A Day in My Life

Yesterday was a typical, nice day of my life. I had to get up early, at seven o’clock, because Tuesday’s Russian class starts at 8:15. I usually don’t like having to get up that early, but at least I got to enjoy a beautiful sunrise from my balcony. After my usual breakfast – cornflakes with milk and a glass of fruit juice – and my usual morning hygiene I went on my way to the university. I sat through a Russian and an English lesson, and then it was time for my lunch break. After grabbing a sandwich and a fruit smoothie from a nearby shop, I returned to do some of my Russian homework together with a group of fellow students. I had hardly completed half of my tasks when the next Russian lesson started, followed by a somewhat tiring Spanish lesson. When the clock finally showed 16:45 I was starving. I went to my good friend Simon’s place where we made lasagna. To be perfectly honest, he made it while I grated the cheese, but it turned out deliciously. In fact, we made so much I’ll be eating it for the next two days. When we had finished our meal we did some more of our Russian homework and then I went on my way home. In the tram I met an old flat mate of mine who had spent half a year in Peru and had just returned to Graz. We had a quick catch-up chat before we had to separate at Jakominiplatz, as we were going in different directions, but promised to keep in touch. At home, I stacked two to three servings of lasagna into the fridge and called my love. After my conversation with him (mainly about our weekend-plans), I tried to finish the book I’m currently reading, but a few chapters before the end I dozed off.

Group Text "The European Year of..."

Here's the link to our group text:

http://flaviusleahu.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/final-correction-european-year-of.html

When the dead are not allowed to die

In the United States the case of the 13-year-old Jahi McMath has regularly been making the headlines since December. The girl had had her tonsils removed surgically, but after the procedure she went into cardiac arrest and was declared brain dead shortly afterwards. Her family didn't accept her passing and wanted her to be kept on life support, while the hospital and the coroner wanted her to be taken off the ventilator, so they could start their investigation on Jahi's death.
The family moved to court, insisting the girl showed signs of life, but the judge declared her brain dead, too. Now - with the coroner's consent, since she's legally dead - the girl's body, attached to a ventilator, has been released from the hospital and transferred to an undisclosed facility while Jahi's family keeps on hoping for her recovery.

I of course understand the tragedy of the situation, the grief of the family and that they are hoping beyond reason that their little girl might recover, but the sad fact is that she's dead. Her brain has stopped working and even if they keep her on life support for the next twenty years that's not going to change, unless a true miracle happens. By prolonging her body's "life" they are just prolonging their own suffering.

If they let her die peacefully instead of clinging on to an irrational hope, they could start grieving and, over time, come to terms with their fate. Maybe this would also be in Jahi's best interest.
If I were to fall into a coma or be declared brain dead, I would want to be taken off life support as soon as possible. To me, the idea of being in a completely helpless state, only kept alive by machines, is utterly humiliating. I'm aware that probably nobody of my friends and family would want to make this decision, but if the doctors tell you that it's unlikely that I'm ever going to be my old self again, then please pull the plug on me. I do not wish to be, under any circumstances, some helpless, motionless, lifeless being that is nothing more than the focus of pity, grief, and sadness.

Vocabulary Notebook

My approach to mastering the Porter vocabulary is a rather traditional one, meaning I rely a lot on paper an a pen. I usually go through the chapters and seek out the words of which I don't know the exact meaning or pronunciation, then I write them down in my notebook. My next step is to look them up in the online version of the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary. I really like this dictionary because its so clearly arranged. It shows you exactly what you need to know and there are recordings of every word. After reading through the page, I copy the information relevant for me into my notebook.

Sorry for the bad quality, but my webcam won't do any better (at least I don't know how to get it to make a better picture). I hope you get the idea anyways.


I also use the vocab lists on vocabulary.com, but I prefer to work with that after studying my vocabulary notebook. On the backside of the notebook I write down words, collocation, or idiomatic expressions I encounter in books I read and which I haven't known before or particularly want to remember.

My English Pronunciation Progress

Over the past few week I have tried to improve my English pronunciation in order to make it sound more "American". To accomplish that I've done some exercises and watched a few videos from our teachers' pronunciation practice page.

I tried a few of the Merriam-Webster's Perfect Pronunciation exercises, but I think that they are not that useful. Different words and sentences are pronounced by native speakers and you are supposed to repeat them correctly, but they don't give you any tips on how the sounds are produced.

I also had a look at the videos on manythings.com. Since one of the sounds I feel I still have to work on a little is the "r" sound, I watched the videos about words containing it. These videos didn't really help me at all, because they focus on words with the endings "-er" or "-re", which I don't have any problems with. I have difficulties pronouncing double "r"s correctly, like in "horror", and none of the videos were about this type of words.

I've practiced quite a bit over the last weeks and I think that I've made considerable progress on the "v" sound that I used to pronounce more like a "w". The only thing I still have to improve now is the "rr" in the middle of words, but I can't pronounce this sound properly in other languages as well, so maybe this is an innate problem. Nevertheless, I will try to solve also my last pronunciation issues.

Teacher's Feedback on my Summary

Summary of "Europe already has one foot in the 'Japanese' deflation grave"

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 analyses the risk of deflation for the Eurozone.

According to the author, Europe is at risk of deflation which would cause the debt in the affected countries to rise. This would be devastating for countries like Spain or Italy that are already having serious debt issues. Their chances to stabilize the national debt decrease sharply with every percentage point inflation drops. Furthermore, austerity measures are widely unpopular in these countries, making it even more unlikely that they will ever be able to achieve a balanced budget.

Evens-Pritchard thinks that a rising inflation rate would prevent deflation from happening, but Germany wants inflation to stay low, because a low inflation rate helps their economy in the short run. However, if deflation settles within the Eurozone, it could soon spread to Germany as well. The author states that the Club Med allies, including France and Italy, should unite in the European Central Bank’s governing council and force Germany to accept a higher inflation rate of around two percent. Instead of imposing counter-measures against deflation the European policy leaders seem to hope for a decade of global growth to help them solve their debt-crisis.

Here's the version that incorporates my teacher's feedback:

Summary of "Europe already has one foot in the 'Japanese' deflation grave"

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 analyses the risk of deflation for the Eurozone.

According to the author, Europe is at risk of deflation which would cause the debt in the affected countries to rise. This would be devastating for countries like Spain or Italy that already have serious debt issues. Their chances to stabilize the national debt decrease sharply with every percentage point inflation drops. Furthermore, austerity measures are widely unpopular in these countries, making it even more unlikely that they will ever be able to achieve a balanced budget.

Evans-Pritchard thinks that a rising inflation rate would prevent deflation from happening, but Germany wants inflation to stay low, because a low inflation rate helps their economy in the short run. However, if deflation settles within the Eurozone, it could soon spread to Germany as well. The author states that the Club Med allies, including France and Italy, should unite in the European Central Bank’s governing council and force Germany to accept a higher inflation rate of around two percent. Instead of imposing counter-measures against deflation the European policy leaders seem to hope for a decade of global growth to help them solve their debt-crisis.

Group Essay: EU-Russia Relationship

Here's the link to the group essay I wrote together with Andrina and Stefanie:

http://andrina-suk.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/group-essay-eu-russia-relationship.html