Monday, April 23, 2007

Eurofuturecup 2007

Today, my last years boss called me and asked me whether I wanted to work at the Eurofuturecup again. This is a soccer-tournament in which teams from whole Europe take part. Last year, there were teams from Germany(Bayer Leverkusen), France(Lille), Croatia(Dynamo Zagreb), Italy(AS Roma), England(Liverpool and Bolton), the Netherlands... Of course I agreed, for various reasons. First of all because of the lovely boys. Last year, I was with a team from Bolton, and the boys were great. They were so well-mannered, I couldn't believe it! I've never seen 8 or 9 year old boys with such good manners... And furthermore, they were just sooooooo cute!


My job basically was to help them whenever there were problems, especially when there were language-barriers. Although there were a lot of other problems as well, i.e. when the bus left without the boys, or when there was no food prepared for them...

So I accompanied them to the soccer-pitch, I stayed with them at their hotel, I went on excursions with them... Excursions with the boys were always great. When we drove to Italy, we drove through the Kanaltal, and the boys were so astonished by all those mountains that they asked me if one of them was Mount Everest. Cute, isn't it?


Of course, spending the whole day with kids can be quite exhausting, especially at their age. It was their first time away from home, so you had to keep them active the entire day if you wanted to prevent them from getting homesick.

The first day was really hard, the boys didn't know me, and everything was very new to them, they had had a long, long day (their flight had been delayed and there was a traffic-jam on their way from Italy to Carinthia), and many of them cried because of their first night without parents.

But on the second day, things got a lot better and I loved being with them. They asked lots and lots of questions, and the coaches of the team were great as well. I had the feeling that they really appreciated my work.

When the boys went back home, they gave me presents, picked flowers for me... I'm really looking forward to seeing them again :)

But I have to say that I was really lucky because I worked with this team... Other teams weren't as enjoyably to work with...


Another reason for working there again is, of course, the possibilty to practice my English.


And last but not least: I love soccer, and I love being on the soccer-pitch, so a job on this location is perfect for me ;)

And I love children... I love the way they take things so easy... They couldn't speak another language but their mothertongue, and still managed to communicate with boys from the other teams...
I'm really looking forward to it :)


Creationism: A Museum for Middle America

Believe it or not, but in late May, a Creation Museum will open its gates in Petersburg, Kentucky. The project was brought into being by Ken Ham, a former high-school biology and zoology teacher who felt he wouldn't be consistent if he taught evolution while believing in the literal truth of the Bible. So one he and his students visited a natural-history museum in which evolution was presented as a fact, he came up with the plan of opening a Creation Museum.

Creationists believe in the Garden of Eden, they think that the world is 6000 years old, that God created man and animals simultaneously and that the flood wiped out every living creature that wasn't inside Noah's ark.
The museum focuses on Genesis, the first book of the Bible and actually offers a lot to see. There is a special effects theater ( when the flood comes, seats start to shake and water squirts around), the story of the Bible is told through videos, voice-overs, models and mural paintings, there is a gargantuan replica of Noah's Ark and even a planetarium. The costs? $26 million...

Jason Lisle, who is in charge of the planetarium, has a very interesting point of view: "Science comes out of a Biblical worldview. We don't try to prove the Bible from outside evidence. We accept the Bible as presupposition."

Ham often asks evolutionists how they can gain knowledge from the past if they hadn't been there, and if people ask him the same question, he answers: "Man by himself couldn't have written such a consistent, non-contradictory book."

The museum expects 250 000 visitors in the first year, and if we consider that last year a poll found out that 58% of the interviewed support the idea of teaching creationism along with evolution in schools, this is likely to happen.



Thursday, April 19, 2007

Guess Who!

Inspired by yesterdays article about interracial marriage, I decided to watch a movie about this topic as well.

The movie was called "Guess Who" and it was hilarious. My flatmates will probably consider me crazy since I was laughing all the time although I was alone in my room, but do I care? Not really...


The storyline can easily be summarized: Theresa (Zoe Saldana) and Simon (Ashton Kutcher) want to announce their engagement and therefor visit Theresa's parents. The only problem: Theresa is black and didn't tell her family that her boyfriend is white, and this little detail really upsets her father. Of course, he is against this relationship, and tries to manipulate it. When Percy, Theresa's father, finds out that Simon quit his job and didn't tell Theresa, Percy tells Theresa who is very upset and wants to break the engagement.


