mothwing | Recent Entries

I've got the flu. Again. On Friday I thought my wooziness was due to the fact that my eyes have to get used to the new glasses, but when I woke up with all slimed up on Saturday it was clear that I'm really ill again.

Why is it that I always get ill during term paper time? I hate that.

The good thing about not being able to walk very far is that we stayed in all weekend, cuddling and baking muffins.

From left to right: chocolate-caramel muffin, After Eight muffin, Milchschnitte muffin.

The chocolate-caramel muffins were bastards. They refused to let go of the muffin tray and held on for dear life, so we could only get them out of there by decapitating them. That's they ended up looking like Frankenstein's muffins. They taste awesome nontheless.

After Eight muffins

( Read more... )

Frankenstein's muffin

( Read more... )

Milchschnitte Muffins

( Read more... )

Nom nom nom.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Uelzen

Whenever I read about them, I find another reason to hate the asylum systems of most Western countries (probably because I only ever read about stories where they tragically), but I had always thought that Canada and the UK sucked just a little less, were a little less scary.
Not so, I found after reading a post on

queer_rage.

From the Independent, today: Gay man facing death due to impending deportation from the UK, to Iran - where he might face execution.

( Choice quotes, favourite being: The Home Office's own guidance issued to immigration officers concedes that Iran executes homosexual men but, unaccountably, rejects the claim that there is a systematic repression of gay men and lesbians. )

From the the Montreal Gazette, today: Gay man facing death due to impending deportation from Canada, back to Malaysia - where he might be sent to prison.

( Choice quotes, favourites being: 'His refugee claim was rejected, however, on the ground the panel hearing his claim did not believe it was credible.' [...] 'There have been women told they couldn't be lesbian because they have long hair and showed up for the interviews in high heels. These people have no training whatsoever in how to deal with these issues.'> )

I don't even want to think about what the German authorities would do in these cases. I can't shake off the nagging suspicion that the people in question would already be on the plane home and none of our daily newspaper could be bothered to cover the story.

Current Mood: enraged

My brother and I played a game today - not WoW for a change, but the fairy tale game called "Es war einmal...". The players tell fairy tales prompted by cards they receive, the goal is to end the story with the sentence on their "ending" card. The cards have characters, events, traits, places, and objects on them, or ending sentences. Each narrator tries to finish with their sentence, the other other players can take over whenever one of the terms on their cards is mentioned or with special cards for taking over. The person who has used up their cards wins, obviously, but this game really is not about winning so much as it is about telling a story.

We played it with one ending only and tried to get a collaboratory fairy tale, and the results were fun. Due to the fact that you can't choose the cards you get but have to work with the ending, there are some rather forced constructions, but also room for general funny awesomeness and changes from original fairy tale scripts and hilarious things introduced by the other player forcing themselves into the tale.

The first one we did had a transsexual shepherd who marries a princess he saved from drowning in a river while he was in the shape of a wolf, a later one one with a princess and a queen who fall for each other and have to appease an evil, homophobic witch and do so by vowing to change one of them into a king (our ending was "And so he reigned forever" or something, our characters were all female). We also had enchanted swords, magic fire birds, and witches cursing a king and a queen with stupidity.

Great fun.

Current Location: Bed, almost
Current Music: Schandmaul - Galliard

I've visited the counties in yellow.
Which counties have you visited?

made by marnanel
map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data
by permission of the Ordnance Survey.
© Crown copyright 2001.

Fun to see how that changed from four years ago.

I can't help feeling that I've forgotten some. Hmm. I seem to have covered both Wales holidays and our Scotland exploits, though.

14.

Slam, by Nick Hornby.
So the drooling in front of the shelf with the hardcover version is finally over. I could not wait to get my hands on this one. So far (p.13), it's a really good read, not that I seriously had expected anything else. Nick Hornby is one of the few authors who really have never disappointed me. Even though there are recurring patterns, especially as far as the structure of his characters is concerned, his books remain very distinct, probably because the topics they deal with are so different.

13.

Imperium, Robert Harris.
An account of Cicero's life told by his slave - this biography actually existed, but was lost. It covers his life until he is elected Consul.
Even though the main focus of the story is obviously the political manoeuvres necessary to get him there, my favourite character will forever be the orator's wife Terentia. She is such an incredibly strong woman, and I admire her greatly. I will never forgive Cicero, the historical figure, nor the character in this book, for leaving her for a much younger girl late in life. Of course I can't know the circumstances and he probably did have his reasons, but I find it very hard to understand how anyone can want to leave this amazing woman.
Brushing up names of speeches and politicians as well as some of the affairs while reading this did not do any harm, either, considering that I had to translate parts of the very speeches he was writing in the book in my Latin class this week. It's a nice way of bringing the world back to life.

I really should read more historic novels, they are usually fun ways of reading an interpretation of times past, and looking up on whether they are historical correct is also good for jogging the memory. Which reminds me, I really need to check out the series by Rebecca Gablé that

lordhellebore recommended.

Current Mood: chipper

Look, Crocky - a study:

Moving Down: Women’s Part-time Work and Occupational Change in Britain 1991–2001, by Sara Connolly, Mary Gregory.

