Guilty pleasures

Hello there! I’m not exactly sure who it is I’m addressing and whether anyone will actually read this, but here goes. This is my first blog post, so bear with me until I get the hang of it. Initially I wanted my debut to be about a topic concerning "university life" but right now I don’t want to get into that. I’m swamped with homework at the moment and I don’t want to spend the little free time I have philosophising about my life as a student. But don’t worry. The Easter break is coming up and I will share my pearls of wisdom on "university life" - generously and relentlessly. There will be no escape.

Last weekend was pretty uneventful. All I did was finish off some homework (most of it already way overdue). So naturally when I finally got it all done by Sunday afternoon, I wanted to relax a little. But what to do? Luckily the weather was bad so I didn’t have to bother finding excuses to NOT engage in any kind of physical activity. So I ended up doing what I always do when I don’t know what to do. I went to the video store. I don’t know about you guys but when I’m in a video store I usually have no idea what to rent. But this time I came prepared and brought my "must watch" movies list. Munich, An Education, Flags of our Fathers...and so on – all award-winning movies, of course.

Then suddenly I see One Missed Call, staring at me from the top of the shelf. I could almost feel it call out to me, its tantalizing cover seducing me and for a fraction of a second my hand, with a mind of its own, started to reach out for it.
But then I regained my composure and hurried away. Having read the scathing reviews I KNEW it was something to avoid at all costs and I felt shameful, even dirty for having let my guard down and most importantly for secretly knowing that I had wanted it.

You see, this is my guilty pleasure. My not so secret addiction. Crappy movies. While others read movie reviews to find out what to watch, I scan them to find the ones you should avoid, the ones that rank the lowest on rottentomatoes or metacritic. "Do not watch under any circumstances" is my kind of recommendation. However, I don’t just look for the "so bad they are actually good" kind of quality. Just plain awful is fine by me.

Anyway, I ended up creeping back when nobody was around and quickly snatched a copy of One Missed Call a.k.a. the movie about "a ghost in cell phones that kills people". Having already given in to temptation - no wonder my "must watch" movie list is almost two pages long by now - I grabbed a copy of Bitch Slap as well on the way out. Needless to say I had a fun afternoon.

If someone can offer some psychological insight into my addiction to crappy movies (especially horror), please feel free to leave an evaluation in the comment section below. While I call it a guilty pleasure, my friends say it’s more like an alarming addiction that has gotten out of control. Of course you could also tell me all about your own guilty pleasure or secret addictions.

Finally, leaving my first virtual footprint..

Happy Monday!

Since this is my first blog, let's start with an introduction, shall we?

I know I have already done so on my profile but there are still a couple of things worth-mentioning. As you have probably figured out, I like shoes ("obsessed" is such an ugly word; I wouldn't call shoes an obsession - but later more) and I own a lot of them. Actually, I don't even know how many pairs I own but they surely exceed the 100 mark. (By far!!) Having owned up to this, I'd like to tell you a little anecdote from my life: the other day my Mum came to visit me at my flat and upon entering she asked, "Have you got friends over?" At first I thought my mother was losing it, but then it struck me - she got distraught by the amount of shoes piled up along the corridor. True story! But she can't blame me - her being the archetype of a shoe-addict. She and a very generous Dad (I call him CC on shopping trips - an abbreviation I will resolve in another post) have not only introduced me to this possibility of spending a great deal of money on shoes, but have also furthered this "obsession". Here we are, that ugly word again.

Friends do sometimes call me an addict or talk of a severe case of obsession when discussing my little weakness. And finally I can prove them wrong: A recent article in the German magazine "Spiegel online" profiles Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, who owns more than 3000 pairs of shoes and rejects all accusations of being a shoe-addict. So, there: 3000 pairs and not a trace of addiction. And until I own 3000 pairs of shoes, many years will pass (Marcos is what, 80?!) and by then I'll probably prefer ugly, flat shoes.

Having set this straight, there is still one more point left that has to be clarified. Although high-heels, boots and sandals take up a huge amount of my collection, do not mistake me for the girly-girl type. I am into all sorts of sports (especially snowboarding and skiing), travelling (I do not mind sleeping in tents or hostels of the worst category) and music festivals (again, tents, dirt, etc.). I do own numerous pairs of Converse high-tops and Vans slip-ons. When partying though, I do like my girly shoes best, I have to admit.

