Let me introduce you to Spaghetti Western lover Alexandra :)

The first special thing about Alexandra is her two loveable cats – Anuschka and Noora. Both her parents are from Romania but unfortunately she didn’t grow up bilingually, which she thinks is a pity. Her business skills she proved at the Schauspielhaus, where she worked for one year as a prompter as well as in the costume department. As a balance to her working at H&M at Murpark every Saturday, she enjoys playing videogames. In addition, she loves watching Spaghetti Western movies, which are Italian Western movies with a lot of drama :)

Roddy Doyle's "New Boy", from the book "The Deportees"

The story “New Boy”, by the author Roddy Doyle, describes the first day of school for nine-year-old Joseph, who had to leave Africa and has come to Ireland to live there.
In the first chapter of the story you get a good insight of how school works. When the children are loud, or just one of them disturbs class, the “teacher-lady”, or “Miss”, tells everybody to put their hands in the air. When they calmed down, they can put their hands down and by doing so, they hit the desk with both hands. Besides, the teacher says the word “now” really often, which is something Joseph noticed very quickly. After the “teacher-lady” had introduced Joseph to the class, she tells him to sit down in front of Christian Kelly, who immediately starts to annoy the black boy.
In the second chapter Christian is described as a “dangerous boy”, because after Hazel O’Hara defended Joseph, Christian told him that he was dead. Hazel O’Hara is described as a girl with magic eyes and it seems that Joseph fancies her a bit. Then Christian annoys Joseph again by holding his finger full of snot straight into Joseph’s face. The African boy then grabs his finger and pulls it so that Christian ended up lying on the floor. As soon as “Miss” saw it, everybody had to put their hands in the air again.
In chapter three the teacher decides to let Joseph sit somewhere else and chooses the place next to Hazel O’Hara, even though Seth Quinn, a friend of Christian, suggested letting him sit next to Pamela, a black girl. This just ended up in laughter after Pamela disagreed.
Chapter four starts with Seth Quinn, who is called to get at the blackboard to do a maths exercise. Unfortunately he doesn’t know the answer and is allowed to sit down. Joseph thinks that it was unfair from “Miss” to embarrass Seth in front of the class. Then it’s “little break” and after a talk with the teacher, Joseph is allowed to go to the schoolyard, where Christian throws a milk carton at him. By doing so, he demonstrated the start of a fight.
In the next chapter this whole fighting act is described. All the children are standing around Joseph, Christian and Seth and are cheering at them to start the fight. Christian is about to take the first step and pushes Joseph and as he was about to reach for him a second time, Joseph grabs his finger again. He pulls it till the “teacher-lady” comes to end this fight between the two boys.
The last chapter describes how Seth, Christian and Joseph are standing outside the class for receiving punishment, but eventually they were holding on to each other by telling the teacher that nothing happened. Hazel O’Hara tries to talk to the teacher and explain her that it was Christian who started the fight, but “Miss”, however, doesn’t listen and just sends her back into class, which made Hazel say “She’s a bitch, that one. I was only telling her”. This statement made “Miss” getting angry and the boys laugh. They made fun of their teacher by saying that she’s acting as if she was robbing a bank by shouting “now” and “hands in the air” all the time. In the end they didn’t get punished and were even described as the three musketeers. 

What makes the story so special is that in chapter five, during the fighting scene, Joseph is thinking of the time he was in Africa. The scene takes place in a schoolhouse, where his father was a teacher. Then he describes seeing some soldiers that were holding up a bell and dropping it, while he was hiding behind the school wall. Noises he heard were the bell, that his father was ringing every morning to call the children to school, gunfire, crying and screaming and sometimes a truck engine, but only when the bell wasn’t ringing, because it was a loud noise. At the time all the soldiers were out of the schoolhouse, he wanted to get into it and find his father. He was still frightened and didn’t enter. Finally he recognized his father behind the schoolhouse and ran to him. 

Heres's a short film of the "New Boy".

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/new-boy/short-film

This film is just a little bit different than the original. Go and check out by yourself :)

My impression
At the end of the story, when he and the other two boys were about to be punished but somehow ended up in laughter, he thought of his father again and how he made him smile.

I really like the story by Roddy Doyle, because it shows how different cultures are and how differently behaviour is taught in the childhood. The difference between how Joseph is talking to his teacher and how his classmates are is huge. Josephs hasn’t the intention to speak impolitely with others or to annoy them, unlike Christian. However, the end is a great story as well. How these three rivals finally hold on to each other is just something you might not have expected to happen. Just a great story :)

My Holiday This Year!

