Yay.

This has just made my day!!!

Provided it means what I think it means ... you will see me jump for joy like you never have before!

(I've spent some time pondering on whether to send it to Luischen via email.
And I've just decided I will! ^^
So: sorry Luischen if you hate me for sending an email to you again, but I just have to on this occasion.)

I feel like ...

... the biggest

IDIOT ON THE PLANET

now.

There you go, life.

I felt like ...

... a bajillion friggin'

NINJAS

two and a half hours ago ...

... but forgot to post it here.
Bugger.

Other news.

• One of the "Something to mull over"-issues has been taken care of:

Breaking Dawn has officially been pre-ordered!!!

Of course, I'll add an update as to when I received it in the end.

• Painters are coming over in about 10 minutes to look at our house.

• Preparations for London have gone into the final round! (That is buying miniature shower gel and checking on the validity of my bank card.)
  

Countdown.

Remaining days until birthday: 7

Number of presents which are not money: 0

Amount of happiness created by this: *blowingraspberries*

Something to mull over.

Note to myself: if you put a remote control in between the pages of a loose leaf binder, the binder will not lie flat unless you remove the remote again. Hm ...

Here I am, wrecking my brain once again. Honestly, sometimes I wish I was stupid, so I could not think as much as I do.
What it is that gets me thinking? Well, essentially two things:

1. Do I want to get an iPod for my birthday (which, btw, is only 12 days away) or not? In fact, I do want one, but now I got a cheap mp3-player from my neighbour (which makes me lose my temper every two seconds, cos it doesn't work the way I want it to) and I still have my MiniDisc-player which I just love but it's got a crack in its casing and so maybe it's going to die very soon - these two make me feel bad about getting another technical device designed to play music.
2. Do I want to pre-order Breaking Dawn with amazon (they will ship it on August 4th, i.e. I'd have it August 5th or 6th) or do I want to try my luck at some bookseller's in Vienna? I have tried to get hold of a copy of Eclipse in Vienna two months ago (shortly before the release of the new edition) and after 3 hours of hopeless searching made my way home to order it online after all. Nevertheless, if they had it someplace - I would have it on the day of release and not one or two days later. However, if they don't have it, I would only be able to order it on the 4th and hence they'd ship it on the 5th and I would really have to wait until the 6th to finally hold it in my hands ... Is anyone still following???

Any suggestions?

Thoughts of a dying teacher.

Here are some thoughts I just included in my written task for one of my didactics classes at Uni. I don't know, but somehow those issues never leave me and I end up wrecking my head again and again about how to solve them or even what to think of them. Maybe someone would like to share their ideas on this one with me ^^ ...

We then came up with some activities which follow these rules of task-based design. I have tried some of these with my students and again, I found them successful with students of average or higher language levels. All of my slow-learning students, even those aged sixteen upwards, had a fairly difficult time coming up with ideas about the content of their writing even with those task-based instances of practice. I could not help but notice that some of these difficulties were due to the lack of practice the students experience in their school routine. To me, this is a big issue, as I can relate to the thoughts behind the teachers’ decision not to include extensive writing practice. In almost every case, working with lower-level students requires a great amount of patience as well as help and guidance. This guidance, however, is often needed at a level which cannot be provided in normal school teaching, as there the teacher does not have the chance to focus on each individual. Nevertheless, if the students do not receive the help they need, they are prone to be unsuccessful to a point that makes the practice irrelevant in itself and also in the long-run (as no mere further explanation could resolve their problems). Hence, it seems perfectly understandable to me that teachers in such schools omit the concept of essay writing from their teaching.

Personally, I am usually at a loss with those students for a very long time until - when I've almost given up - they start writing "like Gods" ^^ straight out of the blue.
Consequently, I haven't yet been able to identify any action or kind of support which aids their learning (maybe it is their own miraculous development that gets them started and none of my help at all - what the heck do I know?). Or is it the mere amount of practice?

P.S.: If you don't get the reference in the title, check here. (The video is kind of strange, but it's the best version of the song in album quality I could find.)