But what is it then, that fascinates me and millions of other women about shoes? There a so many possible answers. One is that shoes are a perfect means of communication. With shoes one can express one’s personality and attitudes. Think about it: which shoes are you wearing at the moment? What do they say about you and your personality? Another important point might be the fact that shoes – in contrast to any other type of clothing – always fit. Clothes change shape and lose their original color over many washes whereas shoes, if taken care of, stay the same. Additionally, shoes not only complement your outfit but they can also have an effect on your body. High-heels, for example, not only make you about 9 to 12cm taller than you actually are but also have a huge impact on the way you stand and walk – something trainers could never do.
There are surely numerous answers to the question of what’s so fascinating about shoes, all ideas welcome. Just leave a comment!

The one I am interested the most, however, is the one mentioned above: shoes as a means to convey your own very personal message to the outside world. Who are you, what are you like? Why these shoes?

For the blog posts to follow I will stroll around Salzburg University with my second "obsession" (this beauty) and try to take pictures of shoes which might impress you, make you laugh out loud or just make you think. I am very excited about this project and I hope you'll enjoy my flights of fancy.

The Ultimate Helper

Five situations in which coffee makes your student life easier

by Mokka

5 Have you ever been totally out of energy and couldn’t go any further with your reading assignments and preparation for classes the next day? A double shot of espresso might be the answer. Especially if you are the procrastinating type of student who can never decide which of the thousand things on his To-Do List to start with and later realizes that he hasn’t actually started with anything at all. In cases like this nothing is more helpful than a midnight coffee. It not only wakes you up but also gives you new ideas and hopes.

4 Student life can be uncomfortable and unpleasant. This is definitely the case when the person responsible for the university heating system has once again taken a day off (or even a week), which regularly seems to be the case in more than one of the buildings at Salzburg University. Sound familiar? Well, you might want to prepare yourself for the next lecture and bring along something hot to cling to (and I’m not talking about the student sitting next to you). A big cup of steaming coffee does double duty.

3 Honestly, did you ever think that a whole shelf of books in your faculty’s library would be rightfully yours? No? Then you can regard yourself as lucky, one of the ten percent of students who don’t have problems bringing back library books on time. Computerizing the card catalogue just hasn’t made our life easier. Even though you would just have to log onto the library system and press the “renew all” button, but it’s just not as easy as it sounds. Next time you bring back your library books and they are once again - not quite on time - try to bribe the library assistant with a cup of delicious coffee. Investing in that cup of coffee could save you a lot of money.

2 Imagine a perfect lunch break: sitting on the grassy bank of the Salzach River totally absorbed in your soon-to-be favorite book from your reading list. It is a warm and sunny afternoon and you finally have some time to relax from your busy morning What could make such a hypothetical afternoon even better? Of course, a delicious and cooling iced coffee…. Admittedly, this scenario sounds quite utopian for Salzburg weather conditions since you usually spend your lunch breaks in a cafeteria that is so packed that you have to sit at a table with totally strange people. Reality has you back. What remains is the iced coffee (though you’ll have to venture beyond the cafeteria to get one).

1 According to the almighty wisdom of Wikipedia the Ethiopians were the first to discover the energizing effect of the coffee bean. Over four centuries ago these people might not even have realized what great deed they performed for humanity. Thanks to Leonhard Rauwolf (unfortunately a German botanist not an Austrian), who was the first European to recognize the magic of the coffee plant, it is now easier for students to deal with their daily struggles and frustrations. No matter if you are an early bird and usually get up at 4:30 a.m. to finish your homework and cram for the upcoming test, or if you are a night owl, coffee has no time limit and keeps you awake whenever you need it.

Getting To Know Salzburg (Part One)

Anyone who has ever traveled to Salzburg on vacation or on business cannot deny that although the city is incredibly old (traces of human settlements can be dated back to the Neolithic Age) it has a certain freshness to it. Of course one might argue that this is due in part to the lovely landscape of the mountain ranges of the Alps and the Salzach River running through the city. In truth the freshness of the city is ascribable to the daily life of its inhabitants.

Salzburg has a very diligent daily life and people are always busily bustling along in the narrow streets of the city off to one appointment or another. For someone that is not from Salzburg this aspect of the city makes it seem rather lively- which Salzburg is most of the time no doubt. One can find people rushing off to the bakery or grocery store, taking a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, riding their bikes to work or university, etc . . .. [The people riding in the horse-drawn carriages however, are typically tourists 99% of the time].