They found that women who change to a part time job - those being mostly mothers during childcare years - from their full-time job usually end up with a job far below their level of skill and of training. That does not happen because mothers want easier jobs to be able to concentrate on their children, but because so little part-time opportunities exist in interdemediate and upper levels and they are thus forced out of those jobs. So most women in part-time jobs are wasting their training and knowledge on low-status, low-reward, low-skill jobs, which is snappily called a "hidden brain-drain".

( They conclude... )

Rather alarming, especially considering how unlikely it is that there will be greater flexibility any time soon - apart from in the social sector.

Current Location: Hamburg

( Numbers of colours and countries in five minutes, Number of five-year-olds I could take in a fight, my chances of survival in a Zombie attack and my advantages as a human shield. )

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: Uelzen

Segesta oppidum est pervetus in Sicilia, iudices, quod ab Aenea fugiente a Troia atque in haec loca veniente conditum esse demonstrant.

That he should have had the time to do that at all while he was fleeing is a miracle. I certainly would not have stuck around to found the odd village while I was on the run, especially considering he was carrying around Anchises.

I never realised how much I had forgotten, but at the same time, it's vaguely reassuring how to realise how many of the things I learnt back in 2002 are still there. Too bad that my motivation deteriorated towards the end and I don't have the sound basis of half remembered knowledge on the subjunctive and more complex constructions involving relative clauses that I have for most other things.

I've spent the day I should have used to write my various papers poring over the speech against Verres, and while I can absolutely sympathise with the Sicilians, I'm lost in the constructions more often than not. It would be fun, reading Cicero again (... even though, irrationally, after reading Harris's Imperium, my sympathy for Cicero has diminished greatly because he left Terentia, who was one of my favourite characters in the novel) if there wasn't ( this horrible exam at the end of it all. )

Other than renewing my acquaintance with Cicero's language and works I've spent the day fangirling Michael Praetorius and Giorgio Mainerio (especially the ( Schiarazula Marazula ). One of my favourite pieces ever, probably due to happy memories with

angie_21_237 and Angelo Branduardi's version and holiday tapes back in 1999.

Ok, back to Verres and his collection.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: Johann Hermann Schein - Suite No 4 in D Major

Er... after A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, there was...

12.

Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby.
I love Nick Hornby. Whenever I buy one of his book I get uneasy and hesitate, worried that it might not be as good as the preceding ones. It was the same with this one, but of course, again, I have not been disappointed. This one was no exception, of course.

11.

New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer.
I am not sure what to say. I enjoyed reading it a lot and was unable to put it down, while I was not thinking about it and merely concentrating on the characters, who have really grown on me. I love Jakob, in particular, which is most probably because I love werewolves. Lupin is probably the only werwolf in fiction I did not get exited about in the slightest. Oh, well, and the ones in Holbein's Wolfsherz or what it was called were not too great, either, but that's mostly down to the awfulness of the author.
As soon as I put it down, the months of discussing the role of women in Harry Potter and the resulting voices became difficult to close out and I am ( not so sure about it now. )

10.

Art & Lies. A Tale for Three Voices and a Bawd, Jeanette Winterson.
Not sure what to make of this yet.

Penguin's Poems for Life, Laura Barber (ed.)
Oh this made me so angry. It sucks. The poems don't, but the selection isn't very good to fit the (megalomaniac) title. It should be called, "Poems for Life for Men over fifty" or something, because the way she presents "life" and it's relevant issues through her selection clearly is not intended, by and large, for anyone who is not a British heterosexual upper middle class white male over fifty - although there are a few poems that are not exclusively directed at that target group. Well, maybe she has a point, maybe only that part of the population would buy and read a Penguin anthology called "poems for life". The "love" section especially is aggravating. It's almost exclusively men's experiences of first love.
It is difficult, of course, as the vast majority of canonical poets out there are heterosexual males who wrote for heterosexual males, I am aware of that. Still.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Home

These were made before Christmas and I never got round to posting them until now. So. Here they are.

( Christmas market and decoration of the main station )

( Fun with food - cookies and radish mice. )
I didn't take any pictures of the tree at home this year - funny thing, usually I do, but since things were a little different this year, anyway, it might have been more fitting to post a screen shot of the virtual Christmas trees in Ogrimmar with my character and my brother's instead, as that would have been a more representative picture of what Christmas was like.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: Sagradar trobar - In Extremo

This is so silly.

In Mass Effect, there is a sex scene with an alien -and depending on character the player chooses, it can be interpreted as a lesbian sex scene - which had the thing banned in Singapore.

So, what the fuss is all about:

( Sex scene. It's probably even work safe. )

I didn't cut the first one because you've GOT to see this.

Rivers, "Sign Language".
Great performance encorporating the experience the poet made when working with deaf children and doing poetry slams with them. Fascinating to watch, and those poems are beautiful.

( Rives, 'If I ran the Internet' )
( Bassey Ikpi, 'Apology to my Unborn' )
( Mark Gonzales, 'As with most men' )
( Javon Johnson, 'Elementary' )
( Gemineye, 'What Are You Fighting For' )
( Shannon Leigh, 'Sudanese Children' )
( Vanessa Hidary, 'PhD in Him' )
( Jason Carney, 'Southern Heritage' )

Current Mood: awake

Stolen from

rizardofoz.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4.Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along in your own journal because it's more amusing that way.

Current Mood: calm

I just discovered this poem by Steve Colman because someone had quoted it over in

literaryquotes. I really like it.

