the place I stayed at.
The two small coast towns are quite cute. a typical tourist town center, with overpriced icecream, pizza restaurants, bars and nto to forget those typical dark skinned vendours that sell everything: food, clothing,fake gucci bags, bracelets, everything. but luckily some do not get annoying about it, whilst others dont let go of you, especially if you have shown some sort of interrest.
Appart from the sardine private beaches, the really really really cool thing about tirrenia was the small green WWF protected strip of mediteranean forrest. very cool.
more to come
Friday, 17 July 2009
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Italy
I am starting another series of anecdotes of my italy vacation i am currently on. TIs my last day, and I just discovered the internet terminal of the hotel, so i am going to finish at home.
this year I have a short vacation. not viositing 5 countries, no, only visiting 3: holland for IMUNA, switzerland, as a drive through and Italy, near Pisa where I am at this moment.
It was another one of those ad hoc situations. exactly one week ago my parents phoned this hotel they had found online and reserved a room for the night. we got packing, left and found ourselves 650 km furhter south that evening.
the hotel turned out pretty nice, nicer ythan those thing I have stayed in the last few years. no cockroaches like in macedonia or rusty bathtubs, no wood powered heating like in romania and no tiny room giving space for 3 beds and 3 beds only like in slovenia. Dont understand me wrong, I had absolutely nothing against all these hotels, but a nice one is a good change for once.
The little town Tirrenia we are in, is located between the port city of Livorno and Marina di Pisa, where the Arno river flows into the mediterranean sea. It feels like a tourist town, almost a linear settlement along the coastline, though i suppose it only is full of tourists in summer. thats not quite my favourite holiday situation, but it has a nice beach, clear water , sunny weather and gave me time to read my english assignments.
The day trips we took were to Pisa, Florence and today we are going to halt in milano, if we ever get out of here.
that leads me to a last point. my parents. its the last holiday i spent with them, and even though I like my parents and get along quite well with them, there are things that annoy me, the slowness my dad exhibits when he wants to leave the hotel, even to go to the beach, and simply the lack of hanging out with people my age. its awkward meeting people with parents at your back, even more so if you speak good 5 words of the language. but i am here for and with my parents after all and despite all the bitch fighting that occasionally arrises we get along better every day were here.
this year I have a short vacation. not viositing 5 countries, no, only visiting 3: holland for IMUNA, switzerland, as a drive through and Italy, near Pisa where I am at this moment.
It was another one of those ad hoc situations. exactly one week ago my parents phoned this hotel they had found online and reserved a room for the night. we got packing, left and found ourselves 650 km furhter south that evening.
the hotel turned out pretty nice, nicer ythan those thing I have stayed in the last few years. no cockroaches like in macedonia or rusty bathtubs, no wood powered heating like in romania and no tiny room giving space for 3 beds and 3 beds only like in slovenia. Dont understand me wrong, I had absolutely nothing against all these hotels, but a nice one is a good change for once.
The little town Tirrenia we are in, is located between the port city of Livorno and Marina di Pisa, where the Arno river flows into the mediterranean sea. It feels like a tourist town, almost a linear settlement along the coastline, though i suppose it only is full of tourists in summer. thats not quite my favourite holiday situation, but it has a nice beach, clear water , sunny weather and gave me time to read my english assignments.
The day trips we took were to Pisa, Florence and today we are going to halt in milano, if we ever get out of here.
that leads me to a last point. my parents. its the last holiday i spent with them, and even though I like my parents and get along quite well with them, there are things that annoy me, the slowness my dad exhibits when he wants to leave the hotel, even to go to the beach, and simply the lack of hanging out with people my age. its awkward meeting people with parents at your back, even more so if you speak good 5 words of the language. but i am here for and with my parents after all and despite all the bitch fighting that occasionally arrises we get along better every day were here.
end of school
an entire year has passed. one more to go. this year the end of school felt completely different again. even though there was this urge to get out, which started even earlier than last year, we did have exams pretty much the last week. this meant that a last push was necessary. and all at once i was studying studying studying and all the sudden...POOF! schools out. I go to IMUNA, which I PGAd this year, I get my report card and i have off. that went way too fast for me, but I think another great problem is that unlike the other years where summer holidays were two months of trying hard to forget as much as possible, so hat our brains are like "squeaky clean sponges" (mr garvey, the mid IB break does not do that fr me. I cannot let go of school, even though I have been off for two weeks now.
maybe thats because of the homework, I have finished my third and last book for english yesterday, and now "all" I have to worry about are one english essay, one history project my flunked math paper 2 and especially my Extended Essay, all of which are vast (ok, tiny compared to exams but still) parts of my final IB grade.
school should be over, but effectively it is not. Its still the same people, with one exception, the same workload and hopefully the same teachers. we had class the last day and probably are going to continue just where we left off in august. on fluffy "hello welcome to the year stuff" .