Amidst the scurry of people however, it is never too hard to spot a tourist or non-native along with the help of certain stereotypes that have evolved over many years. Here are a few examples:

Americans are: more casually dressed (and tend not to care as much about their appearance as their European counter-parts do), boisterous, easily recognized as Americans when they try to speak a different language other than their own.

Here's an example of how an American might sound when speaking German.

Hear what American tourists from Arkansas have to say while visiting Salzburg:

British are: easily recognized in passing—the accent becomes immediately apparent. By looking at them they might be confused with an American because of their apparel.

Italians are: always traveling in very large groups, are noisy, and rarely make an effort to speak German. They also tend to wear dark sunglasses and dress in designer clothes.

Hear what the Italian tourists had to say while visiting Salzburg:

[Note: When listening to the clip it is obvious that the woman who made the recording was very much taken away by the Italian charm of the Italian men surrounding her.]

Japanese are: always traveling in very large groups and always taking pictures.

[Note: (Pictured Above) The remainders of a very large tourist group, taking their time and not walking as fast as the rest of the group. See the Camera's in their hands?]

Stereotypes aside, there are many other tourists not mentioned above that wander the streets of Salzburg.

Anyone who has ever visited Salzburg knows that the city itself is not very big. For some the city may seem crowded, but in reality that is not the case. According to Emporis.com the current population of the city of Salzburg is 143,978 people. Take that number and compare it to the population of Austria, which is roughly 8.2million people. That means that approximately .02% of the population of Austria live in the city of Salzburg. [Makes one think twice about how busy the streets of Salzburg actually are, doesn’t it?] Nevertheless, even though the population of the city is rather minimal great deals of tourists are in the city every day.

[Note: Salzburg is a favorite tourist stop (in Austria), and at times the number of tourists outnumber the locals by a large margin (especially during peak times of the year. E.g. Christmas, Easter, Summer Holidays, etc . . .]

Obviously Salzburg is not like New York, or Paris, or Rome, with their overcrowded streets where one normally can’t tell their left from their right. No, Salzburg really cannot be compared to those cities. Salzburg is its people and their traditions. Salzburg is the mountain range of the Alps. Salzburg is the river that runs through it. Salzburg is definitely something. Yet there is so much more to Salzburg than its tourists.

I'm signing off, so if you want to read more come back again soon!

TTFN- Ta Ta For Now!

Am I a modern slave?

It’s Wednesday afternoon:

My phone rings. The display says, “Boss is calling”. Should I answer the call? Hmhh, I kind of have to.
“Hallo Nona, how are you doing?”
“Fine, what’s up?”
“What are you doing on Friday?”
I don’t like such questions. I quickly think about it but do I really have another option, other than saying yes? There is such a lot to do for university but on the other hand I´m broke. I have to work.
“Nothing, I can work. When and where do I have to be?”
“We are going to Vienna and we will meet at 6 a.m.”
What? Unbelievable? Oh dear, I said yes! Wrong decision. But my answer is:
“Okay and when are we going back?”
“5 am the next morning?”
“Okay, see you at 6”
That’s all I need to know. This is going to be a long day and an even longer night. And then I start to count how many hours I will be working and how much money I will earn. It doesn’t really cheer me up.

If life gives you Lemons...