Performance:

( Read more... )

( The poem )

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: that adjectives start holding pro-noun rallies at city hall

Land unter [lant 'ʔʊntə] is an expression used to describe flooded grassland - well, the fact that the grassland is flooded, really.

Due to severe rains, every river, stream, lake, or puddle between Uelzen and Hamburg has grown to enormous size during the last couple of weeks. It looks as though the entire northern German lowlands are under water and I wonder what the farmers are doing with their fields now that they are so swamped.

( Take a train ride with me )

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Uelzen

How scary is that?
Apparently a group of individuals (their blog)has been planning a protest against Scientology and fighting them online for ... maybe two weeks now, I'm not sure when it started, but I'm probably late as usual. The group - Anonymous - is planning a world-wide protest in front of Scientology churches on the 10th of February.

NBC News:
( NBC on Anonymous vs. Scientology )

The Tom Cruise video that prompted all this:
( Tom Cruise video )
"We are the authorities of the mind... We are the way to happiness."
( Tom Cruise on his cult )

Quoth Anonymous:
( Video 1 )
"Knowledge is free. We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."
( Anonymous 1 )

And No. 2:
( Video 2 )
"We want you to be aware of the very real dangers of Scientology. We want you to know about the gross human rights violations committed by this cult. We want you to know about Lisa McPhearson."
( Anonymous 2 )

And, in case you think about going, this is the code of conduct:
( Code of Conduct )

Anonymous's reaction to the News coverage:
( News )
( Anonymous on News )

Oh, and a video No.3

Whoa. This is so... Matrixy.
I kind of want to go to see what happens on the 10th.
Oh, also, they actually seem to have been able to access data from the Scientology servers. o.O
Here is a German article with a link list, and here's a German report on RTL.

Oh, here's a world map listing all the events. o.O

LOOK AT THIS AND REJOICE WITH ME IN FRENZIED ALL-CAPS:

This is the copy of "In Memoriam" that Crocky was allowed to use as the "old book" read by Mr Hardcastle in their initial scene in the play. The owner gave it to her, and she gave it to me.
It's a really beautiful little book, bound in green leather that's turning brown around the edges, with that leaf pattern burnt into it and almost faded gold leaf at the top, and, to my great pleasure, a handwritten dedication from someone who gave this book to a "Stella" as a present.

( In Memoriam )

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: A song sung by a Finnish church choir

A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, by Marina Lewycka.
I loved that book and I fell in love with the notion of mixed languages that is ever present in the book right away - even though there are no passages in Ukranian, there are frequent references of things being said in Ukranian or a mixture of Ukranian and English, and I know how that feels well enough to enjoy the reference a lot. I also fell in love with the main character and her idiosyncratic ways of describing her family right away.
It's not as funny as I thought it would be, it's a tragicomedy more than a comedy. Still, the relationships of the characters and the light they shed on the history that many people in my country would probably not find on their internal map is great.
Even though there are many books on migration and immigration and otherness in a strange country, there are not many books that address the situation of immigrants from Eastern European countries, that made it even more interesting for me to read this novel.

Tintenherz, by Cornelia Funke.
Yeah. I whined about it here. I do not like the characters, the names, her language, the way female characters are treated (sigh. Again.), the way she always immediately ends any suspense she might create, the predictability. I don't get why this is so popular. But maybe I never gave her a chance. I'm going to re-read it in English and see if there's a difference, I am really curious about that. I have the feeling that many of the things that set my teeth on edge- for whatever reason - like the names ("Staubfinger") will probably sound better to my ears in English ("Dustfinger". Huh).
I kind of want to buy the book because the cover is so amazingly pretty, though. Silly. Still, maybe Crocky's and my F1 will enjoy the books when they are ten and under.

(Oooh, there's an interview with the author here. Huh, her English is better than I would have thought it would be.)

The Stone Gods, by Jeanette Winterson.
I love this book and I was really sad that I had to take it back to the library, I would have loved to re-read it. I rather enjoyed Winterson's style and the refrain-like passage:

The new world – El Dorado, Atlantis, the Gold Coast, Newfoundland, Plymouth Rock, Rapanaui, Utopia, Planet Blue. Chanc'd upon, spied through a glass darkly, drunken stories strapped to a barrel of rum, shipwreck, a Bible Compass, a giant fish led us there, a storm whirled us to this isle. In the wilderness of space, we found...

Even though I usually do not like love stories, especially not if they are so freighted with doom and foreboding, I did like this one, and the circular world it is set in.

Current Mood: cold

Happy Birthday, Greg!!!

Current Mood: groggy

Which is a play by Oliver Goldsmith, first performed in 1773 .I saw it yesterday, performed by Crocky's theatre group.

(Unsurprisingly,) it was absolutely amazing.
I love seeing Crocky act, she is such a good actress, and plays her role (Mr Hardcastle) with much vigour and enthusiasm. It was wonderful, watching her, and I am insanely proud of her. Yesterday, the audience consisted mostly of lecturers - like Crocky's piano teacher and son, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves, too. Pride-inflated, I agreed to everything she said about Crocky's great acting.

Most of the other actors I remembered from the King Lear production they did two semesters back, and it was great fun watching them perform a comedy now, how differently they approached their characters. Especially the girl who starred as Dorothy Hardcastle did an absolutely wonderful job, as did Kate Hardcastle - she was perfect for that role, as was the actor of Tony Lumpkin. Everything they did seemed to have such an ease about it, which surprised me after what Crocky had told me about the problems they had with getting the language right at first.

