mothwing | Recent Entries

... although I can always claim that it's because I'm ill rather than because I failed to learn how to properly type with ten fingers.

84 words
82 Wörter

Ahem.

Current Mood: amused

A very happy birthday,

bronnyelsp !!

Current Mood: cheerful

A very happy birthday,

lordhellebore!!

Current Mood: cheerful

Blurry because we were not allowed to use flash: the orchestra, and Crocky's choir in the background. I think one of the blurry blobs behind what appears to be a six-stringed forefather of the double bass may be Crocky.

I love my girlfriend's choir. Her singing teacher, who is also a member, asked her to join, and as most of the members are either professional singers or singing students at Crocky's university, all members are all really good singers, and together they are a spectacular choir. I heard them last week when they were performing during service, so I should have anticipated how good they are.

Yesterday, Crocky's sister and I saw their concert "Magnificent Music", and even though I knew they were good, they completely blew me away. They did Bach's cantata "Meine Seele erhebt den Herrn" and the Magnificat in E flat major, in case anyone is interested (I didn't know either of the pieces). To my delight, they even had period instruments (a positive organ! natural trumpets! Baroque oboes! The mysterious six-stringed double bass-ancestor, probably). I loved the Magnificat, the Fecit potentiam and the Sicut locutus est, especially. I wish I could go into more detail here and do these great pieces and the performance credit, but I lack both the knowledge and the vocabulary to do so in English or German, I should have taken more music lessons when I was still at school. So, I can't really say more than that the pieces were beautiful, and the choir did great.

The location they chose for this concert made our evening, too - a hall in the beautifully overdone Galeriegebäude. We had spectacular seats in the second row thanks to reduced prices for students. It was a perfect evening.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: Hannover
Current Music: (IMH) Magnificat anima mea

.

Goodness, it's already December.

If you'd like a Christmas card from Crocky and me, please comment with your address or e-mail us at mothwing at web dot de.

We'll put them in the mail next week so that they'll arrive on time and won't get lost in the annual Christmas postcard avalanche like they did last time. I hope the post won't mess them up the way they did this time - for some reason, two thirds were returned or never arrived back then.

Comments should be screened.

Current Mood: cheerful

I'll be doing an oral report on Scots in a seminar on the varieties of English after Christmas, and I am thinking about using this example to introduce what the video says is the Tayside accent:

There are a surprising number of eager Scots who have uploaded guides to their accent or lessons (such as Learn Scottish with The Hedrons, or John's Scots Language Primer), and there's also a group of people who are doing recordings in Scots - like the group of people who are uploading the Bible in Scots.

Here's Psalm 23:

I really miss this accent.

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Location: unfortunately, not Glasgow
Current Music: Interview with David Crystal

I have a question for my fellow Fantasy readers out there (I'm looking especially at you,

fourthage ), do you happen to know any (recent) British (high/epic/heroic/parallel world) Fantasy books which have been fairly popular which have a female heroine?
Preferably written by a female writer?

Crocky asked me for suggestions, but all I could come up with were mumbled suggestions along the lines of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Tamora Pierce, neither of who are British, and Susan Cooper, whom I love to pieces, but whose Jane Drew does not make her a good example because the other characters are all male.

The only real example I could think of was Jill Murphy, whose books were fairly popular but whose target audience is a good deal younger than the ones Crocky'd need (the books she's going to examine are Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, The Bartimaeus Trilogy).

Some help?

Current Mood: geeky

Congratulations to all of you who made it!!

I gave up last Thursday:

It was clear that I'd probably not manage 50k this month, what with the thesis and papers and whatnot, but I loved writing and working on m story. I am going to continue that, it was fun. I would not show the thing to anyone, it's not good enough for that, I think, but it's nice to have something to tinker with again. I am also rather proud of my word count, considering what has been going on and I am seriously considering joining the National Novel Writing Year 2009, a continuation of the NaNoWriMo madness by other means. There is also a pretty dead LJ community:

nanowriye.

The idea is very appealing, although I couldn't say with what wordcount I'd challenge myself. Especially given the fact that I'll be officially in my exam phase for nine months as of next February and anything non-exam related will be pretty much doomed during that time.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: Hannover
Current Music: Gilmore Girls rerun on TV

I backdated this entry as it is not very interesting and only a way of keeping track of what non-uni books I've been reading.

56.

A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett.
Granny Weatherwax is my favourite character in the entire series. Nothing, not even my love for Vimes and Vetinari, can beat my love for this character. She is one of my main reason why I love Terry Pratchett so much.

55.

I, Claudius, Robert von Ranke-Graves.
I read the German edition. Ranke-Graves actually seems to have supervised the translation - which shortened the two volumes of the original into one slim volume. I need to get hold of the originals some time, as I keep wondering what on earth they could have thought so unimportant that they chopped it down so much.
Even though I love Claudius, his character's development and story, my favourite character and reason for reading this is Livia - I absolutely love reading about her. She is evil, scheming, cold and calculating - and I love her. In spite of what she did to the other characters, I can't help feeling that she deserves becoming a goddess at the end of the book.

54.

Breakfast with Scot, by Michael Downing.
I absolutely adored this book. The relationship between the two parents is interesting and natural, Scot is absolutely adorable and his deviant gender expression is not overdone and interesting. Thoroughly entertaining and heartwarming.

Current Mood: cold

I just realised that I haven't updated this thing since August. I can't remember half the things I read since then, so this is more an informed guess than a correct account of what I've been reading since then. I can definitely remember reading four books, the first four listed here. I can't really get them in any sort of order, though.

53.

Maskerade, Terry Pratchett.
It's an old favourite solely because of Agnes. I am not that fond of the story, but I love Agnes. She is one of the most realistic characters he has ever written, and much of the things which happen to her from the "but she has a wonderful personality" to the fact that she would never be the one to be looked after after a fainting fit but always the one to fetch cold water is incredibly spot on. Crocky and I are reading it together, and it seems that with his observances about opera in particular and the performing arts in general, Terry Pratchett is incredibly and unsurprisingly spot on.