Actually i dont want to press the "shut down" button, cuz i know what i do now i dont have to do later, when i want to do other things, like dance, study or sleep.
maybe thats because of the homework, I have finished my third and last book for english yesterday, and now "all" I have to worry about are one english essay, one history project my flunked math paper 2 and especially my Extended Essay, all of which are vast (ok, tiny compared to exams but still) parts of my final IB grade.
school should be over, but effectively it is not. Its still the same people, with one exception, the same workload and hopefully the same teachers. we had class the last day and probably are going to continue just where we left off in august. on fluffy "hello welcome to the year stuff" .
Actually i dont want to press the "shut down" button, cuz i know what i do now i dont have to do later, when i want to do other things, like dance, study or sleep.
Monday, 1 June 2009
Saturday, 23 May 2009
scala and kolacny brothers
yet again i was spending (wasting) my time on youtube in search for the best soundtrack to get me motivated for work.
-> dont try it, it wont work
but instead, when i listened to one of my favourite german songs "hungriges Herz" from the berlin band MIA, I stumbled across a cover version.
At first I really did not care much or it. I found it way too soft, as if washed with fabric softener. I read the recent comments and went back to the original. but one comment never left me:"es kommt doch immer darauf an wo man das lied hört. beim bestuhlten scala konzert passt hunriges herz 100%ig in das wundervolle ambiente. auf einem sommerfestival ist es aber mindestens genauso toll das lied beim mia-gig mitzusingen. dann würde ich von der scala version nichts wissen wollen..." it shows that eeryhting is a matter of perspective. I went back to the scala cover, and noticed to my delight that they had made covers of many different songs, which I flipped through. In the meantime I fell for the band. by now their cover of creep is under "fave links" and the CD in my player.
what I really like is that these girls really can sing. they get the choir acoustics perfect: whistper, loud soft. this creates a real goosebump feeling. secondly, they take the songs and do their own thing with them but still manage to keep the meaning. this means that they can cover a whole range of artists: marylin manson, placebo, kylie minogue, die ärzte, rammstein, U2. thirdly, the arrangement also is pretty neat. often it just is piano played by the conductor, sometimes strings, percussion, depending on what the song needs.
It is calming music mixing the traditional elements of choir with modern texts, meanings and sounds. currently my favourite song (which I have on CD) is the cover of joga by björk.
the girl choir from belgium are playing a gig at the street festival in saarbrücken the first week of my summer break. I hope that i can go see them (yay its even for free) and perhaps meet with some friends from jsut over the border at the same time.
I remain right though. you could criticise that despite great dynamics, the many voices take away the edges which destinguish many artists and songs, but in the end I must agree that it all depends on where you are. a few days later I was back on youtube and clicked on the hungriges herz cover again. this time I didn't get bored half way through, but now value the cover as much as the original, because both carry the message of hurt love in their own way.
the picture is from the choir's website www.kolacny.com
Thursday, 21 May 2009
mshff
when i wrote my entry previously i realised in a shock that we've had this blog more than a year. this means pragathi has been gone for more than a year.
its unbelievable how quickly time can fly, i still can remember casablaca like yesterday, the roaming around town (I actually know a lot more cool places i could ahve taken you to now), bugging teachers and driving fellow students insane.
time for a news update. a lot has changed. ISS has changed. the atmosphere of a desperate clinging, the suspense before the potential fall, the depression so to speak, is gone now. with the new headmaster, not that much has changed, but you can feel a completely different atmosphere. despite tense financial crisis, there is new hope. desperation has moved on, and teachers and students alike notice it.
but what concretely is new? the lunch stand has moved back into the fishbowl, they also sell soup now, and a brezel for 45 cents, good for the poor hungry student (eg. me), the necessity of a weekly assembly is gone, and next year we shall get better fieldtrips again. the this years one was horribly organised.
on the other side, the down sides, which mark iss life are still there: mr. t and my new "wonderful" tok teacher, a not (well) functioning student coucil, too much homework, too many assessments and the usual people you dont care much for seeing.
social life is much the same too. theres the ppl that drink and go out, and the ones that dont, and the americans. nothing really new. then endless on and off of couples: let me see, maddie and michael are going out, jeff has a gf in 10th grade, yannik and jule on their second run etc etc etc.
as for my own aspirations im still into medicine and of course dancing. I still am passionate about things i like and probably annoy everyone with it, and apart from a slight german diction reform (i weeded out most of the slang I hope) and a weird love life, its as you know me :). well to the last part I must add that fayes love life is definately much more interesting. Im not too keen on mine rumouring around school.
this time in a year im free(of school/to visit india). wow, rather scary thought(the schooll part).