So, a wonderful night out, and I really regret that I can't see them every night this week, I really would have loved to! They are really doing a wonderful job, and their audience loves them.

Current Mood: proud
Current Location: Library

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Anyway.

Crocky's away, doing her production of "She Stoops to Conquer". (If you're curious, here's a performance on youtube.)

I can't wait to see her act tomorrow!

Current Mood: tired

I know that as a German from Hamburg and a lover of German children's literature I should not be saying this, but I really loathe her writing.
I don't know what the woman has done to me. I think it must have been Drachenreiter (Dragon Rider). It comes with purple prose, random metaphors, a very predictable plot and boring characters. My brother had to read it for school years ago, and since my entire family loves Fantasy literature we ended up reading it together with my mother, reading it to each other in turns as we so frequently did read books together back then. All three of us weren't able to cope after the first few chapters, because every single interesting complication was immediately explained, resolved, clarified. We abandoned it half-way through, after we had checked that our theories about how it was going to end were correct (every single one was) and I never picked up a book by the woman again.
I thought that she was a local author and that that was the main reason why the school teacher had taken an interest with her.

Not so.
Suddenly, Tintenherz (Inkheart) is hyped, and people from all over the world are developing an interest in this woman whose style rubs me the wrong way so much.

So I decided to read Tintenherz, trying to see why it is so popular. I am probably not giving her enough of a chance, but something about her style and her settings and her characters just drives me up the wall and makes it impossible for me to enjoy the story. I am not sure whether it's the names, the return of the random metaphors, the book obsession which is emphasised to the point of kitsch, the extremely precocious heroine who has read novels that fit in nicely with the highly anglocentric ideal curriculum of children's literature a teenager would have read - maybe fifty years ago, or just the fact that again, the characters are... well, boring, and everything that could be potentially interesteing or suspense-creating is immediately explained away.

Maybe the book is better in English, but I have the feeling that to like this book one either has to be really, really young, or someone who doesn't have German as their mother tongue, or really willing to make a huge effort to read these books. TIME said the book was, "her most elegant and accomplished work to date" and the New York Times even had it on their best seller list, and I really, really don't see why.

Maybe I am going to like the movie better.

Current Mood: calm

Your Birthdate: June 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others.
Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you're just too likeable to elicit jealousy.
Progressive and original, you're usually thinking up cutting edge ideas.
Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges.
Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower
Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom
Your power color: Tangerine
Your power symbol: Ace
Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Hee. Tangerine is one of my favourite colours.

Now back to translating a distributor contract. I am SO scared about getting all the legal vocab right in the German version.

Current Mood: cheerful

Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman.
It's been ages since I've read anything by Neil Gaiman. I think Stardust was last. I like his writing, and I fell for Fat Charlie almost instantly. I love, love, love Neil Gaiman for incorporating a West-African myth, that happens so rarely.

Current Mood: calm

So, I want to become a teacher. There are many slightly derisive voices saying that our teachers are only really fit for teaching the middle class population they came from, and they do have a point. Now most of the students in my class have far more experiences with different cultures than I do and radically different backgrounds. Most of them migrated to Germany before they came to school here in Hamburg. I can't imagine what it must be like to be from Turkey, from Albania, from Bolivia - even from Bavaria in Hamburg. Germany must be the most xenophobic country I have ever been to, and living in Willhelmsburg on top of that is not likely to make it any better, as that is one of the areas that other Hamburgians usually tend to look down upon.

I must say that I keep feeling intimidated. How can I, with my rather limited background, be the right teacher for people whose experiences and contexts are so different from mine?
For example. I try and use topics that might interest my students and relate to their world (using popular books, movies, TV shows in my classes), and with my suburban, upper middle-class grammar school classes that usually worked and was not too difficult, as their experiences were very, very similar to mine, but with my current students, I haven't got a clue.

Another example for differences: I looked up some of their favourite artists I didn't know. I didn't have to look up Rihanna or Christina Aguilera, but I'd never even heard of Massiv or Muhabbet. So. Contrasts.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Uelzen

"OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada has imposed sweeping restrictions on who can donate organs for transplant -- including a ban on gay men who have been sexually active in the past five years. [...] The restrictions, which also cover drug addicts, prisoners, prostitutes and people who have had tattoos or body piercings in the last 12 months using shared needles, came into effect last month.
"A gay man who had practiced abstinence for the five years prior (to making an organ donation) would be acceptable," said the spokeswoman. "Likewise a heterosexual man who had had a single sexual encounter with a male within the last five years would not be considered acceptable even though he is not gay."

( Canada tightens rules governing organ donations )

Well, let's hope that the situation in Canada has improved so much from 2004 that they don't need additional donors.
Here's an online petition.

Current Mood: cynical
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: Finnish choir music

In a clubby thing near the main station they're putting on a discworld musical: Mort - das Musical, and I only noticed yesterday.

I want to go I want to go I want to gooo.

But since there are only three performances left I doubt I'll get any tickets now. The worst thing: the only evening when I would be able to go I can't because it starts at eight and my course only finishes at a quarter to eight. I'll never make it on time, and I doubt they'd let me in fifteen minutes late.

Life is unfair.

Although I'll try to get tickets, anyway, and see when we finish. We usually finish about thirty minutes early, but there have been exceptions before.