In short: A lot of turbulences and a happy end after all.



It's a nice movie, in no way demanding, but it offers many good laughs, and of course: Ashton Kutcher is always worth watching a movie ;)

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Interracial Marriage in the USA



Today, I read a quite interesting Newsweek article about interracial marriages in the USA.


June 12th: Loving vs. Virginia. Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred, his black wife, got married in 1958, in Washington D.C. BUT: In Virginia there was a statute barring whites from marrying non-whites ( maybe this finally is a politically correct word ;)). So on June 12th, the Supreme Court ruled that Virginia couldn't criminalize this marriage, the statute was knocked down, and with it many similar statutes in other US States.


And what once seemed so radical is commonplace now. Nice to hear, isn't it?

According to the census bureau, there were 65 000 interracial marriages in 1970, and the number amounted to 422 000 in 2005. In 2005 there were 59 million married couples, 7% of them interracial.

The result of this tendency, and the fact that immigrants from all over the world are coming to America, is a 21st century America that is more diverse than ever.


“The racial divide in the U.S. is a fundamental divide. ... but when you have the ’other’ in your own family, it’s hard to think of them as ’other’ anymore. We see a blurring of the old lines, and that has to be a good thing, because the lines were artificial in the first place.”


Sounds great, doesn't it? But of course, there will always be people who are against such relationships...


What I considered rather shocking was the fact that a university in South Carolina didn't drop it's ban on interracial dating until the year 2000. Can you imagine that? How can anybody expect today's young people to be open-minded and tolerant if things like that happen in universities???


Not shocked enough? Well, I've got something else for you! When Alabama wanted to remove it's ban on interracial marriage in 2001, 40% of the people were against it.


Considering all this, it's no wonder that multiracial families are often confronted with problems, if not to say hate. Taunts, crossburnings and threats happen from time to time, not too often. The problems biracial families are having are more nuanced. Kids that are being asked what they are doing here, black adults that can hardly find any white friends. And sadly enough, not even the families accept the decision of their, lets say kids, to marry somebody from another race. And it's not only the whites that don't accept a black person in their families, it also happend vice versa.


Lets face the facts: Racism is, and always will be, a big issue in a meltingpot like the USA, and also everywhere else.

But it's good to know that there are people who face the challenge and just do what their hearts tell them :)

Oh I'm such a romantic soul... :)




"It was almost impossible to believe, and too much to bear."

January 1979:
Brenda Spencer, 17, is given a rifle as a present for christmas, goes to school and starts shooting around. 15 injured, 2 dead.
Why? She said she didn't like Mondays...

March 1987:
Nathan Ferris, 12, kills a boy who was making fun of him and kills himself after that. He told a friend of his not to go to school that day, which shows that he planned to shoot somebody, but nobody tried to prevent it from happening.
Why? He was getting sick of being teased all the time...

November 1995:
Jamie Rouse, 17, goes to school and shoots two teachers in the head. He tries to kill his football coach as well, but a female student crossed his path and was shot instead. Really shocking: He smiled when he was aiming at the coach. Even more shocking: He told his friends about each detail of his cruel plan, but again, nobody acted.

February 1996:
Barry Loukaitis, 14, dresses up like a gunslinger from the Wild West, goes to school, and shoots three people. He even took hostages, and he was one of the few who didn't kill himself, he didn't have the chance to because a teacher rushed in and put an end to the whole, terrible scenario.
Why? Mood swings... And a classmates of his claimed that Barry Loukaitis thought it would be FUN...

February 1997:
Evan Ramsey, 16, kills a student and the headmaster. He also talked to his friends about the plans, but did they care? No.
Why? He couldn't stand being teased any longer...

October 1997:
Luke Woodham, who admired Adolf Hitler, first stabbed his mother, then went to school where he shot his former girlfriend and another girl, wounded seven other stundents. When he wanted to get his second gun, he could be disarmed.
Why? "I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society: Push us and we will push back."

March 1998:
Two boys, aged 11 and 13, gun down 15 people; five die. One of the boys set off the firealarm, and when the people left the school and were outside, the boys began to shoot.

