Heinz Marecek - "Das kleine Fest des Lachens"

Hey guys!

First of all: Yayyyy, Christmas holidays! Have fun & enjoy it - I definitely will ;)

Second: No plans for tonight? I’d like to present to you: “Heinz Marecek: Das kleine Fest des Lachens”.

For those of you who have no idea who Heinz Marecek is: He was born in 1945 in Vienna and is an Austrian actor, director and cabaret artist. He started to perfom in 1966 at the "Vienna Ateliertheater". Afterwards he performed at the "Vienna Volksoper" and between 1971 and 1998 at the "Theater in der Josefstadt" (which is the oldest theater of Vienna), where he also directed some of the plays. These days you can see him in a couple of TV shows/movies. I’m pretty sure all of you have heard of the Austrian TV show “Soko Kitzbühel” – he is the one who plays “Hannes Kofler”. Apart from “Soko Kitzbühel” you can see him in “Lindenstraße” (playing Bruno Skabowski), “Der Bockerer” and other TV shows/movies.

But why am I telling you about him? Well, he is coming to Werndorf (if you want to know where/what that is à take a look at my post “Music is what feelings sound like”) tonight at 7.30pm, to read Christmas stories from his book “Das kleine Fest des Lachens”. Doors will be opened at 7pm and tickets are 25€.





Give it a try, I promise it’s definitely worth the money!

Looking forward to seeing you there :)

“GUNMAN KILLS 26 AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN CONNECTICUT“

You can find this or a similar headline in pretty much every online newspapers that exists right now, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be tomorrow’s newspaper headline in Austria as well.

When my mom called me in the kitchen earlier today, she told me that she just heard on the radio that a man killed 20 children and 6 teachers in an Elementary School in Connecticut.I simply couldn’t – no – didn’t want to believe her. How can anybody be so cruel? How sick and f* up are people nowadays? First the shooting in Oregon a few days ago, where 3 people (including the shooter) died and now this?

How can anybody walk into a school and murder 26!! innocent people - 20 young CHILDREN and 6 adults, including his own MOTHER? For heaven’s sake, those children were between 5 and 10, they had their whole life in front of them and now everything was taken away from them because one sick, stupid asshole lost his mind? And the worst thing of all? This is definitely not going to be the last shooting where innocent people are getting killed.

And you know what’s insane? Most Americans still believe that everybody should have the right to own a gun! I’m not saying that this tragedy has happened because the 20 year old killer was allowed to have a gun. I do realize he might have got one without having the permission to own a gun as well. But it definitely makes it a lot easier to actually hurt people when you have a gun in your house, doesn't it?

And it’s not only about people getting nuts and killing a lot of people in a mall, a school or another public place. It also happens at home, in their families. How many people get killed in the heat of the moment, because one of the family members loses his/her mind and grabs the gun, which is in their house because “they might have to defend their family in case of an emergency”.

Dear gun supporters, have you ever thought that you might not even have to defend your family, if people around you don’t own guns? I know, owning a gun means freedom and security for some Americans, and I do realize that the American constitution says that people have the right to own a gun – but the constitution was written in 1789 and the right to own a gun was added in the 2ndamendment (which was in 1791). Of course people needed a gun back then, they intruded into Indian land, it only makes sense that the Native Americans weren’t too happy about the white people taking away their land. But now, more than 200 years later I don’t see the point in this part of the constitution anymore.

I’m really sorry for the children and adults who died today, as well as for the families and friends of the victims. May they rest in peace, and please America, start rethinking your so called “right to keep and bear arms” – how many more people have to die before you realize that owning a gun is not the solution to the problem?

P.S.: I'm sorry for my violent choice of words in this post, I usually don't swear at all, but in this case the words "fool" or "idiot" were just not strong enough to describe the hatred and hostility I feel towards the man who killed all those innocent people.

Music is what feelings sound like!

May I introduce to you – the best local orchestra ever (okay, I admit it, I may be a little bit prejudiced, since I play in it, BUT we are pretty good ;))

As some of you may know, I play the flute in the orchestra of Werndorf. If you have no clue where/what Werndorf is: It's a small village about 20 km south of Graz.

Although we are such a small village, we offer a pretty good culture program - with artists like Peter Simonischek, Stermann & Grissemann, Gernot Kulis, Josef Hader and soon also Heinz Marecek (I will post about this event soon) we have already had quite famous and absolutely amazing people and great events in our village.

Another huge part of our culture program is the "Jugendkapelle Werndorf" - our local orchestra. Here’s the link to our homepage: http://www.jk-werndorf.at

As every year, our Christmas concert is set for the 8th of December, which is the upcoming Saturday – so if you don’t have any plans yet we’d be more than happy to welcome you. The concert starts at 2.30pm and with songs like „Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer“, „White Christmas“, „Driving home for Christmas“, „Ave Verum Corpus“, „O holy night“ and much more the program offers something for young, old and in between. But it is not only a concert, we are also going to present our Christmas CD - which is the perfect Christmas present for your parents, friends, grandparents and all the other people who love Christmas songs (and let's be honest, who doesn't? ;))

Yes, he (still) can!

 

- and he did! With 303 electoral votes for Obama and 206 for Romney the president clearly wins this year’s election. Not only the USA chooses Obama – this graphic shows that he has supporters around the world (found on BBC)

Since you have probably heard or read a lot about this years election already I don't want to bore you with all the details.
All I want to say is:

CONGRATULATIONS OBAMA!

In my opinion the USA chose the right man, and as he said:
"Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come," [Barack Obama, Victory Speech 2012]

For those of you who are interested:

IT’S FUN TO BE A NERD!