… you might suddenly have me, CoCo Lemon in your life. No need for lemonade now. Right? I just want you to know that I am a – sometimes sarcastic – optimist. Usually my mantra is ‘everything will work out’ (especially when you work really hard for it). People keep telling me the same thing. When I am talking to my parents, my brothers, my friends, my colleagues, my teachers – it seems as though they have united and they are the ones who have faith. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
What I intend to write about is not limited to Salzburg. It’s supposed to be about the painful application process for an exchange year – wherever. It is not surprising that many students give up along the way. I actually started my application process about one and a half years ago… and an end is still not in sight. The first thing to remember is that the application is long and time-consuming. There are many questions that you need to answer before you can get started: Where do I want to go? How long do I think I want to go there for? At which point during my studies would it be most beneficial? Once you have answered these questions you should start collecting information about programs, universities, financial aid – to name but a few things. At this point you will have already mastered about one hundredth of the way. Just to keep things in perspective.
Next step: talk to colleagues (who have been abroad or want to go as well) and professors, and try to locate the coordinators for the different programs and universities. Visit the websites of the universities you are interested in. Another ingenious idea I don’t mind sharing with you: change your desktop background to a picture of the University of Your Choice! Very subtle, I know. (It is easier to stay focused that way, believe me.) While researching universities, try to find an old CV you might still have saved somewhere on your computer. You will need it. And start thinking about what is so great about yourself. Not to boost your self-confidence but to convince the ones who decide whether and where you will end up that you are the best candidate. If I remember correctly, it took me approximately six months to get to this point. I finally knew where I wanted to go, when, and for how long. Since I was pretty satisfied with my grades and the progress of my studies, I thought I was heading in the right direction. Well, at least then I thought I was. And then life gave me lemons…
Yours truly,
CoCo Lemon

Number One

Why, hello there! You decided to read my blog, I’m excited!
I want to use this platform to share all the little bits of wisdom and ponderings, daydreams and wonderings of my life with you, gentle reader. Ahh, makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?

Well, if you’ve read the "about me" part of my profile, you already know what my life is all about – jobs, school, private life – and that’s where many of my insights come from.

I’m the nanny of three sweet children, ages two through six, henceforward referred to as monsters one, two and three. I love hanging out with them. Well … cater to their every snotty need, more specifically. You can learn a lot from children: silly songs, patience, what not to feed the dog. You name it.
So that’s part-time job numero uno.

Numero dos requires a lot less responsibility, but a lot more endurance. I work the Rent-A-Segway booth in the Salzburg city center. I rent out the Segways, teach people how to ride them, do city tours (yes, on a Segway), etc. Less responsibility as in one Segway = 7000 bucks; one child = priceless. More endurance? You see, I can handle listening to the Hi-5 Christmas Special for the umpteenth time regardless of the season. However, I find it a lot harder to handle a choir of Segway-riding, camera-wielding Sound of Music enthusiasts on a two-hour tour around town.

But I digress. So you see, most of my inspiration comes from working with children and tourists, two categories of people who have brought forward some of the most fascinating specimens of our kind. I enjoy my work immensely and would never give it up even though my jobs do cut into school time quite a bit.
Ah, yes. School. I go to university in order to learn, to entertain myself, to meet people, to feel smug for later on in life. But mainly in order to learn, of course, and because my parents made me. I still manage to suck some inspiration out of school and out of the things I learn there, the books we read. But studying philology has killed 90% of my love of literature. Quite dead. However, I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to revive it within a week or two of having received my diploma.

And my third major fount of inspiration besides the above-mentioned and eavesdropping on old ladies on the bus is my life as the helicopter mom of the apartment I share with four other people as well as a crazy cat and a Methuselah of a hamster. (And five to ten Mediterranean flour moths. I wish those doggone things would just go and die already!) There is always something going on at our house and usually whatever is going on is accompanied by our housemate M practicing her hammered dulcimer in the background. (You can get a degree in that, by the way. See, you learn something new every day.)

So, as you may have figured out on your own by now, gentle reader, I can recycle many a trivial experience into some jim-dandy worldly wisdom. And you can be part of it all!
Ever wonder how the things I do to afford my degree in this beautiful city make me feel? How does my degree as a whole make me feel? How does the beautiful city make me feel?
Learn all about it in my blog!
Also, discover how being aware of the fact that the only monster-approved recipe for waffles is on page 142 of the Baker’s Bible saves my life every Tuesday. Learn how using the words “cebu” and “water buffalo” in a simple song not only produces a most incredible effect but may also turn out to be crucial for my progress at the University of Salzburg (which I so diligently attend). Find out why I’m haunted by visions of the Easter Bunny on a Segway. And not a cute, fluffy pink Easter Bunny either. More like … well, have you seen the movie Donnie Darko?

To be continued …

'Horror books' aka 'The genre we love to hate'

Since this will be my first post on my new blog I thought I might use my day off from the university to really get into this. But as you might have guessed already, at university, a day off very rarely is a day without work. My to-do list for the up-coming weekend is growing daily. However, I am not here to mope or anything.