52.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris.
I love reading his books. Even though I'm usually not a fan of books comprising of anecdotal writing, but he is so funny that it works well. I usually end up reading them out to Crocky because I want to share the funnier bits. Especially his exploits as a language student are incredibly entertaining and reminded me a lot of my own experiences as a language student abroad.

51.

Nation, Terry Pratchett.
Interview with Terry Pratchett on the book.
I usually buy P'Terry's books as soon as they come out, but with this one, I felt slightly sceptical that it would live up to my expectations, which it did, of course. The way the characters deal with the trauma of having lost everything they have known, the way they struggle to find their new position in life as their reality is toppled upside down and everything they have come to take for granted is called into question after the tidal wave which brought them together is much more interesting to read than other, similar "stranded on a desert island" books. What made this book for me are the asides on cultural relativism, cultural equality and the history of science, though. I've always have been a big fan of those.

50.

Monstrous Regiments, Terry Pratchett.
I did not really like this book when I read it first because I did not really like the ending too much although it is realistic as it does capture the complicated nature of situations like these for which there is no simple solution, especially none that help from the outside can provide. I get that. I still felt very uncomfortable with peace-loving Terry Pratchett writing about wars and soldiers.
Still, it is a good book. I do like the characters, his take on gender, patriotism, faith and fanatism.

49.

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox, Eoin Colfer.
Wow. I love his books, but this one was really, really less good than I thought it should be. Not only does he exploit the "sick mother" trope ad nauseam, he also uses it and the "dead mother" as a reason to justify all sorts of really unlogical actions and decisions. As much as I love his characters, what he does to them in this book is not really in character for any of them. Yes, it is fun, seeing the old Artemis again, and it is fun reading the interaction of Holly and Artemis, but the plot is forced, the decisions the characters make are not explained or motivated sufficiently, and the characterisation is stretched too much to be comfortable. They practically creak in some scenes.
Also, Colfer can't write little children, much less gifted little children, to save his life. Yes, it is really hard, but it's not as though it isn't possible to do some research or watch a bleeding documentary on gifted children online, at least.
As for what is probably one of the most frequently discussed scene - the Holly/Artemis moment - as squee-worthy as it was, it made me feel very uncomfortable. I don't like the way Holly is changing. Holly is one of my favourite female characters, and the way this character is undermined by the strereotypes she gets saddled with more and more is making me uncomfortable. Holly, the kick-ass-eager-to-prove-herself-Holly from the first book would not likely tear up and go on rescue missions because of her dead mother. She also would not kiss Artemis. Yes, their interaction changed them, but I doubt that it would have changed her this much.

48.

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
I had expected more, somehow. I do like this book, especially the characterisation of the married couple in the first couple of chapter, but the way he describes Paul Morel's characters' sexual exploits somehow did not really work for me. The importance placed on sex in the novel and the extra dimensions it receives somehow annoy me. I like my sex, and I like it a lot, but it is just that, sex, not something offering a deeper insight into the mystical nature of anything, or a spiritual union.

47.

Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer
Goodness. This is one of the worst books I have ever read, and I have read a few really bad books. It is so bad that it might as well be a parody. It is bad even in terms of the expectations raised by the first three books, which were stylistically not that good. It is really, really awful and reads like bad fanfiction.

Current Mood: cheerful

Crocky and I watched a really sweet movie last night. I's called Breakfast with Scot, and if you can, you need to watch it. It is funny, and the characters stay in character and relatively unclichéd. It's about the couple Eric and Sam who take in the son of Sam's SIL after her death because his father cannot be reached. While Eric, an ex-ice hockey player who is now a TV sports caster, is not too thrilled of their recent addition to the family, especially of the femine ways of the boy, Sam likes Scot. Waiting for Sam's brother, the boy's father to turn up, the three slowly grow together. This is the trailer:

It is not as syrupy as I had expected after seeing that there is a Christmas scene, and it convinced me so much that I ordered the novel it was based on which is also available on Google Books as a preview. I really need to check out more Canadian films if this one is anything to go by.

Ok, back to work. Somehow, the pile of "have to read" books for my paper is growing more than the "read" pile. I'm so scared of Thursday, when I'll need to show my Professor the abstract for my thesis, I can barely sleep.

Current Mood: cold

What I had taken for rain yesterday turned out to be snow, after all. So, here are some obligatory snow pictures from the neighbourhood I took on my way to the library.

( Last night (7) )

( Today (15) )

Ok, back to work.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Hannover
Current Music: Papa ante Portas

Stolen from

lordhellebore and

moonystone .

1. Put your ~~iPod playlist~~ winamp library on shuffle (just re-installed it and don't have a playlist yet)
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

( In which I notice that I have too much Early Modern Music in my library. )

Yeah. Back to work.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: dark, stormy Hannover
Current Music: Missa Brevis: Gloria - G.P.de Palestrina

A very happy birthday,

moonystone !

Current Mood: cold

Oh, when I returned to my sick

crocky_wock last Friday, I knew exactly that I was not going to get ill. I had been ill a few weeks before I had decided that it was not likely. My immune system had been victorious against the last flu only a few weeks ago, clearly it could take on this one, too!

Yeah.

Now my head is swollen, my sinuses hurt, my ears are merrily beeping away, and my tonsils hurt so much that it took two bowls of ice cream and plenty of cold water to make them stop. On top of that, my eyes tire easily and I can't focus on any text longer than five minutes before my lazy eye acts up and starts hurting. Even though this is obviously just the flu, I am considering going to a doctor to have a look at tonsils, eyes and sinuses.

School this week?

Somehow, I don't think so.

Current Mood: sick

I did not manage to stay up for these results, but waking up to this is awesome.

Thanks for voting, and congratulations to president Obama!

EDIT: Oh, come ON, California.

Current Mood: excited

To my mild surprise, there are several US election parties over here in Germany, too, usually funded by the students of our posher law schools, in Hamburg, for example. None in Hannover, as far as I can see.

I really should learn to stay away from the discussion thread on some of the boards I'm on - while I can't really understand why anyone would ever vote for McCain or his party, the reasons why some people vote for him just my mouth go foamy ("My entire family votes for him", "I am a Catholic", "I was brought up to respect values").

I wish I could vote.

