mine. Right now we are looking for a new flat. Finding the perfect place is harder than I expected. The first few viewings were total failures.

There are several groups on Facebook where people look for a next tenant. The good thing is, no realtors are involved. On the other hand, you never really know what you have to expect. On one of those sites I found THE PERFECT apartment. I was really enthusiastic about it. The description sounded really good: 2 bedrooms about the same size, a nice kitchen, two bathrooms and a large balcony. And the best thing was: The building was situated next to the Mur and near the city centre - a perfect location. The price was okay, so I arranged a viewing right away. I couldn't wait to tell my friend about it. A couple of days later Kata came to Graz and we wanted to have a look at the apartment together. We were really excited! As we drove there we were fantasizing about long summer evenings, sitting on our big beautiful balcony, drinking cocktails and enjoying the beautiful view over the Mur.

Then we arrived. The whole package was literally too good to be true. And as you can imagine, the flat had a stinger. From our beautiful large balcony, we had quite a view; it was just not what we expected. The flat was situated on the backside of the house and behind the building there was a big garbage dump.

We were really disappointed, but it was our very first viewing.

So we kept looking for the perfect flat and just a couple of days later we found another offer that sounded quite interesting. Good location, 2 bedrooms, a nice bathroom and convenient rent. Unfortunately Kata couldn't make it that day so I went to the viewing by myself. The first impression was fantastic. The flat was located in a beautiful old building, and the apartment itself was perfectly adequate for a communal residence. Along with me, two other girls had a look at the flat. At the end of the viewing I was sure that I had found the perfect place for us. I immediately called Kata afterwards and went into raptures about the flat. She was very enthusiastic about my descriptions too so I called the owner to arrange a second viewing for the next day, when Kata was available too. Just minutes later the landlord called me back to tell me that the two other girls had already given him their word to take it.

We certainly weren't lucky until now, but we keep looking and we will hopefully find the perfect place soon.

Culture Days

Culture days are over and I have to say that I learned a lot about American and Irish culture. I attended about 15 presentations and each of these people did a good job. Of course I liked some better than others, not always because of the topic, but because of the way they the topic was presented. Were they enthusiastic about their topic? Did they include interesting details and examples? Were they able to get my full attention?

Sadly I wasn't able to watch all presentations I wanted to but I did watch some I didn't intended to originally. Sometimes I was positively surprised because the title didn't give much away about the topic and sometimes I was quite disappointed.

5 of the presentations I liked best:

Arab Americans after 9/11

Arab Americans after 9/11 was the first presentation I watched on Monday. I wanted to attend this presentation because it is connected to my own topic, Guantanamo. It was really interesting to learn about problems, Arab American people had to face after the assassinations. I learned about shocking facts and Andreas pointed out some good examples.

College Life in the USA

I was really interested in the topic and I think Elodie did a great job presenting it. I really liked her prezi, it fitted the topic and looked really professional. Comparing American and French schools was a good idea. Like many other students all I knew about Campus Life in the US I took from American teeny movies. Learning that in reality it is quite the same was really interesting. Additionally I learned something about French universities which are quite similar to Austrian universities.

Two Famous American Women poets

I have to admit I didn´t plan to watch this presentation but Magdalena did so well that I decided to put her topic in my top 5. It was very nice to hear her talking. She had a good pronunciation and talked slowly and fluently. She presented her topic very self- confidently. In my opinion she did everything correctly. Since she presented two famous women poets she also read out a poem of each of them. After she had told us something about both women, she let us guess which one belongs to whom.

American Indian Boarding schools

I wanted to watch this presentation because I have never heard anything about American Indian Boarding schools and I thought it might be interesting. Also I was really interested in the CLIs related to Native American history. The presentation really did live up to my expectation and I really enjoyed it.

Keep calm and FINNISH school

According to the PISA Program Finland is a leading country regarding education. Austria however didn´t score very good the last couple of years. What is it that makes Finnish schools so successful?

Finland vs Austria

Finland has a number of smart ideas how to teach kids while letting them be kids. They believe in short school days, little homework and as little testing as possible. There are only few rules, like no mobile phones in class. A student has to do something really bad like hit somebody to actually get punished.