What I actually wanted to write about today are books. Not just any kind, mind you, but I will get to that in a minute. I have several seminars this semester and for two of them I have to read several books. I picked those up yesterday from the library and didn’t quite have time to read the synopsis at the back just then, but now that I have I am looking forward to reading them. They are horror novels, the first being Patrick McGraths’s Spider and the second being John Fowles’ The Collector.

It seems that in both cases I will have a ‘mad monologist’ on my hands. While horror was not a genre I used to like very much, ever since I was introduced to Steven King’s works I have been undeniably drawn in. I suppose it all started one evening when I was home alone (don’t most things?). I think I was 13 and very excited because this was the first time they were gone for the whole night. Obviously I watched TV for as long as I could and while skipping through the programmes I stumbled over the movie Carrie. Needless to say it was quite late, dark outside, but I still couldn’t resist watching. Also needless to say, I was scared out of my wits by the end and grabbed my cat before going to bed. Being all alone that night was really not an option.

But then I started doing some reading about the author and started reading It, which is doubtlessly one of King’s most well-known novels. Since at more than 1000 pages it is quite a long book, it took me a while to work through it as a 13-year-old, and even though some scenes made me cringe and shiver I couldn’t stop. I suppose this is one of those cases where the ‘fascination of the abomination’ (another book I read much later and really liked: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) took over. King’s writing style is so very compelling, and I remember several instances when my parents actually had to not-quite-but-almost force me to put the book away and go to sleep. Not that sleep came very quickly those nights, mind you.

My knowledge about Steven King as an author does actually not go very much further than knowing that he is famous, has written a lot of books and is read by people all over the world. I thought long and hard about this after having finished It. I just find it fascinating how he plays with base human fears, and the atmosphere he creates him his books is something I haven’t ever found again in quite the same fashion. He combines the idyllic with grotesque and horrific happenings, which ultimately scare you even more because you don’t expect a picture perfect place to become the setting for murder or slaughter.

While I liked It very much, my favourite Stephen King novel is The Dark Half. The plot is intricate with several layers: the protagonist author Thad Beaumont creates a pen name under which he writes edgy, gritty crime stories. His pseudonym, George Stark, is a lot more successful than he is, but Thad is not comfortable with the way Stark takes control of him during the writing process. Thad decides to quite literally burry his pseudonym and at the same time comes clean to his audience: Thad and Stark are one and the same person. However, Stark then starts manifesting himself as a flesh and blood person with no moral compass whatsoever and goes on a killing spree, taking out all the people involved in his ‘burial’. Towards the end it is revealed that, as a fetus, Thad had a twin but had absorbed him in utero. The remains were still in his skull but were removed when Thad was a child.

One can argue that Thad has multiple personality disorder or that George Stark was really only an evil spirit, but what fascinated me about this book was how King spun this mystery: for example people were killed by Stark but Thad’s fingerprints were all over the place because they share the same prints and the same DNA. As the reader, one knows that the air-tight alibis really are legit but Thad’s wife’s frustration and Thad’s confusion are so very palpable. Also, George Stark, as cruel and evil as he is, is still a very compelling character. He sees himself as a living and breathing person and in his warped mind killing to stay alive is a legitimate course of action.

It sounds absurd but I found myself almost sympathizing with him in several instances because the need to live and the wish not to die is so very human. In some instances he also seems almost childish in his reasoning. The discrepancy between an adult person who childishly maintains that ‘thinking happy thoughts’ is important fascinates and troubles the reader in equal measure. This is also part of Steven King’s ‘genius’. You feel sorry for the villains, and while you clearly know that they are violent, unstable and dangerous, the writing makes it almost impossible not to be drawn to these characters.

I can highly recommend this novel because the read is absolutely worth it. Obviously, I am a little biased, but I think most people will find it enjoyable once they start reading it. In the end, sometimes being scared is fun. It’s thrilling to push your heat-rate through the roof, because from time to time everybody needs that ‘kick’.

Blogging in Uni.son

We're a group of students of English at the University of Salzburg who have decided to blog about what it's like to live, work and study in Salzburg. Since this blog is a part-time affair, we won't be following a regular schedule with our posts: they may come in trickles or in waves.

We've chosen the title Uni.son with the Uni.versity in mind; the topics we will be covering will be as varied as the voices covering them.

Your ideas, letters and submissions can be sent to unison.blog.salzburg@gmail.com. You can access the RSS feed at this address.