“Oh no, I hate studying” – I bet all of you have used this (or a similar phrase) at least once in your life. Today I want to show you that learning a new language is not only about doing grammar exercises and studying vocabulary from your textbook.

My English teacher showed us three links this week – and I’d like to introduce them to you and show you that it can be “fun to be a nerd” ;)

Link #1: http://breakingnewsenglish.com/

Every week an English teacher writes one (or two) short articles about current events. You can choose between the categories Business English, Environment, Health, Issues, Lifestyle, Famous People & Gossip, Technology and World News – so I’m sure you'll find something that you are interested in. You can read the article the teacher wrote and afterwards do some exercises – like “Fill-in-the-blank”, play “Hangman”, “Missing words” or “Crosswords” and much more – all fun ways to improve your vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Link #2: http://eslnotes.com/synopses.html

Who doesn’t love movies? Another English teacher provides information about a bunch of classic movies (like Apollo 13, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Cast Away, Dumb and Dumber, Psycho, …). The document for the movie you choose will give you a lot of information about the main characters, a pretty good plot summary and some words and expressions that you may not know. It also has a list of possible questions you may have after watching the movie, which you can discuss with your friends and family.

Link #3: http://www.lyricstraining.com

This site gives you the opportunity to listen to (and watch) your favorite music (-videos) – while learning new vocabulary. How? While listening to your song the lyrics will be displayed underneath the video. But the lyrics will have blanks in it, which you have to fill. There are three different game modes – Beginner (10% of the words are missing), Intermediate (25% of the words are missing) and Expert (all of the words are missing) – it’s actually trickier than it sounds, especially when you choose songs like “Love the way you lie”, where Eminem raps pretty fast ;)

So who says studying and learning a new language is boring? Give it a try – you will be surprised how much fun it can be to improve your language skills!

I want to wake up, in the city, that doesn't sleep...

Today I want to introduce to you: My favorite city in the world - NYC.
I've been there 7 times during the last year - and I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be the last time.

For me, growing up in a tiny village, big cities have always been fascinating – and NYC is the most fascinating of them all.

I guess all of you know the major sights of NYC (like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park, …) so I don’t want to bore you and list all of them, but want to give you some “insider tips”:

1. Top of the Rocks or Empire State Building?
Most people want to see NYC from above. Therefore they go on top of the Empire State Building or/and Rockefeller Center. So did I. But where to go at day and where at nighttime? Both are pretty awesome, but in my opinion you should enjoy the “Top of the Rock” view at daytime (and/or sunset) and Empire State Building at night. Why? Because Rockefeller Center is super close to Central Park, which looks really nice from above – and at nighttime all the lights look kind of the same anyway.

2. Half Price Musical Tickets
If you like musicals it’s probably on your to-do-list anyway, but you should watch a Broadway musical. If you are particular about what show you want to see (e.g. you only want to see Lion King) you should probably book your tickets in advance. But if you are more like “well, Lion King would be cool, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Sister Act, Rent, Wicked,… instead” you should get your tickets at the TKTS – Half Price Ticket Booths, which are located on Times Square, South Street Seaport and Downtown Brooklyn. The most convenient for tourists is probably the one at Times Square. They offer tickets to Broadway and Off Broadway musicals and plays up to 50% off – which means more money for shopping ;)

3. Statue of Liberty & Manhattan Skyline
Of course another must see is the Statue of Liberty. But if you aren’t really into architecture or sculptures, you might consider taking the free ferry to Staten Island and back instead of spending a lot of money on the one which takes you to Ellis Island. You have a really good view and can take great pictures from the free ferry – but consider that you won’t get super close. For me it was totally enough seeing the Statue from the free ferry.
Another tip: If you are on the way TO Staten Island, stay at the right side in the back of the ferry. Most of the people will probably run to the front – they’ll miss a great view of the Manhattan skyline. You can see the Statue as good from the back as you would from the front, and once the ferry moves you can go outside in the back – and will see this:

I wouldn’t want to miss it. On the way back do it the other way around – left side in the front, so you can see the Statue & the skyline again.

4. 9/11 Memorial
You can get tickets for free (and if you want to you can donate) here: http://www.911memorial.org/memorial
Make sure you book your tickets in advance. You can print them at home or pick them up at the self check-in at the memorial shop (if you want to put them in an album print them at the shop, they look way nicer, plus the shop is worth a visit as well) and don’t forget your ID – they’ll check it at the entrance.

5. Christmas in NYC
If possible – return to NYC in the wintertime. I’ve seen the city in December – and it’s like in the Christmas movies we all love so much – the big Christmas tree in front of Rockefeller Center & Ice Skating in Central Park - although it’s super expensive and smaller than expected totally worth the money! Look at the beautiful decorated shop windows of the big department stores and just be enchanted how different the city looks in the most wonderful time of the year.

Smoky Who?!

Hey guys.

So here I am, trying to write my first post for my new blog.
But what could I write about? Traveling? Books? Movies? Music? Politics? Going out? I’ll probably write about those things pretty soon - right now I'd like to tell you a little bit about the girl behind the nickname Smoky.

My name is Julia, but all my friends call me Smoky. No, I DO NOT smoke, I actually don't like the smell of cigarettes at all, but my last name means "Smoke" in English and that's why all my friends call me Smoky.
I am 21 years old and for me there’s no life without music. My family and friends are really important to me and I love going to the movies, going out, reading a good book and traveling – I just came back from a year abroad – but more about that later.

I’ve just started University – I study „TKK“ and I chose English and Russian as my foreign languages and would like to add Spanish in about a year. In order to get a good English grade I have to start blogging – and I decided to write about everything concerning the English language and culture, as well as my daily life - favorite quotes, books, movies, places to go – pretty much everything that might be interesting for you ;)