its unbelievable how quickly time can fly, i still can remember casablaca like yesterday, the roaming around town (I actually know a lot more cool places i could ahve taken you to now), bugging teachers and driving fellow students insane.
time for a news update. a lot has changed. ISS has changed. the atmosphere of a desperate clinging, the suspense before the potential fall, the depression so to speak, is gone now. with the new headmaster, not that much has changed, but you can feel a completely different atmosphere. despite tense financial crisis, there is new hope. desperation has moved on, and teachers and students alike notice it.
but what concretely is new? the lunch stand has moved back into the fishbowl, they also sell soup now, and a brezel for 45 cents, good for the poor hungry student (eg. me), the necessity of a weekly assembly is gone, and next year we shall get better fieldtrips again. the this years one was horribly organised.
on the other side, the down sides, which mark iss life are still there: mr. t and my new "wonderful" tok teacher, a not (well) functioning student coucil, too much homework, too many assessments and the usual people you dont care much for seeing.
social life is much the same too. theres the ppl that drink and go out, and the ones that dont, and the americans. nothing really new. then endless on and off of couples: let me see, maddie and michael are going out, jeff has a gf in 10th grade, yannik and jule on their second run etc etc etc.
as for my own aspirations im still into medicine and of course dancing. I still am passionate about things i like and probably annoy everyone with it, and apart from a slight german diction reform (i weeded out most of the slang I hope) and a weird love life, its as you know me :). well to the last part I must add that fayes love life is definately much more interesting. Im not too keen on mine rumouring around school.
this time in a year im free(of school/to visit india). wow, rather scary thought(the schooll part).
I dance again
yesterday I went to ballet lessons in my dance club in ludwigsburg. My feet have been itching for the pirrouettes, the jumps, the excercises on the "stange", jsut as my body has yearned or complete control, form finertips, to body weight to non sticking out body parts, to head motions, everything has to be paid attetion to at once.
yes, i used to dance. i started before I can remember, i must have been 5 or 6 years old. I vaguely remmember my first ballet school, it was near to where ISS is now, but when the teacher changed, i went somewhere closer to home. of this i remember much, plastic fingernails, a new colour each week, pointing my arms, my stomach, my neck, my bum, correcting my heels to point forewards. then her voice, a slight foreign accent, and rather strict. she made the girls cry a couple of times, but not me, as far as i can remember. I was always good, never the best, but good. I stopped when I hit puberty. It was too much peer pressure saying ballet was stupid, i didnt like the other girls there, had no connection with them. thats something which i thnk i could now get along with, btu not insecure me at 12 years of age.
The ballet fever never rerally left me. it was my ballet teacher who encouraged my mum to buy me my first latin shoes, when we met her coincidentally downtown. On her advice from then, i started up dancing more intensely again, with the formation, and now im back where i started: ballet.
Its scary to realise how much i have forgotten. the french names of the excercises sound familiar though, in a really good way. my new teacher, male, american and also with a foreign accent noticed that. yesterday, when i sneaked into the beginners group, and then watched the advanced one, he called me over and told me my body was good for ballet. I was happy, even more so as it seems like i will be better than an S class latin dancer, who started with me yesterday. im still rubbish at latin, so that gave me a bit of an ego boost.
so lets see where it gets me. I enjoyed the almost empty class (5 including me, 4 in the advanced class), which means everyone can be paid special attention to and left with the promise of coming by next week as well.
yes, i used to dance. i started before I can remember, i must have been 5 or 6 years old. I vaguely remmember my first ballet school, it was near to where ISS is now, but when the teacher changed, i went somewhere closer to home. of this i remember much, plastic fingernails, a new colour each week, pointing my arms, my stomach, my neck, my bum, correcting my heels to point forewards. then her voice, a slight foreign accent, and rather strict. she made the girls cry a couple of times, but not me, as far as i can remember. I was always good, never the best, but good. I stopped when I hit puberty. It was too much peer pressure saying ballet was stupid, i didnt like the other girls there, had no connection with them. thats something which i thnk i could now get along with, btu not insecure me at 12 years of age.
The ballet fever never rerally left me. it was my ballet teacher who encouraged my mum to buy me my first latin shoes, when we met her coincidentally downtown. On her advice from then, i started up dancing more intensely again, with the formation, and now im back where i started: ballet.
Its scary to realise how much i have forgotten. the french names of the excercises sound familiar though, in a really good way. my new teacher, male, american and also with a foreign accent noticed that. yesterday, when i sneaked into the beginners group, and then watched the advanced one, he called me over and told me my body was good for ballet. I was happy, even more so as it seems like i will be better than an S class latin dancer, who started with me yesterday. im still rubbish at latin, so that gave me a bit of an ego boost.
so lets see where it gets me. I enjoyed the almost empty class (5 including me, 4 in the advanced class), which means everyone can be paid special attention to and left with the promise of coming by next week as well.
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