Current Mood: nervous

All of my family are photo obsessed, so this probably should not have surprised me, but it's still odd to look at pictures my wee little eighteen-year-old brother

niaseath made and be amazed how gorgeous some of them are.

Here are some of his holiday snap shots.

( Denmark and Hamburg (15, large) )

I am insanely proud of him. His pictures make me want to take a leaf from his book and explore Hannover at night with tripod and my own SLR camera.

Current Mood: proud
Current Location: Hannover
Current Music: Dowland - Time Stands Still

Swiped from

mariebernadette : ( Trailer )

( I am curious about several things... )

Current Mood: busy

This is not the most important question ever on gender politics in today's TV shows, but why is it that most of the heterosexual couples on telly engaging in happy post-coital cuddlery are usually shown in a position where the woman is lying on her side, cuddling up to the man's left shoulder?

Was there a memo? It's nitpicky, but I keep wondering why they are so uncreative about their cuddling positions. I realise that there is some sort of meaningful component to positions of couples cuddling or not cuddling in bed on TV which give the viewer an impression of their relationship status (like "distant couple", which always has the couple sitting propped up on the headboard at least 50cm apart, or "close-to-break-up", which features the man sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands, and the woman sitting, her back against the headboard and her knees drawn towards her), so it's understandable that there's some repetition, but this degree seems just strange, and I do wonder whether they're doing it on purpose. It seems as though they want to portray all their cuddling males are extremely self-confident and relaxed and their cuddled women protected and adoring, but why impose this extremely limited cuddling-norm?

Is anything apart from these three varieties so out of the ordinary that the audiences wouldn't be able to cope?
Has there been a poll suggesting that this is the most liked cuddling position for heterosexual couples and the audience would not be able to deal with anything else (unless it's the funny-sidekick-couple and not the main characters)?
Maybe I should just I step away from the gender classes.

Current Location: Hannover, Oststadt
Current Music: John Dowland - What if I never speed

The inevitable was put off by my inability to get to the internet, but now, here there are some pictures of Hannover. I know that I usually concentrate on how ugly it is, but this time I went to the inner city, especially the banker's district, and I've also looked at some of the beautiful churches.

( The view (2) )

The Nikolai cemetery, founded in the nineteenth century, partially destroyed in the second world war and today continuously destroyed after that because some horrible people thought that a great big freaking roundabout might be a good thing to have in the middle of a beautiful historic cemetery. What's happening to it makes me really angry, as does the fate of the beautiful little chapel from the thirteenth century which is now situated in a nice spot squeezed in between a ShinShin eatery and a junction. You have to walk dangerously close to the traffic to catch a glimpse of the inside, and there cemetery is torn in two by the junction and several housing blocks.

( Cemetery (5) )

Banking district with loads of money temples from different periods. I stuck to the prettier ones and left out the glass monsters.

( Banks and surrounding area (10) )

An art gallery, or rather a house of arts. For some reason someone must have thought that a great big chandelier in the street would look good.

( Art gallery (3) )
The opera. Someone felt the need to add a big red flag that says "Opera!" for the confused.

( Opera (3) )

The Michaelis church - it's around the corner from our place and beautiful. I can't wait to see it from the inside, there was a storytelling event going on in there when we were in the area.

( Michaelis church (8) )

Inneres Aegidientor. It used to be a gate to the town in the fourteenth century but was rebuilt later, obviously.

( Inneres Aegidientor (2) )

Aegidienkirche, which is probably me favourite church in Hannover, even though it's a war memorial now. I love that there is no roof and the building simply opens up into the sky, I'd love to attend a service in that church.

( Aegidienkirche (17) )

And some pictures from the inner city that don't really fit into any category.

( General inner city (10) )

Sorry about the length and the amount of pictures, this is probably more TMI than anything else.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Hamburg
Current Music: Gilmore Girls theme music

Alice, our phone company, is taking her time. Apparently, people are working on our application, but there's no saying when we'll finally have internet and telephone. The wireless-option on my computer is tantalizing as there are several connections available within our house and I really wish I could use them. As it is, it's the uni library's PC pool for me.
My grandma's stable and doing exercises as well as arguing with the nurses about whether or not her blood sugar is high or low, so I suppose she's fine for now.
Crocky's busy preparing for her conducting exam next week and I'm working on my papers and taking pictures of the neighbourhood, mostly. On Thursdays I'm back in Hamburg to teach at my school and to visit my family, but I go back to Hanover in the evenings with my day return and already I am not too sure whether I'll be too fond of the commute to Hamburg on Tuesdays and back on Thursdays during semester, especially considering that my family live an hour from the city centre in Hamburg. It's just too much time spent on trains, seriously - last week I got halfway through Sons and Lovers on my various train rides.

We're moving house tomorrow. Right now I am sitting on our futon mattress, on the floor, and my laptop is sitting on our coffee table. We've already taken the bed and every piece of furniture we could take apart apart and piled everything up in the room next door.

There are few things that I hate even more than moving house, although it is really great for weeding out your old uni notes, because few heavy things remain as interesting and worthy of being kept as you thought they were if you're facing having to carry that stuff all the way to the fifth floor apartment we rented in a fit of shortsighted stupidity.

Thanks to my father, we'll have plenty of help - he hired three men and a small truck, and I could not possibly be happier about that, especially seeing as one of them is supposedly able to carry our washing machine to the fifth floor all by himself. I'm glad he's there only so I can watch one man carry around the washing machine that I can barely lift, let alone carry it more than a meter. My father and my brother

niaseath are also going to help us, and seeing the pile of boxes next door I can't help but be reduced to a puddle of gratefulness.

Then, I'll probably be lost to the world of the internet until I return to Hamburg next week and until we've got internet at our flat in Hanover.

We'll hand in the keys to the flat in Uelzen on Monday. I can't believe that we moved in here over a year ago, and I am really glad we're moving out, especially seeing as the nights are already getting significantly chillier and our walls have started getting more mouldy again. The crazy design of the flat and redecorating it the week after moving in was fun, but there were a lot more disadvantages than there were advantages to this place, on the whole. Hannover will be much better, I suppose, even though commuting down to Hamburg for the few lessons I am taking (preparation for my writing thesis is more important) will suck epicly.

Apparently, I'm pregnant.