These are just a few examples of violence in American schools, because people tend to only talk about the Columbine shooting, but this proves that this by far wasn't the only shooting and for sure won't be the last when things don't start to change immediately.
Today I had a look at various American newspapers, looked at the headlines, read a few articles about Mondays shooting at the Virginia tech. The sad outcome: 33 dead, 15 injured. The most terrible shooting in the history of the USA.
One can't even imagine what it must have been like to hear the shots, not to know whether he will get you as well, not to know what he will do next, not to know why the shooter does such a terrible thing.

I did a little research on shootings in American schools, and I realised that many, many of these murders happened because kids or teenagers were teased and bullied in school and couldn't stand it any longer.
A year ago, I also read a book on this topic, "Give a boy a gun" by Todd Strasser. It was shocking to read, because you realise that things like this just happen. They could actually happen any time.

A question comes to my mind: Why doesn't this happen in Austria? What is so different here? In my opinion it's the gun policies, but as we all know, Americans love their guns, even when things like this happen. But would could you expect? Even president Bush defends the gun policies. Guns don't kill people, people do. True, definitely true. But if all those kids had no guns, there wouldn't be so many dead, and that's a fact.

I would like to finish with two quotes from people who were at the Virginia Tech when the shooting took place, or who had friends there.

"It's one of those senseless things that yoz can't explain, why someone would do that."

"It was clear when we were leaving that there were a lot of people hurt or killed."

Monday, April 16, 2007

And I think to myself: What a wonderful world...

First and most important: The KAC won on Saturday, so my world is alright again :)

Furthermore, I finally finished reading Jaywalking with the Irish. What is really interesting about this book is that it bored me from the very beginning on, but got interesting on the last hundred pages...

I also finished my speech for the proseminar (French Tradition, it can't get more boring).

Considering all those achievements and the wonderful sunshine I've been waiting for such a long time, I have to say that I'm living in a beautiful world :)

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Sports can be so cruel...


No... I didn't do any sports myself. I can't, I ate too much of Easters ham and can hardly move. But I went to see a soccer game of my fathers team, the FC KAC. I played there myself, my brother still plays there, my father is the coach of one of the many teams there, I've got a lovely ex-boyfriend there, my uncle used to play for the KAC a long time... So you can see, this is MY team ;) My entire family is somehow involved... My mother tried to distance herself from soccer, but what should I say? Soccer got her like it got the rest of the family.

Well, I went to see this game. It was the first (us), against the penultimate (a small team not worth mentioning ;) ). And guess what? WE LOST. And I mean, we really lost. 0:1. It's not the result that hurts, it's the way we played... Terrible. And what is even more terrible than todays defeat : One of our best players got the red card for a reeeeeeeeally cool foul, so we'll miss him in the next match...That's why I have to say that soccer is a really cruel sport. But still I love it ;)
And I always will ;)
I'm like the woman singing the amazing song "Er steht im Tor, im Tor, im Tor und ich dahinter"
No matter the season, the weather, come hell or high water: I'll be there ;)

Monday, April 9, 2007

My personal Easter resumee

I survived all of Easters family-gatherings, some were really nice, some were ok, and some... I'll try to forget them ;) Don't misunderstand me, I love each of my family members (or at least most of them) but it's hardly possible to bear all of them in one room and not go completely crazy among them. Especially if you're Birgit, the only girl in our family not married or in a relationship... They probably think that I'm the crazy one, but believe me, it's them who are off their rocker...

I also survived the Easter Fire, and I really would love to tell you about it, but I don't remember too much... All I know is that we had so much fun, I met so many people whom I haven't seen for a year or more, it was really great, and that's all I need to know ;) But i needed entire Sunday plus part of today to recover, but it was really worth it ;)

Today, my cousin and I decided to watch a movie, but: What movie? He's really into action movies, and since I was still really tired, I wanted to see a movie full of beautiful people, romance, fun etc.
No good basis, is it?
So we realised we need a new approach:
I love, no, I adore Brad Pitt.
My cousin loves, no, adores Angelina Jolie.
So what other movie could we choose but Mr. and Mrs. Smith???
Granted, the storyline wasn't too good, but Brad and Angelina really compensated this, and when Adam Brody turned up as well, I definitely fell for the movie. It tells the story of John and Jane who meet, fall in love and get married. In the beginning they seem to lead a rather normal life, but the truth is that they both are professional killers, but they both don't know about the second lives of their partner. At least they don't know about it until John's task is to kill Jane, and Jane's task is to kill John.
From there on, it's a lot of shooting around and lots of black humour, but still: I like the movie, although I'm really not into action movies (unless Vin Diesel is in them). But I liked the role Angelina Jolie plays, this strong, down-and-dirty woman who lives two lives at the same time and furthermore is more than attractive.
Altogether: It's good entertainment, and offers a lot to see for both sexes ;)

Friday, April 6, 2007

I know why the caged bird sings

As I already mentioned, I started reading the book "I know why the caged bird sings" about two weeks ago. Well, I finished it yesterday and I have to tell you that this book is really amazing.