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: A Finnish choir performing modern church music.

Since this is such a nice way of what I have been doing in my free time all year, I decided to keep up this challenge. With a two-hour commute each day it's not much of a challenge, but it's still a nice opportunity to share what I have been reading.

4.

Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer.
Mostly to see what all the fuss is about. A few months ago read the first three pages on Amazon.com after more and more of my teenaged friends had erupted with praise of the book and it was hate at first sight.
After I listened to the audiobook of Eclipse, though, I decided to read the first book, because even though I still dislike Bella, the other characters grow in you. Reading it is like chocolate, and, as one of the girls on a message board summed up so accurately, it is a "McDonald's kind of book" - easy to read, easy to like, and somehow, you just end up liking it. The one thing that makes me wonder is the semi-abusive relationship between Bella and her sweetheart. It is an odd thing to be so attractive to so many teenage girls, even though the way he completely takes all responsibility off her must be attractive to some.

Benachteiligung gleichgeschlechtlich orientierter Personen und Paare, von Hans P. Buba (Autor), Laszlo A. Vaskovics (Autor).
Really interesting study from 2005 with unsurprising conclusions. Much better read than Sexualitäten. Diskurse und Handlungsmuster im Wandel (Geschlechterforschung) by Heide Funk and Karl Lenz von Juventa, which has a somewhat ... biased view, and also almost exclusively uses data from the eighties to support their view that homosexuals don't want to be able to marry because it's incompatible with their lifestyle, because most homosexual relationships only last a little longer than one year. It was shocking.

Winnie and Wolf by A. N. Wilson.
A novel about the probably fictitious romance between Winifred Wagner and Adolf Hitler, told from the perspective of another of Winnie's suitors, Philosophy post-grad N., who is writing this book as an "extended meditation or letter" to his daughter, Winifred Hiedler, Winnie's and Wolf's daughter, his adopted daughter.
It's difficult to tell which of the parts Wilson spins together are invented and which are not, but it's an interesting insight into not only into the Wagner Clan, but also into middle-class Germany before and after Hitler's seize of power. What makes me wonder is how much he manages to humanise the kind uncle and opera geek and mass murderer Hitler, and also what the purpose of that might be. Of course, it might either be intended to make him seem more monstrous, or it may be a very interesting depiction of the mechanism that the war-generation used later on to explain their own behaviour and convictions during the war. I am not too sure about it, but as a German, I always get edgy around portrayals of that man.

Wicked, by Gregory Maguire.
This is one of my all-time favourite novels and has one of the best female characters I have ever read. A great novel, it is amazing what Maguire can do on the basis of Baum's novel, which I always hated and still hate. His Elphie is unforgettable.

Current Mood: calm

Last year:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Frank Baum
Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire
A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby
Palgrave's Golden Treasury
The Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling
Shadowmancer by G.P. Taylor.
Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Heinz Joachim Müller, Eberhard Späth
Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes.
Son of a Witch, by Gregory Maguire
Die Vermessung der Welt, Daniel Kehlmann
Mirror Mirror, by Gregory Maguire
Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett.
Love that dog, by Sharon Creech
Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Blood, Bread and Poetry by Adrienne Rich
The Gay Teen, ed. Gerald Unks
The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters
Fünfzig Gedichte des Expressionismus, selected by Dietrich Bode
Die wunderbaren Jahre by Reiner Kunze
Arts of the Possible, by Adrienne Rich
Incidences in the life of a slavegirl, by Linda Brent.
The End of Alice, by A. M. Homes
Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett.
Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett
Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett
Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling
Dragonsbane (albeit in German, Der Schwarze Drache), by Barbara Hambly
Imperium, by Robert Harris
Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
Making Money, by Terry Pratchett
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood
Glenraven, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Glenraven II, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Zeit der Maskierung - Lebensgeschichten lesbischer Frauen im dritten Reich, Claudia Schoppman
Der Umgang der nationalsozialistischen Justiz mit Homosexuellen, Carola von Bülow
The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood
Lesbische Identität in der Adoleszenz, Karin Kolbe (Lesbian Identity in Adolescence).
Ganz normale Mütter: lesbische Frauen und ihre Kinder, Birgit Sasse. (Completely normal mothers: lesbian women and their children)
Lesbische Frauen: Lebenswelt - Beziehungen - Psychotherapie, Kristine Falco
Beyond Sex and Romance? The Politics of Contemporary Lesbian Fiction. By Elaine Hutton
The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett
A hat full of sky, by Terry Pratchett
"... ist unstreitig homosexuell": Diskriminierung von Lesben und Schwulen in Arbeits- und Zivilrecht, Manuela Malt
Daughters of a Coral Dawn, Katherine Forrest

Books between years:

Elling by Simon Bent, based on the novel by Ingvar Ambjornsen
Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney
Suicidal Behaviour in Europe. Schmidtke (ed.) et. al
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Prince Caspian, by C. S. Lewis

Current Mood: calm

I became addicted to them in Scotland, but due to my mother's nightmarish experiences with molten sugar and caramel in general I had shied away from the task until yesterday.

Ingredients
100g sugar
100g sesame seeds
1 ts butter
(4 ts honey)

All you need to do is to melt the butter, the honey and the sugar in a pan, add the sesame seed, spread it on a flat surface, slice pieces or stripes or at least indicate where you want to break it later on, and let it cool down. It takes about fifteen minutes, and the things are absolutely delicious.