Or Crocky is. Or my brother is. Or his secret girlfriend is. Take your pick.

My mother just forwarded an e-mail she had received from a second-degree cousin who was told by her daughter that she was told by another second-degree cousin that my mother is going to be a grandma. Much humorous mind-racking ensued, and that none of us has been in contact with the source of this information just made this all the more mysterious.

Maybe they know things I don't know?

Current Mood: amused

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I never intend to own a car, I am going to take the courses for a hunting licence soon, I never turn on the heating until it is absolutely necessary, I use as little electricity as possible, and I regularly take part in events hosted by local environmentalist organisations with my family.

What I plan to cut back in future is my water use - long, hot showers are my guilty pleasures on stressful days - and to shop more consciously for environmentally friendly products, especially with regards to plastic packaging.

Oh, and I recycle, use totebags for shopping and recycled paper for university, but I do hope that these things are so common that it's not necessary to point them out.

Current Mood: calm

I always knew that icon-making is not only a waste of time, but also fun and addictive. So. Here are some vaguely pointless icons of various WoW-creatures.

1	2	3

( 4 more misc. )

The model viewer is great fun, especially because I can see all those NPCs on it that I've never seen before, and the final bosses that I will never see in game because I suck too much.

Credits:
~scully7491's icon brush set, ~redheadstock's Arcane Circles brushes, and the Icon Table Generator.

Current Mood: cheerful

Thanks for the congratulations on getting the flat, everyone!

A literal translation of the word "Hässlichkeit" (IPA: ˈhɛslɪçɪçkaɪ̯t) would be "ugliness". I've never heard it anyone use a lot, but my mother keeps using the word to describe things in Hannover, as in, "Das Ihme Zentrum ist von ausgesuchter Hässlichkeit." ( "The Ihme Zentrum is of supreme ugliness").

When I went to the viewing of our new flat the areas I walked through reminded me of why I usually dislike Hanover and why I think the city is really, really ugly. It was raining, everything was grey and cold and sad, with one of those headache inducing white skies. The part of the city I walked through on my way to the flat are not exactly in the tourist area, either. In fact, it's part of the city's "redlight district", which in this case boils down to a handful of dodgy hotels offering exotic massages behind the main station.

Since I've already posted a few pretty pictures of Hanover, I felt like posting (more representative) ugly ones, too.

( More Hanover (15) )

What we need to do now is find a weekend to move, which is much more difficult than it sounds, what with all the music stuff that Crocky's got on the weekends.

Current Mood: busy

When Crocky and I were still in Scotland my camera chose to pick the worst moment to be broken there was - on our trip through the Highlands. We bought a disposable camera and, like I do with all my films, I forgot to have the film developed. I love picking up the resulting films, once I had photos from two school exchanges from two different schools on one of them, because that camera had sat on the shelf for so long. Earlier this week, when my family had my brother's films developed, he's the only member of this camera ridden house who does not have a digital camera.

They now apparently always include a photo CD with the prints, and those really make me regret that my blasted camera was not working at the time, as the quality is not very convincing.

( Slightly blurry photos )

So. Let's see what my brother is up to, and I always wanted to make those iced Moccaccinos.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: Hamburg
Current Music: My So-Called Life

Ever since Crocky's gone and I can't watch the series we usually watch together I need to fill my breaks with other fun things. So, in completely unrelated news, the cinematic game trailer of Wrath of the Lich King is out.

High res version on the main page here.

Even though cinematic game trailers don't really reveal anything about the games I love watching them. ( Basic nitpicking... )

Also - what is it with main villains? I know that they tend to favour the same designers, but I don't get what makes them all want to glue cutlery to their helmet as soon as they reach the evil arch villain status:

So, even though it's probably not worth the money, I am going to buy that game. Playing with my brother

niaseath, and actually exploring things together with him instead of him yawning through quests with me and predicting what will happen next, or having him talk me through instances is bound to be fun - even though I always slow him down.

Anyway. Mental processes. Translation.

EDIT: Can someone out there explain to me why the UK English version comes with freaking subtitles, while the US American version does not?! It's the same thing, the only difference being the rating systems and the subtitles. Looks like someone's trying to make a point there.

Current Mood: bored

Just a quick update between things. A week ago Crocky and I went to have a last look at my grandmother's flat to take pictures for the agency. Afterwards, we took a walk along the beautiful Außenalster.

( The photos )

Yeah. Back to my paper.

Current Mood: busy

I know, I know, don't even have the 1am-excuse today, but I was curious what the graph would look for games (also, I really like graphs, embarrassingly enough). The sheer number of fanfics has always startled me, but the distribution befuddled me even more.

It was not surprising to me that there are such a large number of fanfics for Final Fantasy, but I really would have expected more WoW fanfic featuring NElfs falling for BElfs or similar tacky crap.
Pokémon fanfic I expected, but the existence of Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic was news to me. Also, I would have expected more Star Wars or GW. Huh.

( Larger graphs )

Current Mood: nerdy

Around 1 a.m. everything is a good idea, including making graphs of the most popular books used as an inspiration by fanfic-writers based on the number of fanfics written for those books on FF.net.

Here are the (fairly unsurprising) results:

( Graphs )

I can't express how thankful I am that Discworld fics came in last, nor how appalled I am by the fact that there are so many DW ficcers in the first place. I don't know why, but for me, there is something extremely wrong and sacrilegious about the thought of people sitting down to write Vimes/Detritus cross-overs or whatever.
Although, considering how many fanfics there are for the Bible, I probably should not be surprised at the fact that they do exist.

Especially considering that there are 80 Minesweeper fics out there.

Anyway. Good night!

Current Mood: tired

Crocky and I are reading this book together:

46.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Sparks.

This is a riveting tale of a school teacher in her prime who is teaching the girls at her all girls school with her very own, unconventional means. She does this most often by disregarding any sort of given curriculum or even timetable, relating tales form her own youth instead, which are often populated with strange and erotic adventures. The girls, all of whom she considers as being able of being the "créme de la créme", love the unconventional teacher. They even have started writing second-rate real person fiction about the school teacher in her prime and her wayward, deceased soldier lover Hugh. The main characters include Sandy, who is famous for her accent, and her friends, one of whom is famous for sex, and all of whom are famous for something.