As I’m a really good girl and go to Switzerland to work there for two months - again - it’s impossible to go on holiday this year. So I tried to arrange at least one day and was able to go to Nova Rock last Sunday. As going to festivals or to concerts in general are kind of my hobby, I was really happy about the opportunity to relax, dance and listen to life music at Nova Rock.

In addition, three of my favourite bands were playing that day, which made it even more worth driving to Burgenland for only one day.
The first band I went to see was Johnossi, which is a band from Sweden consisting of only three band members. I am listening to them for almost five years now and was really happy to see them, as I never had the opportunity to go a concert. I think they didn’t even have a concert in Austria before, because they are not that famous. So I was really anxious to know whether they are good or not, but I can tell you: they were AMAZING! They sounded like in studio and I totally enjoyed the concert and was sad when it came to the end of it.

Here’s a picture I made from the lead singer :)
I also embed a video I made of their most famous song from their new album “Gone Forever”.

The next act I went to see was Paramore! I was sooooo excited about seeing them because I actually had the opportunity to see them in Germany on the Southside Festival 2010, but unfortunately had a surgery and had to cancel it :( That’s why I was even more excited about seeing Haley Williams performing life. She was, as I expected her to be, fascinating. She interacted with the audience and was dancing wildly. I absolutely freaked out when they were playing “Ignorance”, as it’s my favourite song. In addition, they threw huge colourful balloons in the audience, which is something I have never seen before on a concert. It looked amazing! :)

Hasn't Haley got cool hair? :D it matches the balloons haha

Next were Biffy Clyro, who I never paid much attention to but actually were really great. I totally regret not have listened to songs by them before because I like to sing along and unfortunately wasn’t able to do so at this concert. 
Beneath is a video to their most famous song "Many of Horror".

And last but not least the most incredible band in the world, that is absolutely impossible to receive dislike – Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s 
KINGS OF LEON!
I haven’t been that excited recently, really, I was the happiest person on earth at the moment they walked out on stage. They played all my favourite songs, which are mainly older ones and I sang along to all of them! They played many of their newer songs as well, to which I didn't know the lyrics except to "Pyro" and "Black Down South". They even played an unreleased song, which was fantastic as well!

I was really glad that a friend of mine went with me to Nova for one day and gave me the best one-day-holiday I could imagine!

:) Here's a video to the song "Use Somebody".

Hope you enjoy my videos :)

Culture Days

As a part of our Culture Project we have to write about ten presentations we went to and decide on the three best presentations. As I went to see about 15 presentations, because I was in the Tech Team, I’m not going to write about all of them but just of the ten I liked most.

1. Two Heroines of American Aviation: Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman

This presentation was about two women, Amelia Earhart, who was the first woman to do a transatlantic flight and Bessie Coleman, who was a famous African American woman to do stunt flying. Even though this topic didn’t match my interests, the presentation was so perfectly interesting structured that I enjoyed it very much.

2.  Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly – Irish bands from America

I found this presentation very interesting not only because I love music, but also because it was structured very well with the two interviews. The topic itself was new to me and I really thought that Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly were Irish bands but actually they are American and this was kind of shocking to me, because I think that many people believe that these two bands are from Ireland.

3. Willie Daly

Although I was not familiar with this lovely story, I really enjoyed the story as well as the presentation. Willie Daly is probably one of the kindest men on earth because he tried to match people together and made this for free. Willie is a matchmaker because he feels sad for all the farmers that have to live alone and therefore tries to find a matching person for them. The person who gave this presentation was really showing interest in her topic and this made is even more interesting for me.

4. How the World sees Booby Sands

I was not familiar with Bobby Sands either but I was so impressed of this topic that I’m definitely going to watch his new movie “Hunger”. The fact that he made a 66-day hunger strike for achieving freedom is really impressive.

5.  Abortion Law in Ireland – A Pro-Choice View

The fact that Ireland has one of the strictest abortion laws was really frightening to me because the story about the three women who suffered because they were not allowed to get an abortion, shows that it is not really fair.

6. The Symbolism of the Harp

I have to admit that it really didn’t match my interests and the only thing I remember from this presentation was that there is a harp used on the Guiness beer as well. The only difference between the Guiness harp and the harp used on the Euro coin is that it faces the opposite site. Nevertheless, it was a good presentation and Julia really seemed to know what she’s talking about.