Also, my brother showed me to a funny comic and a video today. I love chatting with my little brother.

WoW - The Edge of Real Life

Ok. Back to work.
Sigh.

Current Location: Uelzen, Germany

Oh. It's the 6.1. already? Whoa.

Happy new year, dear flist!

Dearest

angie_21_237, I hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Current Mood: calm

Ok, f-list, you are all very intelligent, well-educated people, can you do me a favour?

Can you tell me whether you think "privilege" exists? (As in, white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc., etc.)

I think it does. Never named, the concept was touched upon in nearly all our gender studies related courses at the uni. I think it is a rather good concept, and in keeping with other's theories on this (well. Just Connell and Bourdieu, really. I really never read into it that much). Being primarily a literature and now of late an education student, I don't know what the current positions are, of course, but I like it, it seems rather insightful.

It has happened rather often during the last half year that I brought up the term in a discussion and the people I was talking to put a lot of energy into convincing me of the fact that it does not exist, does no longer exist, or has never existed. When I insisted that yes, it does, the responses they gave me betrayed the level of incredulity they'd show with someone who is claiming that fairies exist, or the Easter bunny.

In the latest incident on a message board is not as though I rounded on them, accusing anyone personally and challenging them about their views, it was during yet another discussion on an HP forum about the women in the HP series. I argued that there was evidence of male privilege in the book and was completely shot down by the others, called sexist for advocating reverse sexism, being an extremist feminist, a man-hating feminazi, accusing others of not seeing my point because they are men, the works.

So, please, does "privilege" exist?

Current Location: Hamburg
Current Music: Irie Revoltes - Mes Soeurs

The 50 book challenge was fun, all in all, and I think I am going to take part again next year. It's fun, effort free and a great way of keeping track of what I've read, which is interesting to see. Also a good way of checking up titles which escape me.

Books between challenges

54.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon.
Great book. I am not sure how accurate the description of the autistic perception is, but I completely loved this book. Reading about the way Christopher perceives the world is absolutely fascinating.

53.

Suicidal Behaviour in Europe. Schmidtke (ed.) et. al.
Interesting read I still need to finish parts of.

52.

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney.
The far-famed translation with the "So." beginning. It is beautifully done, although I think that I favour the older verse translation. The older language has a ring to it that Heaney's doesn't always have.

51.

Elling by Simon Bent, based on the novel by Ingvar Ambjornsen.
Genius. Pure genius. I usually don't like reading plays, but this one was really entertaining. SO funny! The situations! Really a great read. I'll have to check if I can't get hold of a recording of a performance.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Hamburg

I hope all of you have great holidays and a lovely time!

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Hamburg

I hope you are out there partying and dancing with the young!Severus fellow right now and you're having a great, great time!!

Current Mood: tired

50.

Daughters of a Coral Dawn, Katherine Forrest.
How a group of lesbian Sues goes off to live on a pink planet. There are a few truly great ideas in this one, and some passages are really funny, and I could not help but like Minerva the Historian, but the plot or the characters are really not.. that great. I don't think I want to read Daughters of an Emerald Dusk. As a commentary on other books in the genre of feminist Utopias, like Herland, it is interesting, but not by itself.

Current Mood: accomplished

49.

"... ist unstreitig homosexuell": Diskriminierung von Lesben und Schwulen in Arbeits- und Zivilrecht, Manuela Malt.
A book on the discrimination against lesbians and gays in civil law and employment law. Another chilling one. There are a lot of quotes in it, some of them from politicians, and most of them unbelievable bullshit. Also, even though it's from the early nineties, there's little that changed.

48.

A hat full of sky, by Terry Pratchett.
I think The Wee Free Men is a better book, but there are many things in this book I really love. Great one.

47.

The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett.
I can't shake off the feeling that I have read this before, this year. Well, maybe I have not, who knows. It's one of my all-time favourites. I love Tiffany, I love the self-insertive components of her, I love the Nac Mac Feegle, I love Terry's Scots. Great.

46.

Beyond Sex and Romance? The Politics of Contemporary Lesbian Fiction. By Elaine Hutton.
Very interesting essays on lesbian literature, mostly from the eighties, little new from the nineties. One very annoying article by Elaine Miller, who showed that lesbian feminists can be bigoted idiots by suggesting that FTMs are subverting "women-only spaces" which she sees as crucial for the development of feminist politics. Two paragraphs which annoyed the hell out of me in her otherwise very interesting essay.
It's funny, finding my reading list crowded with books on feminism and lesbians all of the sudden.

45.

Lesbische Frauen: Lebenswelt - Beziehungen - Psychotherapie, Kristine Falco.
And I continue the trend. Book about lesbian women and therapy, mainly, but there are also a few chapters addressed to non-psychologists. Very interesting.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Hamburg
Current Music: Full Fathoms Five - Mäntyjärvi

Not counting flocked entries and Memes:

January: Seriously, years are shorter than they used to be in the old days.
February: Happy birthday, Greg!
March: Yesterday was the last day of my internship, and every teacher told me how well-prepared and how well-thought out my lessons and sequences were, and what a good teacher I am going to be.
April: When does this ever stop?
May: Hagenbeck's 100 this year.
June: I may not be able to post any entry longer than three lines at the moment, but maybe I can post pictures?
July: The Collar
August: Crocky and I spent the HD release weekend in London rather spontaneously, for the HD release, and also as a little treat just for the two of us to celebrate.
September : As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
October: I am such a good girl.
November: Third-Person Limited Omniscient Narrator Blown Away By Surprise Ending
December: I'm out job hunting again, writing scores of applications and offering myself up to the dark forces of the job market.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: Hamburg
Current Music: (IMH) Veni, Veni Emmanuel

Current Mood: excited

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

( Read more... )

Only a couple of weeks to go for my six final books, but the daily one-hour commute to the university and back is really doing wonders for that challenge.