Their parents as well as the headmistress are rather sceptical of the school teachers methods and object to them. Miss Jean Brodie's students all have avery close bond to their teacher, who thinks that they all might have been the "créme de la créme" and who often reminds them that her students profit from her being in her prime. In the end, one of the student betrays Miss Brodie, though, with grave consequences for the school teacher.

Seriously, though - in spite of the many annoying, redundant repetitions of what has been said before twice a paragraph, like the fact that Miss Brodie is in her prime, or what the students will be famous for, this book is still charming. This is not only due to the frequent prolepses in the narration and analepses in the character narration, which make this otherwise sometimes quite dull narrative very poignant, but also due to the characterisation of the girls.

I saw the movie adaptation starring Dame Maggie Smith, of course, and even though I hate Miss Brodie with the passion of a thousand flaming suns, I loved Maggie Smith's performance.

Reading the book, I feel as though I lack the background to properly appreciate this novel. It seems to draw on other sources far more than on the tradition of school novels, even though Crocky is supposed to read it as one for a course. What baffles me most about this is the reception, or what I've read of it. It seems that Miss Brodie, who is an at best ambiguous and often extremely negative character in the novel is read as some kind of romantic model teacher, which she is decidedly not.

Like many literary paragons of education, Miss Brodie's education revolves entirely around their own person and which works only under her charismatic leadership which transcends the borders of schools and has a grave effect on her student's life. It is good for teachers to have an impact on the lives of their students, but I doubt that it is necessary for that to abandon all kinds of lessons and impart knowledge only in the form of private chit-chat, disregarding sciences and mathematics almost altogether. Miss Brodie's methods of selection are also highly self-centred, an attribute which can also be used to describe most of what this character does.
In the end, I am glad that Sandy betrays her, as her will to rule her students lives "forever" is megalomaniac and creepy in my eyes.

Current Mood: cold

Eyes that last I saw in tears
Through division
Here in death's dream kingdom
The golden vision reappears
I see the eyes but not the tears
This is my affliction

This is my affliction
Eyes I shall not see again
Eyes of decision
Eyes I shall not see unless
At the door of death's other kingdom
Where, as in this,
The eyes outlast a little while
A little while outlast the tears
And hold us in derision.

~ T. S. Eliot

I must say that when I saw the Indiana Jones movie with my brother in German the translated quotes did not really ring a bell. I am rather happy that I found the poem in the end. I wonder why this is listed as a "minor poem". It makes me wonder whether some editor decided that it was one, because it reads as though it was an unused former part of a version of The Hollow Men, maybe.

I wish this collection had proper - or any - annotations, and I wish there were seminars on Eliot in my university.

Ah, well, better walk Crocky home from the bus station.

I had a very nice discussion with

lordhellebore yesterday, which also skimmed the history of the criminalisation of homosexuality in Germany and made me write this entry.

I was going to take time and read my friends list properly for the first time in months again on the weekend. There are several comments which I haven't answered to yet.

The §175 used to be the paragraph criminalising sex between men. ( §175 )
Considering when neirbouring countries abolished the laws, it's depressing that it took so long in Germany. Homosexuality was decriminalised in England in 1967, in Scotland in 1980, and in Northern Ireland in 1982. The laws criminalising homosexuality in Germany were not abolished until 1994.
Nineteen-nintey-four. A little more than over fourteen years ago. While some of the people on my friends list were having their first romantic encounters at school or their first relationships, there were men in Germany who were fined or imprisoned for having sex.

The earliest version of §175 was introduced in the Weimarer Republic in 1871. In the relatively liberal Weimarer Republic, which had a flurishing gay and lesbian subculture, there were several petition and even movies asking for the removal of the paragraph. Psychologists and gay rights activists both sought to abolish the criminalisation, but were unsucessful as the political climate changed in the thirties.

It was made more severe in 1935 - instead of six months in jail for homosexual acts between men, the limit was raised to no less than three months and no more than ten years. The law applied to men who had sex with men under twenty-one, cases of sexual exploitation at the work-place or in a position of dependance (sorry if my legal speech is very wrong, Bron), and male prostution. Later, it even physical contact was no longer necessary to warrant a conviction, as they were also after punishing voyeurs and men masturbating in the same room.
During this period, the numbers of prosecuations and convictions soared, and I don't think I have to elaborate on the fate which met gay men in concentration camps.
As more and more men were convicted or investigated, even the mere suspicion of homosexual activity was enough to warrant an arrest and an investigation - usually in that order ("protective custody"). Half of the cases which were brought to the attention of the authorities were reported by neighbours and colleagues, paranoia soared.

After 1945, western Germany kept the paragraph as it was as it was not believed to contain Nazi ideology. Men who had been imprisoned in concentration camps by the Nazis were transferred to prisons while those who had been prosecuted for religious and other reasons were freed.

Between 1965 and 1969 the law was amended and the probably most ludicrous version introduced. ( Here it is. )
Men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one who had sex with men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one could be sentenced to up to five years in jail. The law also applied to male prostitutes for males and sexual coercion and sexual exploitation at the work place or in a situation of dependency and still applied to cases without physical contact.

The implications of the two age limits (completely illegal under 18, punished with up to five years in jail between 18 and 21, not punished above the age of 21) are ludicruous - a couple who fell in love at sixteen and seventeen would have had to take a break from their relationship for four years until both partners were over the age of twenty-one.

Reasons given by politicians was that male homosexuality (female homosexuality conveniently did not exist back then) was a threat to the general public, especially to the young men, and to the public health, which would surely degenerate if the vice of male homosexuality was not kept at bay with the law. The reason the age limits were introduced was without a doubt the military service which young German men have to complete, most of them during these ages.

In 1973 the law was amended again as people now came of age when they were 18. It was now legal for men to have sex with men above the age of eighteen, men over eighteen having sex with men under eighteen still faced up to five years in prison, although judges could rule that they should only be fined if the culprits were under the age of twenty-one. Also, the law now only applied to cases with physical contact.

This law remained intact until 1994, when it was only abolished because of the German reunion. While integrating the laws of the two Germanies, this one, which had been abolished in the GDR in 1988, also did not make it into the new system.