7. Paying for national heritage - Parking charges at Cliffs of Moher

I really enjoyed Blandine’s presentation, even though she seemed to be a bit bored. I have been to the Cliffs of Moher as well and therefore I could relate to the topic, but the parking charges were new information to me because I went there by bus.

8. The impact of global warming on Ireland's agriculture

This topic was really informative and interesting but also difficult to understand because Christian was talking a bit too fast to be able to follow him in every point he mentioned. What I found shocking was the impact the Gulf Stream has on Ireland and its climate. That there will be a great extinction of species is really sad.

9. The Life on Irish Traveller Woman

The TV-series “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” seemed really funny to me, according the pictures we were shown. It was interesting that even though the series is called “My Big Fat GYPSY Wedding”, it’s actually about Irish Travellers and these two terms don’t represent the same kind of people. Gypsies have their origins in India and often have a dark complexion, whereas Irish Travellers have their origins in Ireland. It was not the most interesting topic to me, but it was interesting.

10. Comics in America

I really thought that this presentation would be much more interesting. Instead, the person who gave the presentation was talking monotonous, which made it quite boring. Nonetheless, I found it interesting that women were represented as sex-symbols, which made them to victims.

The most interesting ones were undoubtedly Willy Daly, Bobby Sands and the Abortion Laws in Ireland. Not only the topics were interesting, but the presentation itself was really good. They were well structured so that they were able to catch my attention. Besides, they were clear to understand, because they were mainly talking freely which made it easier to pay attention as well. 

The most interesting presentation due to its title was "Ellen DeGeneres-a modern woman and her influence on America". Unforntunately I was not able to go and see this presentation, because I had an Italian exam :(

Alternative to Boot Camps

As I said in my previous post I’m going to talk about the alternatives of Boot Camps as well. Actually it’s just one effective alternative that I found on the internet and it’s called Wilderness Therapy Program.

The huge difference between Boot Camps and this Therapy is that in the latter the leaders are real specialists, whereas in Boot Camps these “specialists” have neither a therapeutic, nor a pedagogic education. There are no qualifications for Boot Camp leaders so it simply can be done by anybody. “It is harder to get a fishing licence then to lead a camp of boys”, so the senator Chris Cumminskey from Arizona.

Generally, the Wilderness Therapy Program uses an outdoor setting to avoid distractions and this is said to fasten the process of accepting the negative issues that have caused the bad behaviour. The teenagers or adults go through an emotional, behavioral and therapeutic journey in a wilderness environment, which shows behavioral changes after only one year. Besides, the participants had shown a reduction of behavioral and emotional symptoms due to the outdoor healthcare. More than 83% made a clinically significant improvement and teens aged among 13 had shown the highest reduction.

The aim of this therapy is to succeed in changing negative behaviour for a long time. They promise you a long-term success, instead of a success that lasts just a while, like in Boot Camps.

Other differences are:

Therapeutic Wilderness Program	Military-Style Boot Camp
Respect of authority	Fear of authority
Self-Discipline	Doing "as told"
Cooperation	Obedience
Responsibility	Repression
Self-Esteem	Resentment
Self-confidence	Need for structure

I think it’s totally clear that the Therapeutic Program is way more effective than a Boot Camp after reading these differences!

"The program I chose for my daughter was "NOT" for her. It was more of a "boot camp" program. I was looking for therapy and internalization through the help of professionals. I believe if you take a negative child, and put them in a negative environment, such as a boot camp, it builds resentment and anger. I had no idea as to what I had done. I had always valued myself as an intelligent person, and this was a rude awakening”, a parent’s true story from Lon Woodbury's Struggling Teens.

This quote demonstrates that Boot Camps are shown as a harmless and therapeutic program to achieve a behavioral change, but actually they are the opposite. A Wilderness Therapy program could be described as harmless, therapeutic and successful – as it really is ;)

Boot Camp, Morton Rhue

This time I want to talk about my favourite book, which is “Boot Camp” by Morton Rhue. I don’t know how many of you have read it or at least know what it’s about, but  just to give you a slight insight of the content, I will summarize the plot.