I found some very interesting books on lesbians in the library, although most of the more recent stuff is permanently out for some reason.

44.

Ganz normale Mütter: lesbische Frauen und ihre Kinder, Birgit Sasse. (Completely normal mothers: lesbian women and their children).
Very interesting, if sadly not very scientific book on lesbian women and their children, the effects such unusual parents have on children, and the experiences of the mothers. The results were fairly predictable - if children grow up in lesbian households from the beginning, they end up as happy as children from families with parents of opposite sex, and if children first grow up in "normal" households they have difficulties accepting the new partner of their mother, which is mostly down to the fact that their beloved parents split up rather than down to the same-sex orientation of the mother. One or two of the children the author interviewed did say it might be nicer if their mother had another man, as it would make it easier to explain their household to their peer group. Those two were teenagers, and all of the younger and all of the older children were comparatively happy with their lot, although most of them did not like the fact that their parents had split up in the first place. Most of the problems the children reported arose from the divorce more than the new partner, and the troubles within the new family constellations mostly from quarrels between the exes rather than the new orientation.
Interesting was that even children who were happy with their two mothers dislike or disliked the term "lesbian" initially when assigned to their mothers as they thought it was an insult and something bad, even though their life at home would have suggested something else entirely, and continue to avoid the term.
She also referenced a study conducted for Psychology Today in the early eighties without saying which and whose it was which showed that children who grow up with same-sex parents are as healthy as children who grow up with opposite-sex parents. I want to read that study.

43.

Lesbische Identität in der Adoleszenz, Karin Kolbe (Lesbian Identity in Adolescence).
A doctoral thesis. I could have cried. It was published 1989, the author references a lot of texts from the early seventies, and many of the statements are still true. The dissertation included a study on the subjectivity and identity of women based on a questionnaire, and she got her sample through a "snow-ball-system", which means that most of her subjects were organised in societies and organisations to promote same-sex rights, introducing a - in my opinion - hefty bias not uncommon in those studies, especially from the eighties and nineties. Most of the women were very happy with their lesbian identity and had always seen it a very positive part of their identity, most of them lived in the city, most of them were raised in fairly liberal families - all a very good basis for being happy with parts of an identity that are not considered the norm, anyway.
The only really interesting difference was the class difference - lesbians from lower class backgrounds had a tendency to be less happy with their lesbian identity than lesbians from the middle- and upper classes, which she says is down to the greater importance traditional female roles have in those. Other sources on the realisation of masculinity in relation to class show similar things. Hee.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Hamburg

42.

The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood.
Can't say much on this one so far, as I've only just started reading it.

41.

Der Umgang der nationalsozialistischen Justiz mit Homosexuellen, Carola von Bülow.
A very interesting dissertation on how the national socialist justice system treated homosexuals which I am only counting as a book because it's too long to count as an essay. Not exactly unexpected findings, although it's always amazing with what kind of craptastic arguments people can come up with to justify why homophobia is just the thing. It tends to be in keeping with the politics of the day, here it's the fact that male homosexuals undermine power structures, lure poor innocent children and of course undermine the Aryan breeding scheme. Take out the Aryan breeding and it's what fundies are saying today.
It can even be found online here.

40.

Zeit der Maskierung - Lebensgeschichten lesbischer Frauen im dritten Reich, Claudia Schoppman.
Great book that contains autobiographical notes on lesbian women during the third Reich of all kinds - very different women and truly alarming stories, as autobiographies from that time tend to contain.
It's sad to think that in the twenties, everything was looking up for homosexuals, especially life in the bigger cities - especially Berlin and Hamburg, in parts - had just become more liberal and open-minded, and that in the third Reich everything was crushed again. The Nazis had very much the same opinion on homosexuals Christian fundies have today. Verbatim, sometimes. Makes me wonder how many of them read Himmler's speeches under the covers.

39.

Glenraven II, by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Awful. I hated it. Although I developed a thing for the Kintari, there were just too many things that really pissed me off - not only the - at least I thought they were- overdone reaction to the lone Wicca, the glorification of murder and handguns really, really got to me. This is exactly the kind of element Fantasy can do without.
What also made my mind boggle was the fact that the translation is called "In the Shadow of the Castle" or something to that effect - only - which castle? There was not one castle, unless the destroyed shopping mall counts. Or the Ruddy Smeachwykke which features in the last five or so chapters.

38.

Glenraven, by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
I used to love her books as a child. Some elements in this story are just so dreadfully forced and just clonk along (how do I get my North Carolinian heroine into a magical medieval valley in Europe? I know! I have her be "just drawn towards" a magically enchanted Fodor's travel guide. Did not really work for me.), but when the story is up and running, there are really nice things in it and it made me remember why I liked her so much. Although maybe that's just Matthiall.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: Hamburg

In the Potterverse, the future life of a child is determined when they are eleven without any possibility of changing that later on by sorting the child into one of the four houses, influencing how it is going to be perceived later in life, as it says a lot on their character, influencing also its peer group. In Germany, the same happens at the same age, and possibly even earlier. In the Potterverse, a magical hat determines where you are to be sent, and the decision is based on your character. The system is infinitely better than the system currently employed by the German education system.