Also, Finnish schools have stopped putting pupils into different math and language groups based on ability. They say that people can't be divided in how smart they are. Finland is a society based on equity and outperforming their neighbour isn't really important. Everybody is average, but they want that average to be very high.

Finland invests much in their teachers. It is the quality of teaching that brings the great success. For example, every teacher has to have a master's degree. Many Finns want to become teachers, so Finland has a large quantity to choose from and they filter it very selectively. Only about 10 % of the applicants are accepted and sent to a 5-year teaching program. It is really expensive to educate all teachers in five year program but it helps to make them highly respected.

Additionally Finnish teachers stay with a class from first grade through sixth grade. That way the teacher has years to get to know the students well.

All of this measurements seem to pay off. Only 13 % of students take remedial after school lessons.

Comparatively in Austria between 20 and 30 % of students take after school lessons.

In Austria we have longer school days. I remember coming home exhausted at 6 sometimes, not to mention the tons of homework to do due the next day. Some of our teachers believed in weekly testing, others did only one big test per semester. Regarding punishment, I think it is pretty similar here in Austria.

I attended a "Gymnasium" and we didn't have different ability groups. In the other school type called Hauptschule , they had these "Leistungsgruppen" in every main subject. I think Austria is a much more competitive country.

It is more easy to become a teacher in Austria. Most teacher studies don't have entrance exams. Also teachers can switch each year. In my opinion this can have positive as well as negative effects. For example if you really don't get along with a teacher it can be helpful to know that the next year you may get someone else. On the other hand not all teachers cover the same topics at the same time. This may cause problems for the students.

"I make dresses I'll never wear" - child labour

Recently I read a newspaper article about child labour. It left me thinking what my own childhood would have looked like if I had been one of these children forced to work from young age. Here in Austria we can barely imagine what it is like. We were mostly lucky, but unfortunately very many children were not.

Around the world, 215 million young people have to work to feed themselves and their families. How is this possible?

In theory, young people under 18 are protected by the UN Convention and the ILO (International Labour Organisation), which forbid child labour. But in practice it looks different.

Millions of children are working all day long, sometimes in dangerous conditions. One of he worst examples for this is the use of children in mining and quarrying. Some of them even start at the age of 3! The young workers have to use highly toxic chemicals and have to work in slavery-like conditions. They have to carry heavy loads and stand, dive or squat for long hours in order to extract mineral ore. And this carries long term effects on physical health! Work also means that children cannot go to school and without qualifications; they have no chance to finding better work.

But they often have no choice. Even if their parents are willing to send them to school it is impossible because they need the income of their children to survive. At the age of 10 a child already makes a big contribution to the family income and at age 16 a young person almost earns as much as an adult.

In order to let their children go to school, the adults in the families must earn enough and education must be free.

Newsmap article: Language workout

Summer is coming and I am eager to get rid of the rest of the winter fat. So I decided to get fit again and go for a run a couple times a week. I have to say: I hate running before I start, but afterwards I always feel very good and proud of myself so I do it again and again.

But not just my body needs to get fit for the summer, also my language skills need some workout in order to get fit for finals. I decided to follow my teachers suggestions and translate some German articles.

I have to admit, it was harder than I expected. Having the German sentence right in front of you makes it hard to think of a good and idiomatic translation. Sometimes I had to close my eyes and think: How would an American say it? What did I learn about …? Also I had to look up several words. At first I had serious problems, but once you get into it, it gets easier.

Ebola epidemic

german newsmap article

Brazzaville. The deadly Ebola virus has killed at least 330 people since March. Only last week, 14 new deaths and 47 suspected cases were reported, said the WHO in Brazzaville, Congo.

Guinea, where the epidemic broke out 3 month ago, is the worst- affected area. 264 people died from the virus, 398 more are under treatment. The remaining deaths happened in the neighbouring countries Sierra Leone and Liberia. Sierra Leone had closed their borders in order to prevent the virus from spreading.

The Ebola virus kills up to 90 percent of all people infected. Symptoms are throwing up , diarrhoea and fever, such as internal and external bleeding. There is no known cure or vaccination for Ebola yet.

Painless dental treatment