Connor Durrell, a fifteen year old boy, has been sent to a Boot Camp called Lake Harmony. His parents arranged a “transporter”, Harry and Rebecca, that should drive him to the Camp. Connor has been dating his math teacher Sabrina who is twice his age. Although his parents have forbidden him to see her, he continues dating her. Connor thinks that it’s natural being in a relationship with his teacher, no matter how old she is. Therefore he thinks he does not deserve it to be sent to Lake Harmony. After a while he finds out that he has to do what he is told to, otherwise he will be punished. Connor has often litigated with Joe, his “father” and leader. He shows him that he does not belong here, which makes him get punished even more often.
After some time he becomes friends with Pauly and Sarah. Pauly is now nine months at Lake Harmony but still on level one. He has been sent there, because his father wants him to be a tougher boy. Sarah is there since two years. She has been sent there, because she does not agree with the religious attitude of his father.
Connor is often sent to TI – Temporary Isolation – where he is forced to lie face down on the cold floor for hours or even days. Then a leader or other members of the camp beat and kick him. Besides TI, Connor is also beaten by other boys that are already in level 6, like Adam.
One day Pauly, Sarah and Connor decide to escape from Lake Harmony and therefore they have made up a plan. They plan to open the circuit breaker box and shut off the power; lock the box; set a fire; sneak out when the fire trucks come in. Somehow get to Canada with no money for food or transportation. They manage it and sneak out as the fire trucks arrive. After they have walked for miles they find out that Harry and Rebecca are chasing them. They find a boat and cross a river, but only Pauly and Sarah can make it. Connor is taken back to the Boot Camp and TI has come just after that. After he spends another few weeks at Lake Harmony he is already a Level Five and finally his mother comes to take him home.

Well, in my opinion it’s a really touching but also very scaring story, because regarding the fact that real boot camps existed as well, it’s thrilling that punishments like this were really an option for desperate parents. I am sure there would have been effective alternatives that are less brutal and also don’t cost that much, because these Boot Camps were really expensive. A crucial question is whether it’s allowed to treat young people this cruel way or not, just to achieve a better behaviour. 

The treatments for achieving a better behaviour and to reach a higher level, as it’s described in Rhue’s book, are for example the TI room. In this room you are forced to lie face down on the floor and then be kicked and beaten with a bat.

The methods that were used in the novel are very similar to those in real Boot Camps. In real boot camps this TI room is called “get-right-room”. In the novel it is also recognizable that this re-education program doesn’t really work. Connor doesn’t behave as they want him to and therefore he gets punished. The punishment doesn’t seem to be a signal for him to start to behave brave. After some time he starts to pretend to be aware of what he has done wrong, just to get into a higher level. That his friends Sarah and Pauly are already more than a year at Lake Harmony shows that the program really doesn’t work, at least not for everybody. The malfunctioning system suits with the failure of real Boot Camps that are known as being ineffective. 

As already mentioned, they are indeed good alternatives for “bad” teenagers to get a re-education. It’s really not necessary to send them to a Boot Camp where they are treated unfairly and invest so much money in it. Especially not when they are not even effective!
Maybe I’ll make another post and tell you a bit about alternatives, as I’m really interested in it :)

An untypical Easter tradition

I think most people have a typical image of Easter, namely spending the day with their families and friends, maybe attending a church and receiving presents and gifts in form of Easter eggs and stuff. In Slovakia instead it’s a little bit different than in Austria and Ireland for example. As it’s likely that you are going to think it’s absolutely crazy, I would be interested in your opinion on this. So just let me know :)

As most Slovakian people are Christians, they celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection as well, but just in a more uncommon way. I’m going to tell you about my experience, which was actually more surprising than I thought it would be. I knew that the typical tradition is that boys and men splash some water in women’s faces or even go to stranger’s houses with a bucket filled with cold water and pour it over women.  That’s not really nice, is it? But that was just the beginning. In addition they spank women with a kind of birch made out of wood with strips of cloth tied on it and everytime they get to spank a woman, she has to tie a new strip of cloth on his birch. You might think now that women are a bit disadvantaged, but don’t worry - they do something in return. They need to give the men chocolate eggs. Isn’t that lovely? Hahah

Well, that’s what normally happens. However, in my case it was all still a bit crazier. The doorbell was ringing and I went to open the door. Neighbors were at the door and while one of them took my hands and the other one my legs, they put me under the shower and showered me with all my clothes on. I had never thought that your clothes get so much heavier when they are wet haha

I kind of like this tradition because it’s really not something typical that you see in everyday life. In Slovakia it’s also not common to exchange presents. The aim of it is to spend the day together and to enjoy the tradition.
So if you have planned to ever visit Slovakia and to experience something really traditional, then I recommend you to go to Slovakia in the Easter breaks :D