The decision, which is allegedly based on the competences of the child, is very much influenced by factors like the milieu the parents are from, by nationality and ethnicity, by economical factors. Of course there are many people who are sorted according to their competences, but there are clear tendencies that show that the people who end up in the school they do end up in because of other factors.

( Pre-school education is the first language instruction children receive, but not all children do, as there are not enough places, and not all parents have their children attend pre-school offers. Only 80% of the children with a migrational background attend pre-school offers. )

( Children who do not have a learning disability can be put in primary school. If they don’t meet the standards, they have to repeat the year, which does not have any positive effects whatsoever. The majority of children who repeat a year in primary school end up repeating another year later on, as well, and many who do only have to because of difficulties with German. )

( After the primary school, abled children are recommended to one of the three schools – Hauptschule (low standard and prestige), Realschule (better standard and slightly better prestige), or Gymnasium (today’s norm and only degree which allows students to enter higher education), often dependant on background, mother tongue and parents’ income more than the student’s proficiency and determining the future career of the child – only low income jobs are possible with a Hauptschulabschluss for the vast majority- for life, at eleven. )

( Changing between the school forms is possible, but no one ever does. )

( There are schools today which offer both an Abitur and a Realschulabschluss at the same school, these might be better. )

( Förderschulen and Sonderschulen and their students are the losers of our educational system – they are completely forgotten in discussions on the matter. Integrational forms in regular schools are a new, but decreasing additional possiblity for students whose disability is not too impairing. )

( Dealing with the root of many of the student’s problems, learning German, our government does not consider it’s problems and accordingly scarce are resources and finances for establishing offers. )

Our politicians should definitely think about the magic-hat system. It's fairer, and it's at least based on the child's character.

Current Location: Hamburg

And in more than one sense, but most of all emotionally. I know that Hamburg is a city in which a lot of children live in broken homes or come from incredibly poor and difficult backgrounds.

( My students - a really good lesson, and two really worrying absences )

( Horror stories form members of the seminar I attended about children from difficult backgrounds in Hamburg - things I ought to have been able to anticipate )

I feel so silly. I knew these things were going on, but hearing people talk about them who had witnessed them made them more real, and more horrible.

Somehow, I am at the same time both sad and glad that I did not take part in such a more "difficult" trip instead of the six comparatively easy weeks at the kindergarten. I would have wanted to do something to make them - all of them - feel better - but I would have never been able to, and that, and the terrible burden of knowing that there are children who are raised in such horrible conditions, would have just about killed me. This seminar really makes me want to find a way to reach out to children living in such difficult conditions and help them, one at a time, so that I can help without breaking.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: Hamburg
Current Music: Subway to Sally - 2000 Meilen unterm Meer

A very happy birthday,

moonystone!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Hamburg

37.

Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood.
I loved The Handmaid's Tale so much I set out to find more books by the author in our library. This one has a very promising start and I really enjoy reading it so far.

36.

Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters.
I loved the movie, and because I did I had been looking forward to reading the book a lot. Still, somehow this book is not nearly as good as The Night Watch was, for me. The characters's plots are interesting, so is learning about them, but being told the story three times is not, even though it is interesting to read the different ideolects she gives her characters.

Current Mood: tired

My little brother's got a Journal, too, now, called

niaseath.

Hee.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: On Julian's PC because mine doesn't have internet

Happy belated birthday, dearest Sad!!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Uni Computer pool
Current Music: Some other person having trouble with her mouse

I have seen the above line on war memorials rather often, but it never occured to me before to Google the line. As chance willed, someone had a poppy icon with the probably most famous stanza from this poem in a community I frequent, thus I did find the poem after all.

I think I'll backdate this because it's not of immediate interest, really.

Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen (21st September, 1914)

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is a music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncountered:
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end they remain.

Current Mood: tired

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Mothwing

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Muffins
Deport-a-gay day?
Transsexual shepherd saves drowning princess
Cool Map thing II
Book challenge
Connolly/Gregory: Moving Down: Women’s Part-time Work and Occupational Change in Britain 1991–2001
Memes
Saturday with Cicero
Book challenge
Assorted Christmas Pics
Game banned
More cool performances of poetry
No wonder we never got famous
Wanna Hear A Poem
Land Unter
"We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget."
Best present ever
50 book challenge
(no subject)
She Stoops to Conquer
That's pretty cool
Cornelia Funke
Snatched from princess_magpie
Book challenge
Culture clashes?
No gay hearts?
Mort
50 Book challenge
The 2007 50-book challenge masterlist
Sesame Snaps
(no subject)
Happy Birthday!!
I do believe in fairies, I do, I do
Books
Merry Christmas!
Happy birthday!!
Book Challenge: 50.
Book Challenge: 45-49
First line of the month meme
!!!
Favourites: Gerard Manley Hopkins
Book challenge: 43-44
38-42
"Maybe we sort too soon."
Exhausting
Happy Birthday!
Books.
Niaseath
(no subject)
To the end, to the end they remain...

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