However, that seems to be the only reason why it was abolished. If it hadn't been for the German reunion, young men who sleep with men would most probably still be facing charges and time in jail.

Sad about this long story of injustice in our justice system is that the madness still continues. Our fast German government rehabilitated the men charged with homosexuality during the Third Reich symbolically in - wait for it - 2002. Those forty percent of the people who were convicted in the third reich and survived it are dead by now, obviously.

Seeing as the current generation was still partly raised with the mindset that it is illegal to sleep with men and that young boys need to be protected of the sick, insatiable sexual appetites of the vicious homosexual men, it will probably need a long, looong time until male homosexuality is equal in German heads ~~- especially if the CDU remains in charge~~.

Number of convictions in Germany between 1919 and 1989:

Larger version

Sources:

Crocky and I are reading Autumn Term by Antonia Forest together at the moment, taking turn with reading out loud and doing crafty things or playing games while the other is reading. It's a great way to spend the holidays, and I love reading books with her.

45.

Autumn Term, by Antonia Forest.

It's one of the Faber Children's Classics, and it is utterly awesome. Even though I had the feeling that it must have been published a hundred years before it actually was published, it is a really enjoyable read.

It describes the first term at school of the twins Nick and Lawrie, who join their four older sisters at an all-girls boarding school. Instead of immediately making IIIA like all their sisters did, they are downgraded to the Third Remove because they were not able to learn a lot at home due to various illnesses. Their attempts to shine like their siblings generally end in dismay, until one of their friends decides to write, direct and produce a stage-play for the school's open day, The Prince and the Pauper, in which the twins receive main roles and which earns them a lot of recognition.

The plot is not really the main reason to enjoy this book, but the all-girls boarding school thing got me, as well as the absolutely wonderful characters and the author's style.The interaction between the sibling is very spot on, the language is pretty, the characterisation is subtle and the characters are lovely. Even though I can't say I am interested in Lawrie and Nick a lot, it's still fun reading their exploits, even though I am more interested in their siblings, especially Kay and Rowan.

Both of us have a literature crush on Rowan, enough of a crush to try and get hold of the the other copies through our library system from Great Britain, because all the other instalments are out of print and to get them I'd have to pay £90 for the first edition paper backs.

We were so endeared by the interactions and the characters that we started awarding favourability points for the characters and started plotting in this chart with reference to the scene which scored each character points as favourites.
It became very obvious very early on that Rowan was going to win by a LOT.

Character	Points
Giles	II
Peter
Rowan	IIIIIIII
Ginty (Virginia)
Anne
Karen (Kay)	IIII
Laurie (Lawrence)
Nick (Nicola)
Tim (Thalia)	I
Marie	I
Father	I
Ms Keith	I
Ms Jennings	II

( Quotes )

So, the book is a real gem, as boarding school novels go, and I do not understand why the other instalments had to sink into obscurity that they are out of print while this one has become a classic.

44.

Wings, by Terry Pratchett.
The final instalment in the Bromeliad trilogy. This is Masklin's story and how he managed to get back to their mother ship and get back to Grimma and the store nomes in the quarry.
Which I did not finish because it had been put on hold by someone at the library and I had to take it back earlier than I would have liked. I never thought this instalment was as interesting as the other two, even though Masklin is as likeable as ever and even though the store nomes reaction to meeting a decendant of his deity is hilarious.

43.

Diggers, by Terry Pratchett.
Living together in a disused quarry, especially the store nomes have troubles adjusting and putting by old feuds. Masklin, the main character, decides to go and get help from a decendant of the store nomes "deity" who founded the store. In his absence, the quarry is re-opened and Grimma, who now leads the nomes even though she is female, acts to save them.
Again, my gender-goggles were pleased, even though I keep thinking that Terry Pratchett's positive message is made easier by the fact that his female characters are all coming directly out of deeply prejudiced worlds which are just moving on to more equality. Still, I have a very soft spot for Grimma.

42.

Truckers, by Terry Pratchett
Four-inch or so tall people, originally form outer space, the nomes, who live next to a motorway decide to improve their perilous condition by moving, use on of the trucks that sometimes come by, and find out that there are nomes which live in a store. When the store has to be demolished, they leave together.
When I first read these books, I read them in German on a train ride back from my elderly relatives in Essen and frequently I had to literally bite my hand to stop myself from making a spectacle of myself by repeatedly getting into laughing fits. On second reading, in English, ten years later, I do not find these novels THAT funny anymore, but these predecessors of the Wee Free Men, successors of the Carpet People are still interesting enough for me to read all three novels. Again, my gender-goggles are deeply gratified by the progress perceptible in this world, and even though the plot itself is nothing that new, there are many elements to the story that I liked a lot, like the religion the store gnomes have.

41.

Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett.
A story about the first female wizard who goes to Ankh-Morpork's famous Unseen University, or tries to, as women can't enter the university.
Not in this pretty version, obviously. What I love about Terry Pratchett is that you can analyse his books at leisure and still hardly ever be disappointed. I have never used race goggles on his books, he may have skeletons in the closet there, but gender-wise, and my gender-spectacles are permanent by now, I'm afraid, this man is perfect. This is one of his earliest novels and even though he cheerfully draws on the same stereotypes as many of his Fantasy-writing colleagues do it does not matter, as he does so tongue-in-cheek, as he deconstructs the things he does use as he goes along. The deeply prejudiced world he depicts at the beginning of the story is already going somewhere by the end of the novel, and this deeply optimistic view of his world as a place which starts out bad but is evolving to something better every novel makes his Discworld novels such a great read.

Current Mood: cheerful

Yesterday was pretty much the perfect day. Perfect. I had asked Crocky whether she'd like to see What the Butler Saw with me, and so she came along and spent the day with me in Hamburg, which is always a good foundation of a perfect day.

At first, I went to see one of my examiners, the didactics one, who is just generally wonderful and awesome and who chatted to me about my final paper and was very interested in my topic. I love her. Then, I picked up two Scheine, which I was very pleased with, as well.