I know, I wrote about it already, but I'll have to repeat some things now ;)
The book is about a small black girl called Marguerite, or Maya, who lives with her brother Bailey and her grandmother whom they call Momma because their parents sent them away at the age of 3(Maya) and 4(Bailey). The children like living with Momma, a very religious old lady owning a store, which allows them to live a better life. One day, Mayas father turns up unexpectedly and takes her and Bailey to St. Louis where they live with their mother and her new boyfriend. He rapes Maya, and this "event" is just one of many who turns the young girl into a totally different person. Maya, who used to be a talkative, inquiring girl starts to withdraw from other people, even from Bailey who seems to be her only friend. She doesn't dare talk about what happened, but her mother still finds out, and shortly after that, her rapist is murdered, probably by her mothers familiy.
After that coincidence, Maya and Bailey return to live with Momma again. Back in Stamps, Maya is no longer the young, innocent girl she used to be. She doesn't take things for granted anylonger, she starts to srutinize, and what she realises is that racism is and always will be part of her life. On graduation day, a white speaker who says that black people can be good at sports, but not at academics takes Mayas pride. A dentist for white people refuses to treat her, says that he would rather look into a dogs mouth than into hers.
After a while, Momma sends them away again, to live with their mother once more. For some time, things are pretty great, Maya does well at school, meets a lot of interesting people, and decides to spend the summer with her father. BUt she doesn't get along with his girlfriend, and after a terrible quarrel ending up in a fight, Maya decides to leave and lives in a junkyard for a month, but decides to return home. But problems are waiting there as well. Bailey and her mother don't get along, and he decides to leave home.
Maya tries to find a job, wants to be a streetcar conductor, but black people don't get these kinds of jobs. But Maya keeps trying and finally is hired, decides to return to school after a while.
Wordloving Maya reads some lesbian literature and starts to wonder whether she is lesbian herself. That's why she decides to find a boyfriend, and what she does is walk up to a boy, ask him to have sex with her and, of course, he agrees.
Maya is pregnant, and very afraid. She's afraid of hurting her baby, afraid of not being able to look after it.
But she succeeds:
"Mother whispered: See, you dont have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking."

The story would be shocking enough in itself, BUT: It's Maya Angelous true story, that's what her childhood was like.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

A long way down


Today, I want to tell you about another great book I read three months ago: A long way down by Nick Hornby.

The book tells the story of four different persons that have got nothing in common but the wish to put their lifes to an end. They meet incidentally on New Year's Eve on the top of a builing they all wanted to jump down. The four individuals start talking to each other, mainly because none of them is willing to jump in front of three strangers, make a pact not to commit suicide and meet again on Valentines Day.
So they leave the roof, want to solve the smallest problem, and from there on, you get to know the four characters.
Martin, a talkshow master, is a man whose life has been pretty perfect until he slept with a 15-year old which didn't do his career and his private life any good.
Maureen is a catholic woman in her fourtees who dedicated her entire life to her son who has a severe mental handicap and doesn't notice anything that happens around him and can't respond to anything.
Then there's Jess, a young girl who just thinks that commiting suicide would be quite a rebellion, especially commiting suicide because of a guy when you're a politicians daughter.
And finally there's JJ whose band broke up and who feels that his life has no sense any longer.

So you can see, people couldn't be more different. Still they spend a lot of time together, go on a holiday, try to solve each others problems.

What I really liked about the book is that the story is always told from another perspective. Every situation is described in four different points of view, which makes the book great to read. It's quite confusing in the beginning, but you get used to it.

I really want to recommend this book although there's been a lot of critique. Many people feel that Hornby is playing down the topic of suicide and that he is making fun of people's problems, but form your own opinion :)