Saturday, 23 November 2013

What's all the fuss about Yoga?!



I love trying out new sports: from water sports to martial arts to athletics. When I was a child, my neighbour convinced me to start horse riding. However, the fact that I hated the smell of horses and stables made me to give up this hobby after a short time. A few years after this failed attempt to awaken a passion for horses, I decided to move to a completely different direction and registered for a martial arts course. I attended a karate course for six years twice a week and was even awarded the green belt. Unfortunately, I had to leave this sports club when I start going to business school. From then on I chose less exciting sports, such as volleyball or athletics.

I have always considered sports to counteract stress at school. This is my justification why I did the following: joining a Yoga course. I just could not reject the tempting offer of the USI! In the first week of October I found myself in a small, stuffy room in the basement of the Karl-Franzens University that has nothing in common with these fancy and inspiring fitness rooms you can see in movies. But don’t judge a book by its cover (although I should have done it in this case)… In the first lesson we were lying nearly a whole hour on the floor and learning how to breathe “properly”. Also the following yoga sessions were bitter disappointments. We had to do poses which have completely hilarious names, like “der herabschauende Hund” or “der Baum” and my personal favourite “das Kuhgesicht”. And the whole being motionless makes me so bored. Besides, my yoga teacher is a humourless guy who hasn’t laughed at my jokes once! And over time he just gets more annoying, which is largely because he is constantly repeating the sentence “The energy flows where the attention goes”.

These are my rather underwhelming experiences with yoga so far. I think I’m not going to give this “sports” another go in the next few years.

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Comment on “summary55555“

Summary:


Ambrose Evans-Pitchard’s article in The Telegraph of the 23rd October 2013 analyses the approaching European deflation in connection with debt.

At the beginning of the text, the author mentions that deflation had already occurred before. Deflation can influence the economy of countries positively if they are not too heavily in debt. This, however, is not the case in Europe: As many countries are overburdened with debts, repaying it becomes more and more difficult if the inflation is too low. This problem does not only affect national but also private debt.

It is argued that the ECB should try everything to maintain an inflation of at least 2% in order to prevent from an economic disaster, but according to the author Europe seems to be paralyzed. Italy, France and Spain should gang up on Germany and dictate a new policy, which combats deflation and could therefore help restoring the damaged economies. Yet, they fear that Germany might leave the EMU and leave it up to the rest to solve the debt problem.

Summing up, Europe is far away from a proper solution. It still seems to be in recession but
prefers to wait for an economic miracle instead of taking the initiative.

[201 words]

Comment:
In general, the student who wrote this text has produced a good summary. The introducing sentence hits the nail on the head and clearly explains what the original article was about. However, one thing I missed throughout the whole text is the emphasis on the opinion of the author. The student wrote “It is argued” and “It still seems” and reflects only one time the purpose of the author. Also the phrase that Italy, France and Spain should gang up on Germany sounds more like a general idea than the solution of the author. There are also numerous positive aspects of the summary. The student concentrates on the most essential information, lists them in a logical order and always writes in their own words. Moreover, the text producer remains an objective reporter. In terms of language, an appropriate register is used and I have just found two expressions with “it” where it is not 100% clear what the student wants to refer to.

Thursday, 14 November 2013

Hendrik's Thursday Class



In our English lecture on Thursday we were given the task to write down a sentence containing one of the Porter words. Then we had to pass on this piece of paper to the person sitting next to us, who had to draw a picture of the sentence. Another student was given this drawing and had to put it into words, and so on. The fact that nobody in our class is very good at drawing led to some hilarious misinterpretations!



Tuesday, 12 November 2013

European Parliament

Original version:
 

The European Parliament forms, together with the Council of the EU and the European Commission, one of the most powerful legislatures in the world and is therefore a crucial body in the European Union. The three main roles of the Parliament are to debate and pass European laws with the Council, to scrutinize other EU institutions in order to ensure that they work democratically and to discuss and adopt the EU’s budget. 766 members (MEPs) who are elected in the 28 member states form the European Parliament. As long as EU citizens meet the age requirements in the country they have suffrage in, they have the right to vote and run for election. Every five years the members are directly elected and therefore the Parliament represents the interests of EU citizens. The direct representation of the EU member states as well as its three main purposes make the European Parliament one of the most important institutions of the European Union.  

 

 
Revised version:


Together with the Council of the EU and the European Commission, the European Parliament forms one of the most powerful legislatures in the world and is therefore a crucial part of the European Union. The three main roles of the Parliament are to debate and pass European laws with the Council, to scrutinize other EU institutions in order to ensure that they work democratically and to discuss and adopt the EU’s budget. Every five years 766 members (MEPs) are directly elected in the 28 member states. They form the European Parliament and represent the interests of EU citizens. Everyone who meets the age requirements in the country they have suffrage in, has the right to vote and run for election. The direct representation of the EU member states as well as its three main purposes make the European Parliament one of the most important institutions of the European Union.  


 


Friday, 1 November 2013

What I learned



After I had received my homework, I was a little surprised that I made so many mistakes concerning hyphens and apostrophes. I was convinced that I’m quite good at this field and therefore paid no attention to it during writing my homework.

In my opinion, the position of an apostrophe causes confusion when it comes to indicate possession. However, the rule is very easy: You have to place the apostrophe before the s to show singular possession (for example “my friend’s host family” – because it is only one friend!) and to show plural possession, make the noun plural first and then immediately use the apostrophe (for example “my brothers’ toys” – means that there is more than one brother). Unfortunately, there are some special uses of the apostrophe which I all found on this very helpful website: http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/

The same website helped me to understand the use of hyphens. Other sources that I highly recommend are the Oxford Dictionary (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/hyphen) and The Chicago Manual of Style (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/images/ch07_tab01.pdf). I have to admit though that I didn’t found out why “Karl-Franzens University” is written without an hyphen between “Franzens” and “University”.