I do have something to say.

That is:

Why does no-one want to save some rainforest???

Maybe I should write a new post.

And maybe it should be an interesting one.

Only complication: I am by no means interesting. So why should my posts be??? Hmmm ...

I just wrote a big pile of shit and deleted it again - for lack of personal interest.
So ...
No new post today!

For educational purposes.

Konichiwa Bitches by Robyn

Poll.

Could everyone who visits my blog please vote for one of the two Breaking Dawn countdowns?!?!?!
Please just comment on this post and state which one's your favourite.

That would be soooooo nice!!!

P.S. concerning my own opinion:
I prefer the layout of the first one, but I just love the milliseconds-idea of the second one.
So ... it's up to you!

Recommendation of the day.

So much for Sex and the City's dreams of women having sex like men.

Quote of the day.

Bella Swan: Are you gonna tell me how you stopped the van?
Edward Cullen: Yeah ... uhm ... I had an adrenaline rush ... it's very common ... you can google it.

context

Recommendation of the day.

I know, it's been out for a while (5 years to be exact), but I think it's still far from being dated:

Absolution by Muse

(I also know it takes some balls to listen to it at first, but once you've made it past the edginess it definitely pays off.)

Did I mention ...

... the 100 hp????

No, I think I forgot :-D.

My new baby ...

... will be delivered some time between October and November.

Yeah!!!!!!

Oh - just in case you've been wondering - this is what it will (approximately) look like:


(Mine'll have different rims and the SkyDome roof, but the rest here's just fine!)

Quote of the day.

An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.

Agatha Christie

Information no one needs, but everyone wants to have.

Nazgûl vs. Labradoodle

How the battle ends ...

How I don't believe in lies.

Promising title, innit?
Well, to be quite honest, it's by far not as interesting as it seems.

What I really want to tell you is that I am not going to believe the lies the Austrian economy is going to spread about how much they earn in all of this Euro 2008 shit.
Thank God I've got my own sources which are slightly more reliable (but really only slightly). The mere rent for two sales booths on the infamous "Fanmeile" around the Ringstraße is 50 000€. Please note: this does not include electricity, staff or the products sold in the respective booths.
Total income of those two boths yesterday by the end of the game in Vienna: 150€.

Hmm ... why does that not quite add up in my pretty little equation???
But I'm sure, Austria will only - I repeat: only - profit from this wonderful diversion in our boring "small state"-routine. I am absolutely positive about this. 100%. The Euro is so good, I wonder how we've ever managed to live without it.

Nevertheless, I think I am going to send a letter to the government, reminding them of subtracting the money spent on the accomodation of all the hooligans in our beautiful - no, marvellous - prisons from the total of Euro 2008 profits. Yeah, definitely going to do so!
Anyone know the exact address?

I don't know.

I really don't know what to write - actually now I do:

My mum just told me that one of dad's colleagues / employees quit today.
That wouldn't be too bad, if dad's branch didn't only consist of him, two others (one other that is, now) and a secretary.
Even this wouldn't be quite so bad if they hadn't just signed a huge contract which would in fact require much larger manpower.
What's more, this guy was a friend of ours. A friend - we used to meet and have dinner together (both our families), we used to go on sightseeing tours in Vienna, we used to go to the theatre ... and that's our personal "Thank you for all of this, but now I'll have to kick you where it hurts most."-event, or what???

That useless old git pretended to be severely ill and have tons of doctor's appointments when in fact he was probably applying for other jobs. Because he didn't have enough free time for his family life. Does anyone ever even consider that no one working in this field can ever have spare time. Don't ask me, when my dad last took more than 3 days off in a row. And don't even think about asking me, when on these rare occassions his phone has ever been silent for more than 20 minutes!!!

That's fucking life, get used to it.
But don't, JUST FRIGGIN DON'T, betray your friends like this!!!
That makes you the biggest twat I have ever so much as heard of in my entire life - and that's for sure!