Since by then it was only around 3pm, there was a lot of time to kill until 7.30pm. Thus, we went to see Hancock, which I had unwisely not read any reviews of and which I was exited about because it features a Will Smith as a superhero.

Why I Did Not Like Hancock In Spite of Will

After three quarters of an hour, feeling vaguely self-conscious and nerdy for doing so, I leant across to Crocky and told her I was wondering whether this movie is actually worse from a gender perspective or a race perspective only to find out that she'd been trying to make up her mind about that, too.

Of course now some people will roll their eyes and marvel how she and I can even be bothered to care enough about such things to let them interfere with watching a good movie, and rest assured that I really wouldn't have, had there been a decent enough movie to watch. Now, it's not as bad as The Happening, which had me wondering and thankful for watching it, because it may actually be the absolutely worst movie I have ever had the privilege of seeing, but just generally... sort of... wrong on several levels.

The only good things were probably the special-effects and the mere fact that it has a black superhero! As a main character! As the title role! Which was awesome.

Not so awesome was pretty much everything else.

The blatant, really unnecessary nationalism, which was probably only to be expected of a movie that opened on the fourth of July - and still I think that the film could have afforded to lose a few eagles, especially the random real eagle that made a WTF-inspiring appearance in the closing scenes.

The way the hero had to be told to adjust to the role of the tradintional, white superhero to be accepted by society, guided by a wise, well-adjusted white mentor figure and with the vulnerable white, blonde woman as the ultimate prize at the end. How- in spite of her freaking super powers- said white, blond woman's purpose was to be saved by the male hero, for heaven's sake. How this is also a movie about a poverty-stricken, aggressive alcoholic being polished up for society by the nice upper-class, white family.
How the backstory stayed lame and vague and was only introduced in the last part of the film, making a rushed appearance.

How, in spite of Hancock, there was just one other black character, who was of course a male news presenter, and a few criminals without lines, and no black women at all. This especially made Hancock not only "the only of his kind" as a superhero, but also the only of his kind as a black character, which is sad, as the film was promising.

So, I did not really like it. I still love watching Will Smith, but the first black superhero could really have deserved a different context in my eyes.

We then went and watched the University Player's performance of Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw, which was very, very enjoyable.
Even though I know that some people had had their doubts about the effectiveness of having the characters played by cross-dressing characters of the opposite sex, that made the play all the more enjoyable to watch for me.
The skill of the actors and the professionalism of the production once again made me marvel at the skill of the people involved.

As always.

Current Mood: tired

Ich was ein chint so wolgetan from the Carmina Burana (carmina amatoria, no. 185) is one of my favourite songs, even though it's basically about rape (the story is basically this: a young country girl, picking flowers, meets a man who lures her back to some linden trees and has sex with her against her will. The song is a mixture between Middle High German and Medieval Latin, and is clearly a comic song).

Crocky brought home a version from a music project and it's so awesome I fell in love with it, in spite of the text. It probably reflects the culture and the idea of humour from back in the day very well. I did not find the song from that project anywhere online, but an example of a similar idea of what the melody must have sounded like can be found on this CD, it's no.7.

( This is the text )

( English version by David Parlett )

( Modern German translation )

Below is an excerpt from the codex, featuring the writing and the notation. In the space above the text you can see the earliest forms of musical notation, neumes, which allow a very rough idea of what this song must have sounded like.
These are unheightened neumes, neumes without staff-lines, and therefore allow only a very rough idea - oddly enough, as notation with staff lines was technically known in the days when the Codex Burensis was supposedly composed, which is around 1230, although possibly not so much for secular music. The songs for which they do have melodies thus were all assembled through concordances with other manuscripts. From what I know, there is no explanation for why adiastemic neumes were used in the collection, especially as the collectors were clearly learned enough to know about the other notation systems. (While trawling the internets for more information on this, I came across this utterly awesome project devoted to digitalising neumes.)

The songs in the collection are attributed to the Goliards, German, English, Italian and French vagrant monks from the profane order of "St Golias", who were, in contrast to other monks, not averse to wine, woman, and song. They were clerical students who travelled from university to university or just generally travelled. The songs do offer a lot of evidence of their education - there are both paragraphs in Latin as well as quotes from philosophers and scholars. The Goliards were following the probably fictional "St. Golias" and were very critical of the political powers and the church, and wrote satirical poems and songs to express their discontent, but also bawdy songs and tales.
If this attribution is correct, that would make the codex an example of around 778 years old student culture, which is somehow awesome.

Page from the Codex Burensis with Ich was ein chint

40.

Slam, by Nick Hornby.
Still one of my favourite books, and I am still not sure what to think of the content. It is an interesting commentary on teenage fatherhood, in a genre in which I've only ever encountered accounts of teenage motherhood, and the style make this one awesome, but there are just some things I really have problems with, like Sam being "whizzed into the future" by a poster. Just... No.

39.

Herr Lehmann, by Sven Regener.
The first chapter I slept through entirely. I was bored and annoyed by the main character and really, really could not be bothered to feel for him. This continued to stay the same until his best friend was about to have a nervous breakdown. Before that, the plot just seems to be incredibly bland, and the style aggravating, a variation of "young male intellectual gets laid by beautiful woman". Who at first appears to be a match for his loquaciousness, but then is of coursed too baffled by the sheer force of his manly maleness and rhetoric to continue being brainy.
From the moment on at which his best friend starts cracking up I started to love this story, and now the novel's strange, passiv and detached, yet supposedly brilliant and completely useless main character are somehow endearing to me. The way it utterly fails to give an account or relate the events in this novel to the political situation of the Wende is believable, as the more significant events of the political reality completely get lost among the gritty, smaller events of every-day life.

Current Mood: calm

I liked hearing about the third instalment, even though I doubt I'll ever play it. Diablo I was the among the first games I ever played, Diablo II was the first game I ever played online and together with my brother. I loved that game, even though the amount of monsters you have to kill to get through the game and the way in which they completely vanish once killed always bothered me somewhat. I loved the story, though, and the prettiness of the angels in the game.

Sparkly, shiny, tendril wings. What more can you ask for?

What does make me a little sceptical are the graphics. What I've seen of the game so far is not that impressive. Well, Blizzard have never been synonymous with pretty graphics, and it seems as though the graphics have barely changed from Diablo II - which will make the fans happy, I suppose, but I would have liked something ... more impressive. I am not much of a gamer nerd, but considering HOW much prettier HGL and D&DO are, prettier games seem to be possible. I am told that the game is good for a beta version and considering it's in third person perspective, and maybe that's true. Still.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Uelzen, Germany
Current Music: "Ich was ein chint so wolgetan" from the Carmina Burana

When Crocky and I sent our notice to our landlord on Saturday we saw that there was a market in Uelzen. They had basically turned the entire town centre into one market place, even though there is a perfectly good square in front of the town hall which would have served the same purpose. When I was little my grandparents and my mother used to go to a market in Hamburg every Saturday, so I still have a soft spot for markets, even though they tend to be too full for my taste. I loved walking across the market and shopping for some fresh groceries with Crocky, looking at all the colourful stalls full of delicious fresh food. Since there was a shower right before we left all the groceries were covered in little drops and looked as though they were straight out of an ad. I wish I'd have thought to take my camera, I'd been able to spam my friends list with some pictures, on the other hand, maybe it's better that I didn't. With several kilos of rhubarb, apples, and, most importantly, strawberries we headed home and made some fruit salad and rhubarb pudding. I think I need a better recipe for that one. The one I pulled from the internet was too sweet and altogether not tasty at all.

It's a funny feeling, having handed in our notice before actually having a new flat, but we're resolved not to spend another winter in this damp place. Also, most of the flats advertised in the local papers and on the internet around here tended to be vacant as soon as they appeared online, so it should be possible to find something during our three months notice. Hopefully. We're already looking, but so far, most of the flats were either too expensive, taken, or the landlords didn't come back to us. Looks like a lot of calls will have to be made next week...

Current Mood: calm

Blackbird is probably my favourite song by The Beatles ever.

What's yours?

Current Mood: curious

I realised today that I have a lot of catching up to do with my friends page, I will do that at the weekend.

T.S. Eliot reading 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (Ignore the commercial at the beginning)

( The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock )

I was quite exited to find this recording again. His own rendition of the poem is very different from what I would read if I were reading it out. loud, which might be possible to my n00btastic skills as a voice actress. I'll try to get Crocky to read this out loud, she's much better at these things.

Current Mood: excited

38.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The End, by Daniel Handler.
I am still not sure what to make of this ending. There seem to be some loose ends, but I daresay that it's possible to assemble clues from the series to fill in the blanks. I don't really know what to make of the dilemma that the last book's end presented me with, though, and I like that. It seems that the series itself leaves the heroes in this grey zone between heroes and villains, and that is a really awesome thing to do at the end of a series for young readers. I also loved learning more about Count Olaf's backstory, curiously enough.

37.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Penultimate Peril, by Daniel Handler.
Another better novel. It's awesome to finally meet the sister of the fictional author of the story. The added information on the main plot were really worth the read, although I had a hard time justifying the actions of the children towards the end of the series. It seems very hard to do, and even though I feel that the plot means to make them remain in the roles of heroes, their actions rather show that they have become, in fact, villains. I'm really curious how the last book deals with that.

36.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Grim Grotto, by Daniel Handler.
Another great instalment that was fun reading. Especially the introduction of yet another grey zone between heroes and villain made this book really awesome for me.

35.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Slippery Slope, by Daniel Handler.
I loved this one, really loved. The way the romance sub-plot is not played out as something of utmost importance, finding out about V.F.D, the continued use of the Swinburne-quote - I loved it. Finally, the overall plot has gathered some momentum, and the style continues to stay awesome. I also stopped being aggravated by the lack of realism in the baby's behaviour.

34.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Carnivorous Carnival, by Daniel Handler.
This book was really interesting. It's slightly depressing that this is really the first one which is so thoroughly entertaining and quite suspenseful at times, although I couldn't say whether or not this wasn't already the case in the eighth book, which was out at the time and which I had to skip.

33.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Vile Village. by Daniel Handler.
Yay! Finally! Plot! The return of the useless guardian is even made bearable by that.

32.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Ersatz Elevator, by Daniel Handler.
This book had one of the most annoyingly unrealistic scenes of the entire bloody series - the baby climbing up the elevator using her teeth. No creative licence in the world can make that ok. Also, the reappearance of the one evil-and-one-incompetent-guardian-thing makes this boring. The glimpses of an underlying plot of the series makes it worth the read, though.

31.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Austere Academy, by Daniel Handler.
I really enjoyed reading about the Triplets, although the more blatant moments of children's literature and the resulting lack of realism and sense were annoying again. I liked that there seems to be plot on the horizon there somewhere. Can't wait.

30.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Miserable Mill, by Daniel Handler.
Yawn. Also, the less realistic things are getting annoying. I still enjoy the Snicket parts and the style, but the children's book literature moments get on my nerves.

Current Mood: awake

This is the funniest parody/summary of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight I have ever read.

I feel bad for posting it because I know that there are people on my friends list who absolutely love the series, but this is SO hilarious I just had to share it.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: Crocky's rendition of "Yellow Submarine"

Listen to this:

Frank Martin's mass is one of the most beautiful masses I have ever heard, especially the Gloria. My favourite part in the entire mass is everything from "quoniam tu solus sanctus" onwards. I know that the quality of the above video isn't perfect, but hopefully it's enough for you to get an impression of it.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: Gloria from Frank Martin's Mass

Taken from

deadsoulmate and

krakelwok.

YELLOW

You are very perceptive and smart. You are clear and to the point and have a great sense of humor. You are always learning and searching for understanding.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Not my favourite colour at all. I retook the test because of that and it turned out that I am either blue or green, too. Huh.

Ok. Back to work. Blegh.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Should be working

( 1930ies Husband and Wife ratings for Crocky and me )

I like how our wife scores are both scores lower in spite of strikingly similar questions in the questionnaire.

Current Mood: amused

I spent my break trying out my icon-making-skillz on wedding-themed icons because I found one pretty photo the other day that I wanted to change into an icon (you will never guess which one it was). I am not too happy with the results, which is also due to the fact that I could only yank fairly stereotypical bases of Google, so the results were kitsch.

Anyway.